I really want to preach the gospel of Ryan Holiday, a sage living in our midst, but I just finished Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson and felt the need to speak out about this.

I don't want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member.

Groucho

It’s funny how we expect life to be consistent and predictable, and then, one day, our straight road leads us to an unexpected crossroads.

My latest list of my WIP.

When did our society prioritize expedience over quality?

Maybe it goes back to the beginning of the Industrial Age.

I’m not sure.

During my life, like a virus, expedience has spread to large sectors of our society, leaving quality in its wake.

This is the story of how prostate cancer for a man is a maze that leads from one dilemma to another, posing questions to which there are no right answers.

We all know that, unless something weird happens, like someone murders you or you contract an unexpected virus that escaped from a lab in China, you are going to grow old in fits and starts and DIE.

In the meantime, you will go through The Elder Zone, which is similar to The Twilight Zone, but Rod Serling will not show up for the final scene.

The Maharishi, The Beatles, Mia Farrow, Deepak Chopra, and Jeffrey Epstein all appear in this short epistle.

Follow the money!

Good morning, brothers and sisters!

My sermon this morning will be about the well-worn phrase “the love of money is the root of all evil.”

The source of this phrase is the Book of Timothy, written about 65 years after the death of Jesus (circa 64 AD).

Timothy was wrong.

Alexander Graham Bell bears the initial credit or blame.

Dick Tracy and Steve Jobs transformed them into what we now commonly call “cell phones.”

They have become ubiquitous in modern life.

I was skeptical about FB from the start. What I learned validated my concerns.

I posted Part I of this saga on August 28, 2025.

https://www.coachingwithwisdom.com/blog/the-elder-zone-prostate-cancer

If you are looking for the roots of wisdom, Buddhism is the place to start.

Ten books worth considering.

My latest books of interest.

You’re in luck!

We are playing this interesting and challenging game called “life.”

Hundreds of years ago, a bunch of old guys (the gender reference was intentional) devoted their lives to figuring it all out.

They packaged what they learned into systems and evangelized until they became part of the cultural zeitgeist of their times.

What am I reading these days? Allow me to share with my fellow lifelong learners. If anyone has common interests, feel free to reach out.

Proverbs (9:10 and 1:7) teaches us that “fear of the Lord” is the beginning of wisdom.

I don’t subscribe to fear-based wisdom.

I’m more inclined to align with the Greeks.

If you are looking for humor, you clicked on the wrong link.

Inequality has risen from 1970 to Trump – and the gap is getting wider.

Such a disparity between the haves and have-nots has costs that undermine democracy.

The best therapist has fur and four legs, and they charge in treats!

The best therapist has fur and four legs, and they charge in treats!

A little poem about tariffs.

Trump is installing what scholars call patrimonialism.

Understanding patrimonialism is the key to defeating it.

·     When my clients try to negotiate their own deals, and I know they don’t know what they are doing, making the likelihood of reaching an agreement slim and none, I say, “This is like watching children playing with explosives.”

·     Sadly, in this case, that is not just a metaphor. It is literally true.

“This aggression will not stand, man!”

Scott Peck, a Harvard psychiatrist of some renown in the 70s, built his edifice of good mental health on truth - no avoidance, confrontation with reality, no matter how distasteful.

Instead of staring at your iPhone and photographing your physical image (without AI filtering), let’s do more of an MRI, designed to give us an image of how you are living your life.

Cognitive impotence is the reverse of social proof.

Social proof means we tend to do something because everyone else is doing it; cognitive impotence describes the tendency to not do something because everyone else is not doing it.

Wise decisions result in a wise life, and a wise life is as good as it gets.

Making wise decisions does not come naturally.

In recent years, we have learned that to make wise decisions, we must understand two concepts: heuristics and cognitive biases.