📚#127: School in NYC Doesn't Sound Fun
📚#127: School in NYC Doesn't Sound Fun
Greetings from Taipei 👋 This weekend people get together and grill with friends and family for Mid-Autumn moon festival. I also learned Chinese for “I’m full”
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#1 School & Identity
Being a parent and raising kids in the NYC school system doesn’t sound fun. This essay is a deep dive into how crazy trying to navigate even the public school system is and how political ideals are taking over. The student in the story asks:
“Isn’t school for learning math and science and reading,” he asked us one day, “not for teachers to tell us what to think about society?”
#2 “Career Trajectory”
I believe that the idea that one should have a “steady career trajectory” is a relic of a peculiar time in Western history in the 1950s and 60s when only some people were in the workforce and there was 4-5% annual growth.
#3 The American Obsession With Work
An op-ed from a professor that argues we should look at work as a duty to others rather than just looking to find meaning from it. His starting point is that America is in a unique position as being obsessed with work:
While other wealthy nations have shortened the workweek, given their citizens more free time and schemed to make their lives more pleasant, stress-free and enjoyable, the United States offers a curious paradox: Though the standard of living has risen, and creature comforts are more readily and easily available — and though technological innovations have made it easier to work efficiently — people work more, not less.
He cherry picks a letter from Seneca to make a point about duty to others but failes to mention the fact that Romans held a certain sense of leisure as a higher aim than work, which I wrote about here. I think writing about someone like Thomas Aquinas might have been a better fit, who said:
#4 Vulnerability
Mark Manson on vulnerability. He has a simple but powerful way of communicating that I think likely resonates with even the most stubborn men. I love this idea and its something I need to do more of:
Telling someone you appreciate/admire/respect/love them – This might be the ultimate form of vulnerability, and it’s probably the easiest one to mess up as well (more on that soon).
#5 A Quote
From WH Murray:
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.
I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!”
Chart of the Week: Another housing bubble or new normal?
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