Finding Balance with Regards to Crime

Last week, while reading a chapter from economist and social thinker Thomas Sowell's Knowledge and Decisions, this statement jumped off the page: “While the concept of an ‘optimal’ quantity of crime may be uncomfortable, it is also clear that no one is prepared to devote half the Gross National Product to stamping out every residual trace of gambling.”

It is a bracing statement. Steven Spielberg's Minority Report immediately came to mind. In the film crime is nearly eliminated through pre-crime technology that arrests individuals before they act. The result is remarkable safety—but at the cost of due process and moral agency. The film underscores this same tension Sowell sites: in trying to eradicate crime completely, a society may sacrifice the very freedom it seeks to protect.

No one likes the idea that some level of crime may be inevitable. We instinctively want safety to be absolute. Yet Sowell’s point, and Spielberg's, is not that crime is acceptable, but that trade-offs are unavoidable.

Every society must balance liberty, cost, and security. Eliminating every infraction would require a surveillance state, vast expenditures, and a level of intrusion most citizens would reject. Cameras on every corner, or as in Orwell's 1984, every home. Police in every transaction. Bureaucracy in every exchange. The cure would likely become more oppressive than the disease.

The American experiment has always wrestled with this tension. We prize freedom—freedom of movement, enterprise, speech, and association. But freedom carries risk. A society that leaves room for initiative also leaves room for misconduct. The question is not whether crime can be reduced; it can and should be. The question is how far we are willing to go, and at what cost to other goods and values we cherish.

There's also a moral dimension. A mature society must distinguish between different kinds of wrongdoing. Violent crime threatens life and order and demands serious response. Other offenses—regulatory violations, minor vice crimes, youthful mistakes—raise different considerations. Treating all infractions as equally intolerable can produce overcriminalization, overcrowded prisons, and strained public budgets without meaningfully improving safety.

Finding balance requires clarity about priorities. Government’s primary duty is protection, but protection must be proportionate. Resources are finite. Tax dollars spent on marginal enforcement are dollars not spent on schools, infrastructure, or public health. Excessive time spent policing low-level infractions may be time not spent addressing serious threats.

Another out of balance feature is that because of efforts to hold police under the spotlight lest they misbehave, they now spend four hours out of a twelve-hour shift filling out paperwork. This distrust of police ties up more of an officer's time so that they have less time for responding to real crime. (EdNote: These numbers from our Duluth police department may vary from other police districts.)

George Orwell warned, “In a society in which there is no law, and no police, and no one willing to enforce order, there is no freedom.” Freedom is not the absence of authority; it is the presence of reliable order. Businesses large and small depend on contracts being enforced, property being protected, and disputes being settled peacefully. When theft, vandalism, and intimidation go unchecked, commerce shrinks and ordinary people retreat. When businesses close it also reduces the number of jobs available. And as statistics show, fewer jobs has a direct correlation to higher crime.

Movements to “defund the police,” whatever their intentions, risk weakening the very conditions that allow neighborhoods and businesses to flourish. Police accountability matters, but dismantling enforcement erodes trust and investment. Law and order are not enemies of liberty—they are its scaffolding.

In the end, the search for balance reflects a deeper truth: human beings are imperfect, and any free society must manage that imperfection without surrendering the very freedoms it seeks to defend. No question that finding balance is an ongoing challenge, but wisdom isn't found in extremes. Finding the "Golden Mean" is an imperative.

The Complex Balance Between Optimism and Pessimism

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Maybe you're a hybrid who believes he or she is a realist.

While reading a long list of quotes on the theme of "Progress" I came upon this distinctive statement expressing Christopher Spranger's cynicism toward the notion:

"So much havoc has optimism wrought in this world that pessimism appears not only a legitimate way of looking at things but a moral duty."

Spranger was a German philosopher who thought a lot about pessimism and culture. He believed that blind optimism can deceive us into neglecting life's complexities and the struggles inherent in human existence. It's one of the biggest traps that politicians and voters fall into. Legislators push an idea and voters buy into it without understanding that the devil is in the details. 

This tendency toward blind optimism is so pervasive when it comes to most political projects that one wonders how our legislators can be so perpetually in the dark. 

When I first moved to Northern Minnesota there was a big push to promote the Iron Range as a tourist destination. Proponents for Iron World exclaimed that six million people a year would come visit this wonderful tribute to open pit mining. 

