Eating fruits and vegetables is vaguely logical. Get sleep. Don’t live in the most polluted parts of the world. Don’t smoke. Don’t do unsafe things like skiing and hang gliding, which are inconceivabl...
Back to the books. The world’s largest bell was built in 1733 in Moscow, and weighed in at more than four hundred thousand pounds. It never rang—it was broken by fire before it could be struck. What a...
Why should we always try to be true to our natural selves? What if our natural selves are assholes? Stalin was true to himself
The Proverbs—a collection of wisdom in the Old Testament—say that smiling makes you happy. Which is actually backed up by psychological studies. So I stand there with a flight attendant–like grin froz...
Pain is annoying and unnecessary, like getting an e-mail in all caps. It's like a six-year-old who alerts you every fifteen seconds that he wants Hungry Hungry Hippos for his birthday. Yes, I understa...
It's amazing how a strip of sticky plastic will make my kids' pain vanish. Lucas will be howling about a stepped-on finger, but as soon as the SpongeBob Band-Aid touches his pinkie, he's all smiles. M...
I'm not a big scatology fan, unlike my sons, who can amuse themselves for an entire afternoon by repeating the phrase 'crocodile fart.' So I'll spare you from an overabundance of detail in this chapte...
As her head rests on her pillow, she’ll go through the alphabet from A to Z and try to think of something to be grateful for that starts with each letter—A for her husband Andrew’s blueberry pancakes;...