At the beginning of my 8:00 a.m. class one Monday at University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), I cheerfully asked my students how their weekend had been. One young man said that…
-
-
I must at least try
In June 1985, two British mountaineers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates made the first-ever climb of the West Face of the 21,000 foot snow-covered Siula Grande mountain in Peru. It was an…
-
Everyone can play
At a fundraising dinner for an American school that serves learning disabled children, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended.…
-
Believe what you feel
On this day, Morrie says that he has an exercise for us to try. We are to stand, facing away from our classmates, and fall backward, relying on another student to catch…
-
The little wave
The story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He’s enjoying the wind and the fresh air – until he notices the other waves…
-
Alexander and Diogenes
Now when Alexander the Great appeared before the Greek leaders in Corinth, they greeted him warmly and paid him lavish compliments – all of them, that is but one. A funny fellow,…
-
Jumping the queue
A true tale of heroism that takes place not in a war zone, nor a hospital, but in Victoria station in London in 2007, during a tube strike. Our hero, a transport…
-
An 87-year-old college student named Rose
The first day of school, our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn’t already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched…
-
Build like a child
On a warm summer at a beautiful beach, a little boy on his knees scoops and packs the sand with plastic shovels into a bucket. He upends the bucket on the surface…
-
The fox and the sour grapes
One afternoon, a fox was walking through the forest and spotted a bunch of grapes hanging from a lofty branch. “Just the thing to quench my thirst,” he thought. Taking a couple of steps…