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America has spent decades talking about living longer. What it hasn’t spent much time talking about is who is going to take care of us once we get there. That’s the part nobody seems eager to discuss. Our population is getting older. We know that. We’ve known it for years. Yet somehow we’ve convinced ourselves…
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One of the things I am most thankful for is that I was able to grow up during a time when my mistakes were allowed to just be mistakes. I think about that more as I watch the world we live in now. A world where one bad moment, one poor decision, or one embarrassing…
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When I read that a congressman had been away from work for nearly four months because his doctor told him to stay home, my first reaction wasn’t anger. It was one simple thought. Must be nice. Not because I’m a hater. I want to give someone the chance to recover from depression. If your doctor…
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It’s been almost a year since I lost my job. If I’m being honest, this past year has been about much more than looking for another paycheck. It’s been a year of discovery. Some of what I’ve learned has surprised me. Other lessons reminded me of parts of myself that had been buried under years…
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I never thought a printer would be the thing that pushed me over the edge. A printer. Not healthcare. Not streaming services. Not software subscriptions. A printer. Recently, I sat down to print something on a printer that I purchased with my own money. It wasn’t a printer at work. It wasn’t a printer at…
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There was a time when people had hobbies just because they liked them. I know that sounds obvious, but think about it for a minute. People used to garden because they enjoyed gardening. They joined book clubs because they liked reading. They took pictures because they wanted to remember moments, not because they were building…
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Most of us don’t realize how much of our identity is tied to our work until that work disappears. For years, I never thought much about it. I had jobs. I had routines. I had responsibilities. Like many people, I assumed that as long as I worked hard and did what I was supposed to…
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One of the worst things the internet ever did was convince ordinary people that ordinary life is embarrassing. That shift happened slowly. So slowly that most people never even noticed it happening. At some point, having a regular job stopped feeling “good enough.” Living in a normal apartment stopped feeling respectable. Being financially stable stopped…
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One of the biggest mistakes modern America made was convincing people that visibility meant victory. A lot of younger Americans grew up in a version of this country where racism was presented as something that, while still technically present, had mostly been pushed to the edges of society. They were taught to see it as…
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There was a time when most people at least believed there were basic places to go for reliable information. That does not mean those institutions were perfect. They were not. Governments lied. Media organizations got things wrong. Corporations manipulated public opinion. None of that is new. What feels different now is that people increasingly do…