The Best Things You Can Do from Birth to Graduation — Becoming a parent gives your life a new purpose, and immediately becomes your life’s work, even if you don’t recognize that on day one. In many ways, the job of raising your offspring is the most important, challenging, and potentially rewarding work you’ll ever do. Bookstores are filled with volumes…

We’re All at the Mercy of the Microscopic — The Earth is pretty massive, right? It was a mystery how big until a Greek scholar named Eratosthenes devised an accurate method for estimating the circumference of our planet, around 240 BC. That’s clever for someone who lived more than 2200 years ago. Back then, the Earth must have seemed…

How I Quit Smoking Cigarettes For Good — When I was a kid, I was fascinated by cigarette smoking. Growing up in the 1970s, despite the ban on TV commercials for cigarettes, I was inundated with images from magazines, billboards, movies, and TV shows that glorified the habit. It was still acceptable back then to smoke in offices…

You Can Find Love Again Shortly after my twenty-seventh wedding anniversary, I found out (much to my dismay) that my wife was in love with another man. A full-color report from the private investigator brought it vividly to life, with pictures of them holding hands, kissing, and hugging after they…

Okay, so maybe it’s not a secret, but it sure felt like a secret to me until I came to the sudden, exciting realization about it. I had experienced it before in my life, but it never came right out and made itself obvious to me. It applies equally to…