Tag Archives: Education

Climbing Life’s Mountain

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Climbing Life’s Mountain
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist, Counselor, and Certified Life Coach.

The process of living life is a lot like climbing a metaphoric mountain. I hope you’ll bear with me as I describe my experience climbing my own life mountain and what I’ve learned as I begin to consider the process of climbing back down the other side. We spend many years trying to reach goals farther up the mountain.

From where I live and look out my window, there’s a range of mountains off in the distance. I’m not a professional mountain climber by any means. I’ve driven over to the mountains several times and gotten far enough up to see some of the sights, but I’ve never hiked up into the rough country near the top, and I know virtually nothing about what lies in the steep valley behind this range of mountains.

The same has been true with my life mountain. I started off life at the base of a very small hill, not really knowing what to expect. That first hill we must climb is developmental, learning to walk and talk. Some of us have great climbing coaches; others were mainly left on their own. Some people were born into a family of people who had gotten injured on their climb up their life mountain and who took their pain out on their children.

As we begin to climb, the very first gentle slope of elementary school, we discovered that there was not one and only one path to take in life. From year to year, we get different teachers who teach us different ways to approach this task of becoming the best we can be. Sometimes those adults who guide us are more encouraging than others. Some of the adults are negative and punitive.

Being repeatedly told that you’re not good enough, criticized for your failures, can lead to a condition called learned helplessness. As a professional therapist, I’ve worked with a number of clients who are struggling to overcome all that negative self-talk they were raised with.

Eventually, you should climb up the mountains in your life; you’re likely to meet other climbers. Some of them become friends, and some become romantic interests. If you’re a typical life mountain climber, you probably stopped by the caves at the local hillside and spent some time with your romantic partner. Eventually, young, inexperienced mountain climbers on life’s mountain become parents and have to pause their efforts to achieve the climb they had started until their own children are launched into life.

Eventually, most climbers run out of energy or run out of life and realize that they have climbed as high as they’re going to climb. No matter how much you accomplish in life, no matter how far you climb the mountain, there’s always another range of mountains that looks higher, farther off in the distance. That’s why it seems that successful people are never satisfied with their success. They must always keep climbing higher.

There are a lot of different trails to take you climbing on the mountain. Some trails keep you walking for a long time, but you end up right back where you started. Some trails are steep and slippery. You may, with enough exertion, move to a much higher vantage point on the mountain of life.

All the while you’re climbing while you are trying to get somewhere in life, you’re not likely to see much of what’s on the other side of the mountains. Every goal of accomplishment has its letdown.

The longer you live, the more you realize there’s no turning around and going back the way you came. You will never get younger. Self-care, diet, exercise, and good mental health may keep you energetic longer. Strenuous workouts might even give you strength and energy you didn’t know you had. But eventually, the process of living life will wear on you.

If you’re observant, at every phase along this life journey, you will discover that you can’t turn around. The trails all either go up, becoming increasingly more challenging, or they turn off to the side and detour you around to the back of the mountains.

What we eventually learn about the back of the mountain is that it is an equally challenging process of decline. Some people become ill and die suddenly. They fall off the Cliff or are caught in a landslide.

The next part of our journey will occur when we ask ourselves just how far up the mountain do we want to climb and at what cost. And then what will we do as we begin to lose those things, physical, financial, and emotional, that we acquired? In the next blog post, I want to begin the discussion of how the process of aging may rob us of the things we acquired in our journey to whatever pinnacle on the mountain we reached.

Recommended Mental Health Books

David Miller at counselorssoapbox.com is an Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small Commission if you purchase a book or product using the link on this page. Using the link will not increase the cost to you.

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Recently, I began working with a telehealth company called Grow Therapy. If you’d like to make an appointment to work with me, contact them, and they can do the required paperwork and show you my available appointments. The link for making an appointment to talk with me is: David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC 

Life coaching clients must be working toward a specific problem-solving goal. Coaching is not appropriate if you have a diagnosable mental health problem. Also, life coaching is not covered by insurance. If you think life coaching for creativity or other life goals might be right for you, contact me directly.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

Want the latest blog posts as they are published? Subscribe to this blog.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For more about my books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, please check out https://counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Every lesson needs a story

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Stories
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Every lesson needs a story.

