reclaimed

Confession: Yesterday I tore a page out of a book.

I’ve never done that before. I’ve never even dog-eared a page. I try to keep everything as new as possible. If I could make things look newer than when I got them, I would. I’m the person you want to lend books to, because I can promise there won’t be a single wrinkle in those pages when you get it back.

So what was it that compelled me to rip a page? It wasn’t anger. There was nothing wrong with the book. But I tore in the name of craftiness. (more…)

good or great?

Good is the enemy of great. That is the line that begins one of the best management books (“Good to Great” by Jim Collins) I’ve read over the course of my master’s program, and it sparked many interesting class discussions.

On the surface, the statement seems absurd. How could good be a negative thing? Isn’t bad the enemy of great? We can easily imagine the two locked in an epic battle, bad trying to pull us down and keep us from achieving great.

But sometimes what keeps is from reaching the extraordinary is not a force of evil. Sometimes it’s good. (more…)

see the light

Last night, while my husband was happily snoring away, I was quietly stumbling around in the dark. Or maybe not so quietly. And like the dork I am, it made me think of psychology. (But that’s nothing new. Everything makes me think of psychology.)

Psychology lesson for the day (from the chapter on Sensory Perception): photoreceptors. In those lovely eyeballs of yours, you’ve got photoreceptors, a special kind of neuron that lets you see light. There are primarily two kinds: rods and cones. Rods allow you to see dim light, and they’re found throughout your retina, except in the very center. The center is packed with cones, which respond to brighter light and allow the greatest visual acuity. (more…)