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Our twin grandchildren just celebrated their 13th birthday as thriving and loving young adults full of potential and promise. Passing this milestone made me think back to the first 105 days of their lives which were spent in the NICU. Each day we hung onto the hope that we might be able to celebrate who they would become one day. When they turned one, I wrote a poem entitled the Sun has Come Out describing Read More

How communities address homelessness issues provides a great example of what happens when you chase symptoms instead of change the systems that are causing problems in the first place.  Finding solutions to help people experiencing homelessness presents the same kinds of challenges communities face in dealing with health, criminal justice, poverty, inflation, immigration, climate change, gun violence, etc.  The choice always involves investing in ways to improve the systems creating the problems vs. dealing with Read More

Well, it’s not quite like being hit by a meteor that destroys the earth, but it’s pretty close to it.  We just elected a cult leader who landed enough hateful and hegemonic messages to enough voters to win the electoral votes by 312-226. (Note: Trump’s margin was less than 2%, and he received less than 50% of the vote, llinois was the only blue state on the electoral map between the coasts, and the total Read More

“The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.”  Aristotle “I do not understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”  Anne Lamont   Over a career spanning six decades, I have had the good fortune of working with hundreds of organizations.  My favorite among all of them has been the Grand Read More

“Grief can be the garden of compassion.  If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom.”  Rumi   Last week, in my post on myths and realities, I discussed the importance of making fact-based decisions and judgments.  In this post, I want to explore the importance of understanding the feelings driving those decisions and judgments.  Since these days it seems like Read More

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.  It was their final, most essential command.”  George Orwell About 5 years ago, I wrote a post on leadership myths and realities based on a book I co-authored with Dr. Barry Cohen over 30 years ago.  Since that time, misinformation and disinformation have spread like wildfire creating a pervasive smoke that obscures reality.  Making accurate discriminations about what is true and what Read More

“In a way, you are poetry material; You are fully of cloudy subtleties I am willing to spend a lifetime figuring out.  Words burst in your essence and you carry their dust in the pores of your ethereal individuality.”  —Franz Kafka “The spirit-world around this senseFloats like an atmosphere, and everywhereWafts through these earthly mists and vapors denseA vital breath of ethereal air” —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “Music is the ethereal connection between this world and the Read More

I just listened to a brilliant podcast of Ezra Klein interviewing Zadie Smith, the best-selling author of White Teeth, On Beauty, and The Fraud.   One comment from Zadie Smith really jumped out at me:  “People aren’t terrible, systems are.”  I might add that systems and culture are both problems that cause people to act terribly or suck them into terrible milieus.   In any event, I highly recommend this podcast for its insights about how we Read More

One of the best pieces of feedback I ever received was when an honest friend said, “Sometimes your confidence exceeds your competence.”  As painful as that feedback was, it made me more conscious of the level of confidence I project when I assert an opinion or decide to take on a task for which I may not be entirely prepared.  For example, I often observe myself giving directions or offering an opinion on a subject Read More

“Locking” and “loading” refer to steps in preparing a machine gun to be fired: You first “lock” the bolt or safety and then “load” an ammunition cartridge or magazine. Figuratively, to be “locked and loaded” is to be fully prepared for aggressive action.   As parents and grandparents, we are always looking for ways to keep our kids out of danger’s way and to avoid aggressive action.  There are two messages I would love to Read More

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”  Marcus Aurelius.   “When you’re accustomed to privilege, parity and equity, and equality may feel like oppression.”  Raphael Warnock    I was born with privilege.  I’m white.  I’m male.   I have a relatively healthy body and mind.   I was raised by kind and loving parents.  I grew up in Read More

I must admit that I became somewhat obsessed with the Paris Olympics over its two week run.   As I was watching the closing ceremonies, I was struck by the elegance and eloquence of the final speakers who were about to peacefully transfer the responsibilities for the 2028 Olympics to the United States.   In a beautifully crafted and moving speech,  Tony Estanquet, the Paris 24 President, led off:  “With the first medals, a wave started building.  Read More

To get at the root cause of any problem, a helpful question to ask is, “is this problem primarily caused by an individual or is it the result of the culture in which the problem is occurring?”  Answering that question fairly and accurately usually leads to a clearer perspective on the direction required to solve the problem.  Perspective is important.  During my morning meditation, I always give thanks for the First Light that occurred 14 Read More

“Nothing is true and everything is possible.”  Hannah Arendt   In my local community, I see signs like “No woke zone” and “God’s got this.”   To me, those two posters translate into “Around here, we don’t welcome new ideas and we externalize all responsibility for change.”  You get the idea—the conditions for effective systems change in my town are not exactly conducive for bold thinking and doing things differently.  In a broader context, systems change Read More

“I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.”  Alan Watts “I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness – it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude.”  Brene Brown “Life isn’t a matter of milestones, but of moments.”  Rose Kennedy “If you abandon the present moment, you cannot live the Read More

Released almost 50 years ago, in the aftermath of the American War in Vietnam, this song by Kansas still captures our experience today.    Carry on my wayward son There’ll be peace when you are done Lay your weary head to rest Don’t you cry no more   Once I rose above the noise and confusion Just to get a glimpse of this illusion I was soaring ever higher But I flew too high Though Read More

“A dictator may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge.” Thomas Paine, 1776 “If we are to have another contest of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon’s but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and Read More

  “To know what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge.”  Confucius “There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there’s only narrative.  E.L Doctorow “I like moral judgment to emerge from the reader.  We are being sold a very simplistic morality by our leaders at a time when nuance and understanding are at a premium.”  Hari Kunzru   As a way to recover from the nightmare Read More

I’ve been thinking about what it takes to create the conditions for lasting change.  For example, many countries around the world have taken on the challenge of promoting freedom, equality, liberty, and justice.  While there have been signs of progress in different places at different points in time, it sure seems to me that we have been losing ground lately.  As I was reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s new book, An Unfinished Love Story, it struck Read More

“Water is fluid, soft, and yielding.  But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.”  Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching “The gentle overcomes the rigid.  The slow overcomes the fast.  The weak overcomes the strong.  Everyone knows that the yielding overcomes the stiff, and the soft overcomes Read More

“The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain.”  Lord Byron “At night, when the sky is full of stars and the sea is still, you get the wonderful sensation that you are floating in space.”  Natalie Wood   I’ve been sitting on the idea of beginning each day with a series of sensational experiences for about a year, struggling with how to turn the idea into a post.  Read More

Forty years ago, 7 couples in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, decided to start a book group.  The first book we chose was 1984 by George Orwell, because it happened to be the year we began.  The group is still meeting.   Aging, but still reading and discussing.  We met once a month for 34 years until deaths and relocations caused a pause.  At the end of each meeting, the couple designated to host the next group Read More