Where the Happy People Are
There’s an old Talmudic saying meshane makom meshane mazal, meaning a change of place changes your luck. Perhaps those living in New York City, which new research shows is the unhappiest city in...
View ArticleAvril Lavigne’s Diamond Ring: Does Size Matter?
I’ve written here previously in defense of the traditional diamond engagement ring, and I am not deviating from those arguments. I am, however, still sitting with both eyebrows semi-permanently raised...
View ArticleLearning How to Grow Old
Sometimes, the fact that I am almost 30 makes me want to freak out. I know that 30 is not old, but it’s not really young, either. It’s entering that “in-between” period of life. My 40s are next. Gulp....
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What Caitlyn Jenner Gets Wrong About Happiness and Gay Marriage
Is happiness always worth chasing? In a surprising interview with Ellen DeGeneres last week, Caitlyn Jenner expressed some ambivalence about gay marriage. “I’m a traditionalist,” said Jenner, a former...
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The Gray Divorcée
For years, popular culture treated divorce as liberation; it might not be wonderful for those involved, but at least it was not a moral failure. If mom and dad were miserable, then daughters and sons...
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Get Over the Guilt and Celebrate Giving—and Getting—This Christmas
America’s orgy of shopping—from Black Friday and Cyber Monday, to, really, the whole holiday season—is supposed to make us feel bad about our materialist culture. Our kids should be thinking about the...
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How Globetrotter Meadowlark Lemon Made a Career out of Joy
Can you make a career out of joy? That’s been a question I’m rattling around this week as I read remembrances of Meadowlark Lemon, the “Clown Prince of Basketball” who, for 26 years, served as the most...
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If We’re All So Connected, Why are Our Kids so Lonely?
Heading out on an overnight school trip, my daughter spent 90 minutes each way on the bus with her classmates. Before the trip, the school laid out the electronic use policy—students would be allowed...
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The Dream—Or Is It a Nightmare?—of No Work
Wouldn’t it be great not to have to worry about money? No need to get up and go to a job, instead you could just enjoy yourself and really live? This fantasy has plenty of appeal, and, no doubt, just...
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Debbie Reynolds’ Resilience was Better than Carrie Fisher’s Cynicism
In a heartbreaking late scene in Bright Lights, the HBO documentary that is extraordinarily revealing about the lives of Debbie Reynolds and her daughter Carrie Fisher, Reynolds reflects on an evening...
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