Sometimes, spaces look playful... but you can't actually play in them. image: reddit​

Don't get me wrong. I love ball pits as much as the next guy. I spent pretty much every afternoon of my childhood at Chuck E. Cheese (and, unlike kids today, I actually got to run around and play by myself while the parents drank pitchers of beer). I'm all about play, and I'm stoked that so many Silicon Valley startups want ball pits.

But here's the thing: many designers and office managers think their job is complete once they've got that ball pit installed.

Creating a playful office space requires more than that.

Mindy Kaling once famously asked, "Is everyone hanging out without me?" This is a question I'd never asked myself -- until today. Because today they are. In the Bahamas. On a boat. Without me. Even though I went to ActionQuest and I'm an awesome sailor and a Master Scuba Diver.

But I digress. 

​The point is, there was a ton of traffic when I dropped my friend off at SFO. Like, a TON. But we spent exactly zero minutes stuck in it.

So you've been asked to give a speech, talk, or assembly. And you want it to be memorable. You want your audience to think -- to feel something. To question their entire worldview, perhaps. 

Now you just need a topic.

Skip the boring cliches. No one wants to hear you talk about abortion, the death penalty, gun rights, or minimum wage. These are huge and broad topics, and you're not an expert. You'll put your audience straight to sleep.

Fun fact: the other day, some crazy lady on the internet went haywire (or should I say... sleigh-wire?) at me because of a Facebook comment... about Santa. It wasn't the kind of "holiday cheer" I normally feel this time of year... but it did make me chuckle. 

​It also made me think -- should parents tell their kids about Santa? And as a psychologist, I'm pretty sure the answer is yes. Here's why:

In a high school English class, once, my teacher told me, "Make the unfamiliar familiar; make the familiar unfamiliar."

It's good advice -- and it helps explain the existence of movie tropes. (That, and the fact that, if you want to write a Hollywood blockbuster, you have to follow a pretty simple and predictable format -- see also Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need, by Blake Snyder. You'll love it, even if you have no intention of ever writing a movie.)

In the age of technology, cheating in academia has become rampant. It's never been easier to plagiarize assignments or get outside help on an exam.

In my most recent Paved With Verbs blog post, I tackled a question a lot of high school students wonder about community service: 

"How do volunteer work and service-related clubs look on applications? Do they, too, strike admissions officers as a sign of a complacent student whose main goal is to look good? What kind of specialized service opportunities TRULY give kids an edge in college and beyond?"

Whether for your health, your fitness, or your looks, many of us want to want to work out... but we don't.

I have the opposite problem (err, "problem"): I have no interest or motivation to work out... yet I do it all the time.

I recently returned from an amazing month in Costa Rica and Panama -- and I had a blast! Let me show you:

SOOOO much surfing, scuba diving, snorkeling, hiking, ATVing, motorcycling, and amazing people meeting! 

Not only did this trip inspire hundreds of photos and a video -- it also inspired three songs (the first I've ever written in my head -- normally I can only write music on my guitar) and several blog posts, including:

When I was in kindergarten, they tried to send me away to a school for dumb kids. But by the time I got to third grade, they were trying to bump me up a year and recommending me to Talented and Gifted summer programs. A psychologist from a nearby university determined, after a battery of cognitive tests, that I was a very abstract thinker. 

Which is why I was intrigued when a certain Quora user asked, "At what age do gifted children know they're different?"