Is it the presence of the positive or the absence of negative that makes an experience more enjoyable?
This is the question I asked myself after returning home from a camping weekend with my family and several friends.
The positives were abundant. Beautiful weather allowed for long healthy hikes down gorges and up waterfalls. We walked barefoot on riverbeds and watched the shadows of hawks flicker on canyon walls. Our…
The fire broke out in the early morning. It traveled quickly through the walls of the white house on the corner lot. The 69 year-old Ralph Waldo Emerson rushed out of his home calling for help.
Townspeople throughout Concord came running to his aid. They included Louisa May Alcott, who with her sisters, were armed with baskets to rescue the books in his library.
On a recent tour, one of the historians pointed out a common feature of his home and others at the time. …
| This is the question posed by legendary music producer Jimmy Iovine during the spectacular HBO docu-series, The Defiant Ones, chronicling the parallel journeys of his life and Dr. Dre’s and how together they made music history. His answer to this question is “focus”. Without blinders horses would look to their left and right distracting them from their pursuit of victory. This six hours series is a testament to how focus and hard work can help overcome extraordinary life challenges. |
Consider the following pairs of questions:
Do you support alternative energy? Would you approve of a windmill farm that blocked your home’s view?
Do you believe that people have a right to housing?What if a new housing development might lower your property value?
Do you believe that people deserve second chances? Would you welcome a former convict into your neighborhood?
In each pair, most would philosophically agree with the first question on principle.…
The most well known passage of our founding document is… say it with me, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
After listing the twenty-seven different ways in which England was violating these rights, we declared our separation from this tyrannical rule and the rest, as they say, is our history.…
| As I walked to work, I approached a sparrow sitting idly on the sidewalk. Drawing closer, I realized he was lording over a wounded moth, presumably planning breakfast. Upon noticing me, he fluttered a few feet away – more likely out of fear of me not guilt of what he was about to do. As I moved away, he returned to his prey. When I moved closer again, he retreated once more. Eventually, |
In 1943, off the coast of North Africa, my grandfather, Burton Poucher was one of 1,149 U.S. soldiers who were killed aboard the HMT Rohna.
The ship was sunk by a newly designed remote control German glider bomb – a precursor to today’s “smart” missiles. It was the largest single loss of life in the sea during the war.
Prior to shipping off, Burton was stationed in Indiana for training.…
We all like to believe that our self-worth is something we determine on our own. It is after all called self-worth.
Then why do we so often feel compelled to compare ourselves to others? We do it with our looks, our grades, our performance, our income and raises. And we do it between neighbors or friends (e.g. keeping up with the Joneses) and within our families (e.g. will we do better than our parents?)…
Pure joy.
That is the only way to describe the feeling that washed over a dozen nine year-old girls and their families last Sunday. After losing every soccer game during the fall season, a 3-1 victory in their first spring match sent them running off the field jumping into each other’s arms with grins so wide they seemed to leap right off their face.
The feeling was contagious.…
There would appear to be something deeply ironic about our country’s name today.
To look at an electoral map, with it’s blues on the coasts and red in the middle, makes a clear enough case that at least politically there is nothing united about these states at all.
But upon further inspection, our geographic borders and how they came to be, tell another story altogether.
In his new book, Earning the Rockies: How Geography Shapes America’s Role in the World, Robert Kaplan takes us on a road trip from New York to California.…
I am lucky to live in a village where the word public means something good. The public schools are excellent. The public parks are beautiful. The public library thrives year round.
For most the 19th and 20th century, the public was preferred over the private. We held our public institutions in high esteem and were skeptical of the motives of private enterprises.
In the last several decades the tables have turned.…
Consider this quote by Bill Moyer:
“I was one of the poorest white kids in town, but in many respects I was the equal of my friend who was the daughter of the richest man in town. I went to good public schools, had the use of a good public library, played sandlot baseball in a good public park and traveled far on good public roads with good public facilities to a good public university.…
“Who is your everyone? Chess masters scarcely surround themselves with motocross racers. Do you want aborigines at your birthday party? Or is that yak butter tea you are serving…. Each people know only its own squares in the weave, its wars and instruments and arts, and also perhaps the starry sky.”
In her essay, “This is the Life,” Annie Dillard eloquently writes about our limited worldviews.…
