Month: December 2015

RE: President Barack Obama’s televised address from the Oval Office on Sunday night in the wake of the San Bernardino, California attack.

What follows is not meant as criticism of what he said, but is rather an exegesis of what he left unsaid, mostly because of either raison d’état or seemingly insurmountable domestic politics. … All this was right, proper, and sensible. But there were many things that the president either couldn’t say or chose not to bring into the open.

the president didn’t mention how the fear of terror is promulgated … the Western (and especially American) media—which, in “doing their job,” blow the actual terrorist acts far out of proportion.

Source: Obama’s Address: The Truth but Not the Whole Truth « LobeLog by Robert E. Hunter

No matter what your age, you may, without realizing it, be enjoying the very last chapter of the relationships that matter most to you. Make it count.

A little post about the unintuitive notion that you may be 30% of the way through your life but 90% of the way through many of your best relationships.

I’ve been thinking about my parents, who are in their mid-60s. During my first 18 years, I spent some time with my parents during at least 90% of my days. But since heading off to college and then later moving out of Boston, I’ve probably seen them an average of only five times a year each, for an average of maybe two days each time. 10 days a year. About 3% of the days I spent with them each year of my childhood.

Being in their mid-60s, let’s continue to be super optimistic and say I’m one of the incredibly lucky people to have both parents alive into my 60s. That would give us about 30 more years of coexistence. If the ten days a year thing holds, that’s 300 days left to hang with mom and dad. Less time than I spent with them in any one of my 18 childhood years.

It turns out that when I graduated from high school, I had already used up 93% of my in-person parent time. I’m now enjoying the last 5% of that time.

I see three takeaways here:

1) Living in the same place as the people you love matters. I probably have 10X the time left with the people who live in my city as I do with the people who live somewhere else.

2) Priorities matter. Your remaining face time with any person depends largely on where that person falls on your list of life priorities. Make sure this list is set by you—not by unconscious inertia.

3) Quality time matters. If you’re in your last 10% of time with someone you love, keep that fact in the front of your mind when you’re with them and treat that time as what it actually is: precious.

Source: The Tail End – Wait But Why