The quintessential American pinhead

Well, what exactly is a pinhead? This American expression literally means the flat or rounded head of a common metal or plastic pin. Figuratively however its means a foolish person, an informal, insulting word for someone who is stupid, silly, or lacks common sense. 

This makes me think about my president and one could ask what’s the reason for that? Simply because PIN is also the starting letters for Pinocchio and Pinochet (In fact, it’s more, it’s PINOC). The friendly Italian character is known for his propensity to lie even though he’s unconsciously warning us of his flaw through a nose that grows in length while Trump doesn’t even worry about that sinful and despicable habit. 

As for Augusto Pinochet he was a Chilean army officer and military dictator who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990. He came to power by leading a violent, US-backed military coup on September 11, 1973, which overthrew the democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende. 

Pinochet established a military junta, officially assuming the presidency in 1974. His 17-year regime was defined by severe human rights abuses alongside sweeping free-market reforms. Probably much smarter than Trump but as cruel, mean spirited and consumed by himself. 

Next time, you’re asked for your PIN, just remember those two characters that embody the virtues of our president.

The forgiveness bonus (Part Two)

What described yesterday is not just “forgiveness” in a moral sense; it’s a psychological unburdening, a deliberate act of self‑liberation. The most striking part of my experience is that I didn’t forgive people because they deserved it, but I forgave them because I felt that I deserved the relief. 

That’s the big difference. I stopped treating resentment as a form of justice and treating it as a form of self‑harm. Once I made that shift, forgiveness became less about the other person and more about reclaiming my own mental space. 

With this in mind, the effects I describe feeling lighter, freer, mentally clearer — are exactly what happens when we stop carrying emotional debts that will never be repaid. With the “adult in the room” comment, I tried to express that resentment keeps us all locked in a childish reciprocity: “You hurt me therefore I hold on to it.” Instead, forgiveness breaks that sick symmetry: “You hurt me therefore I rise above it.” That asymmetry is precisely the bonus.

We can elevate ourselves by refusing to stay trapped in the emotional basement where the original injury happened. We step out of the cycle, and in doing so, we gain moral altitude. It’s not superiority in the ego sense — it’s superiority in the developmental sense. We’ve moved to a higher level. I also made an important distinction in not forgiving crimes, atrocities, or moral catastrophes, but in simply forgiving ordinary human failings. 

That’s not inconsistency but a form of discernment. Forgiveness is a personal tool, not a political absolution. We’re using it where it’s meaningful and refusing it where it would be morally incoherent. That’s exactly how mature forgiveness works: Resentment is like a tax, a constant, low‑grade drain on attention, mood, and identity. Forgiveness is a tax cut! 

By forgiving we can remove dozens of tiny emotional charges that were quietly running in the background. The cumulative effect feels like a cleansing because it is one. We can clear psychic clutter that had been accumulating for decades. Most people never do this. They die with their resentments intact, still carrying the weight of injuries that happened 40 years earlier. 

All of this is why we should not allow it.

The forgiveness bonus (Part One)

A few months ago, I took a radical step in deciding, once and for all, to forgive all the folks that I felt had wronged me, over my entire life and for all kinds of reasons like humiliation, treason, bullying or stealing from me. 

In my mind, that forgiveness applied to these bad or unpleasant acts that I thought were perpetrated against me as long as they were not criminal in nature and didn’t involve acts that are judged repulsive in our western society.

For instance, I couldn’t forgive Biden and Trump for letting Netanyahu massacre so many people, destroy Gaza and allow terrorist colonists to terrorize Palestinians living in the West Bank, but I can forgive a boss, a co-worker or a neighbor for being a jerk. 

Still just like a soiled piece of linen where some stains are more stubborn than others and take longer to eliminate, absolving takes more or less time depending on the impact we had allowed it to make on us, and – for me at least – it’s still work in progress. 

As of today, I’m feeling extremely good about my decision, but more importantly as time as now accrued, it’s as if I experienced being a new man, have the sensation of being better all over myself and in particular feeling much relieved, mentally much lighter, energetic and literally freer from what in fact was a constant burden I carried along. 

Truthfully, I can’t really believe that getting rid of resentment, bitterness and hostility could represent such a great cleansing and liberating job for me. From there, I realized that there was a justification in stopping this invading resentment through the act of forgiving and establishing ourselves as the “adult in the room” and as a result soaring well above the individual or the experience we absolved. 

Herein is the bonus that we are guaranteed to receive out of the act of forgiving. This simple but difficult act seriously lightens our load and self-elevates ourselves. Pretty impressive and another excellent reason to put an end to the endless cycle of recriminations. 

