“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”  — Albert Einstein

This article first appeared on the PBS affiliated Website This Emotional Life.

Every so often I stop to reflect upon the seemingly random series of events that have led my life to its current point. In times like these my mind rarely gravitates toward any single individuals who left lasting impressions, positive or negative, but instead remains fixed on the patterns that have emerged over time.  Make no mistake, I still search for a seemingly insignificant or banal event from my past that might offer some magical context to help define the person I have become, especially in light of my newfound fatherhood.  And yet, while I am not holding out for such an epiphany any time soon for myself, such a revelation could do wonders for my son as he crawls faster and faster toward the conclusion of his first year.

At the age of eleven, I read my first Greek myth, and I was hooked. Eleven years later, I graduated from college with a major in classical studies, a discipline I have described as familiarization with an abundance of Greek myths experienced in a written rather than spoken format, in a language that dates back seven to ten thousand years.  From this historical depository of dactylic hexameter and Socratic dialogue, a few key tenets have remained permanently etched in my brain, and it is not uncommon for me to draw upon these scraps of wisdom on any given day. While often overshadowed by the technological advances that largely define our fast-paced modern society, I continually find that those bits of knowledge I learned twenty years ago are more than enough to help me navigate through even the most baffling of days.

“Victory comes to men in turns.”

This famous quote from a traditional English translation of Homer’s Iliad is a source of comfort and hope in troubled times as well as a gentle reminder for us all to strive for humility at any stage. … Read more →