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Permission to Be Age-Inappropriate
When I was four, my family moved from Venezuela – where we were all born – to Boston, Massachusetts. My mom, Iginia Alamo, was ecstatic to live in a latitude where she could pursue a long-held dream: to alpine ski. She promptly packed all five kids in her Chevy Malibu and headed to the mountains. She was almost 40 when she stepped into ski bindings and made her first shaky turn on a slippery slope. It was an act of defiance. The prevailing counsel was that middle-aged women should not take on a sport known to break bones. My mom’s willingness to engage in age-inappropriate behavior, however, was what allowed her to glide between snowy aspens, sip hot chocolate in Colorado huts flanked by 14,000-foot peaks and create precious winter
The Splendor of the Small: A Lesson from Tia Lila
Every week for over 30 years, my aunt in Caracas, Venezuela, “Tia Lila,” has sent a collective email to me and her other far-flung family members. These dispatches typically start with national news, such as the injustices committed by Venezuela’s dictator du jour, followed by family news, such as marriages and surgeries. Every one of her emails ends with a spiritual lesson. Sandwiched between the news and lesson, however, there’s typically a perplexing meaty middle that consists of pleasant drivel. Topics have included the fries she served at lunch and the state of her favorite walking cane. Tia Lila’s triviality troubled me. How could she follow up news of her sister’s ICU admittance with an observation about cooked potatoes? Why did she think her cane’s new scratch merited reporting? These
The Sagebrush Oracle on a Fulfilling Life
I looked it up. The Sagebrush Oracle appears to be right! The probability of a full-time worker being fulfilled in life if they’re unfulfilled at work is 2%, according to research (Aaron Hurst and Nicole Resch, “2019 Workforce Purpose Index: Pathways to Fulfillment at Work,” Imperative, 2019). For more on the relationship between meaningful work and personal wellbeing, check out chapter 3 of Do Good at Work. PS: If you have any questions for The Sagebrush Oracle, send them my way! I’ll ask as I shuffle by it on my trail runs.
A hopeful message from today’s Equinox
Does the news leave you feeling like darkness is overtaking the world? If so, here’s a lesson from an unlikely source: astronomy (and, no, I don’t mean astrology). Today’s Equinox might have a message for us. The word Equinox originates from the Latin “aequus” meaning equal and “nox” meaning night. Our forebearers got it right: Two days a year the Sun and Earth align in a way to theoretically, at least, result in night and day being equally long. Today is one of those days. Earth is transitioning from leaning back as if relaxing to forward as if bowing to the Sun. All of March 20th, 2025, our planet has either zero or near-zero tilt. This upright alignment means that the Sun’s rays hit Earth straight on, lighting up exactly
The mistake we make living our values
My grandmother, Iginia Alamo, once befriended a woman intent on ousting my grandfather, Antonio Alamo, from the Venezuelan government. My grandfather didn’t object to the friendship. In fact, he instigated it. The family foe and friend, Maria Josefa Aristeguieta, had recently co-led a nearly successful insurrection that had killed a governor, among many others. My grandfather was the newly appointed replacement for the deceased governor and, thus, a target for Maria Josefa’s activism. How did my grandparents end up cozying up to a dangerous antagonist? Soon after my grandfather assumed his governorship, the police chief boasted that his men were humiliating Maria Josefa with intrusive surveillance while she was under house arrest. Instead of being thankful, my grandfather ordered the police overreach to stop immediately. After completing her sentence, Maria
Whether you’re afflicted by loneliness or not, you’re affected by it
The United States is entering 2024 under a pall of loneliness. Many citizens feel that no one cares enough about them to properly see who they are. While the percentage of Americans suffering from loneliness has dropped since the lockdown-era spike, the long-term trend is an upward creep. As a result, loneliness appears to have more than tripled since the 1970’s and now affects a majority of us. Maybe you’re among the connected minority. You might have someone to call for advice or a supportive spouse to dine with. I hope you do. But if you think other people’s loneliness isn’t your problem, you’ve underestimated your interdependence and vulnerability. The level of loneliness afflicting society ought to concern you. If you’re a manager, more so. People who feel invisible, ignored
Racial justice will prevail despite current events
A summary of America’s 2023 racial-justice developments might read like this: – Hate crime increased. – Topics related to racism were censored out of K-12 and college classrooms. – Politicians attacked corporate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. – Federal courts and state governments struck down or crippled long-time programs that support disadvantaged individuals and businesses. – CEO’s who once decried racial transgressions turned mum. No wonder a client lamented that the United States is hopelessly racist and heading toward institutionalized injustice (again). I have hopeful news for her and others distraught by the above developments. On its way out of Hickman, Kentucky, the Mississippi river flows northwest. If we made inferences from viewing that stretch, we’d conclude it was headed to Oregon. To understand that the forces driving the Mississippi toward Louisiana will prevail,
Are you dancing around the void?
I recently noticed that the word avoidance is a mishmash of three words: A void dance. It’s an apt metaphor for the clumsy way many of us cope with the purpose void that sullies our work. We ignore this gaping deficiency and focus on performing the choreographed steps in our job description: attend staff meetings, respond to emails, smile at customers. We awkwardly waltz around what we sorely miss. We perform a void dance or avoidance. Imagine if instead of sidestepping it, we stood at the precipice of meaninglessness and peered into its darkness. Why? Because by charting the contours of the emptiness that ails us, we discover the terrain of our own heart. We learn to navigate our way to wholeness. Interested? The simple exercise that follows will get
