Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! I’m back at it, bringing wisdom to young minds, and it feels good! This past Sunday evening as we were having dinner my wife and I were talking and she asked if I was ready to go back. I am always a little hesitant to go back. It’s the butterflies in the stomach before you start a marathon. Not that I have ever run a marathon, but I have run some long races, so it’s like that. A little trepidation as you line up in front of the starting line, waiting for the gun. Do I really want to do this? Can I really do this? But now that the gun has fired and we are on our first few strides, I can say, yes, yes I do. Yes I can. Because as soon as I am back with the students, I remember why I am here. I am so blessed to have found the thing I love to do. More than that, it is the thing I have to do. For me, teaching is a calling, a vocation, not just a job. A lot of people feel that in the healthcare industry. Many doctors, nurses, and other providers love their jobs. They love them enough that if they couldn’t do them as a source of income, they would probably find a day job and do patient care as a side hustle. That’s probably the measure of whether you have a vocation or not: if suddenly you won the Powerball, would you keep doing what you do? Or would the door not hit you in the ass as you ran through it? Not everyone will find a way to live their vocation, but I think it is important to understand what components you can incorporate into your job, if you can’t have it all. And if not that, how can you feed your vocation through your leisure? You don’t want to be saying, I coulda been a contender! at the end of your days. We’ve each got something in us that makes our heart sing - it’s important, even vital to feed that thing that makes us different.
See you Sunday with another essay. As usual, willing good for all of you!
(pic above is just a little fun from the other night - I’m still doing a project 365 and sometimes I run out of ideas. So I start reaching for household objects. This is just fish oil pills and a Tylenol. Nothing exciting. But I thought it illustrated your one thing that makes your heart sing.)
Read
What: Fatherly, How To Read The Room Like A Pro
https://www.fatherly.com/life/how-to-read-the-room
Why: This is a short post about social interaction. I think I will share it with my students before we head out to our first professional meeting this year. This is a great post to share with an early careerist in your life. From the post:
The goal is to observe and then engage. You still say “Hi” and smile and answer questions and make small talk. It’s more about slowing down your pace, assessing and eventually responding, not with mirroring but calibration. If the tone is sad, you don’t have to become sad. You just don’t have to tell jokes or talk business.
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What: UNH President’s Booklist
https://www.unh.edu/leadership/president/booklist
Why: Jim Dean, the president of UNH, writes the whole university a monthly update email. It’s usually a short brief on things going on at the University. He’s got a nice chatty style. I think it’s a great use of the technology. One of the things he used to do was include some short reviews of books he is reading. It appears he has now formalized it into a web page. He reads a nice mix of books. I recommend skimming through. His reading demonstrates what a liberal arts educated person should be spending their reading time on.
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What: Vulture, Ira Glass Just Wants to Make a Decent Show
https://www.vulture.com/2023/07/ira-glass-interview-legacy-this-american-life.html
Why: The podcast This American Life is the OG narrative (vs interview) podcast. If you are not familiar with it, I really recommend listening to a few episodes. It’s very clever and very well done. Ira Glass started recording it back in the 90’s before podcasts were even a thing. Today it is the archetype of narrative podcasts.
Even if you’re not a fan, this is an interesting article to think about how cultural phenomena evolve, how creative products come about, and the business side of art.
As most of you know, I’ve had a podcast (currently on hiatus), the Health Leader Forge, for a number of years, and I’m gearing up to launch a new one this fall. I’m also a constant consumer of podcasts of all types. I really don’t know what I used to do with my downtime (mopping, walking the dog, driving) before podcasts. So getting to hear how the Godfather of podcasting got started is pretty cool. Hopefully for you, too.
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Watch
What: Marginal Revolution University, Opportunity Cost and Tradeoffs (5 min)
Why: I’m teaching health economics this semester and I’ll be using this video in my class later today. I want to suggest to you that this is such a well-done video that, even if you think economics is boring, you might actually find 5 minutes of watching this video worthwhile. Opportunity costs and tradeoffs are two of the most important intuitions that come out of economics.
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Listen
What: The Foreign Affairs Interview, What the World Risks if It Abandons Globalization (38 min)
Why: You know, one of the amazing things about being alive in 2023 is you can just reach out to the internet and grab an interview with the director general of the World Trade Organization and hear what she has on her mind. I think back to my youth in the Stone Age (the ‘80s), and, not that I knew or cared what the WTO was, but if I had (which I didn’t), I would not have been able to do so. It’s good to pause and consider how blessed we are to be alive in a period when you can get such incredibly rich content with a few clicks delivered to our ears. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is director general of the World Trade Organization, so she talks like a politician, but it’s interesting to hear a politician speak who is not US-based, and is concerned with the well-being of international trade. Let me say, we should all be concerned with the well-being of international trade. It’s a better world where we can all get things cheaply and human beings can have opportunity.