October, 2015 The eighth graders at Boston Latin School were given IQ tests. They didn’t tell us the results but years later, in the 11th grade, our homeroom teacher left our student files on his desk when he left the room and we immediately opened them up and found our scores. My score was 141, which…
September, 2017 I hate it when people say “Do your best.” Or even worse, “You can do better than that.” I know they believe they’re being helpful, but they’re not. At least not to me. I believe that we are all doing the best we can at any given moment, and if we could…
October, 2017 For the last 40 years I have exercised almost every day (roughly 350 days a year). I have either jogged for half an hour or spent an hour walking or using the stationery bike. I have also done stretches and lifted light weights for another half-hour or so. At about the same…
October, 2016 Life is like a lottery. There are winners and losers. But you can affect your chances of being in the winners group. This is illustrated in the story of the religious man who had devoted his life to God and to helping others. He realized that if he won the lottery he…
November, 2016 I once took a course on Buddhism with a Unitarian minister who characterized one of the central tenets of Buddhism as “Suffering is the difference between the way things are and the way you want them to be.” I had read a lot about Buddhism before, and when I heard this, the…