Emotional 'literacy' implies an expanded responsibility for schools in helping to socialize children. This daunting task requires two major changes: that teachers go beyond their traditional mission and that people in the community become more involved with schools as both active participants in children's learning and as individual mentors.

One way to boost our will power and focus is to manage our distractions instead of letting them manage us.

Our passions, when well exercised, have wisdom; they guide our thinking, our values, our survival.

Who does not recall school at least in part as endless dreary hours of boredom punctuated by moments of high anxiety?

Companies in the East put a lot more emphasis on human relationships, while those from the West focus on the product, the bottom line. Westerners appear to have more of a need for achievement, while in the East there's more need for affiliation.

I don't think focus is in itself ever a bad thing. But focus of the wrong kind, or managed poorly, can be.

However, I began meditating at about that time and have continued on and off over the years.