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The Psychology of Forgiving and Forgetting
Nicholas Kristoff’s latest New York Times column was sad and moving. It was a tribute to Marina Keegan, an honors student and recent graduate of Yale University who turned her back on a lucrative Wall Street career—and eloquently urged other college graduates to do the same. In an essay that was viewed a million times online, she bemoaned the squandering of young talent for the mindless accumulation of wealth. Days after her graduation, she died in a car crash. Her boyfriend, the driver, fell asleep at the wheel. Such losses are always tragic, and far too common, but that’s not what got my attention.
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Longevity and Purpose, Starting Now
I have several close friends who are contemplating retirement, and a few have been teetering on that decision for a while. They are not hesitating over financial worries, but more over quality of life issues. They want to be sure that the next stage of life is at least as rich and purposeful as their working years have been. They want their days to be full. Who doesn’t? But there are other reasons for planning a meaningful retirement, most notably the health benefits. Our later years bring added health risks, but accumulating evidence shows that older people with goals and a clear sense of purpose live longer. But why focus on just the old?
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Read This Blog Post In Less Than A Minute!
I am a slow reader, and I would love to read faster. Not poetry or novels obviously—those we should savor. But lots of non-fiction, and certainly the news. There’s simply too much to read in our busy world, and too little time. That’s why I decided recently—like many others apparently—to try an on-line demo of Spritz. Spritz is a soon-to-be-released app for reading text on small screens—and reading it much more rapidly than we’re accustomed to. Spritz makes use of a technology first developed in 1970, called Rapid Serial Visual Presentation, or RSVP, in which each word is presented briefly in the center of the screen in sequence.
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Theology, Taboos, and Creative Thinking
During the 1976 presidential campaign, then-candidate Jimmy Carter famously told Playboy magazine: “I’ve looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.” Carter’s unguarded remarks were published in the November issue, just days before the election, and they caused a broad public uproar. The campaign was already concerned about the appeal of Carter’s Southern Baptist faith, and some believed this candor would tip the balance to the Republican incumbent Gerald Ford. It didn’t. Carter went on to squeak out a victory, and became the country’s 39th president. But the Playboy interview put evangelical Christianity in the national spotlight.
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The Brooding Mind: Making the Worst of Ambiguity
Imagine yourself at your 10-year high school reunion, a long anticipated get-together for you and all your old friends. You haven’t seen many of them since graduation day, and naturally everyone is comparing notes on the lives they have lived since then. This puts you in a reflective mood, but not in a good way. Life has been unkind to you—compared to the lives of your friends, who have all been spared your travails. For days after the reunion, you can’t focus on anything but your difficulties, and the unfairness of it all. If you’re a brooder, that is. Someone else might have the same reunion experience, yet come away with a very different interpretation.
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Under the Skin: How Childhood Adversity Takes Its Toll
Most of us have fond memories of our childhood homes, so it’s hard to imagine the lives of less fortunate kids. But far too many youngsters spend their earliest years in homes that are ravaged by poverty and neglect. Many of these children are physically and emotionally abused by parents who are at their wits’ end, who quarrel and drink and sometimes disappear or turn to crime. These parents’ demons take over the home, leaving little room for nurturance and love. Life is doubly unfair for these neglected and abused kids, because they are also much more likely to continue suffering as adults.
