At the risk of touching a very dangerous topic, religion, it seems to me that we all believe in things that are not backed up by experience, empirical evidence and science. Although I was raised as a strict calvinist protestant, I gave up on organized religion in my teens and early twenties. In many ways, I am a product of the western society I grew up in where religion is largely viewed as fairy tales that have no place in our rational, enlightened culture. The problem is that I think we threw out the baby with the bathwater as few of us tend to think about why we do what we do. For me, this is spirituality: focusing on something larger than yourself and looking to contribute to something larger than ourselves. So, there are two major misconceptions in our culture right now. First, we have lost the ability to put ourselves in service of something larger than ourselves, which in my experience tends to lead to nihilism. Second, we think we are rational beings that sometimes are led astray by our irrationality. We are, of course, highly irrational apes that are largely driven by our instincts, but who are incredibly good at post-rationalizing our behaviors. So, my thought today is to choose your religion, that which is larger than you, with care. Your irrational mind needs one anyway, so you better pick it carefully.