Editor’s note: My life has essentially been a (still) unending struggle to move from deficit to surplus thinking.  I’m making progress. 

Editor’s note: Thanks to friend, Frank Dixon, for turning me onto Giffels, a local (Akron) professor and writer. Don’t let the theme of building his own coffin (yes, that’s the story) throw you off. Rather than morbid this book is filled with wisdom, warmth and laughter. It is quite more about living than dying. Whether the cause is the author’s writing or my comprehension, the book started to really delight and engage me more after page 148, when at least a half dozen times I would stop, say “wow” and reread the paragraph or section.

Editor’s note: Among the best books I’ve ever read was Wilkerson’s “Warmth of Other Suns” a non-fiction account of the south to north and west migration of black Americans.  When I saw she wrote a new one, I gladly pre-ordered it.  This article allows an early peek into the book and makes me only more eager to receive it.  My own life often feels like the struggle of one who is both a beneficiary and a fighter of the system. 

“Up to a point a person’s life is shaped by environment, heredity, and changes in the world about them. Then there comes a time when it lies within their grasp to shape the clay of their life into the sort of thing they wish it to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune or the quirks of fate. Everyone has the power to say, "This I am today. That I shall be tomorrow.”

Events in the lives of each of our three children are becoming opportunities for their personal reinvention. Each are facing major life changes and so they must decide who they want to become.