The funds came in abundance. The people did not. 

The problem isn't optimism, which breeds its own kind of hope. Rather, the problem is an optimism that has no foundation in reality. 

This is my problem with the EV crusade. Proponents envision a future powered by renewable energy. Fat chance, considering the way things are going now. The only way to get there will be by means of nuclear energy, but the Greens who insist we transition away from oil and coal ignore the science on this one. We are a very, very, very long ways off from an energy grid powered by renewables alone.  

Being optimistic doesn't change reality. Gamblers are frequently optimistic and feel it in their bones, but their optimism has no bearing upon the outcomes generated. 

On the other hand, portraying pessimism as an unequivocal moral duty oversimplifies these matters as well. Pessimism, while offering a cautious perspective, can sometimes lead to stagnation, a lack of innovation, and a defeatist attitude. Embracing pessimism as an absolute moral imperative may discourage necessary ventures and initiatives that drive progress. It's essential to remember that both optimism and pessimism have the potential to influence actions and shape outcomes.

No one starts a new business with the intention of ending in bankruptcy court. A tempered optimism is a fairly essential mindset for business leaders and job seekers. Even here, as former Intel chief Andy Grove asserted, Only the Paranoid Survive. 

Optimism, with its emphasis on hope, progress, and the potential for positive change, has indeed been associated with unintended consequences. History is replete with examples where unwavering optimism led to complacency, overlooking potential risks, and even causing harm. As such, Spranger's proposition highlights the necessity of tempering optimism with a healthy dose of critical evaluation and prudence.
 

Each outlook has its place, I suppose. The challenge is finding the equilibrium between them to navigate a world fraught with uncertainties.

Polarity Management: A Tool for Managing Complex Problems

30 years ago or os my brother Ron (Dr. Ron Newman, a PhD psychologist) introduced me to the concept of polarity management. For Ron, thinking about polarities and finding balance has been a lifelong habit of his, almost an involuntary obsession. Once you become aware of the variety of ways polarities emerge, you can't help but notice them yourselves. 

Examples abound. Security vs. freedom, efficiency vs. creativity, competition vs. cooperation. Polarity management is a tool to help us manage or resolve complex issues. The key idea is to understand that opposites are not necessarily enemies.

The goal is not to find a solution that eliminates one of the opposites, but rather to find a way to manage the tension between them in a manner that is productive and sustainable. 

Here's another example that happened with an acquaintance of mine. After a very busy time in his life he decided to go live on a beach in Florida for a year. After four months he was so bored he found a job that was fulfilling for 18 months but not something he wanted to do for the rest of his life. During this period he recognized his calling and followed that for the rest of his life.

Too much activity left him exhausted and he opted for inactivity. This resulted in a sense of meaninglessness, which propelled him to think more deeply about why he was here on earth. Ultimately he found fulfillment in a career that involved helping others.

My brother publishes a column about seeking balance that we hope will become a book or series of books. Topics he's written about include seeking balance with anger, depression, anxiety, happiness, grief, aspects of parenting and more. As a Christian counsellor he has spent more than two decades training church leaders in South America and elsewhere on this principle of finding balance.

Aristotle's Golden Mean is a similar concept in philosophy. Moral virtue lies between the two extremes of excess and deficiency. For example, finding the balance between recklessness and boldness is the path to virtue.

Giving is an example of this challenge. Stinginess is one end of the spectrum, extravagant giving to the neglect of paying your bills and neglecting your children is at the other end of the scale. How do we find the Golden Mean? For each of us this can be a perplexing problem in a world where there is so much need.

What about fun? Is "fun" the purpose of life? Or is laughter something that we enjoy because it lightens our load as we pursue our responsibilities? You can read my thoughts on that topic here: Eudaemonia vs. Hakuna Matata: Two Views on the Pursuit of Happiness

Much more can be said but I have to catch a plane. You can read a few of my brother's articles here... and encourage him to continue his writings. He's thought deeply on this topic for a very long time and has a bundle of useful insights.

Have a great weekend.

