Think Negatively!

So, you know that special brand of squelched eye-roll/mini-smirk you trot out whenever you find yourself cornered by your Positive Thinking-evangelizing sister/friend/coworker? Turns out, raining on her parade might be the best thing you can do for her. In a comical opinion piece in Sunday’s NYT that’ll make the cynic in you chuckle, Oliver Burkeman […]

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A Fine Mess: Why We Need to Ditch the Clutter

Sometimes what we need to do is clean house. I’m not necessarily talking about making your bed or doing the laundry — although either one is a good start — but channeling your inner minimalist and ditching the clutter.  Both literally and figuratively. I’ve been thinking about this lately as I watched a friend make […]

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Are We What We Wear?

Does fashion reflect the culture, or does it sometimes shake it loose? I bring this up because we were recently on a decadent vacation and somewhere between a tamarind smoothie and a full body massage, I picked up the latest issue of Vogue and flipped to a fashion spread entitled “Risky Business.” And what did […]

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I’m Just A Girl Who Can’t Say No

More than likely, you are too. Give it a try:  n-n-n-n-n-ooooooooooooo. Can’t say it, can you?  Like me, you are probably over-extended, over-committed and over-booked. Which makes me wonder: Why is it that we can’t give ourselves permission to ever respectfully decline?  And, while we’re at it: why do men have an easier time with […]

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The Real Lessons We Can Learn From Mad Men

Sure, there’s been a lot of chat about everything that’s wrong with Mad Men and why women in general and feminists in particular should hate its unrepentant misogynystic guts.  And let’s face it:  this is a show that glorifies gin, Lucky Strikes and getting laid (by anyone but one’s spouse). What’s not to hate, right? […]

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You Are Your Brand?

In the era of information overload, of Facebook, of “personal branding,” of Rachel Zoe–a woman famous for dressing other famous, ahem, grown women–how do we define ourselves? Have the little things come to mean too much? Have we sacrificed nuance in favor of a slick and quick elevator pitch, or swapped the legwork of figuring […]

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On Getting Real

Be authentic. What does that even mean, anyway? Not a whole hell of a lot, according to Stephanie Rosenbloom in this Sunday’s New York Times. The word, she says, has been watered down to the point of meaninglessness, like so many white wine spritzers. Everyone from Anderson Cooper to Sarah Ferguson to Katie Couric to […]

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In The News

Here’s a select list of some of the buzz Undecided has generated: PRINT: Psychologies, July 7, 2014: “How to Make a U-Turn” Comstock’s Magazine, March 2012: “Feel the Burn” Santa Clara Magazine, January 2012: “Future Imperfect” The Weekly Herald, December 8, 2011: “Best of 2011: Business, society, science & God” Daily Mail, November 29, 2011: […]

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Women Role Models: The Weaker The Better?

So says Carina Chocano, anyway, in Sunday’s New York Times: enough with the “strong female characters,” she writes, give ’em to us weak. Strangely, I think she has a point. And while I take issue with her choice of words, I think there’s a lesson in here for those of us in real life, too. Where […]

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Perfection: A Zero Love Game

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Barbara’s post from last week, Choosing the Iconic Self, about how women–now freed from the simple definitions of either wife or daughter–struggle to define our authentic Self, and wind up trapped by the iconic image of whatever dream-self we aspire to become, saddling each choice with a […]

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