The Difference Between a System and an Ideal

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.”…


Do You Suffer from ERI?

If you’re like me, until recently you never even heard of ERI, let alone know if you suffer from it.

The term, coined by Johannes Siegrist, senior professor at the University of Dusseldorf, stands for Effort/Reward Imbalance.

The idea is that we all make a mental calculation when it comes to work. How does what I’m putting in compare to what I’m getting out of it?


The Best Book I’ve Read in Years

The best books forever change the way you see something – and that is what The Overstory has done for me and my connection to nature – and specifically trees.

It is hard to describe, so I will start with these three  passages from different parts of the book:

That’s the trouble with people, their root problem. Life runs alongside them, unseen…A chorus of living wood sings to the woman: If your mind were only a slightly greener thing, we’d drown you in meaning.


What Do You Do When You’re Wrong?

In response to last week’s post, several readers wrote me to point out an error. I incorrectly wrote, “Mr. Rogers invited the postman, Mr. McFeely, to come soak his feet in his pool.”  

In reality, he invited Officer Clemmons. Mr. McFeely is white while Officer Clemmons is African-American – not a minor point considering Mr. Rogers was trying to make a statement about integrating public pools.

My initial instinct was to hope no one else noticed and ignore it.  


This Is Me vs. This Is Us

This devastating article details the lengths to which a private school went to drive their students into college. It included allegations of abuse, falsifying transcripts and encouraging students to exaggerate the challenges in their life in their admissions essays. 

The idea was to “manufacture up-from-hardship tales that it sold to Ivy League schools hungry for diversity.”

In the fictional world of the TV show “This is Us”, a recent episode also focused on a character’s inspirational admissions essay. …


I’m Biased. Are You?

I read the New York Times and watch MSNBC because they reinforce my existing beliefs (confirmation bias).

I remember bad things done to me more than good things done for me (negativity bias).

I think that the country will ultimately be ok (optimism bias).

I didn’t think the poll results were accurate leading up to the midterms (pessimism bias).

I believe that if I flip a coin five times and get heads each time, the next flip will be tails (the gambler’s fallacy).…


Don’t Turn The Page

I really wanted to write something positive today. Then I saw this.

The first time I had seen that picture was last Sunday.  It was on the front page of the New York Times.  My seven-year old daughter had just crawled up on my lap and asked me who that was. I told her that this picture was of another seven-year old girl who lived in Yemen and because of the war going on in that country could not get enough to eat.…


Battling for Trophies

Recently my 10 year-old daughter participated in an event called, Battle of the Books. The premise seemed noble. Spark interest in reading by creating a program where students would be given five books to read over the summer.  They would meet as a group to discuss the book and then in the fall, they would gather with students from other schools for a competition based on recalling the book’s content. Sort…


The Child or The Road?

Uncertain times raise the stakes for raising a child.  We project our own fears upon their future and our anxiety seeps into our actions and ultimately theirs. 

This manifests itself in ways big and small, many of which are chronicled in the new book, The Coddling of the American Mind:  How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure.  (Ironically, the title itself may unwittingly add to this anxiety.) …


The Expectations of Parents

Ted Williams was arguably the greatest hitter to ever play major league baseball. Yet his parents never watched him play a single game.

In her memoir, Educated. Tara Westover tells an incredible tale of being raised by survivalist parents and never went to school or to see a doctor as a child.  She went on to receive her PhD at Cambridge and is now a best selling author.…


A Great Vacation Idea

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. …


The Future of Work

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. …


Breaking News

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.…


We Are Honored

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.…


The Final Gift from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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.


The Best News In The World

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.…


It’s In Your Blood

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.…


What My Daughter Taught Me About Standing Up

With great pride I sat in our local community center the morning of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  Our eight-year old daughter squirmed on my lap squeezing both of my hands in anticipation.  In just moments, she would be called up to accept the MLK Art Contest winner for her elementary school.

She had built a miniature replica of the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. …


Do You Know Who Is Really Wicked?

Last week we took our daughter to see Wicked for her 10th birthday. The show is fantastic on so many levels. It’s the back story of the Wicked Witch of the West, revealing how she became, well “wicked.”  Spoiler alert – she’s really not that wicked at all. 

Much like the original Wizard of Oz, what we see and have been told isn’t what it appears to be.…


This Is THE Moment

It was a simple enough question from a friend I hadn’t talk to in months.
 
“What did you do this your summer?”
 
My answer condensed one hundred days into a handful of stories. Each capturing a brief moment in time. 

  • The walk in the canyon during a family camping trip
  • Drinking Pimm’s with my wife at Wimbledon
  • Swimming with the kids at Walden Pond.
  • A bike ride with the entire family – including my mom!

Great Jobs

Consider the following:

When we talk about our relationship with work, we often focus on our own satisfaction, work/life balance or lack of meaning in our jobs. In other words we talk about our unhealthy relationship with our own work.…


Who Shapes Your Story?

Growing up, I was told two different versions of who I was and who I could become.  My stepfather instilled in me that I would never amount to anything.  I was a lazy momma’s boy and she wouldn’t be around to protect me forever. He told me that going to college was a waste of money and time. 
 
Fortunately, my mom offered a powerful counter narrative.

A Present from Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Bill Belichick

One wears a hoodie and the other a robe. One rules from the bench, the other from the sideline.  But their success, in part, comes from a similar gift.

Recounting the challenges of attending law school as a wife and new mom, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made a bold declaration that it was only possible because of her ability to compartmentalize. In the morning before school she was strictly a wife and mom. …