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It’s December: a mishmash of conflicting circumstances in what is supposed to be a Holiday season.

You want to socialize but the experts are telling you to stay in bed, pull the covers up, breathe only when necessary, and instead of counting sheep, cross off the days until a vaccine is widely available and there is a return to something resembling normalcy.

You look around and see so many people in pain and small businesses everywhere closing their doors, but the stock market is setting new records.

You are determined to stay on track regarding your higher education or career path, but your college and your employer both have trouble communicating whether you will be studying or working hybrid, remote, or in-person.

Virtually locked down, you have more hours available for whatever is your situation, but maintaining motivation is difficult.

So maybe this should be the recipe for your special day: ignore almost everything above, while staying safe of course.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!                          Peace, Bob

It is totally obvious: this is the most unique Holiday period in our lifetime. 

I hope you and your family are able to both enjoy the season and stay safe.

Time for some random thoughts (Hey, I’m in lockdown mode too!)

*For those who are anxious, stressed, depressed (aren’t we all to a certain extent), the website Talkspace.com might be useful. Talking about therapy used to be taboo; now, thank goodness, it is something which can be part of normal conversations, though not everywhere I admit.

*Tony Hsieh, the man who took Zappos from $1.6 million in sales to over a billion and sold it to Amazon for       $1.2 billion, died recently at age 46. Hsieh was a major believer in …. happiness. “Most of the frameworks for happiness conclude that there are four things required: perceived control, perceived progress, connectedness (depths of relationships), and being part of something bigger than yourself.” 

Oops, apparently he like drank….a lot and used drugs … a lot. And when he died in a fire, apparently it was because he had barricaded himself inside. Yipes, it’s really tough to find a happy hero.

*Happiness is more than a touch elusive period. Over half of 18-29 year-olds are living with a parent or two, the highest rate in 80 years, a decision driven more by economics than love. Unemployment among 20-24 year-olds is around 25% compared with a 50-year low of 3.5% in the Fall of 2019.

*For those who are looking ahead to getting an internship position or a job, handshake.org is quite interesting. (Thank you to the students who brought this website to my attention.) Networking and mining your school’s alumni data base are even more important than ever.

*The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce does research on numerous education topics. It recently released a report: “Workplace Basics: The Competencies Employers Want.” The top five were: communication, teamwork, sales and customer service, leadership, and problem solving and complex thinking. 

*You undoubtedly are aware there is much discussion in the political arena about ways to reduce the burden of college debt, which now totals $1.5 trillion for the 45 million students who have borrowed money to pursue, not necessarily receive, a college diploma. The situation is ultra-complicated, worthy of detail beyond this missive.

I try not to obsess about two onerous characteristics of student debt: (1) the Pell Grant was never indexed to inflation, so the net cost of college to the student has grown much faster than family incomes and (2) student debt cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, a total travesty. To add insult to injury, parents have taken on unhealthy levels of Parent Plus loans.

*The tenure system of lifetime job protection which has helped bring wide variation in professor quality  is under  attack at some small colleges attempting to survive. Hope that the attack spreads.

*College-aid submissions are down sharply. The decline among young people in households struggling economically is much greater than average, which means that the previously existing socioeconomic inequities in education are being widened …. again.

*When I cleaned off my office desk the other day, I had to decide what to do with a bunch of sayings taped there for easy reading. Voila – here they are:

to get the real answer to a question, ask “why” seven times (Japanese proverb)

decide-dedicate-succeed (contributed by student SG)

are you going to or going from; it’s important to know

talent plus perseverance plus self-reflection plus networking equals advancement

*Be well. I look forward to providing a grant for your Spring 2021 semester and eventually seeing you – in person — and breaking bread — in a diner of course.