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist, Counselor, and Certified Life Coach.

One of my core character strengths is the love of learning. I’ve spent the better part of 70-plus years going to school, either as a student or a teacher, and some semesters I’ve done both: take classes and teach them.

It’s fine to learn general principles, but I have been told, and I have found it true, that the deepest form of learning comes from capturing the truth of something in a story.

When working with students, interns, and, often, clients, I have found that they resonate more with the stories I tell than with cold, hard facts. Often, as I’m thinking about a problem, an image comes to mind. Throughout this series of blog posts, I want to share some of those stories with you.

One explanation of this phenomenon comes from anthropology, along with some conjecture about human origins. Long before humans had written language, we sat around the fireplace at night, or our ancestors held up in a cave, and the wise old men and women told stories.

Hearing that you shouldn’t do something because it was dangerous and that the way to escape that danger was to do something else is hard to remember. But when you hear the story of how a young boy named Harry Potter or the girl Katniss Everdeen overcame their difficulties, you’re likely to remember it.

All the great religious books, from the original five books of the Bible through to the end of Jesus’ teachings and the Book of Revelation, tell stories. So do the sacred scriptures of the Muslims and the Hindus. I find that in my counseling work, things often make more sense to me, and to the clients, if I can capture their essence in a story. So, forgive me if this series of blog posts is heavily populated by stories.

Of course, I can’t tell the stories of real clients as that would violate their confidentiality or anonymity. But I can tell you stories that are about composite or fictional characters, and sometimes I tell stories about purely imaginary people.

Over the next weeks, I want to tell you some of my favorite life stories. I hope you’ll let me know if you recognize these stories and especially if you’ve lived them.

The first story I want to tell you is called “Climbing Life Mountain.” At first glance, it’s a relatively simple, straightforward story. But as we begin to develop the characters and the plot, I think you will see how this simple metaphor explains a lot about what happens to one person and not another, and how some people are able to overcome the worst of adversity, while others struggle even in the best of situations.

This metaphor is significant because most of what happens on the backside of the mountain, the descent of the old people from the peaks they had reached, has long been hidden from the view of the large mass of people climbing the front of the mountains. I believe that how one ends life matters just as much as how one begins it.

Note also that some of the most difficult challenges and also the most enjoyable had long been hidden from view in the caves scattered around the mountain. Getting together with a partner, engaging in sexual activities, and the birth of children have largely been hidden from the rest of the tribe.

I hope that you will check in next week when we begin our journey up the metaphorical mountain of life and try to understand how the things that happened in childhood and adolescence supposedly turn us all into adults, then gradually get shed in our journey down the other side of the mountain.

Recommended Mental Health Books

David Miller at counselorssoapbox.com is an Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small Commission if you purchase a book or product using the link on this page. Using the link will not increase the cost to you.

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Recently, I began working with a telehealth company called Grow Therapy. If you’d like to make an appointment to work with me, contact them, and they can do the required paperwork and show you my available appointments. The link for making an appointment to talk with me is: David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC 

Life coaching clients must be working toward a specific problem-solving goal. Coaching is not appropriate if you have a diagnosable mental health problem. Also, life coaching is not covered by insurance. If you think life coaching for creativity or other life goals might be right for you, contact me directly.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

Want the latest blog posts as they are published? Subscribe to this blog.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For more about my books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, please check out https://counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

The Hows and Whys of Change.

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Change

Experiencing change.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

The Hows and Whys of Change.

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist, Counselor, and Certified Life Coach.

There are two principal competing methods for navigating a life transition. Though many people choose a third option and do little or nothing till it is too late.

Make sure you know where you’re going before you leave.

This option was traditionally summarized as “look before you leap.”

If you are working at a job that you hate, one that is draining the life out of you, it’s often best to look for a new job first before quitting your current job. More than once, I have counseled someone who is unhappy with their current job, that the best time to look for a job is when you have one. Having some source of income keeps you going while you’re looking for your preferred job.

Rushing to change your situation can often end you up in a worse place than before. More than once, I’ve seen somebody leave a relationship to begin a new relationship only to have that replacement relationship turn out worse than the present one.

