God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can
and the wisdom to know the difference.

You don’t have to be in a 12-step program to avail yourself of the famous serenity prayer. It’s the panacea of prayers.

If you’re like me, you love new things, and I have something I think you are really going to love—our new Guideposts.org website.

Thanks to all of you who offered title suggestions for my book. There were some really great and creative ideas and I would be grateful if you continued to post. Remember, the book is about personal change and transformation, the achievement of happiness and the power of story.

Wow. Judging from the posts on our Facebook page it sounds like a lot of you are going to be pretty busy this long Fourth of July weekend. Fireworks and hot dogs appear to be a priority, as well as church, since the Fourth falls on a Sunday. And spending time with family is a given. 

Whew, it’s hot! Here in New York City, like much of the East Coast, we are in the grip of a sticky, steamy heat wave. It’s a little early in the season for this and New Yorkers don’t do all that well in the heat anyway.

Still, there are benefits. The pace of life slows down and talking about the weather doesn’t seem so superfluous. Some of my friends from the Deep South actually enjoy these sweltering conditions. “This is what summer’s supposed to feel like, y’all!” they quip.

I truly enjoy working at Guideposts (I bet I’ve mentioned that before). I like the people I work with. I thrive on the challenges and rewards of serving a wonderful, engaged and passionate audience. And I am grateful for a career that nourishes my spirit as much as my ambition. What can I say? I love my job. It’s a fun job.

Not so my father. Dad hated his job.

I have a very tough job to do today but first I wanted to share some cool, exciting news.

Everyone is talking about it. Which is why I wasn’t going to. Yet the Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga’s imperfect perfect game arouses passions that go beyond baseball and sports and speak to our notions of perfection, fairness and tradition. That’s why I want to know what you think about the controversy.

Memorial Day, as everyone knows, marks the beginning of summer (even if the actual solstice isn’t till June 20). But in Tibet and Nepal it marks the end of the brief spring climbing season on Mt. Everest, which straddles the border of the two countries through which the Himalayas rise like a jagged, Mesozoic spine.

Today I made my travel arrangements for Oberammergau in August. The die is cast!

There is a magical threshold that is crossed when you finally press “buy” on a travel site and lock in your reservations. I always get a wonderful rush.

I love travel. I like airports, especially walking down the jetway. I still get butterflies. I could spend days wandering around a train station (in fact I used to do just that when I first moved to New York—Grand Central was a great place to hang out, drink coffee and read the newspaper).