A fence deer will hate…

When we built our home 13 years ago there was a small rustic fence to the south of our property. It was small, just 3 feet tall and quite charming. Yet, it was rotting fast having been placed there before 1980. Over the years I fixed it regularly the best I could, but it eventually passed its expected lifetime and I decided to do something about it.

At first, in 2016, I thought of just replacing it with as it was originally and I even considered doing it myself. I just needed $1,000 worth of wood and concrete not counting my handwork. 

A month or so ago, I finally decided to replace it, but decided I was too old for this kind of exercise and got bids for it that amounted up to six times the amount contemplated a decade earlier, so I thought to myself why not do a complete 6 feet fence around the back of the house, not realizing that it would be be four times more than the short 25 meter fence! 

It would, among other things, put and end to our backyard constant invasion by large animals. So one thing led to the other, and I thought of Trump and his fence on the southern border that for sure would be paid by Mexico. 

So I found a Mexican contractor that couldn’t speak much English, but who gave me a great opportunity to test my nascent Spanish on him and his crew. In a few days a fancy fence was erected and as we finally realized that it would be deer, moose, dog and bobcat-proof, my wife and I congratulated each other. 

Still, just like with Trump’s wall, our Mexican contractor didn’t pay for the fence, quite the contrary! 

A job we love! (Part Three)

Typically, we often dislike activities we’re not yet good at or we don’t yet understand. Give it time, mastery, and autonomy, and it’s possible that dislike can turn into appreciation. Again, this won’t work if the dislike comes from value conflict, identity conflict, or chronic stress. None of us can grow to love a work that contradicts our ethics, that suppresses our personality, that chronically empties and exhausts us and that isolates us socially or feels totally meaningless. 

In those cases, “growing to love it” is not growth — it’s self‑flagellation. In reality, we don’t fall in love with jobs, but we fall in love with the competence we gain, the connections we make, the impact we can have on society, the environment or the health of others, the comfort of the routine we fall into, the unique identity it gives us and the person we become through our work.

A job becomes lovable when it becomes a container for personal growth, not when it perfectly matches a passion. When passion and occupation don’t match or clash, here are the strategies that actually work: Shift from “passion” to “craft”, by focusing on becoming excellent at something, this excellence will give us pride. Build meaning around the job, not in the job but around it as meaning comes from supporting our family, contributing to a team, helping clients or users, developing a great reputation and learning resilience. 

Don’t forget to create passion outside of work too, by developing hobbies, relationships, volunteering or embarking into some creative pursuits. Then, work becomes the enabler, not the centerpiece. Adjust the job, not replace it by effecting small changes, like different tasks, different teams, different schedules to transform our experience. 

Personally, I have turned chores around the house or elsewhere into games where I try to improve the quality of my work, creatively tweak certain procedures and measure both quality and time gained. Everything, even the most hateful activity becomes a game! 

Finally, accept that passion is not the only path to fulfillment. Fulfillment could come from stability, mastery, contribution, balance, identity, relationships. Seen that way, passion is only one ingredient. I’m not lamenting its absence, I’m just exploring the possibility of growth, adaptation, and meaning in imperfect circumstances, and see in them another hurdle that I’m smart enough to overcome. 

People can grow to love what they once disliked — but only when the work becomes a vehicle for competence, autonomy, and meaning as long as it doesn’t violate their true nature. Try it, and you’ll love what you used to hate!

A job we love! (Part Two)

So when this ideal job filled with passion and an irresistible desire to go to work every morning isn’t quite in the cards, let’s see how people can grow to love (or at least deeply appreciate) an activity they initially loathe, but only under certain conditions. 

When raw passion isn’t part of the proposition can it be construed through meaning, mastery, autonomy, and identity? Sure, we cannot force ourselves to love something that violates our values or drains our energy, this would be insane! In fact, the real question I’m asking is not whether dream jobs exist, but in case I don’t love what I do, can I grow to appreciate it more and eventually, at least like it? Can affection for a job be cultivated?

