Don't waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself. Remember compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

For some Chicago expats, food is the medicine that blunts the pain of separation.

On an average day, we allow ourselves the fiction that we own a piece of our workplace. That's part of what it takes to get the job done. Deeper down, we know it's all on loan.

Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

The Thanksgiving meal should not be treated as a grad school exam or an Olympic dive. Whatever you cook will be good enough - unless you make that Twinkie turkey stuffing we're suddenly hearing too much about.

In twenty years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.