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The Marriage Blog

New Book

the worst marriage advice.jpg

I know what you are thinking, "Rabbi, you need to take a course in marketing."

"I don't need a book on how to ruin my marriage - I already know how to do that!"

As it says in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe, the secret of flying is to fall to the ground.... and miss.

Warren Buffet's long standing business partner, Charlie Munger, says the same thing in business, know where you will die (in business) and don't go there.

Similarly, the key to being happily married is to know the things that ruin your marriage and simply stop doing them.

Simple.

Save yourself the trouble of marriage counseling - get this book and don't do what it says!

Conversations with the Rabbi

How birds see it

My 8 year old came to me the other day, "I just realized something," he said in an enthusiastic tone indicating an insight worthy of Newton. "Water isn't fun unless you are in it."

Even though the National Academy of Sciences isn't going to publish that one, he's right.

There's an old saying, when you are a hammer, everything is a nail.

We are how we think. My son thinks the purpose of life is to have fun. Everything therefore, is only here for him to have fun.

We all used to believe that. What happened?

We got wet. Something happened that wasn't fun and we gave up.

I don't want you to think, that I think, my son discovered something on par with a new planet or a cure for aging. But what he did, we should all do, when things don't make you smile, don't give up, figure it out.

In his mind, the only reason for rain is for fun. When he didn't have fun with it, he had to find out why. Thus his "brilliant" insight - you have to be in it.

Why don't we think like that?

The Parenting Blog

Teenagers killed off the dinosaurs....

Let me tell you the problem I have with evolution.

First, I don't have a problem with frogs coming from fish, and I don’t have a problem with birds evolving from lizards.

I don’t even have a problem with dogs evolving from scummy divorce lawyers (my latest pet peeve).

My problem with evolution is this: How can anyone think teenagers evolved from anything?

The whole concept of evolution is that the previous species is inferior to later ones. That would mean the previous incarnation of teenagers was worse than the ones we have now.

I just find that hard to believe.

Anyone who has experienced these precious moments of teen-parent angst knows what I mean:

• The Look, as in, “I can’t believe you and I are related.” Where do they learn that? It must be in the DNA. How can teenagers all over the world spontaneously know what look to do? Do they go to school for that? What-ever!

• The ever-amusing “I hate you, and can you drop me off at the mall with your credit card” combo. Funny how they fail to see the irony in that.

• The classic line, “You are the reason I need therapy!”

All of this makes it hard for me to conceive of a human-like species worse than a teenager.

So, I submit that teenagers must have killed off the dinosaurs. Life in Jurassic Park got too comfortable, the kids grew up, the livin’ was easy, and the world entered the Teenagic Period.

A new generation of dinosaurs evolved, the Teenagosaurus. This genus was so self-absorbed and impervious to reason, that the dinosaurs couldn’t survive it. The only way for life to go on was to evolve, because the only thing worse than a teenager, is a teenager with big teeth.

In this artists re-enactment of a tragic father-son dinosaur scene, you see father dinosaur trying in vain to explain to his “evolved” teenage son that if we are to survive as a species, you can't sleep till 2 p.m. The son doesn't listen, of course, perhaps because Mr. Dinosaur is unable to wave his useless little arms in protest. So, in the end, they became extinct.