The new year is here. With it might come some level of anxiety or excitement as we anticipate the 365 days before us.
If you are of my generation, the word anticipation might evoke this classic ketchup commercial.
The commercial draws its inspiration from this Carly Simon song.
Politically or personally you may have reason to anticipate the future with concern or fear. The world can be a scary place and the future is of course largely unknown.…
It happens every year around this time. Some years it takes longer than others.
At some point amid all the chaos of shopping and trying to close up the proverbial shop before the holiday break, you feel it.
It could be inspired by a song, a card, or a quiet moment with family or a night out with friends.
In my case, I was shopping at an outdoor mall.…
“I know what it feels like to be a parent now,” my oldest daughter told me after watching her youngest sister deliver a chorus solo during the school’s winter concert. “I was so nervous,” she added.
Anxiety, nervousness and fear are three of the most nerve-wracking aspects of parenting – if not life in general. If we’re lucky they exist in a low hum in the background as we move about our days.…
I developed a new-found appreciation for Yacht Rock, after watching this documentary that talked about the musicianship of groups like Steely Dan, Toto and The Doobie Brothers. I had no idea of their jazz underpinnings or their profound influence on so many other groups and music.
Similarly, while I had heard of the storytelling organization The Moth and listened to one or two of their stories over the years, I now have a new-found interest in their work after reading the book The Moth Presents A Point in Beauty True Stories of Holding on and Letting Go.…
On Thanksgiving, many shared thoughts of people, experiences or things that they are grateful for this year. It is perhaps the best thing about the holiday. The ability to pause from our busy lives, reflect on what we’re thankful for and reach out to share our gratitude with others. A practice by the way, that is best exercised every day, especially during difficult times. As Michael J.…
“Not in my lifetime,” lamented the older woman at the train station. She was looking out at the adjacent Hudson River and referring to the lack of long-promised development on our waterfront. The lack of progress over generations presumably due to some combination of owners who need to remediate it from intense pollution and contamination caused by factories long closed and a village who is happy to have it transformed into a public park but resistant to commercial or residential development. …
This was a particularly rocky week. Numerous curveballs and conflicts threw me off my game. One particularly challenging morning saw four major stressful situations arise before I had my first sip of coffee. Yet on that day and on every other, I managed to compartmentalize those conflicts, accept life’s inherent unfairness and unpredictability and have a semblance of a good day anyway.
I was in part inspired by a Haitian proverb that I had just read in this book by Oliver Burkeman. …
Water can freeze and become ice. Ice can melt and become water again. Water can be heated and evaporates into gas. Matter constantly changing states of being.
Our emotions can similarly transform into different states, often affected similarly by turning up or down the temperature or introducing other factors that bring tension and transformation.
At the same time, much of transformation and metamorphosis comes down to what is happening internally, a level most often invisible to the eye.…
I don’t know where it comes from and it can be overwhelming.
I wear many, many hats. With each one of them comes a certain amount of joy and responsibility. At any given time, I feel as if I am likely failing in one capacity or another, sometimes more.
This potential failure is a threat to my ego. My sense of self as someone who is high achieving or “can do it all.”…
For homework, I told my students to go for a walk. The class was Creative Team Dynamics at the Parsons School of Design. I asked them to observe the interactions between people. Some may have been acting in concert towards a common goal, others in obvious conflict, while others still somewhere in between.
In class this week, they shared what they noticed. Many recalled sweet images of children with their parents or couples on a walk.…
You may have heard a lot lately about the concept of zero-sum thinking. At a very basic level, it is the idea that in order for one person (or group of people) to benefit someone else has to lose. It is a psychological concept that we all have probably felt at one time or another in our lives.
But when it comes to opportunity is it true?…
My wife recently signed me up for a trial Tai Chi Qigong class. I was admittedly skeptical going in, but the class itself was a wonderful exercise in being present in your own mind and body. In the process, getting a better appreciation of your own sources of energy.
As part of the trial class, I also received a thirty minute consultation session after. I sat criss-cross applesauce across from the instructor, who was half my age.…
As you’re reading this, I am on vacation. Perhaps you are as well. Like many, the few weeks before a vacation are spent rushing around trying to clear the desk, empty the email box and remove as much work – not just off our plate but out of our mind. As part of that process, it means that I write two of these weekly posts in advance.…
When we think of the word misuse, we are likely to link it to things like power, money, and time. At different times in my life I have misused all the above. But what else to do we misuse to our detriment?
