We tell stories to help us make sense of the world. These hundreds and thousands of stories we tell ourselves and each other make up our world view – how we process our tiny place within the world. Some stories are meant to inspire. Some stories are meant to teach us deep lessons about humanity....Read More

Of course it would be like this. I find myself saying this to myself a lot lately. I’m not the first person to think this and I’ll undoubtedly not be the last. But this statement has become a mantra for me lately. Of course version 3 of 10 would look like this or of course...Read More

I’m not a macro-economist. I took one econ class in college. The professor was a parrot-head (someone that goes to Jimmy Buffet concerts). Besides telling us the basics of how a free market economy works, the main take away from that course was that he lost his car at a Jimmy Buffet concert at Alpine...Read More

When I was working in a school we had a saying, self awareness, plus perspective yields empathy. Empathy was the goal, because you begin every interaction seeking to understand what would be in the best interest of the person you were serving. If I’m deciding what the next course of action should be for a...Read More

I told myself if I could get halfway through the bike, I would be ok. I haven’t always been the type of person that exercises. I’d never paid to participate in a race. I’ve run two marathons, but the course was either designed by my sister or just made up as we ran. One year...Read More

In the early 2000’s I spent a lot of time going to church. Church means different things for different people at different times of their lives. For little Alex Bruzan, it meant evangelical, structured services with singing to start, singing to end, with a half hour talk in the middle, and a couple of prayers...Read More

For the first time in a long time, I’ve got time. So I think I’ll spend an hour refining those three big goals I’ve been working through. The more refined they are, the easier it should be to figure out some actions that’ll work toward solving the problems created by those three big goals. I’ve...Read More

I’m standing in the downstairs kitchen at Charlie’s house getting ready to put up a coat of mud in the living room. When I come here, I can’t help but think about him. We were neighbors for about a dozen years. When we first moved into 53206, I had a fear that the people who...Read More

I know when most people think of retirement they assume they won’t be doing much. I wrote last week that I was so focused on achieving the goal of early retirement also known as FIRE (financial independence retire early) I rarely spent time visualizing what it might be like to not have to work anymore....Read More

It’s harder to live in the ghetto than it is to live not in the ghetto.  Saying that outloud to myself, it seems absurdly obvious ( and a little grammatically awkward). I spend a lot of time thinking about why we chose to move into the inner city, what we were like back then, and...Read More