As a parent, if there is one thing I really, really hate, it is when my kids lie to me. Yet I remember lying to my parents hundreds of times when I was young. In fact, I still lie to my mother all the time even though I consider myself an extremely honest man. When [...]
Category Archives: Human nature
The hard worker and the smart worker
I am in a fairly unique position at the Douglas. I’m a manager, yet I have no actual staff. My role is that of providing professional development. The professionals work directly for their programs instead of for the psychology department. What this implies is that both staff and management feel equally comfortable talking to me [...]
Gambling on our self-control
Hi folks, I didn’t add a post last week because I did not want to take the focus off Randy Pausch’s lecture. It was also an emotional week for me. My cousin Sam died. He was a great man. The Pausch lecture said so much about how to live one’s life to the fullest (as [...]
A great attitude…a great life
A friend of mine sent me a link to a site that she thought I might like (especially since I wrote a post on a similar topic on October 29, 2007). It is a video of a lecture given at Carnegie Mellon University given by Dr. Randy Pausch, a professor who has only a few [...]
The tsunami and the raindrop
A few weeks ago, I wrote about a traffic jam where I argued that little gestures can have big impacts when cumulative effects are taken into account. This week, I wrote a column on a similar theme.I first got the idea after speaking to a fairly young client who was frustrated by the fact that [...]
Little gestures, big effects
World leaders are meeting once again to try to hammer out some agreement on climate change and emissions targets. Needless to say, the role of governments in achieving some workable goals is essential but the reality is that they are not the ones we can rely on alone. True change can only be achieved through [...]
Reasonable accommodation
With yesterday’s news came the report on a recent poll about Quebecer’s attitudes about the accommodation of religious groups. I thought the timing was quite good since I had written a column on the related issue of immigration that was to appear in Metro the same day (a lucky coincidence). Unfortunately, I got bumped (it [...]
Depression and Burnout
The Douglas Institute Foundation recently ran a public education and fundraising campaign. One of the topics it chose was “Burnout.”It seems that everyone has a different idea about what burnout is and most people confuse it with depression (and with good reason because “Burnout” is not a well-defined term). In order to help shed some [...]
A new way to communicate
So it has come to this. I am now officially a blogger! I’m not sure where this will take me but I suspect it will be fun and stimulating. I’ll start off in a simple way. My basic content will be the columns I write for Journal Metro in Montreal. They are usually inspired by [...]
Don’t count on my loyalty
Camillo Zacchia, Ph.D. Psychologist – Douglas Institute The Americans have a saying, “My country, right or wrong.” It is a strong expression of patriotism and a good rallying cry in wartime; a good rallying cry, that is, if you want blind faith from your citizens. Faith, loyalty, patriotism; these are all terms that we normally [...]
