Perception and Reality: Are You Underestimating Yourself? Like all parents, I accept the fact that the job comes with hazards. One for me is knowing the reality that at some point I will say something to my kids, what I think is a breezy little nothing-comment, and they will take it and store it in […]
Virtual Learning: A Closer Look On the grounds of Harvard Yard there stands a three-story brick colonial that dates back to when Teddy Roosevelt was president. If you could visit this building, Emerson Hall, and peer inside its hallowed rooms at the right time of day, you’d see a group of very privileged students engrossed […]
New Year, New Goals The year’s drawing to a close, and for me, it’s a time of reflection. I’ve looked back to see what topics I’ve touched on and found a few recurring themes of advice: write down goals for yourself; follow a plan to meet them; and when you fall (we all fall), pop […]
The Fear of Failure What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? Author Brené Brown addressed this question as I sat in a packed auditorium at Deerfield High School. During the pause that followed, you could hear our brain machinery whir into high gear as we mentally compiled an inventory. Write a book. […]
The Quiet Introvert How many times have I come out of a meeting and had someone ask me, “What’s wrong?” or “Why so quiet?” At first I was a little bewildered by it, then self-conscious. Was I not contributing enough? Did I look preoccupied? Maybe there IS something wrong with me! What a relief to read […]
The Experience of Time Shortly after my 8th birthday my childhood days experienced a very unwelcome interruption to my time: piano lessons. I remember sitting on that stony bench practicing my A Major scale and thinking what A Major pain in my rear end it was. How come I was stuck inside while the rest […]
The Right Opportunity: Volunteering With age comes wisdom, yes, but also in some cases (mine), faulty eyesight. Last week my daughter Maggie and I were driving around Libertyville looking for the Feed My Starving Children warehouse to volunteer, and it seemed hidden in the dark. Maggie at last spotted it, and we were able to […]
The Journey to Reaching Your Goals In early August the highways across America start to grumble as hundreds of thousands of bikers take a journey, snaking their way to Sturgis, South Dakota, home of the world’s largest motorcycle rally. From what I hear, it’s a party with enough rev to shake the Black Hills, a […]
Ever had one of those “aha” moments? I had one just the other day. There I was, sitting in my feng shui workshop, not tapping into my universal energy, not trying to nourish my inner harmony, but instead making a connection … We know feng shui is an ancient Chinese art. America didn’t really catch […]
I read an interesting article in the Times about how people view aging. Here we are, the beneficiaries of modern medicine, watching our long projected lifespan roll out before us like a red carpet, and we can’t help but worry. How will we bear the financial burden of our growing senior population? “To assume defeat […]