One way to summarize the problem with rushing from one situation to another is “wherever you go, there you are.” Sometimes it’s not the job or the relationship that’s causing the problem. If the problem is something you need to learn or change about yourself, then staying in your current situation while you work through those issues can be the best course of action.

You have to end something before you can start something new.

This is essentially what’s behind door number 2. Walking away from the known into uncertainty can be a very scary task. As long as you’re busy working at a job you don’t like, you may find it difficult to go out and apply for a new job. If you stay stuck in a dysfunctional relationship, you may never achieve true happiness.

Cautious and fearful people spend a lot of time trying to be sure about their decisions. But you will never know what you don’t know. As long as your life is full, you have neither the room nor the time to explore alternatives.

Many people who have successfully navigated severe life transitions have reported that they had to go through an ending of one life path and the resulting period of uncertainty before they could discover the direction they wanted to go in the future.

So why do you have to go through a transition?

If you’re facing a life change, some kind of transition, it’s worth considering how this change came about and what, if any, options you have. There are two principal causes of change in our lives: external events, those things that are thrust upon us, and things that are internal, a matter of our individual wants and preferences.  People lose their jobs through layoffs, getting fired, or company closures. Romantic relationships end because you and your partner can’t get along, or your partner decides to end the relationship.

Sometimes relationships end because your life partner dies. How long you need to go through the grieving process varies from person to person. But sooner or later, there will be the emotion of grief and loss.

Physical health changes across the lifespan. Sometimes health issues are a result of conditions out of our control, such as genetics, heredity, accidents, injuries, and other conditions outside our control. Other times, it’s a result of unhealthy living or things that we probably should have attended to sooner.

In the process of planning a way forward through these life transitions, it’s often wise to take a look at the causes to avoid repeating the same course of action. If you find that you are repeating patterns in your life, it may be worth the effort to look at your past and to do some work on yourself, either by utilizing self-help groups, education, or by formal counseling and therapy.

Other times, you don’t have the option of spending time analyzing the past because the crisis is upon you and you must move forward. We will begin this process by looking at how you move forward, but in the future section, I want to suggest you take a look at how your past may be influencing your present.

Recommended Mental Health Books

David Miller at counselorssoapbox.com is an Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small Commission if you purchase a book or product using the link on this page. Using the link will not increase the cost to you.

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Recently, I began working with a telehealth company called Grow Therapy. If you’d like to make an appointment to work with me, contact them, and they can do the required paperwork and show you my available appointments. The link for making an appointment to talk with me is: David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC 

Life coaching clients must be working toward a specific problem-solving goal. Coaching is not appropriate if you have a diagnosable mental health problem. Also, life coaching is not covered by insurance. If you think life coaching for creativity or other life goals might be right for you, contact me directly.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

Want the latest blog posts as they are published? Subscribe to this blog.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For more about my books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, please check out https://counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Life is choked with transitions.

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Hallway of transitions
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Life is choked with transitions.

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist, Counselor, and Certified Life Coach.

Over the last few years, my practice as a therapist and counselor has shifted. Some of that is because of COVID and learning to work remotely online, doing telehealth. I’ve found that my practice has shifted from working mainly with young people starting out in life to serving an ever-increasing number of older people.

I hesitate to call these people elderly since most of them are younger than me, but I’m sure that I am the exception that proves the rule. I feel fortunate that, despite being 77 years old, I can still work and be productive.

Two things stand out in my online practice, which are different from what I saw when I worked for the county or in an office in private practice. I am seeing far fewer children or couples, and many more single adults and older adults. While the specific mental health diagnoses vary a great deal, what I see most often is people struggling with life’s transitions.

When the challenges life throws at you are overwhelming, you’re very likely to develop high anxiety, severe depression, a substance use disorder, or some kind of dysfunctional behavior.

For better or worse, I have personally gone through a pretty large number of life transitions. I tell my clients that I have learned a lot more about life’s problems, particularly aging, than I ever wanted to know. I’ve spent a lot of time studying the challenge of transitioning from one thing to another, both by reading the research and by living the experience.

I mentioned these things not because I want anyone to feel sorry for me, but because I’ve developed a special sensitivity to the role that transitions play in all our lives.

