I didn’t realize the extent to which some kids face pressure to excel until I moved to a major city and began to work with affluent families there.

Though these kids enjoyed certain privileges and choices that I had not had, they were also expected to follow a certain path in life. They were expected to be exceptional students and go to exceptional colleges.

Presumably, to have exceptional lives.

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In some jobs, you get to go home at the end of the day. You might even clock out when your shift is done. At that point, you know your work is complete.

Though this type of job might come with disadvantages (never more so than during this pandemic), many of us long for the comfort and predictability of this type of routine. When we’re working from home and we have the possibility of being perpetually connected to our work, we run the risk of perpetually working. How do we know when it is enough?

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As a young adult, I didn’t know that the music teachers who advertised in the classifieds section of the free weekly paper were the crummy ones who weren’t generating enough business through referrals.

I attended one lesson with a jazz piano teacher. Instead of teaching me new things, he spent most of the hour lecturing me on why I needed to focus. I couldn’t play guitar and piano…and if I was going to play piano, I needed to specialize. I couldn’t keep playing classical and pop and jazz. If I wanted a career in music, I needed to make a choice and go all the way with it.

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I came across a plaintive blog post by a struggling entrepreneur. “God,” she said to the Internet, “Why won’t you send your blessings to my business?”

Yesterday, I wrote about how we can succeed with something if we stick with it and refuse to entertain the possibility that we don’t have what it takes. But that’s about our own skill and persistence. We run into trouble when we think we can control what other people do if we just try hard enough or show up long enough…and if that is the case, controlling the actions of an almighty deity would seem to be to be off the menu as well.

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The weapon that can inflict the most pain, as we know, is words.

Even in a world where parents and teachers still hit kids, a remark can sting more deeply.

When a child’s primary motivation in life is to please the adults, to disappoint them is crushing.

Some adults make it difficult or impossible for kids to hit the mark — or to know whether they have. I hear it all the time: “I feel like I never do anything right. She’s always mad at me,” or “No matter what, she’ll still be disappointed.” Eventually, kids will give up on trying to figure out what elicits praise or disappointment, but the voice of the disapproving adult may become the voice in their head.

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