They say people always want what they can't have. But there are times when not getting what we want can wind up being a blessing in disguise. For example, I've gotten turned down for jobs, only to learn a year or so later that the company went out of business. I've also been dumped or rejected by women who have gone on to cheat on their husbands or had kids at a very young age, with the father no longer in the picture. It can be very upsetting when we are unable to get what we want, prompting us to question why such things happen to good people. But little do we know that an even better opportunity lies in the horizon. Once it arrives, we breath a sigh of relief at knowing that the first one fell through. Such a scenario played out a few years ago while my wife and I went condo hunting. We couldn't get financing for the first property we made an offer for because the high number of delinquent owners at the property made our bank flinch. At the time, we were ...

The word of the day is perspicacious. I first heard the word used by Bill O'Reilly as he was interviewing then-Senator Barack Obama on the Fox News Channel a month or two prior to the 2008 presidential election. O'Reilly commended Obama on being perspicacious in his "original assessment of the battlefield" in Iraq. Perspicacious means "having a ready insight to and understanding of things." Synonyms include discerning, shrewd, perceptive, astute, sharp, clear-sighted, insightful, and discriminating. From what I've seen, the word isn't used often, but it is a handy one to have nonetheless in case you want something in lieu of "insightful" or "sharp," which tend to come up more in daily conversation. Had you ever heard of or used the word perspicacious before?

On this day in 1917, in a pivotal move toward U.S. entry into World War I, President Woodrow Wilson is apprised of the so-called Zimmermann Telegram, a message from German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann to the German ambassador to Mexico proposing a Mexican-German alliance in case of a war between the U.S. and Germany. British authorities handed Walter Hines Page, the U.S. ambassador to Britain, a copy of the Zimmermann Telegram, a coded message from Zimmermann to Count Johann von Bernstorff, the German ambassador to Mexico. In the telegram, intercepted and deciphered by British intelligence in late January, Zimmermann instructed his ambassador, in the event of a German war with the United States, to offer significant financial aid to Mexico if it agreed to enter the conflict on the Germans' side. Germany also pledged to restore to Mexico the lost territories of Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico. The State Department quickly sent a copy of the Zimmermann Telegram to Preside...

Don't waste your time, energy, and brain cells on people who simply aren't worth it. Who cares that Sally from high school makes more money than you? Or that a neighbor you hardly even know has a better car? Or that several people you have on Facebook -- whom you barely ever speak to -- travel to Walt Disney World five times a year? It's really a shame that, for so many people, life has become little more than a competition to best their peers. They can't help but assess how well they're doing in life by comparing themselves to other people -- people that may have completely different goals, interests, values, and personalities altogether. As I've noted in prior posts, sites like Facebook can bring out the worst in some people. It has evolved into a breeding ground for narcissism unlike anything I've seen before. Selfies, gloating about eating at the hottest restaurant in town, pictures galore while on vacation in the Bahamas. It's become more abou...

Many people -- myself included -- let life get them down sometimes. We fret over the fact that life never quite seems perfect -- there's always a problem to be resolved, an issue to be addressed. Here's the reality: Life was never perfect before, it won't be perfect today, and it won't be so in the future either. We can do things to put our ducks in a row as best as we can, but we can't just sweep everything under a rug and go about our business. It doesn't work that way. As counterintuitive as this may sound, it's a good thing that life presents a steady stream of challenges. It keeps us on our toes and striving to better ourselves. Can you imagine a life completely devoid of worries or goals? We'd have nothing to look forward to if things remained the same day in and day out. Of course, you want to minimize the stress in your life and not allow problems to tailspin into crises. But you shouldn't feel despondent over the fact that your l...

Many people make the grave mistake of saying "I love you" just a couple of weeks into their relationship. In my view, you can't really love a person that early in the game. You're merely getting to know each other at this juncture. Six months to a year makes more sense. At this point, you likely have a better sense as to the person's flaws, how strong your chemistry is, and whether the relationship is built to survive the honeymoon stage. If the "l" word is thrown around prematurely, it could signal to the other person that you have an ulterior motive in mind, whether it's to get in their pants or simply have someone around following a tough breakup. Telling someone you love them is a huge thing -- probably the most significant event in a relationship after being proposed to. Don't rush into it. Don't tell someone you love them until you feel you're ready.

It sure is. We all miss the butterflies in our stomach -- the sheer excitement of having someone new in our life. Maybe your partner did little things that filled you with immense joy, like deliver flowers to your job or leave love notes in your wallet. Once the relationship begins to mature, these things tend to happen less often. As you transition from happy couple to married couple to parents, it becomes less about passionate love and more about companionship. Going from seeing each other once or twice a week to living with one another changes the dynamics of a relationship tremendously. Whereas before you waited for your weekly date with bated breath, now you've fallen into a routine of seeing your partner every day. Sometimes I miss the early days in my relationship, when I looked forward to seeing my now-wife with great anticipation. Everything felt new and exciting. We were getting to know each other. Our future together seemed promising. Now that we've been ...

Can you guess the one thing no one can take from you? If you said learning , knowledge , or education , you've hit the nail on the head. People can break into your house and steal your jewelry. They can snoop through your drawers at work and snag the million dollar idea you wrote on a post-it note. But no one can magically teleport into your brain and pilfer your knowledge. What's in the mind stays in the mind. That's why we should all aim to nourish our minds with as much information as we possibly can. The more we learn, the more we enrich ourselves. Human beings have a tendency to want to conserve their mental resources wherever possible. But thinking critically keeps the brain sharp, whether we're playing Scrabble or dreaming up ways to get a new business off the ground. Leonardo da Vinci once said, "Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets." Fortunately, you're never too young or too old to lea...

I've stressed in several blog posts that a relationship devoid of trust and communication is destined to fail. Can you guess what a relationship should NOT have if it is to have any chance at success? The answer is selfishness. You know you're ready for a relationship when you're willing to put someone else's needs and cares before yours. This doesn't mean you have to do away with everything you care about. (If your partner imposes this on you, you're with the wrong person.) Instead, you should be willing to share your time and energies with your partner, taking into account what they want to do, what they want to eat, where they want to go. The TV isn't just yours anymore, and neither is your money. When it comes to relationships, sharing is caring. There is no place for selfishness in a relationship. You shouldn't get to watch baseball every night like you did when you were single, and she shouldn't hog it for herself to see maratho...