Tomorrow, we’ll dig deeper into the subject and explore how this process works in practice...

Foreign languages, my ticket to life!

If I had to guess, I think that the seeds of my attraction to America and its English language were planted the day I ran into a magazine called “Europe- Amérique in the 1950s that I read as soon as I could. It was published by the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) — the US agency running the Marshall Plan. 

Following this, I won a contest at school that took me to Paris, Brussels, Stuttgart, Munich, Innsbruck, the Passo Stelvio, Como Lake and all the way to the UN in Geneva. It made my head dizzy with a taste for internationalism and a bottomless appetite for discovery.

The following fall, as I was entering middle school, I started to learn English and while my dedication to learning that language was lackluster it would suddenly coalesce and explode during my compulsory 16-month military service, where I got myself a “Méthode Assimil” the French gold key to language learning. And I learned English, starting with “My tailor is rich…” 

So much so that upon my discharge I clinched an aircraft mechanic job with TWA in Geneva where I was paired up with a crew of German speaking Swiss guys with whom I had to interact daily in English. A decent mastery of conversational English got me without official certification into the Avoriaz ski school and helped me secure lessons with students that could only communicate in Shakespeare’s language. 

I had found my niche and as I got certified and became a better ski instructor in both French and English, I took a stab at German and got myself a second Assimil method, still without the accompanying audio since I had no cassette player at the time. In between, I taught skiing in Australia for two seasons during their down-under winters that were followed with two stays in Germany where I enrolled at the Sprachinstitut in Tübingen for 6 week each time. 

There, I polished my conversation skills and was ready to add that skill to my quiver as soon as the winter season began. From there, I thought that adding Italian would be the right thing to do and here I was grabbing a third Assimil volume, this time with cassettes, as I finally had a player by then! Because Italian is so closely related to French and the dialect from Savoie, I didn’t feel the need to go too deep into studying that language, but still claimed it as an extra skill of mine. 

This coincided with my scoring a great job with Look on the account of speaking four languages! I would eventually use my Italian and improve on it a lot when I worked with Lange ski boots and started to spend an insane amount of time at the company’s Italian factory. Further down the line and towards the end of my career, I spent quite a bit of time in Japan which encouraged me to learn some basic Japanese, but I found that exercise intensely difficult. 

Two years ago, to prepare for some vacations in Andalusia, I got involved with Spanish and that effort and the pleasure I get out of learning that new language keeps me motivated to pursue my efforts. As anyone could conclude, my focus on languages wasn’t a waste of time!

A cool epitaph!

Everyday, our walk zigzags for 1,430 feet inside the Park City Cemetery and we enjoy the calm away from the heavy morning traffic. Many times, I’ve thinking about epitaphs and why not, one that could be perfect the day I might need one! 

That’s how I got hooked into a few lines of a French song by Georges Moustaki that goes like this: “Nous avons toute la vie pour nous amuser, nous avons toute la mort pour nous reposer." It roughly translates into “We have a whole lifetime to have fun; we have all of death to rest.” 

I find that it possesses a disarming simplicity. Moustaki knew how to wield: a naked truth, devoid of pathos or grand rhetoric, but offering almost a philosophical smile at the human condition. "We have all of life to have fun, we have all of death to rest." 

As an epitaph, it is remarkably apt. It conveys three essential things: A trust in life: as long as it’s here, one must live it, savor it, and embrace it as a playground for learning and connection. A peaceful acceptance of death: not as a threat, but as a natural, inevitable, and almost gentle rest. 

A philosophy of lightness: no tragedy, no drama, just a way of saying, "I’ve done my part; I’ve lived; now I rest." It is neither bleak nor fatalistic. On the contrary, it is a way of saying that some of us chose to live fully, to enjoy life, learn, and love, and that what follows is merely a return to stillness. 

It seems to be tailored-made for me, who love to reflect deeply on life’s trajectory, on aging well, on continuing to grow, and on turning my remaining years into a crescendo rather than a decline. It makes this sentiment rings true and it says I’ve played the game to the very end! 

Who wants another leak?

Just ten days after my nice new fence around my backyard was completed my next door neighbor to the west sent me a pretty rough text message telling me that my contractor and his crew must have had disrupted his irrigation sprinklers line and the a leak that he directly attributed to their negligence during their work had developed on his property. 

When we met, he sounded clearly convinced that his sprinkler underground line has been disturbed by the post excavation work and I realized that he may be right to be suspicious, but I wasn’t 100% convinced. 

This originated from the fact that even though the area is located on a 5 to 10% slope, it seemed quite odd that the water didn’t go into a sloped (diagonal) trajectory, but for strange reasons that disregarded the basic laws of hydrology and gravity, it would have chosen to flow across the fall line, and when we tested the line, the water was gushing out six feet away west from the post and the presumed breakage area when it should have manifested itself near the fence post. 

