Today's quote comes from Abigail Adams (1744-1818), the second First Lady of the United States and wife of the second U.S. President, John Adams: "Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence." I agree wholeheartedly with Abigail. What she is saying is that people must take an active interest in learning. Books do not merely fall from the sky and into your lap -- you need to seek them out, whether at home or in the library. The same applies in the digital world, where you can find helpful videos on YouTube, informative articles on Wikipedia, and so forth. Unfortunately, far too many people believe learning stops the day you graduate from college. This couldn't be further from the truth. Just because you don't have to take exams or write papers anymore doesn't mean you can't learn how to play an instrument, read and write in a different language, or start your own business. Nothing enriches the mind like knowl...

I've had a few of my readers tell me that they've hit a rough patch of late, so I thought it apropos to write an uplifting post this morning to get everyone's weekend off to a magnificent start. There's no question that life is hard and often unfair. Bad things happen to good people all the time. We're confronted with tough situations we never saw coming, and sometimes such challenges seem insurmountable. But I'm here to tell you that every storm passes. As long as you stay strong and keep hope alive, you will get through it. The only thing in life that has no remedy is death. If the problems you're facing are not life-and-death, you can -- you will -- overcome them. Whether you recently got out of a bad relationship, unexpectedly lost your job, or are not on speaking terms with a longtime friend, one day you'll look back on it all and say, "I didn't see it back then, but things really did turn out for the best." Human beings have...

There's a well-known adage that variety is the spice of life. This is far from a tired cliché; it's the truth. The only way to ensure that our lives don't get stuck in a repetitive rut is to keep them fresh and exciting. We do this by infusing them with new experiences. That can be anything from traveling the world to taking a different route to and from work each day. We are creatures of habit who tend to get stuck in our comfort zone, conditioning us to live each day in "rinse and repeat" fashion. While a little routine is to be expected, we shouldn't feel as if each day is a rehash of the prior one. If, at the end of the week, you can't remember a single thing that distinguished one day of that week from the other -- if the entire week seems like a big blur -- that's a telltale sign you may need to spruce things up a bit. And no one says injecting some spontaneity into your life has to be expensive. The key is to do a few little things ...