Not everyone has a Life's Work. Some people simply have a Life.

A person does feel sheepish picking on journalists, a class already so richly despised that if a planeload of them crashed in flames, most people would smile from pure reflex.

It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars.

My generation was secretive, brooding, ambitious, show-offy, and this generation is congenial. Totally. I imagine them walking around with GPS chips that notify them when a friend is in the vicinity, and their GPSes guide them to each other in clipped electronic lady voices and they sit down side by side in a coffee shop and text-message each other while checking their e-mail and hopping and skipping around Facebook to see who has posted pictures of their weekend.

All solutions are temporary, so why not go for duct tape?

I was brought up imagining that cream rises to the top, merit wins out, the race is to the swift and riches to men of understanding, but it ain't necessarily so. The swift stand a better chance if they are also beautiful.

Have interesting failures.... If you need to have a personal crisis have it now. Don't wait until midlife, when it will take longer to resolve.... Don't pity yourselves. Lighten up. Seek people with a sense of humor. Avoid humorless people-and do not marry one, for God's sake.