Wishing you a truly Joyful Holiday Season! Think Kind Thoughts, Smile Abundantly, Relish Loved Ones, and Join Me in Hoping for a New Year Filled with Peace, Prosperity, Good Health, Kindness, Respect, and Clarity for All! Thanks for all your support and kind words throughout the year. Happy Holidays to You and Yours! Your grateful friend, Ann Latham
Have you read Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance? I definitely recommend it. It is a particularly good book to read just before Thanksgiving. It gave me only about a thousand reasons to be grateful! Hillbilly Elegy is also relevant to recent discussions about privilege. I know I grew up privileged. My parents stayed together. They never threw plates at each other. I didn’t have to worry about drugs or drunks or violence. No one pointed guns at me. The people in my life mostly didn’t die before their time. I never went to bed hungry. And we never got thrown out of our house. After visiting Bosnia Herzegovina and Croatia in September, I should mention the privilege that stems from being born in a country without wars at home and with democratic elections followed by peaceful transfers of power.
If you’ve read many of my newsletters and other publications, you know I stand for respect, fairness, listening, and finding common ground. Perhaps you remember the article where I wrote that 95% of conflict is caused by a lack of clarity. And maybe you wondered about the other 5%.
I finally got a FitBit and I can’t resist sharing what I’ve learned–the good, the bad, and the ugly. First of all, I love the hourly reminders to get up and move if I haven’t walked 250 steps in the hour. I smile when I earn fireworks and silly badges for hitting 10,000 steps and exceeding my other goals. I was tickled pink the first time I wore it hiking and watched more than 21,000 steps, 11 miles, and 158 floors tick by. I love the fact that I am using it to push my activity and heart rate levels. But then there was the day I worked at my desk all day. The weather was lousy. I had lots to do. I was so engrossed, the hours slipped by. I didn’t get up each hour to move. I ran out of time to exercise. Pretty much the only calories I burned are the ones attributed to living and breathing, not moving. Instead of my usual 20 – 40 floors, I climbed only 8. I took fewer than 3000 steps. My heart rate may never have broken 60 bpm. I just kept working. And the resulting numbers made me sick.
Since it is summer reading season, I thought you would like to know that my daughter’s trilogy is on sale this week for just $.99 each. I think she is a wonderful writer, but I could be biased! Nonetheless, at this price, you can’t go wrong, can you? If you like adventure, Vikings, Norse mythology, hearty characters, and a dash of fantasy, these could be just what you are looking for! If you read any of her books, let me know your thoughts! Better yet, post a review on Amazon. That is what young writers desperately need to get their credibility ball rolling. Every review helps, even one word reviews. Did you know that Amazon won’t accept reviews from mothers and other close family members? I didn’t either until mine disappeared. The nerve! 🙂 While we are talking about books and honoring the familial fiction gene that clearly skipped me, my brother’s 15th thriller is now available for preorder. I like his books too and can’t wait until August 1st when this new one arrives at my doorstep. For those of you with no time for fiction, here are some of my recent Forbes posts that you may have missed:
When I hear The Star Spangled Banner, whether at a hockey game or on the 4th of July, a tear or two of pride and appreciation for the sacrifices of others appear in the corner of each eye. Today, as red, white, and blue pop up everywhere in preparation for the nation’s birthday party, my feelings are more complicated. Frankly, I am quite horrified by the divisiveness in which we seem to be swimming, maybe drowning. Strength, wisdom, and greatness come from finding common ground and working with others to make things better.This is true for individuals, businesses, families, and governments. Making it happen for businesses and non-profits is basically what I do for a living. United we stand, divided we fall. Furthermore, we need all the brain power and cooperation we can get. But it isn’t happening in the US right now. I’m not seeing any effort to find common ground. Nor to formulate some kind of shared vision for what we want this country to be. I’m not seeing an effort to work together either, though we will never, ever agree on how to make things better if we don’t first agree on what “better” looks like.
I’m really excited to tell you that the third book of my daughter’s trilogy, THE SONG OF THE ASH TREE, is now available. I love her books, but I know I have no credibility when it comes to singing their praises. I hardly dare describe the books for fear of getting it wrong in her eyes, so I’ll quote from her website instead: “Brimming with echoes of the Homeric epics and set in the nine realms of Norse mythology, THE SONG OF THE ASH TREE is a story of betrayal, vengeance, love, war, and fate.” Sounds pretty intriguing, don’t you think? If you were waiting for all three books to be available before diving into this series, your wait is over! The Blood-Tainted Winter The Hills of Home Already Comes Darkness And, definitely, let me know what you think when you finish! OK, back to work!
I’m looking out the window at giant snowflakes on the last day of March, the front edge of up to 12″ of snow. Yesterday I skied in New Hampshire, where the trails are wonderfully white despite the sun riding high in the sky. It hasn’t been a notably wintery winter, but it has been notable! January and February were ridiculously warm. March has been ridiculously cold. Anyone looking for soft spring skiing in New England is still waiting. The weather isn’t the only aspect of our lives that has gotten more unpredictable! And this new level of flux is not likely to stop anytime soon. How to cope? Breathe deeply. Smile. Clarify your priorities. And then identify a few concrete steps that will get you closer to your goals. All any of us can do is to make the best of each and every day. There is no point in whining. No advantage to beating yourself up. No benefit to blaming anyone else. Just keep walking forward and enjoy all the good things that surround you.
We are really quick to assume some people are mostly just like us. These people may live in our neighborhood or neighborhoods like ours. They may work in our companies or companies like ours. They may have attended the same schools or schools like ours. They may share our passions or passions similar to ours. Once we decide these people are mostly just like us, we look past their color, religion, accent, gender, and sexual orientation. We treat them the way we would want to be treated. With courtesy and respect.
In a decade of newsletters and blog posts, I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned any of my daughters’ accomplishments because I didn’t see that as providing value to you. But here’s news that could be of value and I get to be a super proud mother at the same time! Do you like to read? If so, check out The Blood-Tainted Winter, an exciting story of betrayal, vengeance, and chaos rooted in the world of Norse mythology. It is the first in a trilogy written by my daughter! It’s hot off the press and now available on Amazon in both print and ebook formats, and it’s perfect for the readers (and Vikings) on your Christmas list. To learn more about the book and the author, you can visit www.tlgreylock.com Now back to the world of clarity!