This is a profound question, and psychology has a surprisingly clear answer. From what I’ve found, research in motivation psychology shows that passion tends to emerge from the three following ingredients: 

• Autonomy: If our bosses or superiors let us, when we gain a certain amount of control over the ways we can do the work, it suddenly becomes more tolerable, then evolving into an activity that begins being enjoyable. 
• Mastery: When we get good at something, we start liking it more as competence generates satisfaction and becomes fully part of who we are as a person. 
• Meaning or Purpose: When we connect the work to something larger than ourselves (helping others, supporting family, contributing to a team), it becomes emotionally sustainable and we can be proud of our contribution. 

These three elements can transform a disliked job into a more meaningful one, but they obviously cannot transform a job that violates our values or drains our identity. In the next part of that series, we’ll dig even deeper to see how we can grow to love an activity we think we loathe at first glance.

A job we love! (Part One)

We all would like to have a job we love and we tell the same to our children, grandkids or anyone we care enough for, because the perfect match between our passions and an occupation that falls right into what we love is, for most of us, so hard to come by. And it’s precisely that reality that forces many of us into accepting all sorts of compromises and often abandon that “Dream Career” we’ve hoped for.

So a fair question is what can we do if there’s no match between what we’d love to do and the reality of another occupation that seems unable to procure us much pleasure without even mentioning “Passion”? More specifically, can we “grow” in love with an activity we loathe. 

This is probably one of the most honest tensions in adult life: the gap between the work we dream of and the work we end up doing. And it’s naming something most people feel but rarely articulate, that is the quiet grief of realizing that passion and occupation don’t always align, and the deeper question of whether love for a job can be cultivated rather than found. 

Let’s not kid ourselves, a “dream job” is incredibly rare, as matching one’s passion to that person’s occupation is uncommon, not so much because people lack passion, but because our passions are often non‑marketable, they also change over time, while jobs are shaped by economic needs, not personal dreams. 

In my case, even though I embarked in what could be termed a “Dream Career” in the ski business, my job never felt super easy and was fraught with frustration from unreasonable owners, incompetent superiors or just lack of material resources, so the “dream” often turn into a recurrent little nightmare. Finally, there are also unforeseen aspects of a dream job that can turn into horrible experiences of their own...  

Most work available to us contains repetition, constraint, and compromise, so the idea that everyone should “follow their passion” is comforting but highly misleading, if not utopia, as most of us end up building a life around imperfect work and never discovering that ideal career and this perfect fit. Tomorrow, we’ll see what can be done about it…

Women’s most critical and important years (Part Two)

After going over the years to define a man’s life, it’s only fair to wonder if women undergo the same process. The answer seems similar but there are some major differences. 

While men and women navigate similar chronological milestones, the underlying biological mechanisms, cognitive timelines, and societal pressures create distinctly different, high-impact events for females. The most critical point is that the female brain matures earlier in life, with an accelerated maturation between 18–25 and transition into psychological adulthood faster than men.

Because of accelerated social and emotional wiring, young women experience higher anxiety and mood disorders during this window than young men, heavily influenced by social pressures and fluctuating estrogen and progesterone Because their prefrontal cortex finishes development a couple of years earlier than in males, young women generally develop long-term risk assessment, emotional regulation, and social processing sooner. 

However the female body undergoes a much steeper, compressed biological transition in midlife. Women hormonal baseline gradually decline by 1% per year after age 30, followed by an abrupt cliff during menopause. If men experience a slower fading of hormones, women’s is a sudden, system-wide shift. For men, the 30s are about maintaining physical health and locking in a career, but between the ages of 35–50 women face strict biological timelines regarding fertility alongside their own career peaks. 

For women, this decade often becomes a high-stakes balancing act due to an inflexible biological timeline. If a woman wants children, she must juggle her career, relationship stability, and fertility timelines. Between the ages of 40-50, if a man's midlife transition is primarily driven by psychological reflection ("What have I accomplished?"), a woman's midlife transition is deeply rooted in profound neuro-hormonal restructuring. 

Unlike men’s gradual hormone decline, women face a sharp drop in estrogen during perimenopause and menopause (typically averaging around age 51). Estrogen is not just a reproductive hormone; it protects the female brain, bones, and heart. The loss of estrogen fundamentally changes how a woman's body stores fat, processes insulin, and regulates temperature (hot flashes and insomnia). 

