You are Not Enough and Other Essential Lessons for Your Children
Why Americans are struggling to find purpose, why suffering is essential, and how you can help your kids by valuing what many people reject.
Hello, good people!
I had an article ready to send out today, but, in the interest of respecting your time, I’ve decided to push that back a week and call your attention to two other articles instead.
There is only so much deep reading time available to you each week, so I wanted to make sure you focused those mental calories in the right place. These two short articles, both from venture capitalist Katherine Boyle, are the best I’ve read in a long time.
From the article:
“Increasingly, the void is being filled with. . . you. A relentless focus on the self that tells us you are enough…
For too long, we’ve been told we can be anything, do anything, and that all criticisms of that anything are an attack on our identity and very being. That self-love and self-care are all we need to thrive. And yet, we’ve never seemed more miserable, never been more lost, and never less confident in what we stand for.”
From the article:
“We have long been fully invested in eradicating the suffering we deem unconscionable, but more important are the simple questions that define a serious life: For whom will you sacrifice? What will you defend? For what will you choose to suffer?”
Neither of these essays is explicitly about parenting, but they are invaluable meditations for any modern parent. Boyle’s articles strike at the core of what it means to live a good life and, ipso facto, how to prepare a young person with the skills, values, and inclinations that make living a good life more likely. Nothing is hurting our children as much as our culture’s deification of self and of comfort.
If you enjoy these articles, there are two books that I’m certain you will love! Two of my all time favorites:
Why We Drive: Toward a Philosophy of the Open Road, by Matthew Crawford.
The title doesn’t do it justice. Crawford brilliantly (and humorously) explores how humans thrive, how societies can promote or discourage that end, and what the future of humanity looks like if we don’t re-commit to values that can rival the dogmatic quest for evermore safety and efficiency.
Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, by Sebastian Junger
Why did mental health improve when London was bombed every night for over two months, or after Hurricane Katrina, or after the 9/11 attacks? Why did so many American colonists run away to live with Native American tribes and, yet, there is no record of natives ever fleeing to the colonists and high living standards? Why are PTSD rates so much higher in American than in Israel, where war is constant and conscription is mandatory? Read Tribe to understand the human condition and the deepest human needs.
And, of course, if you like these, I think you’ll love Setting the Bar: Preparing Our Kids to Thrive in an Era of Distraction, Dependency, and Entitlement.
Thank you for your time! I hope you will read, enjoy, and share these articles as much as I have! Ideas have power and they tend to impact us most strongly when we have come to them through reading.
Carry the fire!
Shane