Let's Face It. A Lot of People Are Suffering. Here Are Some Links to Useful Grief Resources

Losses can be devastating. It can be like a wound that initially feels numb, but then the pain hits you with an unexpected intensity. For some, the wound can become infected and require a more complicated healing process. Over time, the wound may heal, but the scar remains as a reminder of the pain and loss you endured. For some, the wound never fully heals.
--Dr. Ron Newman

Loss has always been a part of life, and alongside loss is that inner anguish we've come to label "Grief." The above is a quote from my brother's article Seeking Balance When Experiencing Grief.

I've already noted in several blog posts that 2020 is a year very few could have imagined. The economic challenges are pervasive and news stories somewhat striking, but when families lose loved ones, it's very personal. We're not just statistics. Their absence, especially when sudden and unexpected, leaves a massive hole in our hearts.

For this reason it's good to be aware of resources that are available to soften the wound and aid in healing. That is the purpose of this blog post. The trigger for this post was discovering that Quiet Heart Music has a new website: https://quietheartcomfort.com/

* * * *

So far COVID deaths are currently more than three-quarters of a million globally, more than 170,000 in the U.S. There may be a few, but most people have friends and family members who have had hearts broken this year, and more to come. Are you among those who have lost a loved one?

Pianist Henry Wiens has spent a lifetime producing and sharing music designed to comfort those who are hurting. Through Quiet Heart Music Henry sought to provide a meaningful, inexpensive alternative to sending flowers to friends, co-workers and employees who have lost loved ones. Flowers are a temporary token, but you can tell that many people today are requesting that "in lieu of flowers" you should consider giving to a charity that the loved one cared about.

Giving music that truly heals those who are left behind is another alternative. (EdNote: My intention here is not to put florists out of business. It is to add options to friends and family, especially an option that contributes to the well-being of someone you care about, the ones left behind.)

I found this note about the gift of music in one of my old journals:

Music is one of the more fantastic gifts of God. It lifts the soul on wings to ethereal inner spaces. Nothing more effectively breaks life’s monotonous hold on us, transporting us to the portals of paradise. How do musicians and composers do it? From nothing & emptiness they bring forth combinations of sounds, melodies, themes, so pregnant with feeling it seems an inexplicable mystery. Rainbows of sound, trembling with life, causing our hearts to break open with rapture, or sweet sorrow.--Journal Notes, June 30, 1993

* * * *

The new Quiet Heart website allows you to listen to Henry's music free, something I heartily recommend. Then purchase the CDs that you most relate to. (I have all, but also have favorites.) In addition to being a potent form of healing, Henry's music is perfectly suited as a background track for writers and artists. It doesn't intrude. Like a light breeze on a summer's eve it carries you along on its wings.

* * * *

Another truly valuable feature of the site is a section titled Grief Resources. One page in this section has links to an overabundance of articles on grief by Dr. Alan D. Wolfelt. In one of these he writes, "Grief is not a train track toward acceptance. Instead, it is more of a 'getting lost in the woods' and almost always gives rise to a mixture of many thoughts and feelings at once.

There are links to more than 50 articles dealing with all aspects of grief. Some deal with grief in general, some with helping you in your grief, or with helping others through their grieving. Others deal with grief with regards to specific situations like suicide, or grieving children or teens. Life is hard, and I know first hand how isolating it is to suddenly lose someone close when you are a teen. There are even sections to help hospice workers and funeral directors.

Visit this page for the grief resources noted above:
https://quietheartcomfort.com/grief-resources/

For what it's worth, Henry Wiens is a beautiful man with a beautiful spirit. You can feel it in his music.

Related Links
Henry Wiens Talks About the Power of Music as an Agent of Healing and Hope
Healing the Hurting Through Music
Quiet Heart Testimonials
A Grief Observed, by C.S. Lewis

Does Holding Down a Job and Paying Your Bills Mean You Sold Out Your Dream?

This morning's eNewsletter from AEON began with an excellent article by Thomas Maloney titled, The Creed of Compromise: Don’t throw in the day job to follow your dream. The subtitle elaborates the them: Join the bifurcattors who juggle work-for-pay and their work-for-love.

The article is directed toward every person who has ever wondered if they should quit their day job to follow their passion.

You know the issue. You have talent. Maybe you're an artist or writer, an actor or musician. You feel like you're selling yourself short by not going after your dream. Then again, you look at the numbers and you know you need the money to pay the bills.

Maloney's article is directed directly at people in this situation. In his case he's a writer, but it could be someone who wants to start his or her own business. Part of the article deals with the dilemma.

