Yesterday, on my Facebook news feed this image came up that I posted a year ago. It said” The most dangerous risk of all – the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.” Going through the Lymphoma diagnosis with my dad made this reminder even more meaningful than it was a year ago. How many times during the course of our lives do we pass on doing what we actually want in the moment, in hopes… Read More

Throughout the life of the Bring Smiles to Seniors Program I have always said that one of the goals of this program is to ensure that those that “paved the way for us” are remembered and reminded that they are loved and cared about. Today I wanted to share with you exactly what I mean by that. History has shown us many generations over the years. Each one born into this world going through their lives hoping to leave the world a little better place than they found it for future generations…. Read More

Sometimes life is so full that we forget to recharge and take care of ourselves. I used to feel guilty about going away and leaving everything behind, but as I have gotten older I have learned that it is not only pleasurable, it is necessary. Going constantly was not such an issue when I was in my 20’s, however as I move out of my mid 50’s it isn’t quite so easy. I never really understood how people work twelve hours a day and go for years without ever taking a vacation…. Read More

In our lives there are many variations of the drive that people have within themselves. Some have an unending push to always excel at everything. Some work to be successful, but are content with balancing life and work and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Others just coast in hopes of making it through each day until they get to the next. Each has it’s positive and negative aspects and each maintains a level of drive to varying degrees that achieves what they are trying to accomplish, no matter the level of effort required…. Read More

For those of your that receive my posts via email – I hit enter before I was finished editing. The editing errors have been corrected on the online version. It’s early. 🙂

Yesterday, I wrote about my experience with the Jewish faith and that got me to thinking about compassion as a whole. Or more so, the lack of compassion that we see around the world today. It made me wonder what has happened in our universe that compassion becomes secondary to everything else, while hate, vitriol and violence is on the rise and left to go unchecked. The basic question is, where did the compassion go? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that compassion still exists, but is often… Read More

After the horrors of Pittsburgh, I thought it was timely to write about about my experiences with the Jewish faith and how my life has been touched over the years by that faith in so many ways. I am very fortunate to have many Jewish friends and to see a community ripped apart, such as what happened in Pittsburgh, tears at my soul. In my senior year of high school, part of my senior trip included a stop in Germany where I had the opportunity to visit the concentration camp in Dachau…. Read More

My sister-in-law Debbie finds the best posts. Many times these posts become the catalyst for what I am going to write about. Other times my writing subject is a result of something that has happened during the day, a memory that came back to me, or just a thought that hits me that I want to share. Coming off an amazing week of celebration for my team and I, and knowing the impact we have on others, this post in particular really hit home. In this big world that we live in,… Read More

Last week I wrote about the “Power of We” and that power was never more evident than last night. During the Tampa Bay Lightning game I had the privilege of accepting the Lightning Foundation Community Hero Award surrounded by my family and friends. At every home game the Vinik family chooses one person that has done extraordinary things to benefit the community. That person receives a $50,000 grant to donate to their chosen charities. While Bring Smiles to Seniors could only keep a small part of it due to our very small… Read More

The more time I spend with my mom and dad lately, the more this quote resonates with me. It also really hit home when I was spending time with my grandmother when she was in her senior community. However, where it really hits home the most is when there is someone that we want or need to make contact with and delay for one reason or another, only to wind up with that person gone. It is then too late for us to make the connection that we wish we had made…. Read More