Living Reed is a work in progress, just like your life and mine. It is my attempt to share some of the lessons I have learned as an adult in four decades of living and working all over this beautiful, troubled planet. I live a very active life and I will add to the site as I can.

However, I also respect that your life may be even busier than mine. As a result, the core essay of this site will be presented in four mini-chapters, each less than 280 words in length. That is fewer words than on a single page of most books. This forces me to focus and, if the simple concepts presented work for you, you can spend less time reading and more time practicing.

These mini-chapters are simplifications of complex issues, perhaps over-simplifications. But we can be crushed by detail. Before dealing with detail, it can be very helpful to look at our lives in simple terms. Once we have done that successfully, we can focus on the details.

It's like a family planning a vacation. First, you decide where you want to go, when you want to go, and how to get there. Where you stop to eat along the way can wait.

With that in mind, here is the first mini-chapter: Are You Trapped?