Love Notes for Bridging Difference

Posted on November 19, 2025 by Catherine Cheng, MD

The PA student wellness talk went great! 42 or so junior colleagues engaged with me and my badly designed PowerPoint for ninety minutes and I had the BEST time! I realized this morning that for the youngest of them (about half the class), the pandemic hit during high school and the beginning of college. It reminds me of The Fourth Turning and how significantly the intersection of phase of life with momentous human events influences our world views. This summer I was challenged to address the impact of generational differences on organizational culture in a corporate wellness talk, and I started to see age and generation as another form of diversity.

“Respect and challenge the hierarchy,” occurred to me for students this year. We elders (some very elder indeed) still run things, and our experience and wisdom matter. We also have much to learn from our juniors, from their fresh and diverse perspectives. If we can all lead, from any chair, by humble and confident example, our professional culture will progress toward stronger inclusiveness and mutual respect.

I continue to seek conversation and connection with both conservative and progressive friends around politics. But I want to go deeper than news headlines and the loudest arguments. I want to know what core goals and values we share, to start walking together to see where our paths diverge. Where are our shared destinations, and why do you choose 90/94 while I choose Lake Shore Drive? What are the dis/advantages of each, what are the trade-offs?

I am really starting to miss more long form posting here, how fascinating! We are 60% through this daily blogging challenge. Many thanks to all who have followed along (Hi Mick and Donna!), and welcome to any new friends! Now let’s see how much love we can find across difference:

Keep your antennae tuned for those who would divide us to serve their own purposes. This is NOT our better nature. Resist them and stay connected!

2. You and I disagree on this today. That may not necessarily be the case in the future. We can keep our minds open to change, without shame or judgement.

3. You don’t believe everything I believe. But let us not let that stop us from staying curious and connecting anyway. May we see light in each other no matter what.

4. The holidays can challenge our patience and resilience to triggers. *deep breath* May we stand firmly in love and ties of respect and shared history to get us through gratefully.

5. Our biases come honestly or not, we inherit many and form others organically. It’s a human thing. But let us hold them loosely and let them go to connect to one another.

6. Today and all days, may our differences feel softer, less threatening, and approachable with openness, light, and optimism for connection.

7. How wonderfully diverse we all are! How boring the world would be if we were all the same! May we appreciate and celebrate every spectrum!

8. To my friends who vote differently and sit with me over a meal or coffee to discuss–thank you. Our persistent and resilient connection gives me hope for our future.

9. I love you because we share important things in common. And the places where we differ teach me, make me better. Because of our love.

10. One deep breath can be the difference between a connecting moment and a destructive one. Let our breath give us the space to make the connecting choice.

11. Humility Curiosity Empathy Kindness Generosity — Is there any theme of love note NOT founded on these?

12. These fun music mash-ups like AC/DC-BeeGees — If we can so easily and artfullly blend divergent melodic creations, why not try with our policy ideas? We are a creative species, no?

Oh, I like this set, friends. Onward to 30!

Love Notes for Learning

Posted on November 18, 2025 by Catherine Cheng, MD

Ooo, it’s late. Of course I procrastinated revising my presentation to the last minute. Tomorrow I get to talk to first year physician assistant students about burnout and well-being. How fun to look each time at the prior year’s slides and see how much is unchanged, as well as what has evolved in the interim. Mostly I feel increasingly informal, collegial, practical, and just a little maternal in my approach. It’s about calling forth just a few things to hold in front through training and career: Meaning, Mission, Connection, and Lifelong Learning.

So let’s see what twelve love notes emerge from this mindset, shall we?

What a wonde(r)fully wide and awesome world to behold when we take a beginner’s mind and open ourselves to new experience and connection anywhere, anytime!

2. May you see and encouner the wise teacher in every person you meet today. We can learn something valuable from any encounter if we are just open to it.

3. Holy cow, there is too much to ever learn or know! So follow your curiosity in the moment–anything you learn is something you can apply later!

4. Curiosity is such a vastly more fun and interesting mindset than certainty! Not mutually exclusive, and definitely in need of balance.

5. Dear darling, may you never lose that child-like awe and wonder at the marvels that surround us! It keeps us out of cynicism and despair, I am convinced.

6. Wishing you a day of relaxed, eye opening, insightful, and connecting intellectual sparks today! Because that kind of energy fuels us and keeps the world turning!

7. At some point today, may we embody the qualities of our very favorite teachers. It’s never about the information; it’s about the love, the kindness, and the relationship. 🙂

8. What a privilege to befriend young people! The diversity of perspective among age(s) and generations opens us! May your friends span the decades!

9. Huh. We’re kinda all teachers, leading by example that others either want to follow or NOT. So let us watch which examples we ourselves follow, eh?

10. Let us take on a student mindset often. Show up. Open up. Invite the lesson. Study. Dedicate ourselves to absorb, integrate, and apply. So much possibility, OMG!

11. Whatever super cool new random thing you learn next, please share! We all do better when we spread the love of learning throughout life, right?

12. Nobody can possibly know everything! Someone will always know more than you or I do about something. How cool! What if we all shared freely and generously?

Until tomorrow, friends. Take good care of your ever expanding minds and hearts!

Love Notes for Gratitude

Posted on November 11, 2025 by Catherine Cheng, MD

OH but I should wait until Thanksgiving to post this one, right? Oh well, I feel overwhelming gratitude today so I will post this today! The world is better when we express gratitude in real time, no??

What are you grateful for today? How have you already expressed it? How much better is your day, your life, when you do?

With abandon, my friends. Effuse it. Let’s go.

One year I wrote a thank you card a day. It was a centering experience. Maybe I can do it again in the New Year? God knows I have enough CARDS! 😀

2. Thank you for being you, sharing yourself with the rest of us, and not depriving us of the great joy and pleasure of knowing you.

3. Family Friends Teachers Colleagues Good Leaders Kind Strangers — Any human with a kind heart — Thank you all!

4. What is the silliest, most absurd thing that you are really grateful for? I have so many but pretty paper, OMG. Life would just not be as good without it!!

5. Holy COW, so much to be thankful for. And today I feel it especially for all the folks to trust me. What a big privilege and honor.

6. May all of your myriad acts of gratitude be reinforced so you stay motivated to commit them often and with great enthusiasm! More more more please! Thank you!

7. When someone opens up and shares something personal, we need to thank them for it. Because that is an act of bravery and trust, and needs to be acknowledged. Let’s pay attention, k?

8. I think it’s a great idea to always keep on hand paper and pen to write our gratitude down so it is documented and shared. This way it’s amplified and there is more of it in the world.

9. A quarter of this century is almost over! Holy cow! Thank our lucky stars that we are all still here, holding one another up! Let’s keep going, yes?

10. Do you have gratitude rituals? I don’t. But I think practices are more important and easier than rituals… When they are spontaneous and second nature–all the better!

11. I bet you made someone’s life better today and I am grateful for that because it made the world better and that is how we survive the shit show! Thank you!