If you can sing about it, that’s a kind of answer


Leonard Cohen turned 80 this week. His new album, “Popular Problems“, was released on Tuesday. He was interviewed by Mike Ayers for an article in wsj.com titled: Leonard Cohen’s ‘Bad Habit’. A few excerpts:

Q: The new record is called “Popular Problems.” Are these what we are all up against?

A: I thought it as a general description of what we’re all up against. Those are the questions: life, death, war, peace, space, God. All those matter, and rather facetiously, I describe them as “popular problems.”

Q: All of us think about that stuff daily and there are no real answers.

A: No.

Q: But you can sing about it?

A: If you can sing about it, that’s a kind of answer.

Q: What still draws you to making records these days?

A: You know, it’s a bad habit…Well, after a while you can’t break it. Employment is a very crucial matter for everyone. Unemployment is the most sinister disease of our society. To feel fully employed, it’s not something you want to relinquish or abandon. So that’s my work and I’m able to do it, God willing, I’ll be able to do it until I can’t do it any longer. I have no plans to abandon it. [Read more…]

Do get brilliant…

Nicholas Bate - Work - Inspiration - Self-Help - Success - Excellence - Quote - Psychology


Author: Nicholas Bate

More Excellent posts from Nicholas Bate:

Best Jobs in America

Job, Jobs, Employment, Work, Business


Click on image above and then click again on the image in the article for a full size view of the Best Jobs In America. No surprise – Technology, Healthcare, Telecom and Professional Services rank high on the list.  Interesting research and findings. Best Jobs:

  • Online Affiliates posting links for Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter (Categorized as high pay, low stress).
  • Mathematician
  • Actuary
  • Statistician
  • Computer systems analyst

Hit msnbc.com for full article titled “Want a Tough Job?  Do the Math.”


Source: Thank you eclectipundit.com for the share.

    Note: Rachel/Eric, I hope you are reading and digesting this too!
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Feeling Blah about work?

job rainI received some backchannel email blow-back on my last post (10 Most Loved Jobs. And 10 Most Hated) and the related posts on Doing What You Love.  (Whispering to me: Here you go again.  Not everyone is in the situation YOU are in.  Try to walk in someone else’s shoes for a change.  Tired of you preaching about Doing. What. You. Love.  Some of us can’t walk away to a lesser paying job to Do.What.We.Love.  We need to pay the bills.  We can’t relo away from aging parents, family, friends.  We can’t walk away from our house and the mortgage. We need to keep the Don’t-Love-My-Job we have.) 

OK.  I get it.  Yet so many are unhappy.  Feel stuck.  Are unfulfilled. Or are frustrated in their current station. The three articles below share some excellent advice on how to make the most of the current job you are in.  My Cliff-Notes recap is summarized here:

  • Do. (Continue) to do an excellent job.
  • Connect. (Develop deeper relationships with people you work with)
  • Learn. (Learn & apply new skills and knowledge which will fuel higher levels of engagement)
  • Contribute. (Achievement and contribution gives us a higher sense of purpose.)
  • Don’t Complain.  (…And drag down your colleagues and pollute your brand.)

There’s no justification for an employee to wait expectantly for the organization to furnish engagement, as if it’s something somebody can give you. The key to sustainable high engagement is taking primary responsibility for it. Now is the time to own your own engagement. (FastCompany)

Here’s the 3 self-help articles on the topic…

[Read more…]

10 Most Loved Jobs…(and the 10 most hated)

From the HBR Blog Network: Happiness Will Not Be Downloaded.  I draw the line on a solve being fixing things yourself Smile otherwise a great post.  A few excerpts from the post below along with the charts for the 10 Most Loved Jobs and the 10 Most Hated…

Ten Most Loved Jobs

“…The proliferation of cooking shows, blogs, celebrity chefs…taps into something more primal: it’s one of the last jobs that still does what most of us don’t — make things…In this sterile, white-collar world, where meat comes from ShopRite and homes are built by “guest workers,” cooking is the last physical job many of us can relate to.”

[Read more…]

Is your job killing you?

Nice way to start off our Monday Morning, huh? A few nuggets pulled from the info graphic below:

  • Middle-aged workers who have poor relationships with their colleagues were 2.4x more likely to die sooner.
  • Women who reported having control/power in the workplace were 70% more likely to die than those who did not feel in control.  (Really?)
  • Surprisingly, relationships with Bosses had no ties to increased death, even though it was the top cause of leaving a job. (Really?  Now I’m wondering about sample size)
  • Top 10 Most stressful jobs.  (Oh oh)
  • 44% say that their job is excessively stressful.
  • In the UK, stress is now the #1 cause for leave of absences.
  • Stress has been called the 21st century’s equivalent of Black Death.
  • Prolonged stress is equivalent to carrying an additional 40 pounds.

[Read more…]

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