His name is James, and he is my son. He was born last weekend on June 12th, and he’s currently swinging in the living room with my wife, while I sequester myself in the study for a while to hunch over a keyboard and stare into a monitor of light as I write this column.

You can’t tell a young Helen Keller that education is about just getting a job. To her, it was the joy of life. If we stop long enough to think about it, it should be part of ours too. Research ought to be part of our workflows; note-taking should be part of our daily impulse.

Last week I said that the most fundamental calling of humanity is to pursue and achieve understanding—not to pass tests or succeed or be “great”, but to achieve understanding.

Here’s a professor at Columbia University who changed the face of American education in the 1950s, and the only reason he didn’t receive a diploma from Columbia is because he refused to take the P.E. class, swimming.

Due to the pandemic our country has seen an unemployment rate that is profoundly outside the realm of “normal.” While employment is verifiably picking back up, and the statistics for Lowndes county reflect that, there is a conversation rumbling that is just beginning.

After finishing a three week series on productivity, I focused on joy last week—a relief for all of us. But what we all want, even more than productivity, is peace.

Enjoy your life.

We need to accomplish tasks, otherwise we won’t get anything done—but there will always be more tasks. There won’t always be enough time.

As the third part in this series, it’s time to land the plane. What better way than through a story.

One day two neighbors got into a fight. It had been a long time coming.

Last week was a classic part one, introducing the problem in all its messiness. This week, I hope to bring it all together with a life lesson not easily learned or forgotten.

Last week, we said that money doesn’t impress God. Which begs the question, what does impress Him?

“But if God so clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you?”

Another time, Jesus was in the Sea of Galilee, at the bottom of a boat, and a storm arose quickly. He was asleep, and He didn’t wake up.

When Jesus stood up to teach the people in Galilee, they listened until it was past supper time. His disciples panicked because they didn’t have enough food for them. Just then a boy walked up with a sack lunch of 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish.

Being a perfectionist is both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s a good thing because of obvious reasons. It’s a bad thing because humans aren’t good at moderation.

One of the most frustrating things about life is that the people who are committed to making a difference are the ones who so often lose sight of their value. When you’re trying to change the world, it’s easy to forget about the next step.

One of the best ways to market yourself is by telling your story, because stories activate the imagination and convey more meaning than random sentences.

The world isn’t the way we wished it was; in fact, sometimes it is awful beyond our worst nightmare. Other times it just seems to fall flat.

Author’s Note: This is the business section so I’m going to tell you the meaning up front, but I’m using a story because only stories can communicate intricate meanings. None of this story is based on people or places in reality.

We all want answers and sometimes feel like we deserve them. But, even in 2021, there is still more that we don’t know about the world than that we do know.

I think we all deserve an award for 2020. We hit a rapids in the river that turned into waterfall after waterfall, and the fact that the boat is still floating and we are all (mostly) still in it is a miracle.