arts and culture on Options

Sometimes in the West, we assume we have more options available to us, or, we assume more options=better experiences. I recently heard a true story of an American overseas in Italy who tried ordering ...

The digital age’s technological advancements boast three major contributions to the improvement of human experience, which in turn have become its undeniable values: We have access to what we want wh...

I’ll never forget sitting in the guidance counselor’s office my freshman year in high school in the Lehigh Valley area between Philadelphia and Allentown, where I grew up. The purpose of our meeting w...

We are rapidly reaching the point in Western consumer societies where people confuse freedom with choice, as they are dazzled daily by an ever-expanding array of external choices in consumer goods and...

In a study at UC Berkeley conducted by Adrianna Jenkins and Ming Hsu, it was discovered imagination may be the pathway needed to uncover patience. The study found when we imagine possible outcomes, it...

The story is told of Socrates walking through the market in Athens, with its groaning abundance of options, and saying to himself, “Who would have thought that there could be so many things that I can...

In his book Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt , author and professor Arthur C. Brooks charts the rise of anger — and more importantly, contempt — ...

There Are No Ordinary Things J. R. R. Tolkien tells a short story about an ordinary fellow who just wants to finish a painting. Over time, he is constantly distracted by the requests of his neighbors...

According to the groundbreaking book The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, his research tells us that cravings drive our “habit loops.” Some of us crave escape or relaxation through the habit of a g...

A few weeks ago I brought up the topic of vocation , or calling . Right around that time, Frederick Buechner, whose work I had included in that post, passed away at the age of 96. His works have ...

In one generation, the place of Christianity within culture dramatically shifted as we experienced what theologians and sociologists of religion call the “death of Christendom.” Christendom isn’t Chri...

In 410 AD, Rome fell to the barbarian Germanic tribe known as the Visigoths, led by King Alaric. The idea of a “Christian” city (and empire) falling was a terrible defeat, not just militarily, but als...

We have the freedom to make choices that can lead to blessing and favor or painful consequences. Battling busyness requires me to take a look inside my heart to make sure that my choices align with my...

In order to exercise leadership on that challenge, they had to go beyond what people expected of them, risk testing some relationships, and move themselves and their organizations into unfamiliar terr...

Trade with the gifts God has given you.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

For all our time and attention, no matter how carefully we curate our stuff or how much we might enjoy ourselves along the way, we’re all merely stocking and staging someone else’s opportunity for bar...

The truth, however, is that when we say yes to invitations that keep us compulsively busy, we may be exhibiting a lazy ambivalence that actually keeps us distracted from the invitations that matter mo...

How do you define what it means to “make a sacrifice?” We say we sacrifice for our family, or sacrifice for our careers. We speak of Jesus sacrificing himself so that we can experience eternal life. A...

Talents have been variously described in interpretation, but the literal meaning of a talent is money. And each disciple has, in fact, been entrusted with a certain amount of money. A talent may also ...

An excellent way to test people’s values is to observe what we do when we don’t have to do anything, how we spend our leisure time, how we spend our extra money.

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

Whenever we think like owners, it’s a red flag. We should be thinking like stewards, investment managers, always looking for the best place to invest the Owner’s money.

For many of us, living in excess doesn’t express itself in extremities. It doesn’t translate to tying $4,000 to balloons and releasing it into the air. It doesn’t have to amount to owning six houses (...

“The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat,...

I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?'”.

Free will is not the liberty to do whatever one likes, but the power of doing whatever one sees ought to be done, even in the very face of otherwise overwhelming impulse. There lies freedom, indeed.

As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all - the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.

As a language-user, I’m bound to all the audacious capacities and frustrating limits of words. We label, we name, we frame all of our experiences, past, present, and future. We give words to our inner...

So much about life in a global economy feels as though it has passed beyond the individual's control--what happens to our jobs, to the prices at the gas station, to the vote in the legislature. Bu...