The Hard Part

Living according to other peoples’ expectations isn’t easy.

Charles Osgood’s bow tie from his final CBS Sunday Morning appearance. The tie is now in the Smithsonian Institution.

“What is outside my mind means nothing to it.” — Marcus Aurelius, c. 170

I was preparing an essay on another topic when I saw the news yesterday: veteran broadcaster Charles Osgood had died.

Normally, the death of a prominent individual wouldn’t be enough to change the course of the newsletter, but it was related to something I eventually planned to write about.

For those who may not know Charles Osgood, he was the host of CBS Sunday Morning from 1994 – 2016 and for 46 years ran a daily short segment on the radio called “The Osgood File.”

He was a master of storytelling, with his calm and metered delivery.

Osgood described his own writing style:

“Short words, short sentences, short paragraphs. There’s nothing that can't be improved by making it shorter and better.”

He incorporated poetry and sometimes music into his work. And he was a well-known bow tie wearer.

He didn’t alwa…