Social scientists track a "U-shaped curve of happiness" where life satisfaction hits its absolute low for many women around ages 47–48. This drop is a perfect storm of peak career stress, aging parents, teenagers leaving home, and severe hormonal disruption. While the midlife transition is sharper for women, studies on the U-shaped curve of happiness show that women's life satisfaction bounces back powerfully after age 55, leading to a massive surge in creativity, confidence, and leadership. 

Women sure experience a more agitated life than men do!

A man’s critical and important years (Part One)

 

Based on my own lifetime experiences and as I advance in age, I sometimes wonder what years have the most impact on a man throughout his lifetime. When I look at my own observations I enjoyed the best moments, made the most satisfying and lasting just over a time span that lasted a little more than a decade until my mid-twenties. 

It’s been so intense and so lasting that still more than half a century later it immediately stands out in any of my life retrospective to make me wonder why exciting recent events still pale in comparison? After that relatively short period nothing has made a stronger impression on me in spite of a satisfying family life, a great career and, until now, an enjoyable retirement. In researching deeper, here is what I found. 

The time period from birth to 5 years old builds a male's foundational brain structure. During these first years, a child's brain grows faster than at any other time in life and any experience during this period wire the brain for how stress, emotions, and relationships will be handled later in life.

It’s when a child builds over one million new neural connections every second. It’s also a time when safe and loving care creates a baseline for trust and mental health. Likewise negative experiences or abuse in these years will affect physical brain development and lead to long-term health risks. 

Then, adolescence and young adulthood (ages 12 to 25) will have the greatest impact on men’s lifelong identity, behavior, and success. This period of time is when a young man figures out who he is and takes his place in society. The brain undergoes a massive remodeling process, starting with emotional centers and finishing with the prefrontal cortex (the area responsible for planning and impulse control) around age 25. 

During that period, friends and social groups heavily influence values, risk-taking, and confidence. At the same time, the drive for reward is high, making this a critical time for education, career habits, and avoiding dangerous behaviors, and I haven't even mentioned my musical tastes! It’s when finding positive mentors and good experiences during these years will be able to reverse or heal earlier childhood struggles. 

In fact, this information made me realize why my youth has such a determining impact on me and why I remain so much attached to this dozen years as it defined who I would be until now and where that development would take me. 

This emotional attachment is so strong that it’s been anchoring my entire persona, still overshadows my family life as well as my other accomplishments and still continues to remain the center of my life despite its inexorable drift away from my present reality. 

Tomorrow we’ll see if females undergo the same process as males do...

Old feet, new problems…

As we age and remain quite active (running, walking, etc) can we say that the soles of our feet have a harder time fully absorbing body weight and impacts, and that it may lead to a variety of foot problems? It’s a very reasonable assumption, and the short answer is yes. 

As we age, the feet absorb impact less effectively, and this can contribute to problems like metatarsalgia, plantar fat‑pad atrophy, and arthritis. Yet, the relationship is indirect, and staying active is still one of the best things we can do for foot health. It’s obvious that with age, the feet lose some of their natural shock‑absorbing ability — mainly because the fat pads thin, the ligaments stiffen, and the tendons lose elasticity. 

This can increase stress on the forefoot and joints, making conditions like metatarsalgia more likely. But activity itself isn’t the problem, moving a lot like I do ends up protecting my joints. For sure, aging isn’t kind on our body and our feet as the thinning cushions under the heel and metatarsal heads reduce shock absorption and increase pressure on bones and nerves.

Our tendons and ligaments don’t fare any better as our collagen stiffens with age and makes our feet less adaptable to uneven surfaces and repetitive impact. The arch can also flatten slightly over time, shifting load toward the forefoot, finally years of walking and running contribute to mild degenerative changes that reflect normal aging but still not a disease. 

These changes don’t mean our feet “fail,” but they now handle load differently. All this new reality is why older runners and walkers often switch to softer shoes with generous cushioning, avoid long downhill itineraries and adopt a shorter stride length. It’s called adaptation, not deterioration! 

Our feet don’t “absorb less weight” because they’re weak but because their biological cushioning system changes. Our muscles may still be strong, our cardiovascular system excellent, but the fat pads and connective tissues don’t seem to care and keep on getting thinner as we age, no matter what we try to do to stop that process...