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In The Lifelong Activist I talk at length about how destructive negative thinking is – and, in particular, the particular form of it that exaggerates one’s perceived failures and flaws while minimizing or even ignoring one’s successes and strengths. Just this weekend, as it happens, a woman with whom I was speaking on a business…

Liberal Guilt is a cliche, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a pernicious problem. All day, yesterday, when I was staffing the _Lantern Books_ table at the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival, I spoke with people who felt guilty – or, more precisely, ashamed. (Psychologists generally define guilt as regret over an action or feeling; shame…

As some of you know, I work for a Boston nonprofit that specializes in helping refugees, political asylees and recent immigrants. I’m the small business counselor, which means I help people start and grow businesses. I help Bosnian construction companies, Russian computer programmers, and East and West African artists and importers. One guy, from Congo,…