Richard Galbraith

Particularly around the holidays, I get tempted by cool things that I see.  Most often, it’s a gadget that one of my friends has that catches my attention.  Sometimes when I am looking for a gift for someone else, I spot something that I would like to have.  And, as much as I hate to admit it, I am affected by advertising, especially for bargains.  The nearly constant bombardment of commercial messages distracts our minds into thinking about things we want but don’t have.  That is a rec...

Worrying is a distraction, focusing my mind on what might happen in the future instead of what is happening right now.  The difficulty is that if you start worrying about worrying, that only makes the problem worse.  The real key is to think about what is the best thing for me to be doing right now, and then do it.

This is not only about seeing the beauty of an empty desert.  More importantly. Are we able to see the beauty in every person?

At Thanksgiving, the blessing that I am most thankful for is the community of friends and family.

Trophies, certificates suitable for framing, and cash are all nice awards, but they have a couple of shortcomings.  1) They usually don’t arrive until long after the fact.  2) There are always questions about who really deserved the reward and what (political) motives were involved.  On the other hand, an unforced Thank You makes me feel appreciated right now and lets me know that what I just ...

Each of us has our own unique set of talents, knowledge, experiences and dreams.  So nobody else is in a position to do my thinking for me.  I am responsible for my own life; when I make mistakes, I want them to be my mistakes, not yours.

Even though I know I’m special, I like to have other people agree with me.  Besides, it is kind of fun to figure out what other people should do, but if I try to make their decisions for them, I am not respecting their abilities and uniqueness.

If a branch from a dead tree falls on my roof, I’m tempted to just think about when it fell and blame the wind.  If I do, the next storm is likely to blow the rest of the tree down and do more damage.  If I really thought about the cause, I would realize that where I slipped was in not cutting the dead tree down and I could correct the problem without any more damage.

I have heard of students who didn’t have their project ready to turn in on a Friday makes excuses that something happen...

I wonder how many times the Wright brothers were told, “It will never fly.”  Proving the doubters wrong added to the pleasure of their success.  The first flights didn’t go far enough to have any practical purpose, but they opened the door to a whole new era.  As Alan Sheppard said on the moon, it was “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”