I do a lot of reading – for pleasure and for work. Some of what I read sticks with me for a long time and comes back to me when I walk or drive. Looking back at 2012, I’ve put together a list of influential (or unforgettable) articles that I read this year:
1. The Hard Life of an N.F.L. Long Shot – My brother sent me this article on pro football players after attending one of my son’s football games. It’s fascinating to see how NFL players go through a draft and call up process and may never even set foot on the field on game day. Jasper has aspirations of playing pro – this article gives a good view into how few people get this chance.
2. Offensive Play – This is a New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell on concussions. Although it is from 2009, I keep it as the top thing on my reading pile to reread every so often – especially during August when my kids start football season. This article was especially poignant when Jasper suffered a concussion during the first scrimmage of his high school career. It’s a scary article and I made him read it too!
3. The Fat Trap by Tara Parker Pope – This is a New York Times article on weight loss and how it is not a sprint and that it is rather more like a life-long long distance race. What stuck with me about this article is that how you take care of yourself is always a choice and it is never over. What’s more entertaining are the few blogs that discuss her article and criticize it.
4. Proof of Heaven – An Interview with Eban Alexander. This was an interview (and I subsequently purchased his book to read more about his near-death experience). His descriptions were magical and it sounds a lot like nature.
5. Martha Beck’s 5-Day Journey to a More Meaningful Life – Martha Beck takes people on 5 day African Retreats through a program called STAR. I love this article for its insight into how nature can affect how you think. My kids think I am crazy for insisting we spend out vacations visiting National Parks. This article spells out my thinking!
6. What Really Matters in Life? – This article is about a Physics professor and his special needs son, and his lecture to his high school students on what is important in life – love.
7. Deconstructing Groupon – This is a Harvard Business Review article on the success of Groupon and other coupon websites. It says a lot about our culture of free, getting something for nothing, or our desire to get a good deal or at least feel like/think we got a good deal. The graphic is awesome and makes perfect sense to me because I am a visual learner. Note 1: Apologies but this article is only available for purchase or for subscribers. Note 2: Although the article is from July 2011, I read it this year, which tells you how big my reading stack was…
8. How Tony Kushner Made Lincoln Talk – I loved the movie Lincoln. He’s one of my favorite Presidents, even if he did bring us federal income taxes which were used to pay for the war. I love the language used and the history of words and how people speak. I use this type of thing on a daily basis at work to find information/evidence, so it is interesting to find a real world example of how else language is used.
9. Change Your Words, Change Your Life. This is a posting by Tony Robbins on language. I like it for a similar reason that I liked the Lincoln one – I’m fascinated by words. (Scrabble anyone?) In finding “intersting”electronic data, its easy to see a lexical fingerprint of 200-300 words for a person – just read through their email… it’s even easier to see words outside of that realm and that is what leads to the “interesting” things!
10. Perfect from Goop – Goop is Gwynneth Paltrow’s website and it has some interesting stuff on it. This was her last item for 2012. As a perfectionist, I found it enlightening and a bit frightening. Most of all it made me realize that I need to let go of perfection or any idea of perfection. Look for a 2013 resolution related to this one…
Bonus – I Will Never Know Why by Susan Klebold – O Magazine November 2009 – this article is from the mother of one of the Columbine shooters. It haunts me at quiet moments. It’s something I worry about with three boys. It’s an article that keeps coming to my mind over the last few weeks after the Sandy Hook incident. It’s a heartbreaking reminder that we need to take the time to know our family and loved ones. To really know them.
Please leave a comment and let me know what article has influenced you this past year!
