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.…
It was my first experience driving on the left side of the road. A task made more challenging by the vehicle Enterprise had given us. Their self-proclaimed party van could seat eight comfortably and still have room enough for four suitcases and five backpacks.
The roads seemed incapable of holding both this van and the oncoming traffic – which apparently consisted exclusively of campers, busses and eighteen wheel trucks
They say that the drive from Edinburgh to the Isle of Skye is majestic but I couldn’t tell you, as my eyes were exclusively focused on the road five feet in front of me every minute for four hours. …
Several years ago, I pinched a nerve in my neck. Unbeknown to be, this was cutting off signals that extended down through my left arm. When I finally went to see my doctor, we discovered that I had lost 50% of muscle strength in my left triceps.
My muscle had atrophied and there was some question as to whether that strength would ever be recovered.…
On our bookshelf, there is a plaque with this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt:
“Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”
While I’ve always aspired to such an ideal, upon further investigation, I found two problems with this quote:
Meaning in our lives is derived by what we actually do (events) and who we do them with (people). …
On a recent podcast, Kevin Bacon told a story about what it was like to act in a movie directed by Clint Eastwood. (It’s starts around the 1:49 mark)
On most movie sets, he described a pre-shoot experience marked by commotion, noise and stress.
People chaotically running around, barking “quiet on the set” and “rolling” and then slamming down the slate board that marks the scene as loud as humanly possible before the director screams “action.”…
Within one 24 hour period last week:
While watching the Red Sox get shellacked by the Seattle Mariners on Opening Day, I grew so stressed that I decided to hit pause, record the rest of the game and turn my attention to something, anything else on TV.
Appropriately enough, the documentary One Nation Under Stress was on HBO. My first inclination was to take a hard pass. The title itself sounded stressful. Upon second thought, I decided I would watch for a few minutes and an hour later was glad I did.…
Ira Glass has said “audio is the most visual medium.” He was referring to the ability of gifted storytellers to paint pictures in our minds using the intimacy of their voice as a brush and words that provide color and form.
Another way to interpret that phrase is the ability to help us hear something that changes the way we forever see the world.
Throughout most of my life, this largely happened via music. Gifted…
Last week, for the first time ever, we saw a picture of a black hole. In this primer of the experience, the New York Times described a black hole as a region in space that “swallows up everything too close, too slow or too small to fight its gravitational pull.” The edge of a black hole is marked by a ring of light, called the event horizon, represents light about to be drawn into the black hole “never to escape.” …
It stood almost ten feet tall and weighted close to a thousand pounds. We were less than four feet away, separated by two trainers and a steel fence. Feeling small in its presence, it was literally awesome.
While most of the onlookers were equally mesmerized watching the polar bear go through its training exercises, it was impossible not to notice the five-year-old girl who sat just in front of me.…
The opening of David Brooks new book, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life reads:
Every once in a while, I meet a person who radiates joy…They are kind, tranquil, delighted by small pleasures, and grateful for the large ones. These people are not perfect. They get exhausted and stressed. They make errors in judgment. But they live for others, not themselves. They’ve made unshakable commitments to family, a cause, a community or a faith.…
One of the best things about writing these weekly notes is the response I get from readers like you.
Some share a brief thumbs up or question, a related link or recommendation. Other share personal stories or reflections on their own.
All are so appreciated, so please keep them coming.
Among the emails I received recently were three that go to the heart of these Monday morning notes.…
In 1905 Anna Jarvis started her campaign to recognize Mother’s Day as a national holiday – which was formalized in 1914 when President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation doing just that.
Less than a decade later, Anna was organizing a boycott for the holiday she helped create.
The story behind this turn of events is fascinating and instructive for how we choose to honor our moms today.…
Would you want people to make broad assumptions about you based on where you live? Would you like it if strangers were talking about your struggles in secret? Would you be ok if people used a formula to formulate your future?
I imagine most of us would not feel comfortable with any of the above. Even if the acts were well intentioned, your lack of involvement or knowledge would be troubling.…
Across the country today, graves will be marked by American flags and adorned with flowers. Each will be a poignant reminder to honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.
The origin of Memorial Day is not without controversy. Many date its unofficial beginnings to the period immediately after the Civil War when southerners began decorating the graves of fallen soldiers. What was seen as an incredible act of conciliation, the women of the South who led this effort, treated the graves of Confederate and Union soldiers that same – decorating both. …
Growing up I absolutely idolized Elvis Presley. His rock and roll greeted me after Friday Little League games as I walked into the bar where my mom worked. His movies kept me company on Saturday afternoons. His gospel music was my church on Sunday.
Why I was so drawn to him is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps it was his devotion to his mother – which I shared to my own. Or…
One night last week, while walking my dog Scout, my mind wandered on to the topic of risk.
I was lamenting my own sense of risk aversion. As long as I can remember, the fear of loss has always outweighed the joy of gain in my own mental risk calculation.
Then looking down, lost in my own head, I found a lottery ticket resting in the street. It’s…
This was the seventh father’s day for my youngest daughter. It means that all three of my children now have had a father in their lives longer than I had one in mine.
And I wonder to what benefit?
The absence of a father in my life inspired me to be ever present in my own children’s lives.
I thought this would mean that they would see me as the greatest Dad ever. …
By definition, wealth is “an abundance of resources.” In other words, you have more than you need.
It may seem counterintuitive, but research shows the primary determinant for wealth is not how much we make (income) but how much we are given (intergenerational transfer).
This can come in three forms.
The film The Old Man and the Gun tells the real life story of Forrest Tucker, who is played by Robert Redford in his final film. A career thief, Tucker’s most famous exploits were as the leader of the “Over the Hill Gang”, a group of three senior citizens who robbed over 60 banks during a three-year period.
Tucker was affable and artful in his heists. …
Hot dogs didn’t come to America until the 1860’s when a German immigrant began selling them off a cart in New York’s Bowery.
Apple pie came to America courtesy of England – via Geoffrey Chaucer’s recipe. But apples originated from Asia – which is also where fireworks were created.
Baseball, our national pastime, may actually trace its roots back to Egypt – where the first use of a bat and ball were discovered.…
Most people probably consider themselves open-minded. Especially considering the connotations with being the alternative.
Yet as I learned in reading David Epstein’s book, Range: Why Generalist Triumph in a Specialized World, open-minded isn’t simply a passive way of being but an active way of thinking. (The book refers to the work of psychologist Jonathan Baron who coined the term “active open-mindedness.”)
When given the choice, our natural inclination is to seek out information that confirms our own beliefs, expertise or intentions – rather than searching out information to that may challenge them.…
Recently, New York City announced the results of their Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT). This aptitude test is taken by eighth grade students and serves as the sole factor for admission to the most selective high schools in the city.
While black and Latino students make up 66% of all NYC students, they received only 10% of these coveted slots.
Hold that thought.
Meritocracy is defined as “a system in which the talented are chosen and moved ahead on the basis of their achievement.”…