There are certainly developmental transitions, and some people experience difficulty navigating those. Progressing through school involves its share of developmental challenges. Graduating, whether it’s from high school or college, and then entering the workforce can be a major transition for many people. In my role as a clinical counselor, I have studied career counseling and the challenges of finding the right job. That task deserves an entire series of posts.

Getting into and out of relationships involves a great many painful as well as joyous transitions. I believe that the increasing lifespan has led to more people ending one relationship and starting another than at any other time in human history. I intend to talk about the changing nature of human relationships in an upcoming post.

At some point, most of us will go through conflicts with our spouses, and some people will experience breakups or divorces. If you live long enough, you may experience the death of a spouse. An increasing number of family members are struggling with a loved one who is in Hospice and dying, or living in a long-term care facility. There’s also the transition of the person who loses individual functioning. Dementia has become more common and causes a great deal of suffering both for the person with dementia and for those who encounter the dementia sufferer.

For something to be considered a mental illness, it has to affect a person in four basic areas. If your problem interferes with social functioning, your ability to have relationships with family and friends, including your romantic partner, then it’s a reason for your problems to be considered a mental illness. Any problem which is severe enough to interfere with occupational functioning is also diagnosable. By occupation, we don’t just mean paid employment. We also would include school or the duties of parenting if that were a full-time activity.

The third criterion for diagnosing someone with a mental illness is that it causes them subjective distress. If something is so upsetting to you that you just can’t stand it, and the pain of this event or condition is unbearable, then we call that a mental illness. And lastly but not least, if what you’re dealing with interferes with your ability to function in some other area that is important to you, even if it is a hobby or a recreational activity, it may qualify as a mental health diagnosis.

From that brief description of reasons why something might be diagnosed, I think we can all see that transitions or changes in any one of those areas can be overwhelming.

Eventually, I will probably get around to discussing most, if not all, of these issues. But being very action-oriented, I thought I’d start with a brief description of what I understand to be the main ways in which people cope with and sometimes overcome the challenges of life’s transitions.

The next stop in our journey of understanding the nature of life transitions and how to overcome them will be a brief review of the two major theories about how to navigate life transitions.

Recommended Mental Health Books

David Miller at counselorssoapbox.com is an Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small Commission if you purchase a book or product using the link on this page. Using the link will not increase the cost to you.

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Recently, I began working with a telehealth company called Grow Therapy. If you’d like to make an appointment to work with me, contact them, and they can do the required paperwork and show you my available appointments. The link for making an appointment to talk with me is: David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC 

Life coaching clients must be working toward a specific problem-solving goal. Coaching is not appropriate if you have a diagnosable mental health problem. Also, life coaching is not covered by insurance. If you think life coaching for creativity or other life goals might be right for you, contact me directly.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

Want the latest blog posts as they are published? Subscribe to this blog.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For more about my books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, please check out https://counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Wrapping up 2025 and my life

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Changing your life

Time for a life change?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Wrapping up 2025 and my life.

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist, Counselor, and Certified Life Coach.

There is less than a week to go in 2025, and I’m already thinking about all those things I wanted to do this year that didn’t get done. I’m also very mindful of all the things I hadn’t planned on that I did, or that happened to me.

Since I was born before 1950, I’m painfully aware that the century of my birthday disappeared long before I was ready to leave it and that my time on earth may well be running out. That started me thinking about the meaning of life and all the things that I have learned while making this journey.

Please don’t get me wrong, I’m in no rush to exit this earth. I have told my romantic partner that I have definite plans for my 100th birthday and that she is an essential part of those plans.

There are two contrary forces setting the course of our lives as we age. We have that process of constantly learning new things and having new experiences. At the same time, aging results in some very necessary losses.

Having passed my 75th birthday and rapidly approaching my 80th, I am acutely aware that some things will become more difficult and some things may well become impossible. I’m not especially resigned to that process.

I have told my clients over the last year, and those few friends who will listen, that I have been learning far more about the process of getting old than I ever wanted to know. Entering is just the most recent change in a long string of life changes I’ve experienced. Because people are living longer and the percentage of older people in the population has been growing, there’s more notice being paid to these issues. Still, the principles involved in undergoing change are remarkably similar regardless of what change you are experiencing.

