I created a bucket list before they were fashionable – or even called a bucket list. I was twenty-five at the time, filled with hubris, and created a list of 51 things I wanted to do before I died.
Looking back at the list, I’m not doing too bad. I’ve married, become a father, written a few books, taken my mother to Disney World, visited Paris and walked on the field at Fenway Park. …
When I think of a line, I typically think of something that is finite in length or duration. We may wait in a line for gas or we may draw a line as part of a picture.
I just learned that in purely math terms, a line actually refers to something that is “a straight one-dimensional figure having no thickness and extending infinitely in both directions.”…
It is my favorite word. To hear anyone of my three daughters call me “Daddy” is a delight, even when it is to register a complaint or voice frustration. There is an innate tenderness to the term that I never want to go away. I have never heard my daughters call me dad or father, although I’m guessing they use those terms whenever referring to me with their friends or teachers. …
She drove almost 2,000 miles from Pennsylvania to Texas to deliver a truckload of eggs. On the way back, her freight was 29,000 pounds of berries – among whose final destinations was a Philadelphia hospital.
On a normal week my sister’s driving comes with its own set of risks. She has lupus and being in a truck is not especially good for her health – even though she does split the driving with her husband.…
It is early, but my frontrunner for word of the year is “essential.” We’ve heard it often lately in the context of “essential businesses.” But when life comes in a stripped down version it causes us all to re-evaluate what is essential for our own lives and what are the essential roles we play in the lives of others.
Two of my nephews work at a food distribution center and my sister hauls food across the country in an eighteen wheel truck. …
The speed of everyday life can make the strings that connect us invisible to the naked eye. When life grinds to a halt those same strings might as well be thickly knotted ropes.
Recently, we have seen these connections first in ways that frighten us. A virus can spread across continents, oceans, and states, while making the rest of the world stand still. The economic reverberations ring out from Wall Street but come crashing down on every storefront on Main Street. …
In the the film, And Justice for All, Al Pacino gives an impassioned speech about the meaning of justice and its pursuit. He is defending a judge he knows to be guilty of a heinous crime and is part of a system he knows to be imperfect if not corrupt. He laments that justice is not the aim of a court proceeding, winning is.
Ultimately he must choose whether to pursue this objective or to sacrifice ego and reward. …
Recently, we took our daughters to go see the play, Come From Away. It tells the story of how the small town of Gander, Newfoundland came to the aid of over 7,000 passengers whose planes were forced to land as American airspace was closed in the minutes after the 9/11 attacks. They provided not only lodging, food, and clothes, but also comfort, compassion and love to the strangers who doubled the size of the town’s population for almost a week. …
In this interview, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, recounted what attributes are common among musicians. One that resonated was the idea of musicians having especially patterned minds. The term refers to the ability to remember and think in patterns. In music this comes in especially handy in remembering chord progressions, lyrics etc. For an average person, we might be able to recite the words to a song we know only if we begin at a familiar place, like the beginning or at the chorus.…
This week I watched a two-minute video and read a ten-page magazine article that hit me like a punch to the gut and left me staggering and wondering, “What to do?”
The video was of the sixteen-year-old environmentalist, Greta Thunberg, who had sailed from Sweden to address the United Nations. Her provocative and passionate speech left me feeling shamed and helpless. Watch for yourself. How do her words make you feel?…
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.…
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 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.…
I’m sitting here paying my bills and just kicking myself. Not over money spent but on money not.
Before sitting down, I went to Spotify and stumbled on Springsteen Live on Broadway. When it came out, the reviews were stupendous as were the first hand accounts from friends who had shelled out significant money to see it.
Within five minutes of listening, I could tell that this would have been money well spent.…
Consider these three stories:
A couple in Newton Massachusetts give birth to a daughter who is deaf. In response, twenty of their neighbors learn sign language and have been speaking to that child regularly for the last two years. Rather than having to travel hours away to learn how to sign at a school for the deaf, the little girl is able to stay in her community and learn by signing with her family and friends.…
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. …
This Thursday most of us in America will find ourselves surrounded by family and friends celebrating Thanksgiving.
Perhaps during prayer or a quiet moment in our mind, we will offer silent thanks for those whose presence in our life has made us who we are. Our parents, partners, children, family or close friends will top most lists.
Hopefully more than a few will go the extra steps and give voice to those silent thoughts in ways that go beyond a cursory thanks but offer a level of specificity of why we are so grateful for their presence in our lives.…
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.) …
Nine years ago novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave what remains one of the most viewed TED talks of all time. Her topic was the danger of a single story. The single story refers to a dominant narrative we tell about a group of people or a place. Using examples from her own life and in popular culture, the talk it is both comic and tragic, simple and profound.…
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.…
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. …
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. …
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.…
Last week a friend shared a speech given by the late basketball coach Jimmy Valvano.
It wasn’t the “Never Give Up” speech he is most known for – where he literally got off his death bed to accept the ESPN Courage award and announce the formation of the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research.
It was a lesser-known talk given at a sales meeting several years earlier. In…
