Happiness in this World » boundaries

Crazy Makers

Alex Lickerman — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 22:00:44 +0000

Photo: Maks Karochkin

“The Buddha’s compassion is perfectly equal and impartial. The Buddha views all beings as his own children and strives to elevate them to attain his same enlightened state of life. It’s not that there are no differences among people. Rather, it’s that the Buddha, while fully recognizing people’s differences, [...]

The Problem With Turning The Other Cheek

Alex Lickerman — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 22:00:36 +0000

Photo: Anamorphic Mike

In a previous post, The Three Realms Of Confidence, I told a story from my childhood (how I was bullied in seventh grade because I was Jewish) to introduce the concept that confidence exists in three separate realms. In response to that post, a reader commented (on the Psychology Today [...]

How Touching Saves Lives

Alex Lickerman — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 22:00:31 +0000

Photo: Josep Ma. Rosell

When I was a fourth-year medical student, I once did a month-long rotation in the ER. One night a woman came in who we decided needed some lab work. When I let her know we needed to draw her blood, she began to tremble visibly. “I’m scared of needles,” [...]

Why We Don’t Know Better

Alex Lickerman — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:31:48 +0000

Several years ago, someone I know told me he was contemplating divorcing his wife. I wasn’t surprised. He’d been unhappy in the marriage for some time—and, in my opinion, with good reason: his wife was jealous to the point of being neurotic, often behaving in ways that were shockingly inappropriate, offensive, and stress-inducing.

Or [...]

How I Met And Married My Wife

Alex Lickerman — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:20:12 +0000

I am the eldest of four boys. In 2002, my second-youngest brother and his wife announced they were going to have a baby. The news absolutely floored me. This would be the first baby of our generation and represented a significant life change for us all.

I left their apartment that night thinking about [...]