Within that process of aging, each person undergoes certain transitions. Of course, the process of undergoing transitions is not limited to the old or the almost old. The events that happened during COVID. Since roughly 2020, the process of transitional change has accelerated.

In my work as a therapist and counselor, many of my clients are undergoing life transitions. I wanted to get a head start on the blog posts for the year 2026 with this introductory post. During the coming year, as time permits and as my own life transitions allow, I want to talk some more about transitions, navigating those transitions, and, as always, how to have the best life possible.

Life essentially is one transition after another. Each person undergoes transitions as they move from one age group to another. Some people move from house to house or even from family to family. It’s common to move from school to school. And in this process, we undergo a series of new relationships.

Life will also bring economic transitions. There are major life milestones like graduation from school, job and career changes, and achieving certain privileges, such as a driver’s license. Somewhere in the later years, a time we rarely want to think about until it’s forced upon us, sooner or later, most of us will lose abilities and those privileges we worked so hard to achieve.

I thought I would recap for you what I’ve learned about navigating life’s transitions, from my own experiences, the experiences of my clients, and the books and research I have read. Forgive me if this doesn’t progress smoothly and if I take some detours into areas of knowledge I think might be useful to others undergoing one of life’s transitions. Along the way, I would like to share some of the lessons I’ve learned, in the hope that they might be helpful to someone else who is moving along life’s journey.

If any of these topics are relevant to you or to someone in your life, I hope you’ll read these blog posts and share your comments.

Best wishes to everyone in the year 2026 and beyond.

Recommended Mental Health Books

David Miller at counselorssoapbox.com is an Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small Commission if you purchase a book or product using the link on this page. Using the link will not increase the cost to you.

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Recently, I began working with a telehealth company called Grow Therapy. If you’d like to make an appointment to work with me, contact them, and they can do the required paperwork and show you my available appointments. The link for making an appointment to talk with me is: David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC. 

Life coaching clients must be working toward a specific problem-solving goal. Coaching is not appropriate if you have a diagnosable mental health problem. Also, life coaching is not covered by insurance. If you think life coaching for creativity or other life goals might be right for you, contact me directly.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

Want the latest blog posts as they are published? Subscribe to this blog.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For more about my books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller.

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, please check out https://counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel.

Are you an indoor mountain climber?

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Are you an indoor mountain climber?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Are you an indoor mountain climber?

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Counselor.

I think of myself as an indoor mountain climber.

As a child, I was sick a lot and was always skinny. I was not particularly good at sports, but that didn’t keep me from seeking out challenges. I don’t especially like cold and snow or heat and dehydration either, for that matter. Skinning my knuckles, breaking bones, or falling long distances to the rocks below has never particularly appealed to me.

When I first began applying the mountain climber metaphor to my life, I was thinking mainly of intellectual and creative challenges. More recently, I have begun to see how the idea of starting from nothing, achieving some level of success in a particular field, and eventually watching my abilities decline as I age might be an apt metaphor for the entire process of living life.

My interest in intellectual challenges began in elementary school.

I think one of the great turning points in my life was the time my class went on a field trip to the school library. All the other students seemed to know just how to select a book. I had come from a home with virtually no books. What few books we had in our household were religious volumes, not especially suited for a child.

As the other students checked their books out, my teacher watched me with looks somewhere between annoyance and downright anger. Finally, in desperation, the teacher walked over, pulled a book off the shelf, and handed it to me. That book, part of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House on the Prairie series, got me started on nonstop reading.

In the early grades, I devoured largely fiction.

Throughout most of my elementary and middle school years, books were my primary friend. I recall several years when I read one book a day on average. Those books were largely escape fiction, and they fueled many of the constant daydreams I explored when I was supposed to be listening to the teacher in class.

In high school, teachers sparked my curiosity about nonfiction topics.

Gradually, I began to read about more and more subjects. Whether I started with the love of learning or it developed in me as a result of reading so many varied books, I can’t be sure. But what I am sure of is that while I struggled with the required subjects in high school, I developed a strong interest in pursuing whatever eclectic subject most interested me.

My college career resembles a hike across an unexplored continent.

I have said many times, and I’m only half joking, that I have been going to school for over 70 years. College extended from the time I was 18 until the present day, when I am 76. Throughout most of that time, I have been taking classes, teaching classes, or often doing both at the very same time.