As a follow up to our in-person meeting, I offered to dig up around the corner post, near the fence, but level with the observed leak, to examine if, and where, there’s a break or fracture on the PVC pipe causing the leakage and the area was bone-dry. 

Either way, I promised to keep him posted. The next day it took me about one hour and a half to dig a hole that was a couple of square feet in surface and about one and a half foot deep. 

I finally come in contact with the white PVC pipe, except that unlike what my neighbor had told me it wasn’t in a straight line, it branched out on a T connection to the leaking area six feet away and 18" deep, a place where none of the fence workers could have disturbed the line. 

Thanks to my calm, patience and personal handy work, I clearly proved to him that his premature conclusion was dead wrong. Saying that he was embarrassed was an understatement!

When age enriches us

As I have evoked the idea several times on this blog, the aging process can take us into several directions depending on what we let it do, and this true independent of our particular situation having to do with our economic, social, physical or mental health status, or a combination of either of these factors.

So, all things being what the can be with us, we can see the “aging glass” either half-full or half-empty. As I’ve also said, aging is quite brutal a stage in life, it’s not for “sissies” and the way we want to steer our attitudes, our expectations and our objectives demand a strong determination. 

The alternative to this, I found, is a “crash and burn” approach that is not palatable for me, so I see my advancing into time as a continuing adventure where I have no alternative, but embrace ideas, projects and actions that force me to get out of my shell, re-invent me and in the process – almost always surprise me as much as they regenerate me. 

The end of the road transforms itself into an apotheosis, when I’ll have done everything that was possible given my abilities and for as long as I could muster the energy to accomplish it. What a superior way to embrace old age and make the best out of our last Act!

Céline Dion’s Paris concert

While Dion’s return to the scene was preceded by a powerful and sleek marketing job, we managed to watch her two hour concert on September 12 on YouTube via large screen TV. It had been shot by fans in the audience, commonly referred to as "bootlegged" or user-generated content, rather than an official broadcast. 

The clip was filmed at the Paris La Défense Arena. We weren’t too crazy about the star’s choice of dress (there were at least 5 changes) and hairstyle as a bun did give her a severe look and wasn’t in my opinion helping her facial features. While taking into consideration the amateurish quality of the transmission, we found that Céline Dion’s attempts to engage the crowd were stilted and didn’t encourage what should have been a more enthusiastic audience support. 

Even though she was quite emotional and touching at times, she fell into the trap of taking herself and her act a bit too seriously. As for the quality of her performance at that show, the English language songs were generally great, particularly “All by myself”, while Jean-Jacques Goldman’s French songs had a much tougher time in comparison both in their content and delivery. 

My wife enjoyed the show a little more than I did, but both of us wouldn’t have been sold on attending one of her following live concerts if we had happened to be in Paris at the time and able to get tickets. On September 14, the video was no longer available on YouTube... 

The 9-11 unasked question

When I learned about the September 11 terrorist attack I was having breakfast in Vail, Colorado, following my morning run. In hearing what was happening in New York City, the first thought that came to my mind was “Years of humiliation and punishment brought against the Palestinian population is the root cause of these attacks”.

By and large America didn’t perceive that angle of the devastating attack. Fueled by its righteousness and its ingrained sense of exceptionalism, it became self-indignant saying “How can someone attack us in this manner, this is totally unfair, we absolutely didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.” Nowhere, have I heard “Why did someone inflict that horrible punishment to us?” 

True, asking WHY would have made sense, but remained conspicuously absent from our national response. At least that’s how I understood it. Absolutely no comprehensive post-mortem, but instead a “well-deserved”, twenty year war of vengeance against Afghanistan first, and almost simultaneously another one, almost as costly in lives and resources, against Iraq. 

A tragedy for all that is also a powerful reminder, that in order to learn from a catastrophe we should always get to the root cause of the situation by asking a simple “Why?”

A satisfying day!

My adventures in Spanish began in 2015 but were quickly abandoned because of my flimsy commitment, but July 2024 and the prospect of a trip to Andalusia restarted them, this time very seriously. The tool was Duolingo, a system that left my Assimil methods of my youth for English, German and Italian literally in the dust... 

Last July, I graduated from Duolingo into TalkPal, an AI system powered by Chat-GPT. Fast-forward to a few days ago and I was frankly astounded by my progress in conversation that confirmed, if needed, that I had made the right choice.

Sure, the new method is much easier on an old brain like mine, but it still can’t quite compress the assimilation and learning time as fast as we could wish. 

