These questions make for enriching conversation, but they can be equally illuminating if you simply ask them of yourself. I stumbled onto the idea of asking big questions because I needed them myself. They drive our growth, and we can come back to them year after year.
When you’re on your deathbed looking back at your life with no regrets, how do you define a successful life?
What kind of impact do you want to make?
How do you want to feel every day?
I love the Op Ed section of the paper. I believe we all need to write at least one letter on something we’re passionate about in our lifetime. In saying that, I applaud this reader
I’m a 13-year-old girl who is tired of kids dying in school. Fear should have no place in our schools, but unfortunately when kids are dying, we cannot help but be afraid.
Far too many students in the United States have experienced gun violence at school. These kids weren’t just unlucky, this is now a common thing that happens in America, a uniquely American experience where kids die in schools on the regular.
I am sick of people dying for an outdated amendment right. Guns do kill people and people shouldn’t have access to these weapons. We are not able to vote, but we are the ones who end up dead in the classrooms that we’re supposed to be safe in. Your silence is violence. Thoughts and prayers won’t do anything; policy change will.
How many more kids must die? Our blood will be on your hands if you do nothing. I could write a whole essay, but the thesis statement would be that we need to ban all guns now.
Alison Cogan, Seattle Public Schools student
I love the Op-ed section of the paper. I believe we all need to write at least one letter on something we’re passionate about in our lifetime. In saying that, I applaud this reader
Re: “Who will be next after Tyre Nichols? My brothers? My son? Me?” [Feb. 5, Opinion]:
I am a white woman. I have a husband and two sons, all white. I am one of those whom columnist Carlton Winfrey observes does not know — and doesn’t have to know — the fear and pain of being a Black man at risk of police attack merely for moving about our community.
But with the recurrent incidents of police killing Black men, it settles on me. I can almost imagine the fear and pain of my Black women friends as they watch their husbands and sons go out the door. How could I live if I had to fear my son might not come home alive after a trip to the store, going to work or taking a night out with friends? How would that terror weigh on me every time I am reminded of that threat, on seeing yet another man killed by officers?
It would permeate every cell in my body. And on that realization, I retreat again into not having to know. For my own sanity. A luxury I cannot share with those who need it most.
Lenell Nussbaum, Seattle
My mother used to say “ambition with contentment ” I am not someone who’s ambitious [for the sake of] ambition. My ambition is grounded I positively impacting others. I seek impact, not glory! – Dara Tresder
Positively Purging-I welcome your feedbacks in the comments and your likes and passing the real life wisdom on to others as I embark on this new venture of “positively purging“, as I know each of these pieces represents something…
Is it legal for me to glean fruit from private gardens if the fruit is overhanging a public sidewalk?
I consulted the King County Law Library, and they referred me to a chapter in the book Neighbor Law which addresses a slightly different situation, of fruit overhanging a property line between neighbors. In that case, “the location of a tree’s trunk determines who owns the tree. If the trunk stands next door, the tree, branches, leaves, and [fruit] belong to your neighbor. You may not legally help yourself to the fruit.” Each state may have slightly different laws, and they do not always address branches that overhang a public sidewalk. (In some states, like Mississippi, where pecans are a high-value crop, it is a misdemeanor even to collect fallen nuts on a public sidewalk during harvest season, and doing so can result in a fine and up to a month in jail.)
Given the dubious legality of gleaning from private property without permission, it makes more sense to join organized efforts to harvest unused fruit and vegetables.
