In the 1930’s Napoleon Hill, author of the all time bestseller, “Think and Grow Rich” wrote, “What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” It had a catchy ring to it when I first read it but I always thought there were limits to the veracity of this statement. Could we really achieve anything we thought of if we believed we could? Maybe we can. Today I got an e-mail from my sister with a link to a YouTube video about a copy machine that copies objects in 3-D. That means that after it scans a 3-D object, it quickly produces...

Last week my friend, Dave, and I took a three day bicycle trip along the C & O canal next to the Potomac River.  He and I usually take week-long motorcycle trips each summer.  Bicycling was different. We were surprised at our being able to talk to each other while we rode side by side on the tow path, unconcerned about noise, exhaust fumes, directions, and cars cutting us off. (For some reason, motorcycles are often invisible to cars.) It was very relaxing. Unfortunately, by the end of the second day, my right hand had gone numb presumably caused by...

Many folks can and do make the case for being single, the most famous of which is probably the controversial comedian, Bill Maher.  He sees no point in ever getting married or living with someone even though he now has a steady girlfriend. Let me make the case for the value of a committed partner. There is something amazing about being with a person who knows who you really are. Living with you, they, of course, know your shortcomings and annoying idiosyncrasies.  But they also know who you are apart from your personality quirks and habits.  If they can...

In 1991, at the end of George Bush Sr.’s first term, I remember him being criticized for not having a vision or a purpose for being president.  The story being written was that he just wanted to be president, not necessarily take the country anywhere once he achieved that position.  Whether or not this was true about him, I think that perception hurt him as a leader and probably influenced the election results that year (he lost to Bill Clinton). As it turns out, people expect their leaders not just to listen but to lead. More often than not, that means...

One of the most interesting divorce statistics concerns couples who never seem to argue. They are the ones with the higher incidence of divorce. It seems counter-intuitive, doesn’t it?  You would think that couples who don’t fight are in better shape than ones who do.  As a psychologist, I can’t tell you how many times people would tell me how unprepared they were when their parents sat them down in the living room one day and calmly told them, “Your father and I are getting divorced.”  Their first thought was, “But why?”  There was no evidence...

When couples first come to see me, I often get this image of their relationship as this fantastic airplane that is unable to take off anymore. There is really nothing wrong with the airplane.  Unfortunately it never gets a chance to soar due to what I see as the rubble on the runway. The rubble is the left over arguments and hurts that were never resolved or forgiven.  Some of the pieces of rubble are small and others are quite substantial in size.  This debris is blocking the plane’s ability to fly. The plane has learned to maneuver around these...