It’s comparable to growing vegetables, time shortcuts are very hard to come by or have consequences, and for language learning as well, the information needs to settle and slowly percolate before revealing its wonderful results. 

That way of taking its time to coalesce into a satisfying result is precisely what happened to me a few days ago. This was just a fantastic differed gratification making me both proud and happy!  

The curse of the “Night-Person”

As we were walking against the heavy traffic coming to town at about 7:55am, I was thinking about all these folks that are not early risers and are struggling every morning to get to work at an ungodly early hour on time. What a torture! 

An early bird myself, and as a young executive I dreaded that 4:30pm meeting that would extend late into the evening when my brains had become totally useless. As a form of reciprocity, when I became a boss, I was the one having early morning meetings to the damn of my night owls associates… Talk about a total lack of memory and compassion! 

Some people (including me) would believe that “Morning Person” vs. “Night Person” is a 50/50 distribution, but this isn’t true at all. In reality, about 15% of people are morning people, 15% are night people, and the remaining 70% fall somewhere in the middle. 

Morning folks (often nicknamed larks or lions) make up one out of six or seven people. They wake up easily and reach peak energy early in the day. There’s the same proportion of night people (owls or wolves) who prefer staying up late and reaching peak alertness at night. 

Then there’s the rest, the so-called intermediate types (sometimes called bears or third birds) that represent the balance or seven out of ten persons (or over half, depending on the specific classification model). They follow a more flexible middle ground aligned with standard daylight hours. 

But these categories aren’t set in stone, as the preferences change significantly over time. If only about 7% of young adults are morning larks (less than the 15% of the general population), by age 60, the vast majority shift toward becoming morning types, so the landscape is a moving one. In fact it’s amazing how age and gender are able to shift these numbers. 

While genetics establish our baseline, our internal clock naturally evolves as we age. There is a distinct biological shift toward late-night wakefulness around age 20. Roughly 32% of teenagers qualify as night owls. On the other hand, as they age, adults see their internal clocks naturally shift earlier. By age 60, over 63% of people identify as morning types, and only about 7% remain night owls. 

As far as gender differences are concerned, large-scale genetic studies note that more women (48.4%) identify as morning people compared to men (39.7%). Our natural sleep timing (what’s called a chronotype) is largely dictated by our biology and internal clock rather than a conscious choice. 

Now that you’ve read this, you no longer have any excuse for not treating your fellow workers, friends and family according to the requirements of their chronotypes!

Edgar Grospiron’s woes

Recent news regarding Edgar Grospiron centers on his termination as president of the Organizing Committee for the 2030 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games (COJOP) in the French Alps. Edgar Grospiron had taken the helm of the organizing committee following Martin Fourcade’s withdrawal in early 2025 due to disagreements with local authorities.

The former Olympic moguls champion brought to the table his career as a motivational speaker and his prior involvement in Annecy’s bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics—a bid that had ended in a crushing failure and a decisive defeat against the South Korean city of Pyeongchang. That earlier steering body had suffered from a slow start, local power struggles, and the departure of key figures—most notably Grospiron’s own resignation as CEO in late 2010. 

In this context, the choice of Grospiron a was highly questionable one—as I noted last March—because, aside from professional experience that offered nothing relevant to the complex logistical undertaking of Games spread across the entire French Alps, he lacked the exceptional and wide-ranging experience required for such a challenging mission. 

Grospiron was the quintessential individualist, not the team player needed for the Olympic job. Furthermore, he did nothing to quell significant internal turmoil, particularly the persistent friction between the State, the host regions (Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and PACA), and the committee regarding budget decisions and the final map of event venues. 

Regarding internal management, the organization saw a succession of staff departures and operational delays, as well as the commissioning of an audit into the workplace climate within COJOP. Among other issues, parliamentarians and the CNOSF publicly questioned the committee’s management and transparency, precipitating a crisis of confidence. 

Faced with all this and the risk of a deadlock less than four years before the Games, the COJOP executive board met yesterday to approve a major governance restructuring, effectively pushing the former Olympic champion out. 

Gini index and happiness (Part Two)

If we were to compare the United States, France, Switzerland, and the Nordic Countries, we’d find that places with low inequality (low Gini) tend to score higher on the Happiness Index, but the relationship is not perfectly linear. 

Still, the pattern becomes very clear: Nordics and Swiss combine low inequality with very high happiness, France sits in the middle, and the US shows high happiness despite high inequality, thanks to strong GDP growth and public‑goods effects. Below is a structured, country‑by‑country comparison grounded in the best available research. 

