Not losing focus
Maybe it’s a symptom of a midlife crisis, but my wife and I decided — somewhat suddenly — to purchase a 7-acre piece of land in Columbia County to build a weekend house. The pace at which we moved on the purchase and the plans to build surprised us both. We are hoping to be in construction in a few months and enjoying our new home by next summer.
Our kids were even more surprised by the whole thing. We are transplants to New York City but committed city-dwellers, nonetheless. We’ve never had a beach house. Or a place in Maine. Or a cottage on the Cape. We haven’t owned a car since 1994.
“Who even are we?” my daughter asked, struggling to absorb this idea of a house in the Hudson Valley. We’re the same people, to be sure, but we’re definitely entering a new phase of our lives with a new perspective. We made this decision with a keen focus on those years between 60 and 80, those years when our kids will leave the nest, for good, and start families of their own. Those years when we will want a larger place to gather and enjoy each other — soaking in the hot tub, roasting marshmallows around the firepit, and studying the constellations in the clear, dark mountain sky.
When our friends decamped to homes far and wide during the pandemic, and the city emptied out, we were here. Setting aside my wife’s obligation to be here, as a physician frontline worker, facing the deadly crisis head on, every day, where would we have gone? During other crises the city has faced — 9/11, Superstorm Sandy — there were similar forces suggesting that we leave the city — or at least, that we diversify our real estate holdings in such a way that we would have options in the event of future crises. If we didn’t even have the werewithal to get toilet paper before the shelves were empty, how would we ever be able to get a rental car? We just don’t have a disaster mindset.
Last week, just a month after closing on our property, I read an article about Americans Are Preparing for When All Hell Breaks Loose. Apparently, “the prepared citizen movement is gaining traction in a world shaped by war, the pandemic, and extreme weather.” I obviously don’t consider myself a prepper, but I’d be lying if I said the California wildfires didn’t play a role in our decision. I’d also be lying if I said this dystopian political environment didn’t play a role. There’s definitely a feeling of fear and anxiety about the future, a feeling that we’re on our own.
One of the prepared citizen groups spoke to this feeling in me. Protect Peace was founded by Danielle Campbell, who was moved to act after her assistant was killed by a stray bullet during a botched robbery. Like other groups in this movement, Protect Peace is comprised of gun owners seeking firearms training, but its primary mission is to help communities affected by gun violence. The group provides medical trauma training, distributes naloxone, and offers other emergency preparedness support. The best ways to combat fear and anxiety include planning ahead, banding together, and focusing on a better future.
NYU Langone’s Dean and CEO writes a monthly essay with the purpose of unifying our community around “a common goal of fulfilling our true potential for greatness.” Last month’s installment was entitled Focus. He described focus as the ability to concentrate on one’s goals and objectives — powering performance and results. We lose focus for a variety of reasons, he wrote, including fear, anxiety, and stress. Focus demands confidence, resilience, and the courage to stay the course. When challenging circumstances arise, rather than succumbing to distraction or wavering from your position, it pays to keep your attention focused on what matters and complete the specific tasks you set for yourself.
While the essays are apolitical, and while this advice can be read as purely strategic guidance from a prescient leader, the essay acknowledged “the excessive turbulence and headwinds facing our health system.” The implicit message is, don’t let the authoritarian threats to our institution coming out of a would-be dictator be a distraction from our sacred mission. We must keep our focus on our own values, priorities, and objectives.
True enough, but the message runs the risk of minimizing the magnitude of the threat before us and the existential dread that many are feeling. To many, the very foundations of modern liberalism — democracy, secularism, rule of law, free speech, independent press — are under assault. And in MAGA’s quest to consolidate power, the political is personal.
As conservative columnist David Brooks observed in his latest piece in The Atlantic, one of the administration’s highest priorities has been to destroy, dismantle, or remake the places where they think liberal elites work — the scientific and foreign-aid communities, the Departments of Justice, Interior, and Education, colleges and universities, the Kennedy Center, among others — not to mention, to undermine and weaken the places where they think liberals live, like New York City.
