Jonathan Vaudreuil

What came to mind when you read the title to this post?

There’s one thing I know about what went through your head: your answer is similar to many people’s thoughts, and quite different from many other people’s first thoughts. No one’s thoughts are right or wrong, either, they’re opinions, clues into one’s perspective.Read more

The other day my friend Adam told me he has trouble staying motivated. He’s good to go for three months and then he’s no longer motivated. This is bothering him so much he wrote a blog post to reopen his philosophy-oriented site proclaiming he was going to break past the three month barrier. I put my money on him succeeding this time. Why?Read more

How many advertisements did you ignore today?

How many moments of genius did you witness today?

I have good news and more good news. The first bit of good news is this: there's no point in counting how many millions of dollars marketers wasted "targeting" you with advertisements, because they're not trying to speak with you. They're throwing things at you. Do you like having things thrown at you? I don't.Read more

Plum Island Soap chose their name after the area of Newburyport, Massachusetts their company sits on. While this sounds like a reasonable thing to do, only a few hundred miles south is the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, located off Long Island.

I have a feeling Plum Island Soap's company mission is not "we're proud of our role as America's first line of defense against foreign animal diseases."Read more

If I told you I held the secret to reducing the risks of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and most major illnesses over your lifetime by more than 90%, to live a healthy and happy life, would you ask me what the secret was?

Better question: if I told you the secret and you did not do it, why did you want to know?Read more

Here’s my bold claim: I can tell you exactly why you are the person you are. I guarantee it. I can tell you why you make more than one person and less than the other, why you’re healthy (or not), even the chances of you living longer than anyone in the history of your family. In fact, I can do it with one sentence. Do you want to know that one particular sentence? Here it is:

You are your values.Read more

There have been a lot of terms thrown around about the US economy in the past year which we’ve all heard numerous times. Foreclosure, and recession, and bailout, and bank failure, and stimulus package are among them. If you’ve been following the economic news, even lightly, I’m sure you have an opinion on what the government should do and who should be saved and who should be left to crumble and be picked at. Personally, I see an easy way of doing it: follow nature’s lead. Ask, how would nature sort this out?Read more

On Thursday a friend of mine made a comment about how she feels the economy is rough, people are losing jobs, and knowing this is going on sucks the life out of her. My reply? “I’m not worried.” She then said she’s not worried about her current position either, and we talked about what our plans were for a few more minutes.

Her words lingered, though: this economy is sucking the life out of her? I don’t feel that way at all. I thought about why she felt that way and started to realize why I do not.Read more

The days of Americans spending more than we make may have come and gone officially. Not only are Americans driving less and thinking of fuel economy more, which many feel is a permanent shift in people’s core beliefs, we are *gasp!* saving more, another shift which many believe will be permanent. I agree with that one. How much longer do you really think we could go on spending as much money as we made?Read more

The summer of 2007 was one of the lowest points of my life. In March the start-up I had been working for lost a key investor, and I was let go since I was the only full-time employee. At the time I left they still owed me nearly three grand, I had gone through most of my savings, and I actually had credit card debt for the first time in my life. Even though I could (barely) pay rent, my landlord sold his house and I moved back in with my mother as I looked for a job in Boston. Unemployment barely covered the cost of living, and it certainly did not cover the added cost of finding a job.Read more