As a writer, you have control: You can play around with your own thoughts and when you find those insufficient, draw upon others': their wisdom, their humor, their failings.

A half-hour before bedtime, I remind myself that I now deserve to prepare myself for a good night's sleep. You can't focus on your work if you're sleep-deprived even if you have a fascinating job.

Being sleep-derived not only hurts you at work, it hurts your health. You need to value yourself enough to have good sleep hygiene.

What may create even more jobs is to develop more entrepreneurs, of course, ethical ones.

If you have an ability, you want to exercise it, not anesthetize it.

If you don't know what career you'd change to, I've come to believe in starting with your values. What do you care most about: producing a new product, a cause, health, something unpopular but important, whatever. Next, get expertise in that, perhaps not at State U let alone private U but at You U: self-study, articles,, webinars, volunteering, etc. Then use your network rather than answering ads to land a launchpad job in that career.

Few people make a living as a public speaker but many people build it into their career. A career is like a suit of clothes: to look its best, it must be tailored and accessorized. So whatever career you choose, let's say it's social work - you can, for example, ask your boss - if you can give talks at housing project community centers about the social services available.