Follow Your Dream While I Agonize Over the NYT Spelling Bee

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My youngest son graduated from college last weekend on the historic University of Virginia lawn. Perfect weather. Brilliant sunshine. Couldn’t see a thing from our section of the lawn. Could barely understand the sounds coming from the nearby speaker system. For all we knew it was the sound of a building AC unit or possibly aliens.

Which is why when I looked around me, folks had surrendered to their phones — reading, texting, and more than anything, doing online puzzles. I peeked over shoulders — crosswords on small phone screens stretched as far as the eye could see (maybe that’s an exaggeration.)

I pulled out my phone — because when in Rome — and opened my puzzle obsession, the New York Times Spelling Bee. I played for a bit, inching my way up the points tally.

If you haven’t played the Spelling Bee, it’s a daily puzzle comprised of seven letters. They’re situated around a hexagon-shaped hive, with one letter in the middle. The objective is to make as many words as you can with some combination of at least four letters and using the middle letter in every word. It’s fun. It’s exasperating. It’s a common obsession in American society now.

There I sat on the same piece of ground Thomas Jefferson walked many a time, the blurry static coming from the speaker system of my son’s graduation, and puzzled away. As degrees were conferred from years of hard work, I worked even harder to derive a vocabulary list from B, A, C, M, N, O, T — starting with Abbot and Banana.

Then suddenly I remembered who’d created the Spelling Bee puzzle that day.

Sam Ezersky.

Sam was a 2017 UVA graduate who was starting his first job out of college the same year my oldest son was learning how to navigate the campus his first year there. (It turns out I have two Wahoos — as the UVA folks are called.)

While Sam worked towards a mechanical engineering degree at UVA, he simultaneously worked to get his crossword puzzles sold to big names like the LA Times and the NY Times— which he did. His first sale dated back to when he was in high school. Ever since he was five years old, he’d been in love with puzzles, puzzles of any kind. It was his life’s passion.

A Conversation With Sam Ezersky

When Sam was a junior at UVA (or a third year as they call it), Will Shortz, the crossword editor for the NYT (UVA Law ’77) happened to be down there giving the keynote for the Law School commencement. In a spark of courage, Sam asked Will if he’d like to meet up to chat about puzzles. They met. Sam went on to do a summer internship with the Times and landed his dream job upon graduation. Now he’s the editor of our daily Spelling Bees.

Whenever I do the daily Bee, I think about Sam. I’m sure I’ll never meet him, but I love that someone so passionate about puzzle making created the puzzles I work on.

They say follow your heart. I always thought that was a nice thing to say but not what folks often ended up doing. The more I learn, the more I understand how leveraging our strengths and passions, even in some small way, is key to improving our output, our happiness, and our lives.

This doesn’t have to be an option for the advantaged. I think it’s important and possible for most of us. The trick is to understand what it means in real life.

It doesn’t have to be as direct as taking a job as a professional puzzler. It could simply be inching our way closer to what we do well and like to do. This is old-hat advice out there now, but we don’t always follow it. We don’t always give ourselves the permission.

It took me decades to start the writing I dreamed of doing since I was a girl. It took me a long time to give myself permission to let my cartoons step out into the light. It’s so fulfilling to have folks interact with that output, but the act of doing it is certainly the greatest pleasure.

My kids are following their hearts. I’m so happy they’re going for their dreams. But we can all go for that in some form, by some measure. If not professionally, then as a side passion.

My message — don’t delay starting like I did. If you’ve truly always wanted to try something that’s been living dormant in your core all these years, I can’t emphasize enough how grateful you’ll be when you finally shake off your indecision and start.

After all, time is finite.

Hope you're well, friends.