How many books do we get to read in our lifetime? According to the Pew Research Center, Americans read about 12 books per year on average, while half read less than 4 books per year. That means someone who consistently reads 4 books per year between the ages of 20 to 85  will have a reading list of 260 books by the end of their lives while a person reading 12 books per year will finish 780 books in their lifetime. In comparison, there are over a million books published across different platforms each year in the US alone. Of those books, around 500 make it to The New York Times best seller’s list each year, the most prominent best seller’s list in the world.  There are not only too many books being published yearly for any one person to

I accidentally became curious about rituals while diving deep into my quest for making a better cup of coffee at home. By becoming intentional about the process of making coffee, something that I do at least twice per day, I was forced to stop running on autopilot for a few minutes and become mindful of my actions. Rituals have been a part of the human experience in one form or another for millennia. In tribal cultures, each important life event was highlighted by ritualistic ceremonies unique to each tribe. As we evolved, so did our social norms. Tribes grew bigger. Villages became cities and territories became countries. As human society got more structured, so did our spiritual beliefs. For hundreds of years, organized religion was the main source of ritualism in modern society. Over the past 200 years. the human

Many identities latch on to us over the course of our lives: class clown, geek, creative, parent, slacker, you name it. Some identities are forged from our actions while some will shape our behavior with the expectations and baggage they bring with them. Some we wear like a badge of honour. Some cling on, like toilet paper on our shoe and seem impossible to shake off. Do we define our own identity, or does it define us? How can we shape our own identity and become who we choose to be? To answer those questions, we’ll look at the 4 different identity types that we contend with on a daily basis: the given identity, the self-imposed identity, the aspirational identity and finally the proven identity. Given Identity: This is the identity that has been bestowed upon us by others. Your

I always look forward to the quiet days of interstitial space after Christmas and before New Year’s. A welcomed break between stuffing and Champagne. No obligations, no dinners, no schedule. This downtime has become one of the most treasured parts of the holidays for me. It gives me a few days to drop any expectations of productivity I might burden myself with. I’m allowed to be completely useless. After a few hours of Netflix and snacks though, the vacuum of responsibility inevitably leads me towards introspection and daydreaming about the year to come and how I want to tackle it. The arbitrary end of our space rock’s grand tour around the sun marks the end of one year and the start of another. Shaking our “Etch A Sketch” calendars and creating a blank slate for the 365 days to come.