Eric Maisel

Love, Relationships, Creativity and Career

[This post is the seventeenth in a multi-part series called Everything You Thought You Knew About Meaning is Wrong. To be in touch about it, you can always reach me at ericmaisel@hotmail.com or visit me at https://ericmaisel.com/. Please enjoy the…

Artists and Recovery, Tip 2

Maybe you’ve come to realize that your addiction has gotten the better of you and you decide to enter into recovery via a 12-step program or in some other way. What then? Well, creating itself can prove a threat to recovery. The very act of creating…

Two Golden Meaning Opportunities: Pleasure and Contentment

[This post is the sixteenth in a multi-part series called Everything You Thought You Knew About Meaning is Wrong. To be in touch about it, you can always reach me at ericmaisel@hotmail.com or visit me at https://ericmaisel.com/. Please enjoy the…

life purposes

This is true of every meaning opportunity: if it would be unethical to seize it, you forego seizing it. Better to forego a feeling than to disappoint yourself!

Three Golden Meaning Opportunities: Service, Good Works, and Ethical Action

[This post is the fifteenth in a multi-part series called Everything You Thought You Knew About Meaning is Wrong. To be in touch about it, you can always reach me at ericmaisel@hotmail.com or visit me at https://ericmaisel.com/. Please enjoy the…

Two Golden Meaning Opportunities: Achievement and Excellence

[This post is the fourteenth in a multi-part series called Everything You Thought You Knew About Meaning is Wrong. To be in touch about it, you can always reach me at ericmaisel@hotmail.com or visit me at https://ericmaisel.com/. Please enjoy the…

Artists and Recovery, Tip 1

Maybe you’ve come to realize that your addiction has gotten the better of you and you decide to enter into recovery via a 12-step program or in some other way. What then? On top of the common challenges that any person experiences in early…

One Golden Meaning Opportunity: Appreciation

[This post is the thirteenth in a multi-part series called Everything You Thought You Knew About Meaning is Wrong. To be in touch about it, you can always reach me at ericmaisel@hotmail.com or visit me at https://ericmaisel.com/. Please enjoy the…

the purpose of life

One Golden Meaning Opportunity: Appreciation Life feels more meaningful when you appreciate what can be appreciated: a juicy apple, a day of rest, an accomplishment, a child at play, a summer breeze. life feels more meaningful when you appreciate…

The More You Present, the Better You Become

[The following is a lesson for writers, but the headline is the same for all creatives: the more you present in public, the better you will become at presenting yourself and your work. Please enjoy!] One winter evening, I find myself in the green…

One Golden Meaning Opportunity: Self-Actualization

[This post is the twelfth in a multi-part series called Everything You Thought You Knew About Meaning is Wrong. To be in touch about it, you can always reach me at ericmaisel@hotmail.com or visit me at https://ericmaisel.com/. Please enjoy the…

One Golden Meaning Opportunity: Experimentation

[This post is the eleventh in a multi-part series called Everything You Thought You Knew About Meaning is Wrong. To be in touch about it, you can always reach me at ericmaisel@hotmail.com or visit me at https://ericmaisel.com/. Please enjoy the…

Are You Back in the World?

I would see him drawing in pen and ink and colored pencils and sometimes writing in the same oversized sketchbook in which he drew. He would sit at one table at the Owl and the Monkey, on Ninth Avenue in the Inner Sunset neighborhood of San…

One Golden Meaning Opportunity: Stewardship

[This post is the tenth in a multi-part series called Everything You Thought You Knew About Meaning is Wrong. To be in touch about it, you can always reach me at ericmaisel@hotmail.com or visit me at https://ericmaisel.com/. Please enjoy the series!]…

We tend to feel better if we point our moral compass in the direction of care for and attention to the world in which we live, the creatures of this world, and the ideas and institutions that maintain civilization at its best.

One Golden Meaning Opportunity: Stewardship We tend to feel better if we point our moral compass in the direction of care for and attention to the world in which we live, the creatures of this world, and the ideas and institutions that maintain…

Your Golden Meaning Opportunities

[This post is the ninth in a multi-part series called Everything You Thought You Knew About Meaning is Wrong. To be in touch about it, you can always reach me at [email protected] or visit me at https://ericmaisel.com/. Please enjoy the series!] Once…

Do Some Smart 2023 Planning

Ready to start planning for the rest of 2023? To begin with, here are five straightforward elements of a daily plan: Start each day with a simple, eloquent plan like “I am painting today.” Create a daily mantra that you use to keep yourself on track.…

Meaning as Nature’s Motivational Tool

[This post is the eighth in a multi-part series called Everything You Thought You Knew About Meaning is Wrong. To be in touch about it, you can always reach me at ericmaisel@hotmail.com or visit me at https://ericmaisel.com/. Please enjoy the…

Robbed of Purpose

[This post is the seventh in a multi-part series called Everything You Thought You Knew About Meaning is Wrong. To be in touch about it, you can always reach me at ericmaisel@hotmail.com or visit me at https://ericmaisel.com/. Please enjoy the…

Journaling on Beauty

If you’d like to do a little journaling on the subject of beauty, here are ten resonant quotes and journal prompts. Please enjoy! And if you’d like to grab the free giveaway bundle that includes my two-day, self-paced Deep Writing workshop, here’s…