In a new world of elongated lives and career fluidity, we need to have patience – with ourselves.
That was perhaps the most poignant and startling point articulated by a panel on “Second Careers, Doing Good” held last weekend at my Yale college reunion. I put together the event to explore the trepidation and the . . . read more
We began by picturing a young Eleanor Roosevelt teaching immigrant children to dance in the very room where we were gathered. Long ago, a dashing young Franklin D. Roosevelt would come to escort her home. I could see in my mind’s eye his jaunty straw hat, the long twirling skirts, an awkward young woman brave . . . read more
First one, then another… at the showing of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy that I attended last weekend, numerous people walked out of the movie. By the third or fourth exodus, I noticed that viewers were exiting in the film’s most still moments: when the camera lingers on retired spy George Smiley, pensively sitting alone in . . . read more
Heading toward the often stressful, overly complicated, ironically fatiguing holiday season, I had a small epiphany. I’d been trying once again to figure out how to be zen about the big family get-togethers that can fray even the most solid nerves.
Dynamics are never easy in any household, much less a series of households brought . . . read more
Is hyper-busyness a form of sloth? It seems beyond paradoxical to consider our efficient, connected, mobile days even remotely… lazy. But both medieval philosophers and early Buddhist practitioners warned of restlessness and busyness as slothful, because amidst such hyper-ness we tend to avoid what’s deep and important. Think about it. Madly ticking items off our . . . read more
For Aristotle, practical wisdom was a key to the good life. He believed in flexibility in thought and in learning from experience, not in cold calculations or in rigid rules. Someone who tries to live their life by applying unbending rules to situations of uncertainty or conflict is like an architect who tries to . . . read more
