Are comfort and suffering the extreme ends of a continuum, or is it more complicated than that? In The Closing of The American Mind, Alan Bloom lays bare the pitfalls of a society that values comfort as life’s primary aim.…
My wife, Amy, is good at pointing out when I’ve lost the plot. Whether she intends to or not, her incisive questions tear straight through the webs of reasoning I create for my pursuits. “Why are you taking on this…
A few weeks ago Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson sat down with author Arthur Brooks to record a podcast on the science of happiness. About halfway through the conversation, they hit on a topic that I’ve been hammering on recently. Arthur…
Hard work is devotion. Say it out loud, “I devote myself.” Is it true? What, in your life, is worth that kind of commitment? Devotion to one’s work implies a recognition of its nobility and dignity, and is sourced from…
Take a close look at this building. It’s blanketed in years’ worth of ivy. Fall was late in coming this year, a true Indian summer. But now the leaves are turning and this vine is no exception. As the days…
Three days before the race, I could barely walk. The pain felt too real to be psychosomatic. Fear, disguised as prudence, told me to quit. Here, as in other times, my mind was my most formidable opponent; the strength of…
The Hidden Shame of Privilege My dad loved to tell stories during dinner. Heroic tales that invariably centered around men who came from nothing, overcame harrowing circumstances, and built their way to spectacular success. Babe Ruth, Andrew Carnegie, Jim Thorpe,…
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble.
It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." -- Mark Twain
Pragmatist: “This is a job. The job provides me with sustenance; beyond sustenance, economic freedom, beyond economic freedom, happiness.” Paladin: “This is a mission. The mission provides me the opportunity to toil; embedded in the work, I find the treasure…
See these aspens? They serve as a strong analogy for how we might grow after disaster.