Two words: Love and Community. Where do the two meet? It strikes me that without love, there is no community, in the most fundamental sense. Love (of the romantic variety) gives way to partnership and children and growing families to extended families to villages to towns to commerce to cities to countries and so forth. Then […]
Without community, I’d be dead. In my short life (35 years), I’ve had the unique experience of living with two completely opposite communities. One of them fully rejected me and tried to change who I was as a person. The other one accepted me completely as I was and tried to help me bring about
A Tale of Two Communities Read More »
Many of us lock ourselves into one role: “I am a businessperson,” “I am a parent,” “I am a runner.” But in reality, we each have many roles in life. We are all citizens and humans. We have additional roles in our families, careers, schools, and communities. The truth is that we are happiest and
Fulfilling and Balancing Our Roles in Life Read More »
Someone I trust offered me some sage advice years ago. “Never talk about politics, money, or religion with people who you haven’t seen naked.” Although I didn’t know it then, his words to the unwise have kept me out of trouble on more than one occasion. Along the road of life, I’ve taken a more
The Church of Sport Read More »
As I introduced in my first column, my dad taught me how to play chess when I was 10 years old. By the time I was 11, I was running a local chess club and by 12 years old I was competing in USCF tournaments, sometimes winning hundreds or thousands of dollars in prize money.
Checkmate: What My 6th Grade Chess Club Taught Me About Community Read More »
Success doesn’t happen in a vacuum. American folklore is thick with the lone hero motif; that misunderstood visionary who follows his heart and bootstraps his way to success. Even now, the mythology endures, as if Steve Jobs built the iPhone all by himself or Martha Stewart bakes all the cakes. As much as some would like you
February 2016: Success in Community Read More »
On this week’s Past Present podcast, Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, and Neil Young discuss Playboy magazine’s decision to stop publishing nude photos, the strength and stability of the nation’s political parties, and the whitening of American cities. Playboy Many commentators attributed Playboy’s decision to stop publishing nude photos as the inevitable result for a
Past Present Podcast: Playboy, Political Parties, and the Whitening of American Cities Read More »