Along the way, my majors have changed repeatedly.

I have, in no particular order, studied natural history, art, business, economics, psychology, both normal and abnormal, and a host of other topics too long to list here. But what I mainly discovered was that among my top character strengths were love of learning, curiosity, and creativity. I am happiest when I am learning something new and sharing it with others, something that gives my life meaning and purpose.

Sixty-plus years later, my interest returned to fiction when I started to write my own novels. For more about my books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

Sitting safely at my desk, I seek out challenges.

Now, in my seventy-sixth year on this planet, I continue to think of myself as an indoor mountain climber. The mountain climber metaphor applies to a lot of people. Some people invest in stocks, and others invest in vintage cars. Your meaning and purpose in life may lie in discovering a new bacteria, proposing a new theory of economics, or learning to rebuild an engine. Most any pursuit can be worthy if it interests you and doesn’t harm others. That not harming others, therein lies the rub.

The process of aging looks a lot like the process of climbing a mountain.

Recently, I realized that mountain climbing as a metaphor not only fits the pursuit of new knowledge and skills, but it also fits many of the things that have happened to me, and that seem to happen to almost everyone as we grow older. I can’t say that I’m an expert on geriatrics. I’ve purposely avoided learning more about that topic than I had to. But recent events, both personally and professionally, have forced me to learn a lot more about some of the things that might happen mentally and physically as I and others accumulate more trips around the sun.

When time permits, I want to tell you about how my life of pursuing various goals has affected my way of looking at the process of aging.

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Recently, I began working with a telehealth company called Grow Therapy. If you’d like to make an appointment to work with me, contact them, and they can do the required paperwork and show you my available appointments. The link for making an appointment to talk with me is: David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC 

Recommended Mental Health Books

David Miller at counselorssoapbox.com is an Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small Commission if you purchase a book or product using the link on this page. Using the link will not increase the cost to you.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

Want the latest blog posts as they are published? Subscribe to this blog.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For more about my books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, please check out https://counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Learning

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Learning.

Sunday Inspiration.     Post by David Joel Miller.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

― Maya Angelou

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”

― Frederick Douglass

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”

― Mahatma Gandhi

Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you.  Today seemed like a good time to do this. There are an estimated 100,000 words in the English language that are feelings related. Some emotions are pleasant, and some are unpleasant, but all feelings can provide useful information. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you, please share them.

Look at these related posts for more on this topic and other feelings.

Emotions and Feelings.

Inspiration

 

Education.

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Sunday Inspiration.     Post by David Joel Miller.

Education.

Education.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Education.

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

― Nelson Mandela

“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”

― Robert Frost

“Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”

― Plato

Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you.  Today seemed like a good time to do this. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you, please share them.

Look at these related posts for more on this topic and other feelings.

Emotions and Feelings.

Inspiration

They didn’t teach me that in school

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

School classroom

School.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Why didn’t they teach you that in school?

We have this expectation that once you go to school, get a degree, you should be set. You should know what you need to know. That is not true by a couple of kilometers.

I have discovered since I graduated from school, that what I do not know outsides the things I did learn. Some of this I can attribute to the student not getting everything the professor taught. I know I missed some things. Now that I have been teaching I realize we don’t tell the students everything they need to know. It is just not possible.

Most educational programs cannot begin to teach you all there is to know in your subject matter area. Personally, I have read more books, attended more trainings, and had to learn more material since the degree than I did in the process of getting a degree.

This phenomenon happens in very good degree programs. It is probably worse in some of the for-profit educational systems which can teach you all sorts of things that are fun to learn but do not necessarily qualify you to get a job in that field. In some places, there were no jobs to begin with, or the ones that are out there require far more than a degree.

What a good program of study can do for you is to teach you the basic vocabulary of the field you want to enter. You should learn some things about the laws or ethics, hopefully, both, that relate to your chosen profession. You learn enough to realize what you do not know and that is about all. The purpose of an educational program should be to give you basic entry-level skills, not the advanced skills that you might need to be competitive in the job market.

