mark twain

Myers Briggs I’m No Martin Luther King

Guess I can enjoy an 8 hour hike in the woods alone because I’m an introvert.

My best friend from childhood came for a sleep over (is that still the term once you are an adult?) and suggested I take a quick, online Myers Briggs test. The Myers Briggs test is a personality test that is supposed to tell you how you perceive the world and what motivates your decision making. Offices sometimes use them to help people work together and understand coworkers’ motivations. I presumed it would be somewhat relevant, but in the way a daily horoscope could work for almost anyone on any given day. While fun I would not put a lot of stock in horoscopes.

But who cares if it is accurate or not? It’s fun to answer questionnaires like we used to do in magazines as teenagers in her basement bedroom that was decorated with Absolute Vodka advertisements. Now sitting in my living room, snuggled in warm blankets I took the 15-minute quiz. Some questions were easy to answers, others were more challenging. Do you think organization or flexibility is more important? What are they looking for? […]

Myers Briggs I’m No Martin Luther KingMaggie Downie2019-01-16T15:18:22-05:00

Failure is Always an Option

We put so much emphasis on failing. Lately, I keep seeing articles about revisiting our thoughts on failure. Basically, failure is all the rage. And I love it. In a nutshell the articles point out that if you never fail it’s possible you aren’t trying. Arguably not to fail is to fail. We tend to put so much emphasis on success, a term we struggle to define. What makes a person successful—happiness, money, free time, a family, a home, the right outfit? There is no standardized definition of success. And, perhaps contrary to popular belief, failure is always an option.

Thanks to Merriam Webster for the following:

Success: 1) the act of getting or achieving, wealth, respect or fame. 2) the correct or desired result of an attempt.

Failure: 1) omission of occurrence or performance. 2) a state of inability to perform a normal function. 3) lack of success.

I don’t want fame. So, I guess in not achieving fame, I’m successful in my goal. I don’t think wealth is a substantive sign of success. It’s a superficial form. Maybe it’s a way to tally and compare, but wealth is not guaranteed to bring you joy, or a life without pain, or to make […]

Failure is Always an OptionMaggie Downie2017-12-29T19:44:01-05:00

Mark Twain 70th Birthday Speech

Note: I often tell my classes about a great quote from Mark Twain about how he smoked so many cigars and didn’t exercise, and while that was a good option for him it would kill another man. This is the full speech from where I got that quote as published on the PBS website.

Mark Twain, 1905.




	Clemens outside Stormfield, 1909 Courtesy The Mark Twain House, Hartford

Well, if I made that joke, it is the best one I ever made, and it is in the prettiest language, too. I never can get quite to that height. But I appreciate that joke, and […]

Mark Twain 70th Birthday SpeechMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:31:28-04:00

Who’s Excited About Their Psoas?

The Psoas Vs. Mark Twain

When I worked at The Mark Twain House & Museum people were fascinated with my job. They were interested in what I did; they were interested in Twain; and they were happy to listen to stories of the different people I’d gotten to meet there.

Now that I teach pilates, people are noticeably less interested. In fairness, I think it’s less about pilates and more about Mark Twain. When I taught high school people weren’t overly interested in the day-to-day details about what was going on in the classroom.

Working at the Twain House was a great experience, but I’m happier running my own company and teaching pilates. Now I get to read books about the body instead of books on Twain—both […]

Who’s Excited About Their Psoas?Maggie Downie2017-09-12T19:31:48-04:00