Nice Guys Finish First!

There’s a great battle being waged at this very moment.  It’s a conflict that has existed since the earliest documentation of socialized mankind.  But it’s not the kind of war fought with weapons and armies.  Rather, it’s an internal conflict that each of us must constantly face as we go about our daily business.  And [...]

So I won’t try.  In a recent edition of the New York Times, Op-ed columnist David Brooks authored a beautifully scripted account of how evidence continues to emerge in support of the thesis that Nice Guys Finish First.  Take a look. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/opinion/17brooks.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

You’re punished!  Go to your room!!   For those of us who grew up during the Leave-It-To-Beaver or Brady-Bunch generations, these words resonate as an all-too familiar admonishment for the wrong doings of Theodore Cleaver, Jan Brady and millions of other kids in America.  It was the common penalty for the common misdeeds of the day.  And [...]

“Don’t make me angry.  You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”  –  Bruce Banner, aka The Incredible Hulk In the Marvel Comics story, The Incredible Hulk, Dr. Bruce Banner is a genetic scientist whose DNA was permanently altered in a gamma radiation experiment gone wrong.  The result of this accident was a genetic mutation which caused the otherwise mild-mannered Banner [...]

In the realm of interpersonal relationships there is no relationship more studied, more talked about, more written about and more joked about than the relationship between a man and a woman; or as it is often more precisely referred to, marriage.  Now I realize I am venturing into extremely dangerous territory here, risking the scorn of women and men [...]

By my estimations, it was around the turn of the 20th Century when the scientific case for proving that Nice Guys Finish First began to take shape.  At that time the fields of psychology and physiology were beginning to merge in an attempt to explain scientifically how and why people behave.  This study of human behavior [...]

Okay, so these two guys – Bob and Jim - walk into a bar.  (No, this isn’t the front end of a dirty joke.)  They grab a couple of empty stools at the counter and ask the bartender for two cold beers.  Bob and Jim are old friends who haven’t seen each other in a while.  They planned [...]

The longer something’s been around the more valuable it becomes.  Right?  It seems to be the case for antiques, baseball cards, classic cars and even for people – at least according to the AARP (and since I just turned 50 I’m inclined to agree with them).  Of course, there are plenty of things that sour with age [...]

I was so happy to wake up one day and learn that there was actually another “quotient” by which the entire world population could be measured.  Since the early 1900’s when psychologists devised a measurement of human intelligence called the Intelligence Quotient – or “IQ” – generations of human beings have been subjected to IQ [...]

In the movie A league of Their Own Tom Hanks delivered one of the funniest lines in one of the movie’s funniest scenes.  As a washed up baseball coach who was hired to coach an all-female professional team, Hanks was dumbfounded when, after yelling at one of his players for a bad play, she began [...]