Zen and the Art of Multitasking

There’s this charming story, about a Zen student and his teacher, trying to impart the lesson of mindfulness. “When drinking tea,” the teacher told his student, ”just drink tea.” How often do you just drink tea? Such a beautifully simple idea. Be Here Now. Focus. Breathe. So quaint… and yet, so hopelessly impossible. At the moment, […]

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There is No Having It All, There is No Perfect (and, Spoiler Alert: There is No Santa Claus Either)

So, the subject of our book is certainly in the air as of late. First, Ann Marie Slaughter, and now, a piece on The Daily Beast by Debora Spar, whose take on the issues of women chasing perfection, juggling roles and choices in a not-adequately-changed world was, frankly, so similar to the things we’ve written […]

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Is Work-Life Balance The New Prince Charming?

Ahead of September’s “I Don’t Know How She Does It”–a movie based on Allison Pearson’s best-selling novel about the realities of life as a working mother, which stars Sarah Jessica Parker as the harried “She” in question–this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine ran a story about the film’s screenwriter, Aline Brosh McKenna, whose other credits […]

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I’m A Mess; You’re A Mess

Or, as Wavy Gravy put it, we’re all just bozos on the bus, so we might as well sit back and enjoy the ride. That’s all well and good in theory (and coming from the man who gave brown acid a bad name–and ice cream a good one), but who wants to admit to being […]

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This Is Your Brain on Cybercrack

So. Remember that old anti-drug television commercial that shouted out: Here’s your brain on drugs — then showed an egg sunny-side up, sizzling in a frying pan? Well, these days, the sizzler is the internet, as in uber-connection. And the result is less like fried eggs than a scramble, according to a piece in the […]

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There Is No Balance. Only Work

At least, that’s how it must look to researchers at UCLA who have come up with a landmark video picture of what work-life balance really means to today’s frantic families. The picture? Not so pretty. On the surface, it’s more than a little bit creepy: Thirty-two families that allowed social scientists from UCLA to videotape […]

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Working It Out While Working Out

Or, the power of percolation. In which we may find the answers to some of life’s mysteries when we stop looking for them. Here’s the backstory. We came across a tiny little blurb on Slatest the other day that referenced a blog by Seth Roberts, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Tsinghua University in Beijing […]

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Trusting Your Gut

Yesterday afternoon, there came a knock at my front door. The visitor? Santa Barbara’s favorite cookie delivery girl. The reason? Ever since I wrote about Christina when she started her business, Hot Cookie, six or so years ago, my mom has sent me cookies for every conceivable occasion. Which is fine by me. This was […]

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Keeping The Door Open

I have this friend. (Really, I swear it’s not me.) She never really had a breakup, despite the fact that she dated a lot. And dated a lot of losers. But no matter how bad the cad, she strove to end things peacefully, operating according to a simple mantra she called “keeping the door open.” […]

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Always On: Or Why We Need to Tune Out

There is a point here, I promise. But first, here’s the scene. My desk, at work. A wobbly stack of books, papers and files, some dating back to last spring. A to-do list, also written last spring. On the other side of my mousepad, a pile of resumes for the letters of rec I need […]

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