From time to time I am asked by young people for advice in matters of work and life, generally by people who have mistaken my age for seniority. I don't really have any advice, though, is the problem, beyond some basics and also "don't do what I did," but usually it goes like: READ MORE

That New York Times Magazine's article on the dangers of yoga has made a lot of people mad. It didn’t really make me mad—I do too much yoga to get mad, though I do still sniff disdainfully—but I did want to address why many of the arguments in it are totally lame. READ MORE

Can you remember the last time you wrote someone a letter? Maybe it was a college middle-school sweetheart, or you were in elementary school and responding to your Christmas and birthday presents. It’s possible you’ve just come back from your honeymoon, and you and your partner are grinding out thank-you notes for the presents. Or maybe you’re penning letter after letter to someone you loved and lost. You probably never even sent those letters (I hope you didn’t—real life is not The Notebook). READ MORE

Paul Hoffman's career is long and varied. He ran Discover when he was 30, published a bestseller when he was 44 and opened a restaurant, Rucola Brooklyn, ten years later, which is where I met him recently for a drink. For the past decade, Paul's bounced from project to project, writing, consulting, editing, moviemaking and more. At one point, Michael Douglas called him and asked if he would fly to Los Angeles to help make a movie character "smarter." Yet while the details of his story are unique, the unexpected turns of his career path are not. In the new world, smart people find themselves bouncing from job to job, following unexpected and decidedly non-traditional trails. In this interview series, they'll chat about how they ended up where they are and where they are going. As the OG of job-jumping, Hoffman seemed the perfect person to kick off these conversations. READ MORE

Last year, an anonymous writer took over the advice column Dear Sugar at The Rumpus. Soon, she'll go public with her identity. Like many others, I've become obsessed with her advice. Her column isn't about etiquette. Sugar writes about being jealous of other writers. She advises people to leave secure relationships because they just know they're not happy. She tells about how she made it through the "thicket of shit" in her twenties. She writes about the absolute horror of grief. And it's not about sex, either. Sugar is soooo over the idea that sex is the only way to connect emotionally or be fulfilled. READ MORE