After one of the worst winters on record in New England, with frigid temperatures for weeks on end and snow totals that forced even the most stalwart Yankee stock to stay inside, Spring is finally here. There is a verdant smell, a warming of the soil and a warming of the sun that make us all feel reborn, revitalized and ready to make things happen. It is also a season of color: delicate yellow-green of new leaves before they change to emerald, green grass, brilliant yellow wild parakeets and...

"When we fail to achieve our goals, procrastination is often the culprit. But how exactly is procrastination to be understood? It has been described as imprudent, irrational, inconsistent, and even immoral, but there has been no sustained philosophical debate concerning the topic." … words from a description of The Thief of Time; Philosophical Essays on Procrastination, edited by Chrisoula Andreou and Mark D. White.

From a description of the book The Thief of Time by John Boyne … "It is...

Summer: one of the most evocative words in the English language. And one with many faces. The summers of my childhood make me smile and recall activities of another time and place - both literally and figuratively. No school, no regimentation and no homework. Being outside, swimming and making elaborate sand castles on the beach, riding my bicycle and taking road trips to my grandparents' house way out in the country. Picking berries and having picnics and drinking homemade lemonade.

Summer...

I don't believe that many people wake up one morning and decide to retire. I think it is more often an evolving, iterative process of observing the days, assessing one's needs, becoming more keenly aware of the passage of time in ways that are a bit different from the previous times and arriving at a clear vision of what life has to offer and how best to continue to achieve one's goals and perhaps, if we are very lucky, one's dreams.

It happened to me that way.

After working for the...