In the film classic The Big Chill, a group of former college classmates try to understand why a member of their clique would end his life. One asks his new girlfriend if it’s true that he was unhappy. “I don’t know,” she answers. “I haven’t met that many happy people in my life, how do they act?”

Now, thanks to a new study dubbed “the first representative sample of planet Earth,” we know that regardless of gender, age, or cultural background, happy people act like they’re content with their … bank accounts?

Read the rest of this entry »

Yikes! Just caught a glimpse of my reflection in the bathroom mirror. This would not be a good day to ask “Who’s the fairest of them all?” The mirror would roar with laughter … then I’d throw something at it and wind up with seven years’ bad luck.

Beauty has never been one of my preoccupations, but it sparked an interesting discussion a couple of nights ago when my mother and I drifted into conversation about my friend, Marvene. Several years ago, Marvene married a family friend I’d known since junior high—one of my brother’s college roommates. Time passed, we became close, and one day I realized: My goodness, that girl is beautiful! Now, if Marvene’s having a bad day and doesn’t want to ask the mirror who’s fairest of them all, she knows she can call me for positive reinforcement.

Read the rest of this entry »

In March, when Virgin Atlantic Flight 404 departed Los Angeles for New York at 10:10 a.m. EST, passengers never imagined they were jetting toward a hostage crisis. High winds forced 404 to divert from JFK to Stewart International 90 miles away. The plane landed at 5:15 … and the nightmare began.

Most people don’t realize the Land of the Free ceases to exist at the door of a commercial airliner. The plane may be free to move about the country, but no matter how long it’s been sitting on the tarmac, ain’t nobody free to leave the plane. For about seven hours the flight crew forced passengers to stay on that aircraft. No exercise. Little water. A few rationed potato chips and cookies. Can’t sleep in cramped seats.

Can you imagine letting someone get away with treating you like that?

Read the rest of this entry »

 Nooooo! Stopppp! I ran toward my friend, making wild arm gestures, desperately trying to wave him off as he unwittingly stumbled toward the precipice …

Too late. Crash and burn.

Okay … so my friend didn’t really take an accidental header over the side of the world then spontaneously combust. And my dramatic slo-mo attempt to save him was all in my head. I wanted to save him. The second he veered from his prepared comments into “I shouldn’t tell this story, but …” it was clear he needed saving. But I could only listen helplessly as he off-the-cuffed himself off the cliff. Later, as he tried to defend his inappropriate anecdote, he probably thought spontaneous combustion wouldn’t have been so bad.

Read the rest of this entry »

Launching a Web site is kind of like juggling watermelons. You can handle two, but when you try to add the third, things get a little complicated … which is why regular readers of MoveThatMountain.com have missed seeing new content in recent weeks. After posting more than 135 articles, I needed to work through a few blog-related tasks that aren’t as comfortable for me as writing.

Now that my grip on the watermelons is more sure, readers can expect new content about five days a week. And for those juggling watermelons of their own, here are a few words of inspiration to help you through the rough, um, patches:

Read the rest of this entry »

Poor Virgil was a sweet young man saddled with total ineptitude. Whatever he touched, he broke. No matter how simple the job, he botched it. Finally, given the easy task of polishing a set of keys, he managed to wear away the grooves, rendering the keys useless and sealing the door they were supposed to unlock.

Faced with this latest example of his incompetence, his cousin Barney berated his stupidity, leaving Virgil hanging his head in shame and defeat.

Fans of The Andy Griffith Show recognize the plot from the episode “Cousin Virgil.” But most of us have witnessed similar interactions between managers and employees—or worse, between parents and children. People screw up and other people berate them. We may have been on the giving or receiving ends of similar experiences.

Read the rest of this entry »

Did you know every hour you spend driving knocks 20 minutes off your life expectancy because of the increased risk of being involved in a fatal collision?

Neither did I.

Before the price of gasoline went sky high, I used to drive around just for the heck of it. Stress release. Sometimes I’d drive for a couple of hours. Taken in context with that statistic, now it sounds like I was ingesting slow poison.

Yikes.

Read the rest of this entry »

“The whole world is set on fire.”

That’s one of the more memorable quotes from the 1992 film version of The Last of the Mohicans. And since I’m indulging my inner drama queen, that’s how I’ve felt lately. As loyal readers may have noticed, a nasty little virus wandered in and briefly staked claim on behalf of some probably nonexistent terrorist group. Posts have fallen behind as I’ve focused on other site-related issues. Like many people, I’ve gotten caught up in putting out fires instead of blazing my path. As a result, the mountains have started to seem overwhelming.

Read the rest of this entry »

So you’re floating along, blue skies ahead, staring into a bright horizon. Life is good.

And a volcano erupts. In Iceland.

The blue skies become hazy. An ash cloud blocks the bright horizon. You’re grounded and the good is gone.

Major life disruptions can happen just as quickly as the eruption of the Icelandic volcano that grounded planes and stranded passengers all over the world. One moment things couldn’t be better. The next, financial markets crash and you’re unemployed. The doctor says your biopsy is positive. A call brings news that a loved one has died on the way to work. Lightning strikes and your house explodes in flames. And it takes some regrouping before you can figure out how to navigate around the new ash cloud that’s enveloped your life.

Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine you’re traveling in a foreign country and a man you’ve just met comes stumbling toward you through a crowded marketplace, collapsing into your arms with a dagger plunged into his back. Just before he dies, he whispers to you that a head of state is about to be assassinated.

Fans of film director Alfred Hitchcock will recognize that as the plot to the 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much, starring Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day. And of course, that tidbit of unwanted information plunges the tourist into a world of trouble.

These days most of us can identify.

Read the rest of this entry »