Jeffrey Alexander Martin

Depression and anxiety are a normal part of the human emotional experience. If someone says they haven't been sad or worried, they are exaggerating or lying, to you and maybe to themselves. The real question is, how do we deal with them? How do we recover from them and not get stuck? There are two normal answers to how to deal with negative emotions. These have been called different things throughout history. We might think of them from older civilizations as potions and incantations. In a more modern sense they are often called medicine and counseling, or pharmaceuticals and therapy. In the most basic sense, it's drugs and words. Drugs and words are powerful things. They change how we feel, think, perceive, and behave. The problem with drugs is that they have side-effects. Drugs often cause worse problems than they are even intended to solve, and people often realize that too late. The names of the drugs change. New ones are invented. But the same patterns keep repeating. This...

In my mid-20s I was a member of four Toastmasters groups at once, which are training and support groups for public speaking. Giving speeches to each other you learn quite a bit about a person, and they learn quite a bit about you. After one session in Muskegon, Michigan on a Friday a few of us went out to lunch. We often did that, just to talk afterward. Everyone was older than me. The two most common people that I went to lunch with after that meeting were both over 80. One had been a Toastmaster for more than 50 years. On this particular day I asked them, "What do you guys think I should be doing? Like, for a job or career?" The retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel thought about it for a moment and said, "I see you teaching something." I was a little surprised and asked, "What?" "I'm not sure." he responded, "Something. Maybe to kids, maybe to adults." I looked at the other guy there, a successful real estate agent, and said, ...