The Inner Bottom Line ® ..where Choices & Values meet

Starting Over…Again

January 14th, 2016   •   no comments   

Dear Olive, I started to write out my New Year resolutions right after I read one of your earlier column on just this topic and realized I’ve been making the same ones for years. I always start out feeling real jazzed up, ready to lose ten pounds, go to the gym, make quiet time for myself, even cut my hair. But by March it falls apart. I remember something you wrote about “if you start to see yourself coming in the rear view mirror” but I can’t remember the rest. So I’m asking for help. Why does this always happen? What’s [ Read More ]

“Don’t Ask Me to Step Outside the Lines”

July 23rd, 2015   •   no comments   

Dear Olive, I work for photography person who’s very successful at providing images for realtors and staging professionals. I love my work and appreciate working for my boss, who treats me with great respect. I’m writing to you, however, because I’m consistently pressed by clients to do “outside” jobs for them, sometimes with offers of “under the table” bonuses.  Not only do these offers make me uncomfortable, but they put me in an impossible position. I don’t understand why some professionals don’t seem to understand how wrong these requests are or how compromised they make me feel. Am I overreacting [ Read More ]

The Safe Haven of a Small, Elegant Word

July 7th, 2015   •   no comments   

Dignity. A word with few letters. On appearance not very large. But elegant. Succinct. With enormous reach when it’s authentic and honest and organic. Not used often enough in today’s world to describe someone’s character or attitude. And yet, it is a momentous, precious, rare word.  Containing deep value. Representing deeper values. Today, in light of all the events, from the most horrific and tragic to the amazing, astounding, “did-that-really-happen” moments of the past week, it’s emerged as the key word, the most accurate, deeply appropriate and somewhat surprising word in the rulings by the highest court in the land http://is.gd/Y5knbY. [ Read More ]

“Out There On My Own”

May 13th, 2015   •   no comments   

Dear Olive, I like the columns you write, especially the recent one about how hard it is to get rid of stuff when selling a house. I’ve got the reverse problem. I’ve never been married and have been independent since college. I don’t collect stuff. I’ve done without a lot of things my friends take for granted, focused instead on saving my money with one goal in mind: to own my own place. A place just for me, on my own, door shut, away from the noisy world. I admit I missed a lot of fun including trips to Mexico [ Read More ]