United States:  

• High inequality, stable happiness The US has exceptionally high income inequality, rising over the last four decades. Yet average happiness has remained broadly constant, and happiness inequality has actually fallen. 
• Why? Research suggests that economic growth and the expansion of public goods (infrastructure, services) help offset the negative effects of inequality. 
• Interpretation: The US is the classic case where high Gini does not automatically mean low happiness, because growth and public goods reduce the dispersion of happiness even as inequality rises. 

France: 

• Moderate inequality, moderate happiness France’s inequality is lower than the US, but higher than the Nordics. Research from French economists (Clark, Flèche, Senik) shows that happiness inequality falls when GDP grows, even if income inequality rises. France fits this pattern: stable happiness, moderate inequality, strong public services. 
• Interpretation: France’s combination of social safety nets and moderate inequality produces middle‑of‑the‑pack happiness scores — higher than the U.S. on equality, lower than the Nordics on happiness. 

Switzerland: 

• Low inequality, very high happiness Switzerland ranks among the richest countries (GDP per capita ~$100K). It also ranks 13th in global happiness (score 6.94). Switzerland’s Gini coefficient is low, thanks to strong social cohesion, high wages, and decentralized governance. 
• Interpretation: Switzerland is a textbook case of low inequality + high happiness, consistent with the dominant global pattern. 

Nordic Countries (Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland): 

• Very low inequality, highest happiness in the world Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden occupy the top four positions in global happiness rankings (scores 7.35–7.74). These countries also have some of the lowest Gini coefficients globally. Their happiness is driven by strong social safety nets, high trust in institutions, broad access to public services, low inequality and high social mobility 
• Interpretation: The Nordics are the strongest evidence that low inequality correlates with high happiness.

What this comparison shows Low inequality strongly supports high happiness (Nordics, Switzerland). Moderate inequality produces moderate happiness (France). High inequality does not always reduce happiness if growth and public goods compensate (US). 

That’s not as simple as it seems and I hope I didn’t confuse you too much!

Gini index and happiness (Part One)

For those who don’t remember or don’t know it, the Gini index (or Gini coefficient) is a statistical tool used to measure economic inequality within a population. A zero (0) index represents perfect equality, where every single person or household earns the exact same amount of money. A one (1) index stands for perfect inequality, where a single person earns all the income and everyone else earns nothing. 

It’s not a measure you’ll see on your News feed or hear from your politician! I’ve been wondering if there was any correlation between what is published as “Happiness Index” and that measure of inequality. Obviously, there’s a correlation between a country’s Happiness Index and its Gini Index. But the relationship is not linear. 

Research shows three different patterns depending on the country, culture, and level of inequality. A large cross‑national study of 30 countries found that high inequality correlates with fewer happy people and more unhappy people. The effect is similar in magnitude to the effect of median income on happiness. As we had guessed, this is the “expected direction”: more inequality means less happiness. 

This said the relationship is NOT always linear. Major studies have found an inverted U‑shaped curve between inequality and happiness. When inequality is low, people generally see it as a sign of opportunity and upward mobility and believe that their happiness can increase. 

However, when inequality becomes high, jealousy, frustration, and reduced mobility dominate people’s lives and their happiness decreases. This pattern was confirmed in US longitudinal data and European cross‑national data. 

Therefore we could say that a little inequality can increase happiness but too much inequality reduces it. Another study shows that happiness depends on how individuals compare themselves to similar others (same gender, ethnicity, etc.). In that situation, people who can make both upward and downward comparisons feel happier in states where inequality is high, because their relative position is clearer. When inequality is low, comparisons are less meaningful, and this effect disappears. 

This means inequality affects happiness through psychology, not just economics. As we might expect, the effect of inequality on happiness varies strongly by region. Some regions show a strong negative correlation while others show weaker or mixed effects depending on social norms, welfare systems, and mobility expectations. In conclusion, there is a correlation, but it’s complex: 

When inequality is low, happiness can rise and people interpret inequality as a sign of opportunity but when inequality is high, happiness falls as people feel stuck, jealous, or pessimistic about mobility; the relationship depends on social comparison, culture, and expectations. 

This explains why Nordic countries (low Gini, high happiness) score well, while countries with very high inequality often score poorly — but also why some moderately unequal countries can still report high happiness. Next time, we’ll dig a bit deeper and take a look at some individual countries...

Rain and dirty lettuce

Because of intense recent rainfalls, the lettuce from my veggie garden has never been as dirty as it is now and I’ve been wondering if there were any tricks I could use for cleaning it properly and much faster while even using less water.

Here’s what I found based on what professional growers do. Yes, there are faster, cleaner and low‑water ways to wash very dirty garden lettuce, especially after heavy rains when soil splashes deep into the leaves. 