The problem has many facets. One of them has to do with what kind of employment path to take to pay the bills. "Some choose a job that corresponds with higher dreams," he writes. "Others work in a disparate field for the money so as to not contaminate their passion."

Maloney chose to work in at a hedge fund. I myself pursued a career that utilized my skills, landing a job as a writer and building on that to a career in advertising. For both Mahoney and myself it was a compromise, but one we accepted. We also each felt fortunate that we had jobs that were sufficient to take care of our needs. Not everyone is so fortunate, as he notes here.

"What’s certain is that not everyone has the opportunity to do a stint in a well-paid but mildly perplexing job, even if they wanted to. Many school-leavers and graduates face a choice between several uninspiring jobs that are all badly paid, and a passion that pays nothing at all."

Maloney's article explores all the facets of this issue, like a jeweler examining the faces of a gem from multiple angles. When it comes to the matter of moonlighting he writes that "moonlighting is undoubtedly an uncomfortable business. By dividing finite time and energy between two endeavors, bifurcators inevitably feel they aren’t doing either as well as they could."

Further on, he places another aspect of the matter on the table. Whichever path your pursue, the dream or the job, you can still end up experiencing regret.

Advocates of dream-following, of commitment and career leaps of faith, often say: ‘You’ll regret it if you don’t.’ They might be right about that (actually, they almost certainly are). But here’s the rub: regret is not the sole preserve of the cautious compromiser. A failure to compromise can also beget future unhappiness. Some of your sacrifices might come back to haunt you.

If you've ever wrestled with any aspect of this dilemma,  I recommend the full article here on Aeon.

* * * *
Last summer I attended an Op-Ed workshop with author Michael Fedo who was in Duluth for a book signing, a book that also addresses this very same topic: Don't Quite Your Day Job. A review of Fedo's book is at the end of my blog post Notes from an Op-Ed Writing Workshop.

Whatever you choose, choose to make a difference.

Seeking Balance In Your Marriage

GUEST BLOG POST

Marriage has many challenges and many rewards. When healthy marital principles are not followed, a couple gets out of balance in a way that undermines marital satisfaction. Here are some guidelines which can make yours even more fruitful.

Hold onto your wedding vows. You make some serious statements of commitment right in the beginning of your marriage which often are forgotten in time. Review them, perhaps on your anniversary each year. Reflect on the power of the words you have spoken to each other. It can help remind you of the reason you married in the first place.

Create a safe environment to communicate. If it is not safe for your partner to speak the truth, the relationship will get undermined by the façade that develops in an effort to increase a person’s sense of security. Exercising self-control when angry is one necessary ingredient in providing this safe setting.

Communicate honestly. Dishonesty will undermine any relationship. Speak truth to one another at all times, even when it hurts to do so. Honesty builds trust.

Accept influence from one another. Healthy relationships take into account the desires and opinions of the other person and are willing to be influenced by them. The “my way or the highway” approach only breeds resistance and resentment, as it reflects a selfishness that is hardened against healthy influence. The old saying “two are better than one” has to be understood in the context of two people interested in helping one another, not just using one another as a means to a more selfish end.

Respect your differing strengths. In every partnership, interests and abilities will emerge that should be appreciated and respected. There may be a temptation to feel threatened and squelch the interests of your partner due to your insecurity. Instead, encourage them to develop those interests and skills.

Show appreciation. Love gets eroded in many marriages because a partner gets taken for granted after a while. Appreciation for their contributions to the relationship can prevent this from happening. You can learn new ways of showing your appreciation, but it first requires that you tune in to those contributions. Think of their value and worth as a person and to your family, and communicate it to them in a sincere manner.

Accept your sexuality. Yes, it is okay to talk about sex and to enjoy it. It is intended for pleasure and as a reinforcement of the bond in your relationship. Avoid using sex as a tool for manipulation of your partner. Resist any temptations beyond the boundaries of your marriage. Keep your sexual energy focused on your partner.

Solve problems together. Identify and brainstorm solutions to each of the problems you face. Allow the creative options to be expressed without criticism. Then evaluate together each option and decide together which you want to attempt first. Try again, if not successful.

