It has grappled above all with a sentiment that few voice with pride: namely, their own terror.
I worked with a number of boards and board chairs over the summer, and here are the things on their minds and the things they'll be grappling with this autumn, above and beyond the usual business of the year.
Or, like my friend Sharon, you may be grappling with all of the above.
Hong Kong, Singapore and mainland China are already grappling with inflation rates that are running above policy makers' comfort levels.
The conservative government of Mariano Rajoy is grappling with a budget deficit last year of 8.5%, well above the pact's ceiling of 3%, making it virtually impossible to get the deficit down to the target of 4.4% this year.
In my other role as an attending child and adolescent psychiatrist in urban public schools, I work with students who are grappling with abuse, family dysfunction, mental disorders, behavioral problems -- and sometimes all of the above.
"Re-engage," he shouts into the dead calm of the frozen Siberian tundra as five members of the oil rig crew, wrestling with grappling hooks, attempt to steady a 50m-long pipe that thrashes above our heads.
Whereas his predecessor, whose heart was in the country, had enjoyed grappling with the swarms of bees he kept on a roof above the bank, "Steady Eddie" preferred a rubber of bridge, a game, he said, which taught him that weak hands could still be winners, just as strong ones could end in defeat.
"The Train Driver," which Mr. Fugard, above, wrote in 2010, features two older South African men, one black and one white, grappling over what they owe the world.
"Everyday Rapture," which Ms. Scott, above, wrote with Dick Scanlan and in which she plays a semi-fictionalized version of herself grappling with a "half-Mennonite" upbringing and struggling to break into New York theater, was widely acclaimed when it ran last year at Second Stage Theater.