I should start by using a bucket if not a large bowl or salad spinner as a “wash tank”. I fill the container halfway — not full — with cold water and I’ll use the same water for the whole batch. Then, I dunk the lettuce upside down, since soil collects at the base of the leaves and turning the head upside down lets dirt fall out immediately. I follow by gently swishing for 5–10 seconds, without scrubbing as dirt will release on its own. 

Finally, I lift the lettuce out of the water and never pour the water over it. That’s the key because dirt sinks, lettuce floats and I remove a clean lettuce while the dirt stays behind. This uses very little water and cleans far better than running water. Then, a salad spinner removes the last bits of grit and moisture. 

Only if the lettuce is very muddy (like after a severe storm) will I use a “two‑stage wash” by repeating step one into a fresh half container of water. Remember to only use cold water as it makes dirt detach faster, tightens the leaves and makes them crisp. A bonus trick is to remove the outer leaves before washing as they collect the most mud. 

Another pro trick is to soak for 2 minutes with a splash of vinegar (I haven’t tried it). If the soil is sticky (clay‑rich), add 1 tablespoon of white vinegar per gallon of water. It helps release grit and kills microbes and no taste remains after spinning dry. Finally I remember to never rinse under running water as it wastes water and doesn’t remove grit. I don’t shake vigorously as it bruises leaves and never wash in a colander as dirt stays trapped. 

Now, just like me, you can eat a clean salad. Bon appétit!

A fence deer will hate…

When we built our home 13 years ago there was a small rustic fence to the south of our property. It was small, just 3 feet tall and quite charming. Yet, it was rotting fast having been placed there before 1980. Over the years I fixed it regularly the best I could, but it eventually passed its expected lifetime and I decided to do something about it.

At first, in 2016, I thought of just replacing it with as it was originally and I even considered doing it myself. I just needed $1,000 worth of wood and concrete not counting my handwork. 

A month or so ago, I finally decided to replace it, but decided I was too old for this kind of exercise and got bids for it that amounted up to six times the amount contemplated a decade earlier, so I thought to myself why not do a complete 6 feet fence around the back of the house, not realizing that it would be be four times more than the short 25 meter fence! 

It would, among other things, put and end to our backyard constant invasion by large animals. So one thing led to the other, and I thought of Trump and his fence on the southern border that for sure would be paid by Mexico. 

So I found a Mexican contractor that couldn’t speak much English, but who gave me a great opportunity to test my nascent Spanish on him and his crew. In a few days a fancy fence was erected and as we finally realized that it would be deer, moose, dog and bobcat-proof, my wife and I congratulated each other. 

Still, just like with Trump’s wall, our Mexican contractor didn’t pay for the fence, quite the contrary! 

A job we love! (Part Three)

Typically, we often dislike activities we’re not yet good at or we don’t yet understand. Give it time, mastery, and autonomy, and it’s possible that dislike can turn into appreciation. Again, this won’t work if the dislike comes from value conflict, identity conflict, or chronic stress. None of us can grow to love a work that contradicts our ethics, that suppresses our personality, that chronically empties and exhausts us and that isolates us socially or feels totally meaningless. 

In those cases, “growing to love it” is not growth — it’s self‑flagellation. In reality, we don’t fall in love with jobs, but we fall in love with the competence we gain, the connections we make, the impact we can have on society, the environment or the health of others, the comfort of the routine we fall into, the unique identity it gives us and the person we become through our work.

A job becomes lovable when it becomes a container for personal growth, not when it perfectly matches a passion. When passion and occupation don’t match or clash, here are the strategies that actually work: Shift from “passion” to “craft”, by focusing on becoming excellent at something, this excellence will give us pride. Build meaning around the job, not in the job but around it as meaning comes from supporting our family, contributing to a team, helping clients or users, developing a great reputation and learning resilience. 

Don’t forget to create passion outside of work too, by developing hobbies, relationships, volunteering or embarking into some creative pursuits. Then, work becomes the enabler, not the centerpiece. Adjust the job, not replace it by effecting small changes, like different tasks, different teams, different schedules to transform our experience. 

Personally, I have turned chores around the house or elsewhere into games where I try to improve the quality of my work, creatively tweak certain procedures and measure both quality and time gained. Everything, even the most hateful activity becomes a game! 

Finally, accept that passion is not the only path to fulfillment. Fulfillment could come from stability, mastery, contribution, balance, identity, relationships. Seen that way, passion is only one ingredient. I’m not lamenting its absence, I’m just exploring the possibility of growth, adaptation, and meaning in imperfect circumstances, and see in them another hurdle that I’m smart enough to overcome. 