All my life I have had a certain idea about America. I have thought of America as a deeply flawed nation that is nonetheless a force for tremendous good in the world… Until January 20, 2025, I didn’t realize how much of my very identity was built on this faith in my country’s goodness — on the idea that we Americans are partners in a grand and heroic enterprise, that our daily lives are ennobled by service to that cause. Since January 20, as I have watched America behave vilely…I’ve had trouble describing the anguish I’ve experienced…. Maybe the best description for what I’m feeling is moral shame: To watch the loss of your nation’s honor is embarrassing and painful. — David Brooks
It is painful indeed. Even the administration’s purported efforts to combat antisemitism are a ruse for its more nefarious goals. As Michael Roth, the first Jewish president of Wesleyan University, has warned, the tactics the administration has used to advance this alleged civil rights agenda are antithetical to Jewish values and pose a direct threat to Jewish life in this country. While MAGA surrogates, like Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Candace Owens, Andrew Tate, and Nick Fuentes, are praising these anti-antisemitism measures, they are also spouting antisemitic tropes and endorsing xenophobic conspiracy theories.
Trump himself has declared that Senator Chuck Schumer is “not Jewish anymore.” Leo Terrell, the head of Trump’s antisemitism task force, shared a tweet by a prominent white supremacist that lauded the president’s “ability to revoke someone’s Jew card.”
It is not truth that matters, but victory. — Adolf Hitler
This is dangerous stuff. But the Dean is right when he suggests that keeping your focus in this environment demands confidence, resilience, and courage.
We attended a bar mitzvah last week. The Torah portion was Vayikra from Leviticus. Following the Exodus from Egypt, the challenge put forth in Vayikra is to stay close to the God of Jewish liberation. The Torah suggests that daily life can leave us alienated and distracted, maybe unmoored from our core values and beliefs. The laws handed down to Moses were intended to keep Jews present and active in their faith. In modern teaching, the mitzvot — or commandments — of sacrifices have been replaced with the mitzvot of good deeds.
The part of the service that resonated in me was the Rabbi’s connection of this reading to Moses’ humility. Given the Torah’s reverence for Moses and his profound humility, it’s astonishing that any Jew would believe that Donald Trump, riding a nihilistic wave of arrogance, adultery, abuse, cruelty, and corruption, is God’s answer to antisemitism. Donald Trump is a literal Golden Calf. I was moved by the Rabbi’s translation of the Hebrew word for humility, anavah, the precise definition of which is to occupy your God-given space in the world — to not overestimate yourself or your abilities, but to not underestimate them either. As any good sermon should, this one left me thinking about my own connection to my core values.
In the past month, my two sons have each embarked on truly exciting, potentially transformational professional adventures. Both opportunities have demanded them to make choices and sacrifices. More choices and sacrifices may lie ahead. But each of them has admitted, separately, that they are happy to have the distraction of these new opportunities, in this moment. They care deeply about what’s happening in this country — and in the world— but they are relieved to have something else to focus on, even if they feel a little guilty.
It’s a sad statement, but I feel the same about our house. How fortunate to have something so exciting to distract me from what’s happening. How fortunate to be approaching 60 and not 50 or 40 — or 20, to be honest. Not to say that the institutions that my wife and I work for aren’t under assault. Not to say that losing a chunk of my retirement savings or that paying more for our house won’t be painful. And I’m certainly a little afraid about what I say or write as this country makes these incremental moves toward autocracy. But how privileged am I not to have to worry losing my healthcare. Or about being deported. Not yet anyway.
David Brooks and I don’t agree on everything, but I do appreciate his focus on values. Nihilism is about destruction. That’s been the singular focus of Trump’s efforts so far. Destroying everything modern liberalism has built. But where does this go next? You need positive core values, optimism, and trust to build something lasting. According to Brooks, humility, fairness, and integrity are not just nice virtues to have — they are practical tools that produce good outcomes. Greed, hypocrisy, and dishonesty, not so much. This administration simply cannot stand.
How do we stay focused in this moment? How do we balance keeping our focus with maintaining our sanity?
I will own my space in the world. In the Jewish tradition, I will stand in my humility. I will use my voice, my vote, my money, and my privilege to not only call out the lies and corruption at the heart of Trumpism but also to demonstrate the positive and essential virtues of liberalism to society today. I will also grant myself the grace to be distracted, to focus on my own future and my own family. And with my wife, we will build our house. We have to live in the present — but we also have to fight for the positive, hopeful future we want — all at the same time.