Forgive daily. Apart from a gracious attitude that lets go of minor offenses and miscommunications, no relationship would survive. Major offenses take more work, including a serious apology with the reassurance that the offending party is making a major effort not to offend in that way again. Even when reconciliation is not advisable, it is important for you to forgive so that the negative effects of bitterness do not pull you into a dark place emotionally and even physically.

Fill each other’s “love tanks”. Tune into those areas which make your partner feel loved, and learn what behaviors on your end will help make the bond between you stronger. Is it the “I love you” stated verbally, even when your family never openly used those words? Is it different ways of making contact with one another, such as a hug or kiss when reunited at the end of a busy day? Your “habits” can change, so why not choose to help your partner feel even more loved?

If you follow the above guidelines in your marriage, you will find your marital bond grow even stronger over time. You will indeed have a more balanced marriage.

Ronald S. Newman, Ph.D., is a NJ licensed psychologist with offices in Hammonton and Linwood, NJ. He has been married for nearly 36 years, and has been working in Hammonton for the past 26 years. He can be reached at 609-567-9022 or write2balance@gmail.com.

One Evening, Many Insights @ #OneRiverMN

Last night we gathered for the second of several meetings in March for the One River, Many Stories project. The discussion topic for this week's panelists was Polymet: How Journalists Report On Tough Topics. I anticipated an excellent dialogue and was not disappointed. Special thanks to panelists Stephanie Hemphill, Aaron Brown and Marshall Helberger of the Timberjay Newspapers, and John Hatcher for serving as moderator for this week's discussion.

For those unfamiliar with the project, the overarching aim is to "See what happens when all the storytellers in one region turn their attention to one topic, the St. Louis River." Rivers are everywhere, and this is ours. What's intriguing is how this river connects the people of St. Louis County, which on a map consists of a vast region with seemingly disparate populations and demographics, yet runs through from its Iron Range headwaters to the shoulder of West Duluth.

UMD's John Hatcher introduces the panel.

On the table, front in center, the panelists had the task of answering this question: How do journalists navigate these kinds of polarizing issues, topics and themes?

For most of her career Stephanie Hemphill has served as news director at KUMD, and journalist for Minnesota Public Radio. She is now a freelancer. Aaron Brown is best known for his blog Minnesota Brown. And Marshall Helberger, along with wife Jody, runs three small newspapers serving the Iron Range communities of Tower-Soudan, Ely and Cook-Orr. We could not have had a better panel. (This last statement was opinion, not journalism.)

The timing for this discussion coincided with fresh news that cleared the way for the Polymet mining project to move a step forward and enter the next phase toward happening. The DNR yesterday ruled that the environmental review was adequate. The panel noted that Polymet supporters saw a victory and opponents saw it as a bump in the road. All agreed that journalism around hot topics like the Polymet mine has many challenges. "Accuracy is essential," Helberger said, noting that "misinformation spreads fast." He also stressed the importance of fairness and the importance of seeking common ground.

Though best known for his blog, Aaron makes his living teaching at a community college. He's grateful for his schooling and background in journalism which helped him to become a better blogger. One of Brown's credos is "seek to understand before trying to be understood."

The room was full as anticipated. Don't arrive late!

Stephanie Hemphill cited her three journalistic ruling principles as follows: fairness, seeking to understand and balance. She noted that sometimes presenting the fair and balanced perspective is difficult when one side refuses to return phone calls. "Companies that don't reply will look bad."

Hatcher's next question: How do you handle the polarization of views on an issue like this?

Hemphill said, "I try to maintain balance, not advocacy."

Helberger said they try to write for a general audience. They're aware that issues have diverse viewpoints. On a controversial issue like this one which has been so ongoing for so long, they know it is important to write about other things. This is not the only news story in the region. They also take pains to keep their opinions on the opinion page and out of the news.

Brown said, "It's different, but not that different, being a blogger. He emphasized the importance of being a person of good will. "When you mix news and opinion too much you will not perceived as a person of good will." It also gives more impact if he keeps opinions and reporting separate.

Hatcher zeroed in on some of Aaron Brown's recently expressed exasperation with the adversarial nature of the discussion on Polyment.

"It's frustrating because it's time to move on, to talk about other topics. This story has become an obsession for the whole region. [There's a] disproportionate amount of time spent discussing something that may or may not happen. There are many other issues that need to be talked about."

Ms. Hemphill, being Duluth-based, has not done many stories on Polymet, and added that "here in Duluth there are [currently] no issues that generate heat like Polymet does on the Range."

