In 1975 when I started in business school, directly following my undergraduate years, I think I owned one blue blazer and a pair of blue/grey/cranberry plaid pants. I recall having to wear those as a senior since I was the President of a large student organization and was called on to speak several times before groups of corporate recruiters and alumni. No one expects an Arts & Sciences student majoring in economics and government to…
In ancient times there was a practice of assisted stretching that dated back thousands of years, rooted in spiritual rituals and ancient healing systems. Partner-assisted stretches were part of yogic tradition in ancient India, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) that used passive stretching in Tuina massage, and Thai monks, who developed Nuad Thai (Thai Yoga Massage) combining guided stretches and acupressure. Ancient cultures had remarkably sophisticated reasons for assisted stretching. The motivations fell into a few…
Life has a way of happening in waves and right now we are in a travel planning wave. Note that I said travel planning, not travel. We are actually having a pretty light travel year due to modest planning and unforeseen changes which have caused us to cancel on two trips. That has left us with one foreign trip in September, one foreign trip in early 2027 and then a whole bunch of conversations which…
The thing about living out here in San Diego is that the weather is, simply perfect. I just asked Claude where the best place to live in the United States is in terms of comfort. Claude went through the preference Q&A needed to answer that sort of question, asking me about what sort of temperature I preferred (mild 60’s-70’s rather than warm 70’s-80’s) and what I wanted to avoid the most (humidity rather than cold/snow)…
I just had a silly epiphany today. I’m scheduled to take a Cinco de Mayo motorcycle ride for five days up to Utah and back. Four of us will ride up to Lake Las Vegas, across the San Jacintos and across the Mojave, join two others coming up fro Phoenix, and then head up through the Pinto Valley Wilderness north of Lake Mead, through the Virgin Valley Gorge to Zion, to the Lodge at Red…
Occupational Therapy and what it actually does has become a topic for me lately. The name is genuinely misleading. Despite “occupational” suggesting job-related work (big shudder from the retirement community…especially Gary), the term uses occupation in its broader sense… any meaningful activity that occupies your time and gives your life structure and purpose. That includes self-care, work, leisure, social participation, and everything in between. The core purpose of occupational therapy (OT) is to help people…
People grow continuously throughout life. While that is a true statement, the picture is more nuanced than simple linear growth. What clearly continues throughout life are the obvious things like wisdom and judgment, which tend to improve well into old age. In terms of emotional regulation, most people genuinely get better at managing feelings over the decades, that that is not a universal truth by any means. Vocabulary and crystallized knowledge (accumulated facts, expertise) certainly…
We all have activities that define us. They say, “you are what you eat”. That’s a phrase with a surprisingly deep history for something that sounds like a modern wellness slogan. The saying traces back to the French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, who wrote in his 1825 masterwork Physiologie du Goût (The Physiology of Taste): “Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es” — “Tell me what you eat and I…
As a continuation of my physical trauma of last week, I will start by declaring that after a week of my new thumb reality, I have seen some minor improvement in the strength of my left thumb, but it ain’t back to anywhere near 100%. I am using a very simple test every day to track the situation and since I do not have any strength calipers, I am using my ability to touch each…
For a while now I have been noticing the new emergency room series called The Pitt (a play on Pittsburgh, the high intensity and grit, and the fact that ER’s are on the lower level of hospitals) on my Hulu feed. Then my trainer, who is a grad student in kinesiology working towards his Physical Therapy certification, told me I had to watch it, so I did. I loved it. It was incredibly realistic, perhaps…