“Suppose you woke up tomorrow and received two phone calls. The first phone call tells you that you have inherited $20 million, no strings attached. The second tells you that you have an incurable and terminal disease, and you have no more than 10 years to live. What would you do differently, and, in particular,…
Forever alive, forever forward,Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble, dissatisfied,Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by men,They go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where they go,But I know that they go toward the best—toward something great.— Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road Some years…
I left some money on the table yesterday. Money I’d earned a few times over, but which felt unfair to take given the rules of engagement we have in my work. I left it open for magnanimity for the recipients, but the only one being magnanimous was me. Does that make me a schmuck or…
“Taking charge of your own learning is a part of taking charge of your life, which is the sine qua non in becoming an integrated person.” ― Warren Bennis Sine qua non (without which, not) is that essential ingredient in the recipe that brings everything else together. It’s not a phrase we’re likely to throw…
“Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,” cried the phantom, “not to know that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed! Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will…
“What do you think of yourself? What do you think of the world? Are you a mere machine, and is your consciousness, as has been said, a mere resultant? Is the world a mere fact suggesting nothing beyond itself worth thinking about? These are questions with which all must deal as it seems good to…
“Pick your moment and the sea will do what it can for you, however small the boat and however unpracticed the helm. The wind was steady on the beam, and as it says in the old Gaelic song, it felt as if Freyja ‘would cut a thin oat straw with the excellence of her going.’This…
“A man must find his occasions in himself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove his indolence.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden In a full confession that will surprise no one in my circle of friends and family, I struggle with the act of idleness. I rarely sit still,…
The puppy is growing up. She’s seven months old as I write this, and her shackles of timidity are finally being thrown off. We walk at night and she doesn’t shrink in fear at every trash barrel or shadow. It offers this star gazer the chance to dance with the constellations once again without alarming…
“What makes a man beautiful? Isn’t it being an excellent man? And so, if you wish to be beautiful, young man, work at this, the acquisition of human excellence. But what is this? Observe who you praise, when you praise many people without partiality: do you praise the fair or the unfair? ‘The fair.’ Do…