Mr. Helberger shared how getting people to sit around a table face-to-face in dialogue is useful. It's much easier to hate people you don't have to look straight in the eye.

When Aaron Brown writes he's aware that some of his readers are people he will be running into at the deli or grocery store. The Iron Range is a tight knit community. Families have been connected for generations. People don't like to disagree because they don't want to be disagreeable. "Polymet is portrayed as a political story, but I believe it is a cultural story. It's a set of communities that have strong identities with mining contrasted with people who perceive Northern Minnesota as a pristine getaway. There are two different [opposing] worldviews."

There were many additional comments and insights gained by the question and answer period afterwards. One gentleman from St. Louis shared how his brother had been a journalist in Viet Nam and missed one of the major stories even as it happened under his nose. Front row seats don't always give us the best view.

Personally, I am looking forward to seeing where this leads, and learning more about this river that feeds the largest freshwater lake in the world. 

Slow Living Versus the Rush and Roar of Fast Track Life

"There's something about the pace of life that makes it difficult to really slow down and assess where we're going and how we're doing on this journey called life." ~ Ed Young

Modern people feel hurried and harried
Swamped, buried, crushed by demands on their time
Overwhelmed, adrift on the high seas
Lives thrown out of balance….

Everything takes time. Work fills the days a large portion of our waking hours five days a week or more if you have two jobs to make ends meet. Then there's time involved in making meals and eating them…. Shopping, fueling, running errands, driving kids to friends’ houses...

Dishes, cleaning, laundry, …. Coaching sports, church and community commitments, …
Often there are the needs of ailing parents … family responsibilities…. Don't forget your exercise regimen…

Everything conspires to eat our time. As John Lennon aptly satated, “Sometimes life gets in the way of living.”

This harried existence isn't entirely new. In one of my files I have a quote from an 1880's issue of The Atlantic complaining about the pace of life. Earlier in the last century Franz Kafka likewise expressed dismay at the rapid pace of modern life.

The result is people feel stressed and fatigued. They are not looking for more ways to fill their time; they are searching for ways to free up time.

It's against this backdrop that the Slow Living movement has begun to find legs. Walking and biking aren't just suggested as ways to leave a smaller carbon footprint. They're encouraged as a way to get us to slow down. Speed kills. It winds us up and stresses us out.

Fast Living is something akin to eating without chewing, swallowing life experiences whole rather than taking time to savor them.

When in junior high school I took a speed reading class and learned that the eye only sees when it stops. If you ever read about the study of eye movements while reading, you discover we can grab little batches of words and bounce to the next cluster, rather than going one at a time. We can speed up our reading by increasing the batch of text we process, but even here there are limits to what we can read and retain. When reading for information fast reading can serve a purpose, but when devouring a poem it's a whole other matter.

So it is that in recent years we've seen increasing numbers of articles on the topic of slow living, and books like Carl Honore's In Praise of Slowness.

I first became aware of the concept of Slow Living through a friend from Italy who said the slow movement was slowly getting big in Europe. Here's an excerpt from a website devoted to this trend.

Living a mindful life seems more difficult now than it was in the past. The fast life is all around us – fast food, fast cars, fast conversations, fast families, fast holidays. We may be living great lives but we aren’t ‘there’ for them. We don’t take the time to linger over food, over friends, over our family etc. We are not savouring our life and are starving of the real connection to our life.

The solution is self-explanatory. We slow down and connect with our life. But often it is easier said than done. Each fast aspect of our life is necessary for other fast aspects to happen, and we have been fooled into thinking we need, or even must, be fast and have what the ‘fast life’ gives us.

So why are we averse to slowing down? Have we simply forgotten how? I don't think that's the whole of it. I was reading a Facebook post by my son who was a chef at a Savannah restaurant at the time. He talked about the adrenaline rush of getting everything assembled behind the scenes in a tinely manner each night. Timing is everything, and the rush bumps up the thrill.

The same adrenaline rush occurs in newsrooms around the country. The six o'clock news goes live at six, and everything has to be ready for that moment. You can see this portrayed in George Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck, as well as in the older Broadcast News. I myself can experience a little rush of adrenaline as I try to finish my blog post in the hour before dressing and commuting to the office each morning. (Goal is to post each morning by seven.)