Last week, I was listening to a conversation between Marc Maron and the singer Jewel. She was discussing her lifelong struggles with mental health and in particular how much she worried about being good enough or belonging.…
As I write this, the sounds of staple guns and buzz saws echo in the background. The cacophony of construction noise coming. from the home next store is now entering its second week.
Last week, it took me twenty minutes to drive two miles to pick up my daughter from a friend’s home. The delay resulted from an unimaginable number of road closures that forced detour after detour, as road repairs were happening en masse.…
We follow many, bend a few, flout those that rub us the wrong way, and break those that we find unfair altogether. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some unwritten, unspoken, others codified in codes of contact or law.
To not follow or break them risks everything from our own guilt, to admonishment from our peers to loss of freedom or finances.
On the other hand the rejection of others can reap the rewards of freedom, independence, gains in time or treasure, even admiration of those who admire the rebellion.…
While reading this New York Times article last week, a turn of phrase caught my attention “one sad nod and head shake after another.” While it was referring to the book, The Age of Grievance, I found it ironic in that it perfectly captured my experience having just read the paper. Every story was one piece of sad or bad news after another. Even the Arts section, which I save for last, so I might end on a positive or inspiring note, was riddled with critics tearing apart various movies and plays.…
Students were gathered in masses. Strangers talked to each other. Often loaning their special glasses so others could get a glimpse of the solar eclipse. Anticipation was high.
When it was all over and we returned to our class, some noted that they were underwhelmed. Expectations had been higher. Promises of complete darkness, lowering temperatures and the quieting of birds were unkept.
This underwhelming feeling was echoed when I went home and heard from my own children.…
A few weeks ago, we revealed the cover for my next children’s book, America’s Dreaming, which will come out on June 4th. The story is about our universal dream to feel seen and welcomed. As revealed in the author’s note at the end, it is based on my own difficult move in the middle of a school year from Boston to Pennsylvania.
The cover reveal was assisted by John Schu, who is a well-known librarian and best-selling author.…
As we sat in the sixth row of Ebenezer Baptist Church, a recording of Martin Luther King’s Drum Major sermon played in the background. It was the last sermon he gave from that pulpit as he would soon leave for Memphis where an assassin would end his life.
Shortly after, a large white man ambled up the aisle. I must admit I am not proud of my knee jerk judgmental reaction.…
How easy is it for you to simply relax? By relaxing, I don’t mean falling into a heap at the end of a day tuning into something mindless on a screen of your choosing. I’m referring to the kind of relaxation that asks us to quiet our minds, to think of nothing, while presumably also doing nothing. To relax as a form of just letting everything go.…
I had resisted reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius for a long time. The reasons for which aren’t entirely clear to me. Perhaps it was my perception that it would be cold, indifferent or dispassionate, like the word stoic implies.
Still other people, I know and respect, swear by it. Its sales soared as people searched for meaning during the pandemic.
Despite it being one of the best selling philosophy books of all time, it was never meant for public consumption.…
Imagine a young girl in a classroom. Because her family has little money she shows up to class with no school supplies and asks the teacher for a pencil. The teacher obliges but hands her a pencil with no eraser. When the girl simply requests a different pencil with an eraser, the teacher declines, saying “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
Brittany Means was that little girl and she has now gone on to author her first book, Hell if We Don’t Change our Ways.…
Have you ever wondered where confidence comes from? Or why do some people seem to have more of it than others?
It’s a question I’ve been grappling with on and off for most of my life. As my own confidence is often fleeting.
I was surprised to learn recently that research suggests that 50% of our self-confidence is genetic. Meaning some children are predisposed to be more confident than others – even their siblings.…
Over the last year, I’ve received a few notes, emails or texts that included the specific phrase, “I appreciate you.”
Prior to this year I don’t know if I’ve ever seen, said or received those exact words in any form of communication. Now, of course, it’s quite possible that only recently have I done anything worthy enough to receive such a warm and thoughtful collection of words.…
