For every suicide that occurs there are 300 attempts. I share some tips and guidance for helping someone who is depressed and suicidal find their way to treatment or therapy.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Call 1-800-273-8255, Available 24 hours everyday.
Please put American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic by Victoria Johnson at the top of your summer reading list. The book tells the captivating and forgotten story of Alexander Hamilton’s and Aaron Burr’s personal physician, Dr. David Hosack. In addition to being present at the duel that ends Hamilton’s life, Hosack was a world-class botanist and visionary. He conducted some of the first pharmaceutical research in the United States and his famous garden/lab lies buried beneath Rockefeller Center. It is a feast for the mind.
It’s actually a question: “What is this an opportunity for?” I learned it from one of my mentors, and I pass it on every semester to all my students.
That you can conjure up a living, breathing character and her or his entire world through great writing.
I have a necklace made from a small medal struck in the 1830s to honor David Hosack, the hero of American Eden. The medal depicts his life’s great passions: nature, medicine, books, music, and art. I feel connected to him across two centuries when I wear it.
Piles and piles of books! I’m currently rereading Elizabeth Gilbert’s sweeping botanical novel The Signature of All Things, which is set at the same time as American Eden.
Seeing David Hosack on a Broadway stage in the Hamilton musical after several years of researching his life story.
My motto (see above) gets me through a bad day with my optimism totally intact.
Having a career—writing and teaching—that feels both playful and meaningful.
Archival research. When I’m hot on the trail of a historical figure through old letters and documents, I feel possessed—like I couldn’t stop if I wanted to.
A gorgeous painting of persimmons that hangs above my dresser, done by my sister Jessica Honigberg. She is a classical musician AND a talented painter.
Fiction: any of the novels by my sister Elizabeth Kostova, who has been writing since we were little girls. Her novels have the fine-grained beauty of poetry. Nonfiction: Andrea Wulf’s The Invention of Nature, an absolutely riproaring biography of the great nineteenth-century scientist Alexander von Humboldt.
Can it please be on a non-fictional character? Because the more I learned about David Hosack, the more I came to love his boundless curiosity, sense of humor, compassion, and commitment to helping his fellow citizens live happy, healthy lives. Otherwise: Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, by Charles Dickens.
Victoria Johnson is an associate professor of urban policy and planning at Hunter College of the City University of New York. To learn more about Victoria, pick up a copy of her new book, American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic, and follow her on:
Graduation speeches, self-help books and well-meaning therapists preach the gospel of “following your passion.” It is predicated on the belief that if you follow your passion, you will be happy, and you will become successful in whatever you do. This is actually terrible advice. Stay with me.
Cal Newport, PhD, explores this misguided wisdom is detail in his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love. He explains that this is problematic because it assumes:
Research shows that many people don’t have preexisting passions and moreover, that workplace satisfaction is far more complex and more nuanced than simply matching innate interest with one’s job description.
Rather than following your passion, Newport argues that passion is something to cultivate and build. Hard work and mastery are the gateways to passion, not the other way around:
When you hear the stories of people who ended up loving what they do, this same pattern comes up again and again. They start by painstakingly developing rare and valuable skills — which we can call career capital. They then leverage this capital to gain rare and valuable traits in their career. These traits lead to a feeling of passion about their working life…Stop worrying about what the world owes you, it says, and instead, put your head down, and strive to become so good you can’t be ignored. It’s this straightforward goal—not some fairy tale about dropping everything to pursue a dream job—that will lead you toward a working life you love.
I wish you all the best,
Dr. Samantha Boardman
What does it take to make a good marriage? A study at the University of Virginia explored this question in depth. The results challenge some of our fundamental beliefs about wedded bliss.
According to the report, the past matters. The ghosts of the prior romances can haunt new ones. Those who had more romantic experiences…are more likely to have lower-quality marriages than those with a less complicated romantic history.
This is counterintuitive. In most areas of life, more experience is better. Not when it comes to marriage. The researchers believe that the more past relationships one has had, the more one is aware of what could have been. The tendency to compare the current partner with past partners can undermine marriage quality. Also, the more relationships someone has had, the more breakups they have had. The researchers argue that this can lead to a more jaundiced view of marriage.