Let’s use counseling as an example. We learn the differences between depression and autism and we learn the theory of how to counsel. That does not make the new graduate competent to work with someone with an eating disorder or Autism. Those advanced skills require more training. Most of the time we don’t know when we graduate what direction our career will take. You get hired by an agency that works with people on parole and you learn about that. If you get a job at an eating disorder clinic or an organization that works with people with autism you will need more training in that.

The result is a whole lot of recent graduates who find out that there are no jobs doing what they learned about in school or who find they have such basic skills that there will be years more training required before they can function at a competent level.

If you think that once you get that degree the education part is over you will probably not last or be successful in your chosen field. The true professional never stops learning.

One of the great tragedies of our educational system these days is the belief among so many people that going to school and getting a degree in something you like will automatically result in a good-paying job in that field. The truth is that the degree only gets you in the door for the interview. The path from a new graduate to a successful career is a long one.

Far too many people have run up sizable educational debt only to find there are no jobs out there in that field or those that do exist are in other parts of the country and may not pay enough to fund that large student loan.

If you have made the decision that a college degree is for you, make sure that you research not only the school you want to attend but the major you will embark on. Spend as much time researching the possible job market for that job as you would on following a sports team. And consider talking with someone who is currently on the job about the things they have had to learn after embarking on their career.

Your school may have taught you about the subject matter of your degree but that can fall far short of what you will need to know to be successful earning a living in that field.

Remember that your learning does not end with the degree. If you want to be successful in most fields the degree is the starting point in your lifelong process of learning.

Best wishes on your path to creating the happy life you want.

David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC

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ADHD epidemic rages out of control – News Update

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

ADHD?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Almost all U. S. children infected with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

In my morning news was the startling report that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is spreading among America’s children (AHRQ, September 2012.) It now appears likely that all U. S. Children will not be able to pay attention sufficiently to grow into mature adults.

In a short ten-year period (2000 to 2010) the number of ADHD-related visits to doctors’ offices increased by a whopping 68%. During the much longer decade of the 1960s, most doctor’s office visits centered on getting children off drugs.

If I read those news statistics right, in just four of those recent years (2003-2007) 5.4 million children caught a case of ADHD.

So far this epidemic has been confined to the United States. The United Kingdom and northern Europe have not yet seen a flood of ADHD cases, but given the prevalence of internet viruses, the impact of this epidemic may soon be felt worldwide.

This problem has become so severe that two and three-year-old’s are now being brought in for diagnosis and medication to improve their attention. The fear has become that some children may forget how to grow older if they do not get medications.

The magnitude of this crisis has required that an army of child psychiatrists be redeployed from less serious issues like schizophrenia and suicidal depression to facing the onslaught of pediatric ADHD.

The news release on this topic reports that the huge increase in public education of ADHD may have led parents, children, and providers to identify conditions that previously would have been dismissed as behavioral and conduct disorders to now be attributed to ADHD.

Over this time period while we have been spending an increasing share of our resources on fighting a war on stimulant abuse in adults, from 87% to 98% of children identified with ADHD have been prescribed amphetamine-like stimulant ADHD medication. If amphetamines have been so effective in improving attention and behavior in children it is hard to understand why the widespread use of Methamphetamines has not eliminated the occurrence of adult crime.

In fairness to the manufacturers of stimulant ADHD medications, the evidence does not indicate that childhood use of stimulant ADHD medications increases adult drug abuse.

This huge rise in the number of American Children leads me to several possible Hypotheses.

1. All children have ADHD and should receive a prescription for medication at the time of birth.

OR

2. Children are inherently young and immature and no amount of effort on our part will get children to act like responsible adults until they have in fact grown old enough to legally be adults.

In support of hypothesis two I note that in countries where children start school at older ages, they have significantly less ADHD. Also, children, who receive more exercise and are allowed to waste time at recess on physical activity, are better able to sit quietly in class. Classrooms that eliminate recess to increases classroom time and test scores are those that have higher rates of ADHD.

All that said, with tongue protruding from my cheek, I do believe there legitimately are cases of ADHD, and those with ADHD are vastly helped by medication. My concern continues to be that we are trying to medicate our way out of family, societal, and economic problems, lack of quality education, and efforts to raise test schools by excessive expectations of very young children rather than more educational opportunity as the school experience progresses.

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Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

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Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

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Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel