This week, I read the obituary for Gudrun Burwtiz. Her father was Heinrich Himmler – the Nazi architect of the Holocaust. The focus of the obituary was her undying loyalty and defense of her father that continued throughout her lifetime.
Last week, I attended a lecture by Caroline Fraser, whose book Prairie Fires examines the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder – author of the Little House on the Prairie series. …
Leading up to the July 4th holiday, several friends told me they were traveling into America’s heartland for the week. There they would undoubtedly encounter people whose political beliefs were the polar opposite of their own. My own family vacation to Lake Erie meant that I would share both their predicament and trepidation.
Yet there is something uniquely apolitical about how Americans celebrate July 4th. …
This July 4th most Americans will have a vacation day – one “free” from work. But how free or independent does your work normally make you feel?
Technology was intended to be the great liberator – transforming our lives and ushering in the 15-hour workweek. I’m not there yet are you?
The number of people working in blue-collar jobs has decreased since 1970 from 31% to less that 14% today. …
In the film First Reformed, a reverend and environmentalist are experiencing existential crises – each waging a battle between hope and despair. In one exchange, the environmentalist shares his conflicting feelings about being an expectant father yet having to answer for the catastrophic effects climate change will have on the earth his unborn daughter will inherit as an adult. He asks, “What will I say when she looks at me and asks – ‘You let this happen?’”…
I didn’t even see her. I had walked in and out of our local supermarket with my eight-year-old daughter to run a quick errand for a next day’s class picnic. Once we were both buckled in the car, she said, “Daddy, didn’t you see the woman holding the sign saying – Homeless. Pregnant.”?
I said I hadn’t and now was in a rush to get home as it was well past her bedtime. More…
| It is one of the most influential social science research studies ever conducted. For the past thirty years, it has served as a foundation for most work on the subjects of willpower and grit. The Marshmallow Test, as it is referred, was a simple experiment that offered kids a marshmallow to eat. However, if they could wait 15 minutes – while sitting alone in a room with the marshmallow in front of them – they would earn a second marshmallow. |
A few weeks ago, someone suggested that I watch the video, This Is America, from Childish Gambino (aka Donald Glover)
A better recommendations would have been to watch it twice.
My first viewing left me mesmerized, but also wondering, “What the hell was that about?”
My inclination was to google that very question. The results were revealing. Countless articles broke down the multiple layers of the video, pointing out important things I had clearly missed in my initial viewing.…
A recent study observed groups of people in public settings. They recorded that every ninety seconds someone does something for someone else. Hold a door. Pass the salt. Fulfill a random request.
Interestingly, only one in every six instances included someone saying thank you.
Some would say this is a classic example of some people who are selfish or ungrateful. While others are by nature are more selfless and altruistic.…
This week buried beneath the din of politics and conflict was a brief article in the New York Times featuring an 81-year-old Australian man who was donating blood for the last time in his life.
He started giving blood as a young man – a way of paying back those who had donated the blood he needed to survive surgery as a 14-year-old boy.
He would go on to give blood every few weeks for over 60 years.…
Yesterday, mothers around the country were rightfully treated to breakfasts in bed, flowers, and hand made and hallmark cards alike. All expressing a well-deserved sentiment – you are appreciated.
In case you’re still feeling that you’d like to do something special for mom. Consider the following three stories and the gifts they inspire.
One. In last week’s episode of the HBO series, Being Serena, we were given a front row seat to the birth of Serena’s William’s first child, Olympia. …
Last week, the weather app on my phone showed sun icons across the board. As if three cherries had come up on a slot machine. Jackpot, spring had arrived! Everyday temperatures would be above 75 degrees. The children clamored to wear shorts to school. Walking the dog would feel like a treat versus a cold chore. Visions of firing up the grill and relaxing on the patio filled my head.…
Pride is a feeling of pleasure derived by the acts or qualities that we admire. It is natural to take pride in our own achievements or from those closest to us.