How couples navigate their way through transitions is a predictor of marriage quality.
How couples hand choices seems to matter. Some make definitive decisions that move them from one stage of a relationship to another. Others are less intentional. Rather than consciously deciding how and when to transition to the next stage of the relationship, they slide through milestones without prior planning.
For example, couples who make a deliberate decision to live together as compared to those who say, “it just happened” had greater marriage quality later on. Having explicit conversations and making active choices about major milestones clearly matters.
Having a formal wedding is associated with higher marriage quality.
(This) may have to do with the act of having a public ceremony, which symbolizes a clear decision to commit to one’s marriage…Wedding ceremonies ritualize the foundation of a commitment.
According to the report, couples who had more than 150 guests attend their wedding had better marriages in the long run. It is possible that a large celebration filled with family and friends functions as a symbol of encouragement and support throughout the marriage.
Remember that what you do before you say “I do” seems to have a notable impact on your marital future. So decide wisely.
I wish you all the best,
Dr. Samantha Boardman
If you want to increase the value of a painting, pay attention to where you hang it.
What makes you fall in love with a painting? There are many reasons you might be drawn to a particular picture—maybe it’s the colors or the brushstrokes or the image that captivates you. Perhaps it is the story behind a painting that brings it to life. I have always loved Cy Twombly but learning how Rilke’s poetry inspired the Rose series further deepened my appreciation.
An interesting new study suggests an entirely different reason why a picture might appeal to you—where it hangs on the wall. Participants were asked to look at Wassily Kandinsky’s Sky Blue. They were randomly assigned to view it hanging in one of three locations on the wall: above eye level, at eye level or below eye level—and then asked to rate it.
Those who evaluated the painting while looking up gave it the highest rating. Those who looked down upon it gave it the lowest rating. It is unclear why the painting’s physical location influenced participant’s reactions to the picture but researchers believe it may have something to do with the way a physical experience can influence emotions.
For example, a Yale psychologist found that holding a warm cup of coffee makes people feel more warmly towards strangers. In this case, gazing upwards at the Kandinsky may increase feelings of awe or inspiration whereas looking down on something may have the opposite effect.
If only I knew that in 10th grade art class. I would have hung my abysmal paintings of my dog higher on the wall. Perhaps the art teacher would have liked them more…
I wish you all the best,
Dr. Samantha Boardman
For all those who live in fear of making a mistake, take heart. Kevan Lee explains:
“Those who never make mistakes are perceived as less likeable than those who commit the occasional faux pas. Messing up draws people closer to you, makes you more human. Perfection creates distance and an unattractive air of invincibility. Those of us with flaws win out every time.”
This theory labeled the pratfall effect was tested by psychologist Elliot Aronson. In his test, he asked participants to listen to recordings of people answering a quiz. Select recordings included the sound of the person knocking over a cup of coffee. When participants were asked to rate the quizzers on likability, the coffee-spill group came out on top.”
That said, there is nothing charming about someone you don’t hold in high regard spilling coffee on you. For this to operate, the person must already be perceived as competent.
The appreciation of imperfection applies to art as well. Ellen Langer, professor of Psychology at Harvard, explains:
“With writing and art, mistakes tend to make the product more interesting. The major difference between a machine-made rug and a handmade one is that the regularity of the machine-made rug makes it uninteresting. Errors give the viewer something to hold onto.
When you make a mistake in a painting, if—instead of trying to correct the mistake—you incorporate it into what you are doing and go forward, you are working mindfully. When we ask viewers to choose between this kind of art and ‘flawless’ works, people say they prefer the mindfully created pieces.”
Beauty is in the cracks, the smudge, and the imperfect line. In an age of machine-made products, human touch is more valuable than ever. As with people, minor flaws can make objects more appealing and more unique.
There is elegance in imperfection. Making minor mistakes isn’t the worst thing in the world; in fact, it can work in our favor.
I wish you all the best,
Dr. Samantha Boardman
