Ambition is tricky. Especially for men.

We are expected to be the uber-ambitious gender, who will scale mountaintops to get what we want, where we want it.
But often, you need to scale back your ambition to make room for the rest of life.

And that is the place I find myself now.

I used to be the up-and-comer, well-regarded manager in my small startup company, which meant that I could largely work in a flexible manner, plan my business trips when they were most convenient for me, and generally choose which projects I wanted. And now that’s all about to change… Read the rest of this entry »

I just had an IM “conversation” with a colleague of mine who also has a toddler, trying to juggle it all.

I will paste the full back-and-forth after the click, but the crux of it is how often we - as parents - actually get to take a real vacation (and I don’t mean a long weekend in some motel with the kids, or Disneyland - in my mind, those don’t really count).

The above pic is where I’d like to be right now with a Pina Colada - and it got me to thinking about this summer and vacations… Read the rest of this entry »

Did you ever see the movie Se7en? Dark, evil, and the bad guy wins. But it’s all about the seven deadly sins, and my personal favorite (yes, don’t you have a favorite sin?) is: Envy.

Flash forward from 1995 to 2008 - I am now happily married and the father of a soon-to-be four-year-old. My envies have obviously changed. Back then I was envious of the guys who could hit on the hot girls successfully and make it look easy. Now, I’m envious of the guys whose wives “baby” them. Don’t believe such a thing could be true?

Check this out (click to read).

In summary, there seem to be wives out there who think they are being more “womanly” or “wifely” by pampering their husbands to the point of basically mommy-ing them: bathing, clothing, feeding, and more! Read the rest of this entry »