Relationship goals

This was my best friend's ordeal. The ultimate test of any type of relationship in my life began the day I was diagnosed with FA. Friendships, family ties, and intimate relationships were all put through the ringer once I knew I was facing a life-shortening illness. Everyone copes differently with bad news, and miscommunication is one of the obvious results when trying to maintain the usual relationships. People always assume that you want to be left alone or don’t want to bring up illness during conversations. There is a time and a place for that discussion, and sometimes I don’t want to talk about it. But I’ll make that clear. If I run into someone at the grocery store or out at dinner, chances are I won’t discuss Friedreich’s with them, but otherwise, I truly am an open book. Having something like FA puts your friends and family in a position where they need to make a choice. They need to choose whether they want to be a part of your progressive journey. You’ll l...

Question: My relationship and life are not going well. I’m not happy with where I am at work and my marriage isn’t helping. My spouse doesn’t validate me and she hardly pays attention to me at all. I get the feeling she doesn’t want to spend time with me and stays busy doing other things instead. I hate that I’m getting old and feeling like my best days are over and gone. How can I get a more positive outlook and improve my marriage? Is that even possible? Answer: It sounds to me like you are unhappy with yourself and life, and when you are an unhappy person, it’s hard to maintain healthy relationships. I believe this happens because unhappiness puts us into a fear and lack state, where we feel unsafe and unbalanced. This makes us overly focused on ourselves, and when your focus is mostly on you, not a lot of love happens and your relationships suffer. d You need to figure out the cause of your unhappiness and work on fixing that first. Onc...

In your hands: ‘Knowing your numbers’ can reduce the risk of suffering a stroke Werner Hacke , President, World Stroke Organization There are an estimated 17 million strokes worldwide each year. While stroke incidence and mortality rates in high income countries have been on the decline, progress remains slow and uneven. In low-to-middle-income countries stroke incidence is rising. Warnings are also being issued in face of evidence that the risk factors for stroke such as hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and smoking, are on the rise in both high and low-income countries and among increasingly younger populations. The potential impact of this on the total number years lived with disability is clear and the trend goes some way to explaining why the number of years lived with disability due to stroke have increased by 33% in the last ten years. And yet 90% of strokes are associated with just 10 risk factors that we can all do something about. Addressing these risk factors would not ju...

Bad Decisions I Make When I’m H*rny, Drunk or Both I have a problem. My love life is like the Olympics. Every four years or so, I start dating someone. It’s usually at least fairly serious, quickly becomes exclusive, and lasts a decent bit of time. Let’s call them the Winter Games. But there are also Summer Games. Jesus Christ, the recurring port-a-potty of the Summer Games. The Summer Games happen every four years but staggered with the Winter Games. I get involved with someone, and the circumstances are crazy. It’s usually super hot and over fairly quickly. But it’s always because I made a  truly bad decision. I’m a man. Bad decisions have historically been our burden and de facto the burden of the women who care about us. But my decisions usually have one thing in common. They happen because I was drunk, horny, or both. Here’s but one of my stories of sheer stupidity… My Date With My Roommate’s Girlfriend I lived with three dudes my Freshman year. My roommate Nat was the on...

Purpose literally translates (in simplified form) to the reason for something. The purpose of a meeting is to appoint a new Manager, the purpose of a trip is to bond with the family, and so on.. But I found in the days immediately following my college graduation that I wasn’t finding much meaning in anything. I got a few odd jobs in food service but I knew my purpose wasn’t getting fulfilled this way. I didn’t want to serve people food the rest of my life. However as I kept talking to people about it they always talked about my “journey,” and how I’m not supposed to have it all figured out just yet. It got me thinking that maybe my purpose in those first few months (and even now) was to simply find a purpose. Think about it, I’m just 23! Well, I’m almost 24, but I always hear about how much 20-somethings think they know everything when they don’t. In reality it’s fine to not know what we’re doing. It’s fine to feel a little lost at first. In the end I realized that finding the reason f...

If I had it my way, I’d be a successful blogger by now. Whatever that means. (This is  Tom Kuegler  speaking, by the way). When I graduated two and a half years ago, I was beaming. I was so ready to take on the real world and leave my mark on society. Heck, I was even ready to get an apartment and live life “on my own.” Friends, this is not the reality today. If I could tell myself from two years ago to remember a couple things, this is what I’d say: 1. Add (At Least) Two Years Take whatever big goal you have and add two years to the due date. Chances are you’ll need a couple years to build the proper experience before you can work at that company you really wanted to work for, or demand that salary you want. 2. Expect Your Friends To Fuck You Over Think of all your greatest friends. Now think of what it’s going to be like to lose them. You may very well lose them all (or most of them) at some point in the next couple years alone. People are only in your life for sea...

This answer from  Bill Cordingley  originally appeared on  Quora . I used to think happiness was  the  most important thing in life. I thought we were here to be happy. And I believed that for decades. But then I hit a point on my spiritual path where I realized I was mistaken. One problem I saw was that if I’m trying or hoping to be happy all the time, I have an insidious habit of resisting doing anything that I believe won’t help me feel happy. And because of that I missed out on a lot of experiences. So what’s more important than happiness? (In reality there is no “more” or “less” important. But that’s getting quite meta so forget I said that.) For most people, in my view, what  serves  us far, far more than being happy is to be present. Present in whatever we are doing. Present in whatever we are feeling. Present in whatever we are thinking. Because by being present we make ourselves available to experience whatever is happening — experience our li...