Recently I celebrated my birthday, in person, with dozens of vaccinated friends and family members. It was a joyful occasion and I felt and still feel deeply grateful.
But every new year of my life brings new questions. Here are just a few that I’m pondering at the moment:
- How do I co-raise a teenager? My daughter just turned 13. I recently had this breakthrough, but I have so many more questions.
- What’s the next step in my writing career? I have a novel coming out in September. I have two new novels in progress, one in second draft form, another with the first draft nearly complete. But I’m not sure I should even try to get them published yet. Maybe I should go back to short fiction first.
- What am I doing with music? I still co-own a record label, but we haven’t been very active lately. But I still enjoy making music with my friends, and intend to keep doing so. But how much time should I invest, and what are the opportunity costs?
- How do I best protect my health and health span in the coming years?
- What can I do to prevent my country from going down the drain? How do I best fight against voter suppression, corporate lobbyists, and opportunistic, hate-mongering agents of chaos like Donald Trump?
- What can I do to help reverse human-driven climate change? Or are we past the point of no return?
- What is the fastest way I can achieve financial freedom, which would allow me to travel more and work fewer hours?
I’m guessing 100% of the people who read this post will be asking themselves at least one of the questions above.
That’s all I have this week. No answers — just questions. Feel free to share your own questions and experiences in the comments.
Stephanie Pascal
YES YES AND YES–especially #5. #5 feels so directly tied to #6 and to other issues that feel so “end stage” right now. My pet issues for as long as I can remember are environment and housing, but how will we get ANYWHERE when the two-party system has failed us; the constitution is failing us; we have so much taxation without representation; the voter suppression is more rampant and insidious than ever. My other big question is about charitable donations too. Where will my money do the most/best good? Or charitable monies in general? I have no answers, but I’m definitely in a midlife funk asking many of the same questions.
J.D. Moyer
Thanks for the comment Stephanie. I do give to a few charities, including charity:water. And I’m glad that MacKenzie Scott is doing her best to give away her vast fortune (though she keeps getting richer regardless). But ideally I would love to see society structured in such a way that charitable giving becomes mostly obsolete (with adequate public funding for healthcare, education, scientific research, and social services).