Edition 143 - rain and sickness

I went thru a whole spectrum of emotions last week which was driven by rain & sickness. First I saw my son S1 swimming thru driving rain and felt very proud of his persistence. A couple of days later, I didn’t figure why my son was complaining about being cold in what seemed like warm water to me. I didn’t get out him of the water till he had cried for over 15 minutes at least (assuming he was just reluctant like some kids are on some days. In my lame defence, the coach also felt the same but just let him as the coaches don’t push at my pool unless the kids are willing).

We got home and S1 fell sick with a high fever (which resulted in tons of guilt and anxiety and wrecked my sleep). I lost the next day due to tending to him as he suffered thru fever and I through guilt. I am (not was…) also quite embarrassed that I didn’t figure something was off since S1 loves swimming and has never complained till date.

The one upside of his day off from school was that I ended up cooking something that we all love and both S1 and S2 got a sample of their dad’s cooking skills.

He’s getting better now, but as a coach, you hear enough stories about people and their motivations in persisting with hard activities. Always good to watch for yellow or red flags like this one.

After that rather heavy-personal note, here’s a really nice interview with a doctor-economist, Anupam aka ‘Bapu’ Jena (by David Epstein). Bapu has been on a few podcasts and the book has also featured in multiple newspapers last week, incl the WSJ. Seems like an interesting read (may be more novelty than education if you are a doc!)