While it was published a few years ago, Robert Shiller's article in the Journal of Economic Education is worth reading.  Among his suggestions is to draw on the history of economics:

"Teachers can ...best serve their students if they refer regularly and respectfully to the history of economic thought, conveying the reasons for the theoretical constructs of other times and the tentativeness of current theories."

We hear a lot these days about "bucket lists" and doing thrilling things before it's too late.  I'm all in favor of new adventures (do skiing lessons in the North Cascades for a southern Louisiana guy count??), but I think it's important to remember that what we call the "mundane" drudgery of modern life is really anything but that in the broad historical context.  Our fairly recent ancestors would have no doubt traded the real drudgery of their own lives with the imagined drudgery of ours.  

We would do well to remember what Robert Fogel taught us back in 2004:  "Today ordinary people have time to enjoy those amenities of life that only the rich could afford in abundance a century ago. These amenities broaden the mind, enrich the soul, and relieve the monotony of much earnwork [Fogel's term for paid employment].... Today people are increasingly concerned with the meaning of their lives."