In short, fast living has a payoff for many people. The Slow Movement reminds us that there is a price to pay for getting so tightly wound by trying to seize every day by the throat to get the most out of it.

Arianna Huffington begins her bestselling Thrive by describing her breakdown as a result of a mad pace that included reduced hours for sleeping in order to manage more. One day she just fell over. She appeared tremendously successful at the helm of the influential Huffington Post, but her life was out of control.

In an interview on the Amazon.com Thrive page, she states, "I had my personal wake-up call on April 6, 2007, when I found myself on the floor in a pool of blood. I had collapsed from exhaustion, breaking my cheekbone and cutting my eye. I was working eighteen-hour days to build The Huffington Post, while being a mom to my two teenage daughters. What this wake-up call taught me was that even though I was considered successful by our society's conventional measures of success, I was not living a successful life by any sane definition of success. Something had to radically change in my life."

Aristotle's advice on this matter, were he to speak today, might be to look for the Golden Mean. That is, find the balance between these seemingly opposing ways of life. Do we live more effectively by maxing out our days? Huffington says no. It nearly killed her.

Meantime... life goes on all around you. Live mindfully.

The Case Against High School Sports

My brother is a practicing psychologist for whom the concept of balance is important. In a world with so many things out of balance, how does one find that golden mean with regard to issues such as anxiety, use of leisure time, giving, anger, industriousness, etc. There are a lot of things in life that are harmless, or can even be good, until they’re out of balance.

As I was passing through the Dayton Airport Friday I picked up the October issue of The Atlantic, in part because of Amanda Ripley’s feature highlighted on the cover, "How Sports Are Ruining High School." The story resonated with me because of a comment made by a retired teacher in our local high school district a few years ago. He said that in ten years they had not hired a new teacher who wasn’t also able to serve as an athletic coach.

Here's the intro to the article: “The United States routinely spends more tax dollars per high-school athlete than per high-school math student—unlike most countries worldwide. And we wonder why we lag in international education rankings?” How far do we lag behind? The U.S., according to Ripley, ranks 31st in international math tests.

She cites an economic study in which one public high school in the northwest was spending $328 per math student and $1,348 per cheerleader.

The article is sympathetic to the benefits of sports, including exercise, sportsmanship and perseverance, as well as school spirit. But at what price?

As school budgets get ever tighter, we see arts and music teachers being squeezed out altogether. But the marching band plays on. And taxpayers foot the bill for the stadiums they play in.

Speaking of taxpayers picking up the tab, the same issue of The Atlantic carried an excellent piece of investigative reporting on how the NFL fleeces taxpayers in all these stadium deals. Owners hold whole cities hostage unless they're willing to fork over the cash.

But we need our sports fix.

Confession: I'm a Browns fan. I also follow Major League Baseball during the playoffs. The question I'm raising is how do we find balance in all these things? Is NFL Football our modern equivalent of the Roman empire's bread and circuses?

Actually, the Bible has something to say about some of this. The author of Ecclesiastes, well aware our burdens and hardships, wrote "So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun." (NIV) Or as the King James Version puts it, "Eat, drink and be merry."

The entertainment industry, of which sports is a part, does serve a purpose. There was probably an amateur stand up comedian in every village in Europe at one time. Olympic games of a sort are as old as the Greeks. I'm only trying to open a dialogue on this matter of balance.

Meantime, life goes on... all around you.

Peace and Quiet

The fruit of Silence is Prayer.
The fruit of Prayer is Faith.
The fruit of Faith is Love.
The fruit of Love is Service.
The fruit of Service is Peace.
~Mother Theresa

We live such frantic lives these days, rushing to check email, our Facebook friends and all manner of activities, attending events, working on projects... not to mention our manifold career and family responsibilities. And when the children are in the home, rushing here and there to soccer games, baseball games, hockey practice, scouts, and friends' houses.....

We feel good about not having to haul water from the well as they did in the old days, or chop wood, but maybe that wasn't such a bad thing. They were active instead sitting in chairs and moving from the computer to the easy chair to the car seat during one's commute to the seat at the office.

I like the title of that Nicholson film, "Something's Gotta Give." Don't know what, don't know when, don't know where, but as much as I like to say "embrace life to the full" I also understand you need to pull back now and then to re-center. It's a matter of balance.

How you doin' in that department?