To be impressed is an altogether different matter. It is a feeling imposed on us. It represents something so unusually good that we can’t help but remember it. It suggests something has been forcibly pressed upon us in such a way to leave a lasting mark.…
| There is an ongoing tension in our vision between short and long distances. In clinical terms we refer to the extreme on both ends as nearsighted or farsighted. This is a rare instance when we label a condition not by a weakness (e.g. I can’t see things close up) but by its opposite strength (i.e. I can see long distances well). In a figurative sense, we also experience the same tension. Am |
Want to feel good? Read the definition of honor. It can be received, given, and felt deeply. It is about respect, reputation, reverence, and integrity. Most importantly it is about recognition.
Recognition not in the sense of receiving an award but in making sure we see and acknowledge what is important and good around us.
Yes we can recognize bravery in combat with the Congressional Medal of Honor but we can also honor our mothers by treating them with the utmost respect and living in a way that would bring honor to them.…
We stood eighty-five feet off the ground, walking a hundred feet across a slender 4-inch wide beam. My six-year old daughter inched step for step in front of me until, after what seemed an eternity, we reached the platform that ended our adventure.
This all took place at the world’s tallest indoor ropes challenge course. While we were tethered to a safety harness guaranteed to stop any fall, it did not allay my fears as much as one would think. A…
This week marks the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination.
On April 3rd, the evening before his death, he gave his last public talk in Memphis. The speech is largely known for his prescient “mountaintop” passage below:
Well, I don’t know what will happen now; we’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter to me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop.…
I have been blessed in many ways. One of which has been the presence of wonderful friendships throughout my life. Over the course of the last month, I’ve had three separate occasions when I’ve been able to spend hours talking to three of my oldest friends. People who have literally known me most of my life.
Each of these conversations was a reminder of how valuable our oldest friends are for our past, present and future selves.…
Last week, I learned that a pivotal person from my past had died. Yet, when I heard the news, I felt more emptiness than sadness.
Our history was decidedly mixed. He was in our lives the better part of a decade, responsible for moving us from Boston to Pennsylvania. Without that single act, I don’t meet my best friend, get the same education, marry my wife or have my children. …
This was the subject line of an email we received from our Mayor. It marked one of the strangest weeks our town has experienced in recent memory,
On Monday, our schools went into lockdown as a man with a gun was on the loose after killing his girlfriend in a nearby town.
On Wednesday, there were reports of multiple coyote attacks that injured five and killed a small dog.…
I will keep this week’s post exceptionally brief, ceding my time to Mr. Rogers.
In the spirit of award season, I ask you to watch his very brief speech accepting his Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award.
In his soft and welcoming voice, he will ask you to something simple.
These 10 seconds will make your day and, if so moved, maybe someone close to you.
Trust me. …
Imagine if the newspaper was only published once every fifty years. What would the major headlines be? What stories would we wake up to read?
According to Steven Pinker, author of Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress, it would be a positively delightful experience.
We would read about how extreme poverty has been halved, diseases such as polio and malaria almost entirely eradicated. It would tell us that we are living in the most peaceful time in the history of mankind and chronicle the incredible progress made in human rights for women, minorities and the LGBTQ community.…
Last week in Florida another school shooting ended 17 lives and forever damaged hundreds more. In an all too familiar pattern, afterwards people took to social media sharing their sorrow, their prayers, and their outrage.
This pattern is familiar because it has repeated itself all too often. Since Sandy Hook there been over 200 school shootings.
It is often said that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.…
In Tom vs. Time, the new docu-series on Facetime Watch, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady gives us a glimpse into his rarified world.
In the second episode, Brady laments, “Every time you say yes, you’re saying no to something else. We only have so much time.”
In his case, this means that when he says yes to football he is saying no to his family.…
Distillation requires us to reduce something to its essence. Within art and literature, it often means that less is more.
Hemingway was especially gifted in this regard and, as legend has it, was once challenged to write a story using only six words. His response?
“For sale; baby shoes. Never worn.”
This six-word format has been popularized by the organization Six Word Memoirs.
It has also been an effective instrument in getting people to open up on issues like race as evidenced by The Race Card Project. …
The phrase goes back to the 1600’s, predating the field of genetics by almost 300 years.
The idea that how we act is literally running through our veins is often seen in expressions of negative emotions like animosity (bad blood), anger (my blood is boiling.), fear (blood run cold), cruel (cold blooded) and vengeful (out for blood).
Beyond colorful idioms, there is more truth to the idea than we may realize.…
