7/23/2022

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            How are you feeling? According to the WP you are aiming to “show that presidential work goes on.” Good for you!

            Speaking of Presidential work, are you feeling like an expert yet? According to my calculations, you’ve being doing it for 9864 hours. That’s assuming 18-hour days, every day since inauguration. That may be an overestimate, since you probably sleep more that 6-hours a day, or we could say that since being POTUS is a 24/7 job you’ve done it for 13152 hours. Either way, you are around the 10,000-hour mark, which researcher Anders Ericsson identified as necessary for elite performers to attain exceptional accomplishments. He also says that a superior teacher is required to provide advice on focus so that each of the 10,000 hours is optimally used to hone one’s skill. Would you say that OHB was your teacher or is it your chief of staff, Ron Klain? Do you feel like you’ve mastered the job or are you still figuring it out?

            I am definitely a novice at my new role as department chair. So far, I have authorized 25 things & on over half of them, I have had to ask someone some questions. That slows things down & things are slow enough in our bloated bureaucracy.  We use 3 or 4 systems to hire someone, so I have to learn about each one, where I need to look & how I submit my approval. I am trying to be Zen about the whole thing & approach it with a sense of humor. We’ll see how long that lasts.

            I’m sure you share my relief at seeing that Gambia’s case against Myanmar for committing genocide on the Rohingya is moving forward in the World Court. According to CNN, “Judge Joan Donoghue said all states that had signed the 1948 Genocide Convention could and must act to prevent genocide, and the court had jurisdiction in the case.” It’s important that the world makes a judgment on this matter, even if the junta never acknowledges their wrong doing.

            Get well,