Some parents let kids "learn on their own skin" and many of those kids end up, as adults, languishing on their parents' sofas.

Some people who are recovering from depression want to use the lessons they're learned in coping with depression and their empathy for people with depression. Others want their career to have nothing to do with depression.

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.

When you're going to school primarily for career purposes, it's more important to focus on which program is best for you. In addition, your success at college depends far more on what you do at the college than at which college you do it: Choosing the right program, then the right advisor, the right courses, the right term papers, the right co-curricular activities, the right fieldwork, the right internships. You can make those choices at any college.

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

I think people's feeling the need to be more dependent on others is caused more by the lack of good-paying jobs and by today's zeitgeist that insists it takes a village. That's disempowering although possibly true for many people.

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.