People say, “Have a happy New Year” referring to the Jewish high holyday of Rosh HaShana, starting this evening. I’m no Grinch and I appreciate the sentiment, but it’s all wrong. I wouldn’t mind if people said, “Make it a happy new year,” but “Have a happy new year,” misses the point. Being happy is...
I love girls. Not only am I one, but I have six daughters and four granddaughters. My best friends (with the exception of my husband) are women. You get the idea. My female family and friends are smart and talented. Many of them are politically involved, but I would say that it is to everyone’s...
It is easy to feel out of it when I don’t recognize the stars gracing the magazine covers in the supermarket check-out line. It is easy to feel like a recent immigrant from another planet when I still prefer to receive my news from a print newspaper rather than online or from the host of...
If you don’t ask, you won’t receive. How many times have you heard that? Yet many of us shy away from asking for what we need or want. Not asking is mostly the reason for not getting. Here’s why we find it hard to ask. 1) Deep down we don’t feel worthy of whatever we...
Sabotaging our own success is so common that psychologists frequently explore why so many people wreck their relationships, careers and life-goals. We tend to undermine our own dreams chiefly in three ways. A) Self-destructive behavior such as excessive and unwholesome involvement with alcohol, food, sex, or drugs. B) Procrastinating by means of television, movies, or...
A few people who read that my son and his classmates were going to be penalized in their medical school grades for missing so many days while fully observing the fall Jewish holidays, wrote me that they saw this as religious discrimination. I disagree. As a mother, I was certainly unhappy to hear that my...
“All you need is love,” sang the Beatles in 1967. A pretty sentiment to be sure, but a poor roadmap for life as proven by the young and confused of that generation whose lives were shaped by a fateful summer of love two years later. Love is wonderful but alone, it is hardly adequate. One...
Fall brings with it lots of lovely activities: apple picking, jumping in piles of leaves and, if you live in the Pacific Northwest, the Puyallup Fair. If you know how to pronounce ‘Puyallup,’ you have probably been to this fair which has been a September highlight for our family for the past twenty years. Ten...
