Category Archive

Compass values ensure decision-making is aligned with your authentic motives, mores and plans for growth. The book I am reading suggests that you can hone in on compass values by reviewing how you view life, work and your current narrative. I am not a natural at reading self-help books, and it takes repeated effort to set aside time to follow …

I’m in a state of transition. My kids are about to leave home, and for the past 20 years they have served as the axis around which our lives revolved. In preparation for the departure of our eldest (this autumn), I am trying to fill my time with pursuits and relationships that will sustain me once the kids are out …

Monday mornings at the beach are a favorite guilty pleasure. This morning the surf report predicted a 2-3 foot swell at my local break, so I dropped my son off at school for an early class, loaded up the car and headed over. The only other person in the water was a friendly crane operator I’d met in the lineup …

Work can be paid or unpaid. For paid work, time is exchanged for income. While ideally it has features that overlap with unpaid work, it is ultimately done in response to the external need to pay the bills. It often involves some degree of stress as well as answering to others on their terms and at their convenience. Unpaid work …

I am reading the book How to Live a Meaningful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, a couple of professors at Stanford, as part of a virtual book club I belong to. The group is comprised of middle-aged professionals, some with workaholic tendencies, who are trying to navigate the next stage of life and exploring if there’s another iteration …

We are a couple of years away from the empty nest, which has started me thinking about how to configure our home for the next chapter of our lives. To be clear, this is a recreational activity for me, not a stressor. I like to spend time envisioning the future, thinking about the different variations it might manifest as, and …

Our oldest will graduate high school this year, and our youngest will leave the nest a couple of years later. Having kids grow up and leave provides an opportunity to reflect on many decisions we made when we had just started our family and purchased a home. This is my assessment of what worked, what didn’t and what we might …

The title comes from a favorite saying from a long-time reader back in the day, and I recalled it for a couple of reasons. First, I learned that a favorite coffee house I used to frequent as a med student had shuttered back in 2022. It was a place where Robin Williams had once been spotted grabbing a pick me …

Dear A, In 2002, I was a resident in Emergency Medicine finishing up my training at XXXX. I’d arranged through one of our part-time faculty to rotate through the Nairobi Hospital for about 6 weeks. When my sister mentioned to a friend that I was heading to Nairobi, her friend noted that her older brother’s good friend was working there …

[Some time ago, I came across the recommendation to write thank you letters on a regular basis as part of a gratitude practice. What follows is my first attempt.] Dear E, If you are receiving this, it probably took a few minutes of amateur internet sleuthing to track you down. Let’s get a few things straight out of the gate …