What’s wrong with America right now? Everywhere I go, I encounter this question. Pop culture’s biggest current hit, Barbie, has one answer: patriarchy. Tim Urban’s recent book, What’s Our Problem?,…
Modern people are rewarded for hard work, intelligence, athletic ability, and physical appearance. Studies have shown that people who conform to our modern Western ideals of height and what we…
I don’t want our kids to achieve much. I want them to accomplish a lot. At least, according to the way Adam Gopnik distinguishes accomplishment from achievement, this is what…
It’s getting harder for me to set goals. I used to look ahead and plot out the course for how to achieve the next big thing, whether that was running…
We live in a culture that values: Productivity over people Intellect over empathy Individual over community Competition over compassion Invincibility over vulnerability Isolated achievement over mutual giving and receiving Control…
Meritocracy is the antithesis to love. I first wrote those words almost two years ago, when we were traveling cross-country and we were taking regular hikes as a family. On…
“I want to sever the connection between dignity and accomplishment altogether.” So says Justin Hawkins on The Lucky Few Podcast last week. Uncoupling Dignity from Achievement Even as a mother…
A few weeks ago, I found myself in a swirl of self-righteousness and self-condemnation and comparison. It happened like this. I was heading into my sister’s wedding, and I started…
In an achievement-oriented culture, how do we risk vulnerability in order to move toward personal and racial healing? Cognitive therapist Niro Feliciano talks with Amy Julia about the complexities of…
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