Few would dispute that we are in a technological age. Newer and faster and more effective technologies are introducing themselves into every nook and cranny of our lives, assisting us with every imaginable task ranging from the banal to the most specialized and professional. They afford us convenience, an improved quality of life, and, perhaps most importantly, time… right?

Good morning and welcome to your twenty-sixth meditation. Today we’re going to talk about expectations. One of the mixed blessings of being human is our ability to think abstractly. We can go beyond what is concretely before us to a world of imagination, of the theoretical and the hypothetical.

Good morning and welcome to your twenty-fifth meditation. What do you want out of life? And when is the last time you really asked yourself this question in earnest?

Good morning and welcome to your twenty-fourth meditation. Perhaps you’ve heard it said that good relationships are founded on good communication. Communicating is quite literally how we relate to one another, hence no communication, no relationship. The whole enterprise could just as easily be called a communicationship.

Good morning and welcome to your twenty-third meditation. Would you consider yourself a judgmental person? Making judgments is an important part of the way that we form our identities. We decide what we like and don’t like, what is good and bad, what is meaningful and not through the complex churn of experience; our traumas and our joys, our family histories, and everything we read and watch and consume.

Good morning and welcome to your twenty-second meditation. What are you afraid of? We all have one or many answers to this question. Fear is part of being human. But very often our fears are baseless or irrational or radically exaggerated. These are what we know as phobias.

Good morning and welcome to your twenty-first meditation. How do you respond to the mistakes that you make? Do they frustrate you? Do you get angry and punish yourself? Do you regret having made them? All of these reactions are perfectly normal, but guess what? These types of reactions are mistakes in themselves. But don’t worry! The whole purpose of today’s meditation is to remind you of an idea that is oddly overlooked in our increasingly fast-paced and demanding world: Mistakes are good!

Good morning and welcome to your twentieth meditation. How often do you talk to strangers? Beyond simple practical transactional conversations. More likely than not your answer is seldom. We live in a moment that tends to view the individual as the most important social unit, followed closely by the family.

Good morning and welcome to your nineteenth meditation. How well do you think you take rejection? Does it hurt or are you inured to it? Do you crumple or does it only make you try harder to get what you’re after? Maybe being rejected makes you feel like you have suffered an injustice; you become bitter and resentful. But perhaps it makes you consider how you might improve; or it inspires you to alter your approach, or even to move the goal posts altogether.

Good morning and welcome to your eighteenth meditation. Do you ever think about space? No, not that extra room you wish you had in your home to store stuff, but the incomprehensible vastness of outer space. You may be thinking, “isn’t there enough to worry about right here on Earth? Why should I spend my time contemplating what I don’t understand and what doesn’t affect me?