Library of Wisdom

Love & dating · Joy & gratitude

On the question

Since 1987, at every wedding, someone's aunt has asked me — gently, as one inquires after a limp — whether I never wanted to marry. Here is the answer at full length, recorded so I can finally stop giving it: I wanted my life. I got it. Whole decades of mornings that belonged entirely to me, work I loved past reason, forty-one students who are my descendants in the way that counts for me, and friendships forty years deep that nobody ever asked me to rank. A life can be full in more shapes than the one on the greeting cards. Mine was one of the other shapes. It held.

To someone younger: A full life comes in more shapes than the cards print. Pick yours on purpose.

— Dr. Priya Sharma · Immunologist — thirty-four years at NIH, BethesdaDemonstration

Faith & doubt · Joy & gratitude

On a godless life, examined

At hospital bedsides, kind people would sometimes hand me their faith the way you'd offer a coat — sure I must be cold without one. I never was, and I want this written down by an actual unbeliever rather than argued about over our heads. I have not needed God to be astonished. I have seen a B cell rearrange its own genome to meet a pathogen it has never encountered, and if that doesn't put you on the floor, the failure isn't in the universe. A secular life is not an unexamined one. Mine was one long act of paying attention. I am told that is also a definition of prayer. Fine. We can share the word.

— Dr. Priya Sharma · Immunologist — thirty-four years at NIH, BethesdaDemonstration

Joy & gratitude

The 6 a.m. regulars

People chase happiness like it's a vacation — some place you get to later, big and far away and expensive. Honey, I had it every morning at six: snow coming off the lake, the urn perking, Stan Jr. and the plow guys stomping in loud, and my hands doing work they knew by heart. Joy is a small thing that comes on a schedule, if you keep the schedule. Most people can't be bothered. Be bothered.

To someone younger: Joy keeps a schedule. Keep it with her.

— Dorothy "Dot" Jablonski · Wire-winder, diner owner, fed every kid on Cherry StreetDemonstration

Money · Joy & gratitude

Rich

I was born two years into the Depression, so I'll tell you what rich is and you can stop wondering. Rich is when nobody you love needs a thing you can't get them. A coat, a coffin, bail, breakfast — doesn't matter what it is. By that measure I've been rich since about 1974, and I never once had what the bank would call money. Figure out which one you're chasing, honey. They don't run in the same direction.

To someone younger: Add up what you'd grab in a fire. That's your net worth.

— Dorothy "Dot" Jablonski · Wire-winder, diner owner, fed every kid on Cherry StreetDemonstration

Money · Joy & gratitude

On the number

Here's what nobody tells you about the wire transfer: Tuesday you have the number, and Wednesday you're still you. Same knees. Same temper. Same daughter who would rather have had you at the games. Money is a tool that is spectacular at solving money problems, and most of what I'd broken getting it wasn't a money problem. The number bought me time and quiet. What I did with the time and quiet — that part the money just sat and watched.

— Marcus Reyes · Built a freight company for nineteen years, then sold itDemonstration