Are We There Yet? vol. 220

I finished a book over the weekend and was looking for something new to read in my house. One of my work colleagues had given me a book called Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty. Mr. Shetty is an author, podcaster, and life coach. The book is a self-help guide to having a more meaningful life, and his lessons are from his training as a monk over a three-year period after he finished his degree in management at the Cass Business School in London. 

At the same time as I started this book, I learned that Hall of Fame basketball player Bill Walton had died at the age of 72. While known for his basketball skills, he was also an avid follower of the Grateful Dead, attending more than 869 concerts according to his 2016 autobiography. I watched a segment of NBA Today hosted by Malika Andrews where she interviewed a number of people about who Bill Walton was to them. A common theme for every person with whom she spoke was that no matter how you were feeling when Bill entered the room, you felt better and happier because of his upbeat attitude and generosity of spirit. 

She noted that in one conversation, as he talked about team success, he noted that it requires team members to live lives of sacrifice, discipline, and honor. These three words—sacrifice, discipline, and honor—align well with Jay Shetty’s book. On the jacket cover of his book, it says that it “reveals how to overcome negative thoughts and habits and access the calm and purpose that lie within all of us.” Based on the stories told by those he touched, I think Bill Walton lived his life in this way.

Take care and stay safe.

BOOK:

Real Americans: A Novel by Rachel Khong

Real Americans begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster, and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn't be more different: flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of scientists who fled Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Despite all this, Lily and Matthew fall in love.  In 2021, fifteen-year-old Nick Chen has never felt like he belonged on the isolated Washington island where he lives with his single mother, Lily. He can't shake the sense she's hiding something. When Nick sets out to find his biological father, the journey threatens to raise more questions than it provides answers.  In immersive, moving prose, Rachel Khong weaves a profound tale of class and striving, race and visibility, and family and inheritance—a story of trust, forgiveness, and finally coming home.