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Everyone wants to be happy. As Aristotle explains in “The Nicomachean Ethics,” happiness is the thing we desire for its own sake. We don’t pursue happiness as a means to some other good; it appears to be the final end people pursue in life. The other things we aim at – wealth, pleasure, relationships –
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Once upon a time, December was filled with Christmas pageants and programs, many of which took place in the local school auditorium. At the very least, such programs were filled with Christmas carols spelling out the story of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem; many of them – like the one depicted in the 1941 film, “Penny Serenade” –
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This Thanksgiving, 36 members of my family – my children and grandchildren, a nephew and his wife, and an in-law still raw from the recent death of her husband – gathered in the kitchen and dining room of my daughter’s house. Following the mealtime blessing, we took turns expressing what we were thankful for, from
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When most people hear that my siblings and I graduated high school years ahead of normal, scored high on state-standardized tests, and attended top colleges and universities, they generally assume our schooling was extremely strict, long, and arduous. Our schooling was challenging, but it was never impossible. In fact, I realized only years later how
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Chain, chain, chain (Chain, chain, chain) Chain of fools So ran the chorus to Aretha Franklin’s 1967 hit song “Chain of Fools.” One hundred twenty years earlier, the Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels proclaimed: “Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!” The chains of Franklin’s song
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A friend of mine recently relayed the story of how her daughter asked why she couldn’t get her ears pierced like her older sister. “Well, she’s more responsible,” was the gist of my friend’s reply to her daughter, “and when you learn to be more responsible, you can get yours pierced too.” Lo and behold,
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