People can grow to love what they once disliked — but only when the work becomes a vehicle for competence, autonomy, and meaning as long as it doesn’t violate their true nature. Try it, and you’ll love what you used to hate!

A job we love! (Part Two)

So when this ideal job filled with passion and an irresistible desire to go to work every morning isn’t quite in the cards, let’s see how people can grow to love (or at least deeply appreciate) an activity they initially loathe, but only under certain conditions. 

When raw passion isn’t part of the proposition can it be construed through meaning, mastery, autonomy, and identity? Sure, we cannot force ourselves to love something that violates our values or drains our energy, this would be insane! In fact, the real question I’m asking is not whether dream jobs exist, but in case I don’t love what I do, can I grow to appreciate it more and eventually, at least like it? Can affection for a job be cultivated?

This is a profound question, and psychology has a surprisingly clear answer. From what I’ve found, research in motivation psychology shows that passion tends to emerge from the three following ingredients: 

• Autonomy: If our bosses or superiors let us, when we gain a certain amount of control over the ways we can do the work, it suddenly becomes more tolerable, then evolving into an activity that begins being enjoyable. 
• Mastery: When we get good at something, we start liking it more as competence generates satisfaction and becomes fully part of who we are as a person. 
• Meaning or Purpose: When we connect the work to something larger than ourselves (helping others, supporting family, contributing to a team), it becomes emotionally sustainable and we can be proud of our contribution. 

These three elements can transform a disliked job into a more meaningful one, but they obviously cannot transform a job that violates our values or drains our identity. In the next part of that series, we’ll dig even deeper to see how we can grow to love an activity we think we loathe at first glance.

A job we love! (Part One)

We all would like to have a job we love and we tell the same to our children, grandkids or anyone we care enough for, because the perfect match between our passions and an occupation that falls right into what we love is, for most of us, so hard to come by. And it’s precisely that reality that forces many of us into accepting all sorts of compromises and often abandon that “Dream Career” we’ve hoped for.

So a fair question is what can we do if there’s no match between what we’d love to do and the reality of another occupation that seems unable to procure us much pleasure without even mentioning “Passion”? More specifically, can we “grow” in love with an activity we loathe. 

This is probably one of the most honest tensions in adult life: the gap between the work we dream of and the work we end up doing. And it’s naming something most people feel but rarely articulate, that is the quiet grief of realizing that passion and occupation don’t always align, and the deeper question of whether love for a job can be cultivated rather than found. 

Let’s not kid ourselves, a “dream job” is incredibly rare, as matching one’s passion to that person’s occupation is uncommon, not so much because people lack passion, but because our passions are often non‑marketable, they also change over time, while jobs are shaped by economic needs, not personal dreams. 

In my case, even though I embarked in what could be termed a “Dream Career” in the ski business, my job never felt super easy and was fraught with frustration from unreasonable owners, incompetent superiors or just lack of material resources, so the “dream” often turn into a recurrent little nightmare. Finally, there are also unforeseen aspects of a dream job that can turn into horrible experiences of their own...  

Most work available to us contains repetition, constraint, and compromise, so the idea that everyone should “follow their passion” is comforting but highly misleading, if not utopia, as most of us end up building a life around imperfect work and never discovering that ideal career and this perfect fit. Tomorrow, we’ll see what can be done about it…

Women’s most critical and important years (Part Two)

After going over the years to define a man’s life, it’s only fair to wonder if women undergo the same process. The answer seems similar but there are some major differences. 

While men and women navigate similar chronological milestones, the underlying biological mechanisms, cognitive timelines, and societal pressures create distinctly different, high-impact events for females. The most critical point is that the female brain matures earlier in life, with an accelerated maturation between 18–25 and transition into psychological adulthood faster than men.

Because of accelerated social and emotional wiring, young women experience higher anxiety and mood disorders during this window than young men, heavily influenced by social pressures and fluctuating estrogen and progesterone Because their prefrontal cortex finishes development a couple of years earlier than in males, young women generally develop long-term risk assessment, emotional regulation, and social processing sooner. 

However the female body undergoes a much steeper, compressed biological transition in midlife. Women hormonal baseline gradually decline by 1% per year after age 30, followed by an abrupt cliff during menopause. If men experience a slower fading of hormones, women’s is a sudden, system-wide shift. For men, the 30s are about maintaining physical health and locking in a career, but between the ages of 35–50 women face strict biological timelines regarding fertility alongside their own career peaks. 

For women, this decade often becomes a high-stakes balancing act due to an inflexible biological timeline. If a woman wants children, she must juggle her career, relationship stability, and fertility timelines. Between the ages of 40-50, if a man's midlife transition is primarily driven by psychological reflection ("What have I accomplished?"), a woman's midlife transition is deeply rooted in profound neuro-hormonal restructuring. 

