In an ideal world, we'd all be paid handsomely to work in a company we love doing work about which we're fervently passionate, all while being surrounded by wonderful people. If this sounds like your situation, congratulations -- you're the envy of many a disgruntled working bee in Corporate America. Most of us, however, take issue with some aspect about our jobs. Though many of these aren't easy to pinpoint until you've been on the job for at least a month or two, think twice about remaining in or going to a company where: 1. There's no room to grow. Are you the ambitious type? If all that stands in the way of getting that coveted VP spot is, well, ten other people, you're better off looking elsewhere. Even if you're just waiting for your boss to retire, you may be left waiting for a while. 2. You have no voice. If your boss and other higher-ups discourage creative freedom, you might grow to resent the job very quickly. Companies that are so r...

This is an easy one to answer, at least for me. Anything that isn't intellectually stimulating tends to bore me, with exception to comedy movies and animals. Talk to me about the presidential election and I'm fully engaged. Talk to me about your neighbor's boss's husband's new lawnmower, and you'll have me zoning out in no time. Whether you call it small talk or chit chat, it's anathema to people like me with a perpetual thirst for knowledge. I often find greater company in a book or documentary. At least those things teach you something . What comes out of most people's mouths nowadays is mostly nonsense, or empty talk. I know that small talk is the name of the game in Corporate America, and one has no choice but to play along if they wish to keep their job. I do so rather grudgingly. So what am I trying to say?  That with exception to certain individuals, I find the vast majority of people I come across to be, well, boring. As I've stat...

Today's quote comes from Dr. Seuss of all people: "Sometimes you will never know the value of something until it becomes a memory." - Dr. Seuss I couldn't agree more with this quote. I'm sure most of us would concur that our youth is the perfect example of something we tend not to appreciate until later, when we can no longer relive those years. I often think about how zealous I was to graduate from college and go out into the real world. While there's a lot to be said about attaining financial security as a working professional, I don't see myself ever being able to recapture the magic of my college years. It's really a unique, transformative time in one's life -- your first taste of freedom, the first time in your life where you actually feel like and are regarded as an adult. I feel my years before college were largely forgettable, and life in corporate America (post-college) is essentially like reverting back to high school, where o...

I just finished reading a book called "Mindfulness" by Ellen J. Langer. While it wasn't the best psychology book I've ever read, there were a couple of key takeaways I'd like to share. First, mindfulness is the exact opposite of mindlessness , and Langer seems to suggest that most of society suffers from the latter. When you're mindful, you don't take everything at face value. You don't merely assume, for example, that a toothbrush's only function is to clean and whiten your teeth, or that a person missing an arm must be lousy at sports. Langer stresses that in order to achieve full mindfulness, we have to throw our preconceived notions, biases, and stereotypes to the wind. Most of us do seem to go through life in a rote, mindless fashion. We seldom question our own beliefs and the reasons why things around us happen as they do. She points out that because we begin discriminating against the elderly at an early age -- perhaps as a byproduct of...