Richard Galbraith

The image of attempting to climb two trees with one foot braces against each trunk is painfully awkward.  It obviously would be much more efficient to climb one tree at a time.  Yet I often find myself doing something similar to my mind by reading, watching TV and listening to a family member all at the same time.  My brain is able to take in all of the different inputs into short term memory, but only a few of them get thoroughly processed and retained long term.  Much of my brain...

When someone mistreats me, I get mad, naturally.  The important decision comes later.  I can choose to relive that wrong in my mind, and until I forgive the other person, that’s what I tend to do whenever I have to deal with him again.  My anger comes back and I am likely to say or do something that makes the situation worse.  Anger and hate get us stuck in the past.  When I forgive the other person, I free my mind of the anger and that frees my mind to find ways to make things better for...

The standard sports movie includes a scene where the coach makes a big pep talk to spark a come from behind win.  These scenes are good drama, but bad models.  They remind me of a cartoon where the recipient of a Safety Award thanks his boss by saying, “Without trophies like this, I would have no motivation to avoid injuries.”

If I actually asked you to “Make me feel important”, it would sound like I was weird.  Also, if I had to ask, nothing you said in return would sound sincere.   Still, the desire to be important is a basic part of human nature.  If you want to be a leader, read that invisible sign.  When you make someone feel important, that person will become more willing to follow you.

            
(Yes, Mr. Perry, there is a political message here.)

What makes a comment clever?  The really clever ideas are the ones that relate other things to the current topic in an original way.  I get most of my clever ideas by really trying to understand something better by comparing it to other things I know.  When I am trying to come up with a clever comment so I can get attention, my mind seeks out strangeness, so my comment ends up being disconnected instead of being clever.

Some changes are cyclical, like the seasons.  When fall arrives, we don’t throw our summer clothes away – we’ll use them again next year.  Other changes, like the technology for making salt, are permanent – we need to abandon some old ways and adapt to the new.

The big question for school is:  How do we prepare for the future when we know that it will be different?  Learning about the past will help us understand the cycles of change, so we can plan for th...

      Imagination is a powerful tool.  It lets us envision the future that we want.  When we let our positive visions to guide us, we help make that future come true.

      We can also imagine an incredible number of different things that can go wrong.  If we let these doubts be our guide, they will freeze us into inaction and nothing will improve.