Unlike men’s gradual hormone decline, women face a sharp drop in estrogen during perimenopause and menopause (typically averaging around age 51). Estrogen is not just a reproductive hormone; it protects the female brain, bones, and heart. The loss of estrogen fundamentally changes how a woman's body stores fat, processes insulin, and regulates temperature (hot flashes and insomnia). 

Social scientists track a "U-shaped curve of happiness" where life satisfaction hits its absolute low for many women around ages 47–48. This drop is a perfect storm of peak career stress, aging parents, teenagers leaving home, and severe hormonal disruption. While the midlife transition is sharper for women, studies on the U-shaped curve of happiness show that women's life satisfaction bounces back powerfully after age 55, leading to a massive surge in creativity, confidence, and leadership. 

Women sure experience a more agitated life than men do!

A man’s critical and important years (Part One)

 

Based on my own lifetime experiences and as I advance in age, I sometimes wonder what years have the most impact on a man throughout his lifetime. When I look at my own observations I enjoyed the best moments, made the most satisfying and lasting just over a time span that lasted a little more than a decade until my mid-twenties. 

It’s been so intense and so lasting that still more than half a century later it immediately stands out in any of my life retrospective to make me wonder why exciting recent events still pale in comparison? After that relatively short period nothing has made a stronger impression on me in spite of a satisfying family life, a great career and, until now, an enjoyable retirement. In researching deeper, here is what I found. 

The time period from birth to 5 years old builds a male's foundational brain structure. During these first years, a child's brain grows faster than at any other time in life and any experience during this period wire the brain for how stress, emotions, and relationships will be handled later in life.

It’s when a child builds over one million new neural connections every second. It’s also a time when safe and loving care creates a baseline for trust and mental health. Likewise negative experiences or abuse in these years will affect physical brain development and lead to long-term health risks. 

Then, adolescence and young adulthood (ages 12 to 25) will have the greatest impact on men’s lifelong identity, behavior, and success. This period of time is when a young man figures out who he is and takes his place in society. The brain undergoes a massive remodeling process, starting with emotional centers and finishing with the prefrontal cortex (the area responsible for planning and impulse control) around age 25. 

During that period, friends and social groups heavily influence values, risk-taking, and confidence. At the same time, the drive for reward is high, making this a critical time for education, career habits, and avoiding dangerous behaviors, and I haven't even mentioned my musical tastes! It’s when finding positive mentors and good experiences during these years will be able to reverse or heal earlier childhood struggles. 

In fact, this information made me realize why my youth has such a determining impact on me and why I remain so much attached to this dozen years as it defined who I would be until now and where that development would take me. 

This emotional attachment is so strong that it’s been anchoring my entire persona, still overshadows my family life as well as my other accomplishments and still continues to remain the center of my life despite its inexorable drift away from my present reality. 

Tomorrow we’ll see if females undergo the same process as males do...

Old feet, new problems…

As we age and remain quite active (running, walking, etc) can we say that the soles of our feet have a harder time fully absorbing body weight and impacts, and that it may lead to a variety of foot problems? It’s a very reasonable assumption, and the short answer is yes. 

As we age, the feet absorb impact less effectively, and this can contribute to problems like metatarsalgia, plantar fat‑pad atrophy, and arthritis. Yet, the relationship is indirect, and staying active is still one of the best things we can do for foot health. It’s obvious that with age, the feet lose some of their natural shock‑absorbing ability — mainly because the fat pads thin, the ligaments stiffen, and the tendons lose elasticity. 

This can increase stress on the forefoot and joints, making conditions like metatarsalgia more likely. But activity itself isn’t the problem, moving a lot like I do ends up protecting my joints. For sure, aging isn’t kind on our body and our feet as the thinning cushions under the heel and metatarsal heads reduce shock absorption and increase pressure on bones and nerves.

Our tendons and ligaments don’t fare any better as our collagen stiffens with age and makes our feet less adaptable to uneven surfaces and repetitive impact. The arch can also flatten slightly over time, shifting load toward the forefoot, finally years of walking and running contribute to mild degenerative changes that reflect normal aging but still not a disease. 

These changes don’t mean our feet “fail,” but they now handle load differently. All this new reality is why older runners and walkers often switch to softer shoes with generous cushioning, avoid long downhill itineraries and adopt a shorter stride length. It’s called adaptation, not deterioration! 

Our feet don’t “absorb less weight” because they’re weak but because their biological cushioning system changes. Our muscles may still be strong, our cardiovascular system excellent, but the fat pads and connective tissues don’t seem to care and keep on getting thinner as we age, no matter what we try to do to stop that process...