Jay Matthews

... just a reminder

We need to understand and accept that this is the psychological reality we are working with —and  we need to embrace the work of changing it for the better

We cannot breathe. This is our mantra in America now.

To the American way of thinking, respect is bound up with honesty, and honesty is essential to personal responsibility. Hiding, dissimulation, and other forms of deception amount to disrespect. You lie only to those beneath you—children, constituents, employees.

Within these sorts of schedules, there is little tolerance or space for the things we say we want to nurture in children: creativity, imagination, spontaneity, the patience borne of extended boredom, space to really feel your emotions, or any activity that can’t be boiled down into a potential line on a future college application. (There’s also lit... See more

For a long time their relationship operated on a contract of mutuality. They were not to express feelings or needs that exceeded what they had been allocated. They were not to be irrational, insensitive, or greedy. Now, however, they both were making strong claims. They made demands on each other that they didn’t want to give up on. There was a lot... See more

And so how do we break these cycles of violence? I think the only way is to see ourselves as both/and, perpetrators and victims, and to look at that really closely and to say, the only way to break that cycle is to acknowledge the traumas and the wounds that inform and create the violence that we enact on others.

The desire for fulfilling work — a job that provides a deep sense of purpose, and reflects our values, passions and personality — is a modern invention. … For centuries, most inhabitants of the Western world were too busy struggling to meet their subsistence needs to worry about whether they had an exciting career that used their talents and nurtur... See more