F. Scott Fitzgerald classic The Great Gatsby follows protagonist Jay Gatsby (whose real name is Jimmy Gatz) as he transforms himself into a member of New York's 1920s jazz-era upper class. Gatsby hosts parties at his mansion but his real hope is that Daisy Buchanan – a woman he once dated but who is now married to someone else – will show up one night. This book is the go-to example of a character who is pining for someone else. But, ask Murnighan and Kelly, is it really healthy? Building your entire life around someone you're not even in a relationship with is unrealistic and means you're focusing entirely on them and not on what's best for you. And, as for Daisy, if you're the object of an obsessive affection like Gatsby's, wouldn't you always be worrying about measuring up to the impossible ideal that he's created over the course of years?
Mark Sappenfield
Dear Reader,
About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:
“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”
If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.
But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.
The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.
We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”
If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.
