You’ve heard the concept that poor people today, with cell phones, large TVs, computers, and so on live beyond the fantasies of kings. Here are a few headlines among many articles. Today’s Poor Live Like Kings Compared to the Poor Just 100 Years Ago We live like kings (opening sentence: “It suddenly occurred to me yesterday morning as I was getting dressed, listening to the radio, that we today live[…] Keep reading →

I see more people in my neighborhood, especially my neighborhood park—Washington Square Park—addicted to I don’t know what. My whole life, I’ve never been far from seeing addiction. I don’t think I’ve known anyone uncontrollably addicted. Lately, in my daily picking up litter from the northwest corner of Washington Square Park, regulars there have started conversations with me. Our longest conversation lasted about thirty to forty-five minutes. One guy made[…] Keep reading →

Call me vain or unprofessional if you want, but I’m sharing the results of my recent decision to reach a fitness goal I’ve meant to work on for years, maybe decades. Call me self-obsessed if you want for how many words follow, but the journey has been for more enlightening, satisfying, and delicious than I expected. For context, as a child I felt ashamed enough from being teased for excess[…] Keep reading →

The title says it all. The words came out in conversation the other day. As I said them, they seemed remarkably accurate and poignant. I searched on the words and found no results. Everybody wants to be heard and nobody is listening. People are saying, “we’re all in this together,” “how are you holding up,” “stay safe,” and other repetitive phrases, but to my mind, this phrase captures this moment.[…] Keep reading →

I gave a book on men and how men experience the world to my girlfriend at the time, maybe five or ten years ago. After reading it, she asked me, “Do men have emotions?” Apparently she thought men didn’t have emotions. In fact, she clarified, “I thought men just did things.” I’m glad she asked if she didn’t know. I was surprised she didn’t. For context, she had graduated a[…] Keep reading →

I recently reread Frederick Douglass’s What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, which he delivered on July 5, 1852—a celebrated condemnation of slavery by a man born a slave when it was legal in this country. You’ll do yourself a favor to read it if you haven’t recently. Here’s the passage where he turns the corner from praising the nation: I am not included within the pale of[…] Keep reading →

Frankly, I don’t see many signs of hope for us to handle the environment. Walking around my neighborhood, I’d say maybe 20 percent of people are wearing masks. Bars and restaurants are packing people within six feet of each other. Headlines about Texas, Florida, and Arizona show people’s cavalier attitudes leading to opinion over nature. Still, here are a few signs of hope. Ozone: humanity banded together to ban CFCs.[…] Keep reading →

A friend recommended to me an exercise I hadn’t heard of. It sounds like the Three Raisins exercise I learned from Jon Kabat-Zinn, included in my leadership book, and assign in my leadership class. She didn’t explain much about it, but my experience with experiential exercises told me that doing it would reveal more than any explanation. The exercise The instructions: Drink a hot beverage and when I think judgmental[…] Keep reading →

Have you noticed the difference between something tasting good—that you like the sensation—versus wanting more—that it motivates you to eat more, though doesn’t always taste good? If the nuance sounds foreign, I’ve written on it several times. I use it to illustrate the difference between craving and emotional reward. In my experience, the difference seems subtle until you get it. Then it’s huge. Emotional reward improves life, craving enables others[…] Keep reading →