The Valley Viewpoint

School Bus Pet Peeves: A Morning Meditation on Patience, Fury, and the Slow March of Childhood

If you’ve ever found yourself behind a school bus at 7:13 a.m., you already know: there are few earthly experiences that test the human spirit quite like the Morning Rounds.

A school bus does not drive a route.
It performs one.
Like a Broadway revival of Waiting for Godot—except with flashing lights and fluorescent backpacks.

The ritual begins innocently enough. You’re on your way to work, coffee in hand, feeling optimistic, maybe even human. And then you see it. The bright yellow behemoth. The flashing lights. The unmistakable silhouette of the Stop Sign Paddle of Doom unfolding like the wings of a great mechanical angel sent to destroy your schedule.

And then it begins:

Stop. Six feet. Stop. Six feet. Stop. Six feet.

It’s less a route and more an interpretive dance of inertia and despair.

But the real pièce de résistance?
The kids.

Look, we love kids. Kids are the future. Kids are wonderful. Kids deserve an education.

But in the mornings?

They walk to the bus as if they’re approaching the gas chamber at San Quentin.

One slow, resentful step at a time.
Hoodie up.
Shoelace untied.
Dragging their backpack like it contains the bones of their ancestors.

There is no urgency in the morning walk to the school bus. None. They move with the gentle, deliberate pace of monks in silent procession. And meanwhile, behind them, there’s you—going through all five Kübler-Ross stages of grief at each stop:

Denial: “It won’t be that bad today.”

Anger: “Why is he stopping again? The last house was RIGHT THERE.”

Bargaining: “If this kid moves at even a medium pace, I swear I’ll start volunteering somewhere.”

Depression: “This is my life now. This is where I live.”

Acceptance: “I will die on Route 9 behind Bus 17.”

Occasionally you get that one kid—the Morning Overachiever—who actually runs to the bus. This kid deserves a medal, a parade, and a full scholarship to anywhere. But he’s rare. A unicorn among the yawning masses.

The rest?
They’re trudging along like men walking to their parole hearing, and you’re stuck behind the bus, watching your ETA climb from reasonable to theoretical.

And the best part?
The bus finally gets moving—maybe hits 18 mph—and just when hope flickers, just when you think you’ve been freed…

The lights come on again.

Another stop.
Another child.
Another slow-motion shuffle toward compulsory education.

And you sit there thinking: Is this what Dante meant by the Ninth Circle?

But here’s the truth of it:
One day, sooner than we think, we won’t see those yellow buses anymore.
Won’t see the backpacks.
Won’t see the slow walks.
Won’t see the kids trudging off to a world they don’t yet understand.

One day, the annoyance becomes nostalgia.

But until then?

God help whoever ends up behind Bus 17 on a Tuesday.

Ed Kowalski is a writer, commentator, and advocate for accountability in public life. He founded The Valley Viewpoint on a simple credo: comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable. His essays and commentaries follow that mission—sharp, principled, and grounded in the experiences of real people rather than abstractions.

Ed grew up on Manhattan’s East Side, where he learned early that the most meaningful stories come not from headlines, but from human encounters: a neighbor’s quiet endurance, the shifting rhythm of a city street, the truths that surface in ordinary moments. Those experiences shaped the way he views politics, power, and community—always through the lens of people first.

He is a product of Jesuit education, shaped by its call to service, reflection, and intellectual honesty—values that continue to guide every aspect of his work. Ed also helps lead a Jesuit remembrance initiative honoring the mentors and educators who shaped generations across the Northeast Province.

Professionally, Ed has spent decades at the intersection of finance, HR, legal strategy, and crisis leadership, guiding organizations through acquisitions, restructurings, and the hard decisions where corporate policy meets human consequence. Those experiences reinforced a belief central to his public voice: the real purpose of the law is, and has always been, to stop others—including judges—from pushing people around. That conviction sits at the heart of his legal commentary and fuels his insistence on accountability in every arena of public life.

Ed expanded his voice onto the airwaves as the host of Hudson Valley This Morning on iHeart’s WKIP where he examined local politics, public safety, economic trends, and national events with clarity and candor. One of his most popular features was “Lawyers, Guns, and Money,” co-hosted with Washington, D.C. legal analyst and the most accurate political narrator in the United States, Jesse Vazquez, offering listeners accessible, insightful, and often eye-opening analysis of the legal and political battles shaping the nation.

Today, Ed continues to contribute regularly to Tom Sipos’ successful and widely listened-to Hudson Valley Focus LIVE Show on The Beacon radio network, bringing perspective, narrative depth, and accountability-driven analysis to audiences across the region.

He is also the creator of The Supreme Spotlight, an ongoing series exploring major legal cases and the evolving character of the American judiciary.

Through The Valley Viewpoint, Ed blends narrative craft with investigative clarity. His work explores Supreme Court rulings, state and local politics, Hudson Valley civic issues, and the revealing moments—sometimes humorous, sometimes unsettling—that illuminate who we are as a community and a country. His writing is known for its honesty, its directness, and its refusal to soft-pedal uncomfortable truths.

What drives Ed—on the page, on the air, and in the community—is a conviction that truth matters, accountability matters, and that the Hudson Valley deserves a voice willing to speak plainly when it matters most.

