Essays

It's been three years since I quit my job. I have never come close to regretting that decision, but I also can’t explain why it was a good decision. Was…
When I left my finance career after eighteen years, the underlying reason was that it was performance art. Success was connected to how people viewed…
An orphan lives a relatively boring life with his uncle and aunt. He dreams of leaving but won’t, for various reasons. He finally leaves his boring life…
Karl von Frisch won the Nobel prize in 1973 for studying how bees dance. Bees dance… and that’s important? The waggles a bee performs are actually a…
It sounds sad that a 40-year old man needs permission from his parents, but we all look for permission in one form or another. In my case, I needed…
Grammar Nazis don’t give good feedback. After giving feedback on more than 300 essays over three Write of Passage cohorts, I realize that the key to…
What do you want to be when you grow up? This question was the bane of my existence when I was a kid. I remember writing and drawing that I wanted to be…
On this day, one hundred years ago, my grandfather left China. He was thirteen. He was alone. He landed in California, but couldn’t find work there. The…
My grandfather left China exactly one hundred years ago. He went through incredible hardship to provide a better opportunity for his descendents. Back…
Someone Else’s Problem. We’ve all said it. We’ve definitely all thought it. I’m glad I don’t have to clean that up, “that’s someone else’s problem…
My wife had never snowboarded in her life, and last season I took on the challenge of teaching her. The fifth day we went, she was ready to get off the…
I don’t think it’s actually possible to have empathy. This was my conclusion after a long debate a few years ago. It was a pseudo-philosophical debate…