July 2021

I bought a Robert Graham tee shirt with that saying on it. It’s pretty ambiguous. What does it mean?

For many years it would have meant nothing to me. It was not until much later in life that I learned about mindfulness and meditation and other aspects of self-discovery. I got deep into it at one point and though I am not in therapy now, nor do I have a meditation practice any longer, those things that I learned when I was in therapy and when I was meditating have been retained.

Dr. Aaron E. Carroll is the chief health officer for Indiana University. IU is one of 500 colleges and universities that have mandated covid vaccination. Houston Methodist Hospital has done the same and fired those who would not get vaccinated without a medical or religious reason to be exempt. As Dr. Carroll points out in his opinion piece in The New York Times on June 29, more mandates are coming and they ought to.

I’ve known my best friend for almost fifty years now. I married her 49 years ago this August. I have friends from medical school who have known me longer. One is on staff at MD Anderson and one is my cardiologist at St. Luke’s. I have a friend from college who lives in Colorado who has known me longer than my wife, but other than family, no one has known me longer than my high school friends. One friendship goes back over sixty years to the mid-1950s. I was the best man at both of their weddings and they were in my wedding party as well.

Things need constant care. I learned that the hard way as an administrator. I was constantly touching base with my managers as to how projects were progressing, what problems they were encountering, and how the morale of our personnel was at any given moment. What were the managers’ needs in time and resources? That was my immediate concern every day, all day. Then it was fulfilling the needs of the faculty. Were we doing our job of service with a sense of urgency? That was my question to myself every day.