Over the last two weeks, I have spent more time on my back than on my feet. I cannot recall a flu that has hit so hard and lasted so long. While there were the usual aches and pains, nothing has been more persistent and debilitating than the constant state of fatigue and weakness.
There is a helplessness that goes with such weakness. You have no strength for much of anything — to stand, to walk, to eat, to read, to watch, to work, to talk. …
As many lament what they see as a lack of moral courage in our politics and society, it perhaps is helpful to take pause and appreciate how rare and special this particular type of courage actually is.
Over a hundred years ago, Claude Monet wrote “It is a tragedy that we live in a world where physical courage is so common, and moral courage is so rare.”…
“That is very kind of you” I said to the man on the train who offered up his seat so I could sit next to my mother. I’m not sure why I used that somewhat antiquated phrase. Perhaps it is because I have been thinking of kindness a lot lately.
It began last month when my wife and I took our three daughters to see Little Women.…
As I walked my dog on a blistery January morning, I noticed that every block or two, bundled up children were being dutifully escorted to their street corner. Waiting for the bus to take them to elementary school.
It would be impossible to know the exact political orientation of the parents and grandparents who had risen early and braved the cold that morning. But given that particular Pennsylvania town’s voting history, one might surmise that it was divided politically. …
The last paragraph on page 194 read, “The most hopeless conditions can inspire the most hopeful actions. We have found ways to restore life on Earth in the event of a total collapse because we have found ways to cause a total collapse of life on Earth. We are the flood, and we are the ark.”
I paused before moving on to the next chapter and looked up at my oldest daughter finishing breakfast.…
For many, today will be their first day back to work after a long holiday break. Perhaps you traveled, spent time with family, enjoyed some much needed rest and relaxation.
The tendency might be to rush back into work, making up for lost time by sending out a flurry of emails, reminding people of what they owe you, requesting meetings, and trying to get everything “back on track.”…
As the decade comes to a close, there are no shortage of “Best of” lists — best stories, best films, best songs, best books, best teams, best players etc.
Perhaps you’ve also done your own personal best of the decade list. It would probably be filled with milestones, accomplishments, vacations, and events.
What we don’t see are many “best for” lists. In other words, what were the best things done for someone else?…
Every holiday season, AMC puts the Godfather trilogy in heavy rotation. The timing is ironic on many levels. Including that one of its most iconic lines, “I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse” is antithetical to the very idea of giving.
As a verb, an offer is “to present something for someone to accept or reject as so desired.” As a noun, it is “an expression of readiness to do or give something, if desired.”…
I’m sure you’ve heard the term or made a joke about “first world problems”, “rich people’s problems” or “white people’s problems”. All are used, sometimes offensively, to diminish the seemingly insignificant issues that more privileged groups face.
My guess is that you’ve never heard or used the term “healthy people’s problems” – unless perhaps you or a family member has suffered through an all consuming health issue. …
We’ve all been there. Seemingly out of nowhere, a child just loses it. These meltdowns have an almost surreal beginning, leaving us wondering, “Where the hell is this coming from? “ They quickly escalate into an exorcist-like demonic possession. What else can possibly explain what is being spewed from the mouths of babes? The litany of complaints, grievances, and injustices fly out like one speaking in tongues.…
With just one month left in the year, it is natural to look back at the previous eleven. For some it will feel like a blur, others a slog, others yet a mixed bag.
In the context of our life, it is likely that only a handful of memories from this year will remain lodged in our consciousness this time next year, joining the handful of others from each previous year of our lives. …
This week provides a welcome respite for many, as we put aside our daily troubles, gather with family and friends, and pause to give thanks for what we have and those who helped make it possible.
It can come in the form a few words over a meal, a phone call or a prayer. All are valuable practices in gratitude.
But often these moments can be fleeting and soon replaced by Black Friday sales, workouts, and holiday movies.…
I was on a roll. After weeks of having task after task pile up and doing my best to just stay above water, I was now laying waste to a to do list and email box that had seemed hopelessly out of control.
I felt like a castaway who was adrift at sea for weeks but could finally see paradise on the horizon.
Just then, my eleven-year-old daughter came bounding into my room demanding playfully “Lift me up!”…
In his brilliant new book, We are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast, Jonathan Safran Foer recites a common definition of the American Dream as “having a better life than one’s parents – better primarily in the sense of affluence.”
He describes how his grandparents had a better home than his great grand parents and how his parents had a better home than his grandparents AND how he now has a better and more valuable home than any of them. …
This powerful question comes from Rom Mokak, Australia’s first Indigenous Policy Evaluation Commissioner. It is a question that the Yawuru people ask when a major decision is to be made for their community.
When I first heard this question, it made me think of what kind of steward I am for not just my children’s future but for their children and their children and so on. I…
Whether you are an individual giving $50 to a small charity or a philanthropist giving $5 million to a large non-profit, how you look at this transfer of funds says a lot.
Are you giving it away or buying impact?
In the former, the agency is with the donor. Their giving assumes altruism or largesse. They have the power, control and responsibility.
In the latter, the agency is shared.…
When he plays Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out in concert, Bruce Springsteen pauses in the middle of the song, where his friend, the late Clarence Clemons, sax solo used to be. He does so to honor a man that he was not embarrassed to say he loved or kiss publicly.
When he played the song during Springsteen on Broadway, he went one step further, pausing longer to explain his deep affection for the person he called, “The Big Man.”…
This was how a recent contestant on The Voice described her childhood. She said it with a smile and followed a profile of her journey to The Voice stage. It described being raised by a single mom in a situation that was poor in material goods but rich in emotional ones. Second hand stores but first-rate parenting.
This phrase that summarized her experience, “She gave us everything we needed and some of what we wanted,” resonated with me on several levels.…
On a recent flight, I decided to watch the movie, The Last Jedi.
During one scene, Luke Skywalker dispels a long held myth about “the force.” Over many films the assumption was that the force was something that one possessed, an internal feeling or power that was universally good. Here Luke explains to the young Rey that the force is actually a connection we have with our world and with each other.…
This week I watched a two-minute video and read a ten-page magazine article that hit me like a punch to the gut and left me staggering and wondering, “What to do?”
The video was of the sixteen-year-old environmentalist, Greta Thunberg, who had sailed from Sweden to address the United Nations. Her provocative and passionate speech left me feeling shamed and helpless. Watch for yourself. How do her words make you feel?…
From the time I began writing this weekly note, at least five of its readers have died. Many more have lost a parent, family member, friend or co-worker during that same time.
Death, regretfully, is the ultimate fact of life. Its certainty is inescapable. Yet for many valid reasons we choose to put the question of our own mortality out of sight and out of mind. …
In the corner of the sixth grade classroom, there was a chart with twenty or thirty hand written post-it notes attached. Each represented a student’s recommendation for their non-fiction essay.
Approximately half were about global warming, several more about hurricanes. A few would write about inequality or racism. By my estimate at least 80% of the suggested topics were about large societal problems.
My initial thought was how conscientious and social minded these students must be – which was admirable. …
This morning, like most, I stepped on the scale. This routine measurement is designed as a nudge to guide that day’s eating. If I’m happy with my weight I might indulge more than if I’m bummed that I packed on an extra pound.
It also acts as a proxy for what kind of shape I’m in. The idea that if I am below a certain weight (no I’m not telling) it indicates that I’m good health.…
In 1894, Labor Day became an official federal holiday.
The year before a different kind of labor inspired a 26-year-old nurse to become one of the most important social reformers the country has ever known.
Lillian Wald was teaching a homemaking class on the Lower East Side when a little girl burst in begging for someone to help her dying mother. She had struggled in labor before giving birth but was now badly hemorrhaging blood.…
The irony of self-knowledge is that to gain it, you need to look outside of yourself. Recently I noticed that tucked inside the word acknowledgement are three smaller words – a + knowledge + me.
Yet science shows that we are wired not to see the broader context of our lives. While confirmed by modern research the sentiment goes back at least to the days of Shakespeare – who wrote in Julius Caesar:
Lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.…