The Valley Viewpoint Website

A full, expanded version of The Valley Viewpoint website is coming soon, featuring long-form narratives, radio archives, legal analysis, and community-focused commentary.

Until then, Ed can be reached directly at:
kowalski@thevalleyviewpoint.net

Last night I found myself going to my bookshelf—one of those small, instinctive moments where you’re not really searching for a book so much as you’re searching for a feeling, a memory, a piece of yourself. And as I stood there running my hand along the spines, I realized something:

The older I get, the more I find myself drawn to people who didn’t have an easy road.

Maybe that’s because my own life hasn’t been a straight line either. Maybe it’s because when you’ve lived through enough loss, enough confusion, enough nights where you sit alone wondering how you got here… you develop an instinct for others who carried more than their share.

That’s what draws me to Robert Frost.

On the surface, Frost seems like the poet of quiet woods and stone walls—gentle New England imagery, simple rural life. But the truth is, he was a man walking through a lifetime of heartbreak. And I don’t mean the occasional storm. I mean a relentless series of losses that could have emptied him out completely.

A father who drank himself into an early grave.

A childhood uprooted.

Children who died in his arms.

A wife whose death shattered him.

A son lost to suicide.

Mental illness that threaded through his family like an old curse.

And yet—this is what astonishes me—he kept creating.

He kept finding meaning in the smallest things: the crunch of snow, the bend of a birch, the moment two paths diverge in the woods. Somehow, the tragedies didn’t flatten him; they deepened him. They didn’t silence him; they sharpened his voice into something unmistakable.

And I suppose part of why Frost fascinates me is because I understand, in my own way, how life can carve you. How circumstances you never asked for can shape the way you see the world. How pain can make you quieter, more observant, more aware of the spaces between things. How it can leave you with a kind of sensitivity that other people—people untouched by real loss—may never fully understand.

When I read Frost, I don’t just see birch trees. I see someone holding himself together with words.

Someone choosing to walk forward even when the road was steep.

Someone whose genius didn’t come from comfort but from scar tissue.

And I guess that’s what I recognize: the instinct to take something difficult—something lonely, something heavy—and try to make sense of it. Not through self-pity, but through clarity. Through discipline. Through the hard work of seeing life exactly as it is, not as we wish it to be.

There’s a line in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” that always hits me harder than the rest:

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep.”

That’s the honesty of a man who has stood in darkness long enough to understand its beauty—its pull. But then he adds:

“But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep.”

That’s the part that feels like life itself. Not the easy life—the real one. The life where you keep going because people are counting on you. Because there is work left to do. Because quitting is the one thing you never allowed yourself.

Sometimes I think genius isn’t a gift—it’s a decision.

It’s the choice to look inward instead of away.

To take the hard things you’ve survived and turn them into something that resonates with other people.

Frost did that.

He made art out of ache.

He turned his grief into understanding.

And that’s why I keep reading him.

Because he reminds me that the things that wound us can also refine us.

That tragedy can force a kind of depth you don’t get any other way.

And that even in the darkest woods, there is still the possibility of meaning—if you’re willing to see it.

For fifteen years, the Supreme Court has treated Obamacare like some kind of constitutional Rubik’s Cube it can’t solve, won’t solve, and keeps twisting anyway. Every few years the Justices return to it—sometimes boldly, sometimes timidly, sometimes incoherently—and every single time they leave the country more confused than before.

Think back to the individual mandate. First it was constitutional because it was a tax, even though the administration swore it wasn’t. Then, once Congress zeroed it out, the Court claimed it no longer mattered. So it was essential to the law’s survival… until it wasn’t. Only in Washington can something be both required and irrelevant at the same time. The Court tied itself in knots trying to save Obamacare without admitting it was saving it.

Then came Medicaid expansion. The Court said states had to comply—until it decided they didn’t. Overnight, something sold as “mandatory” became optional, turning low-income health care into a geographical lottery. Because when a court starts rewriting legislation instead of interpreting it, you don’t get constitutional order—you get chaos dressed up as jurisprudence.

And the subsidies? That ruling may have been the most ridiculous of all. Congress wrote that subsidies apply to exchanges “established by the States.” Federal exchanges are not state exchanges. That’s not ideology—that’s vocabulary. But the Court tossed vocabulary overboard and declared Congress “meant something else.” In what world does the Supreme Court interpret what Congress meant to write instead of what it actually wrote?

Here’s the ugly truth no one in Washington wants to say aloud: the Supreme Court has never had the courage to fully affirm Obamacare or fully dismantle it. Instead, we’ve endured a decade and a half of half-decisions, contradictions, and judicial duct tape. The result? A national health care system that exists in a constitutional twilight zone—alive, dead, essential, meaningless, depending on which Justice is in the majority that day.

Obamacare survives not because the law works, and not because Congress deliberately preserved it, but because no one in power wants to take responsibility for killing it or fixing it. And that includes the Supreme Court. The law has become a political orphan, kept breathing by Justices who don’t want the headlines that come with letting it fall.

And here’s the bottom line: you can’t run a health care system—one-sixth of the American economy—on judicial improvisation and political timidity. Businesses can’t plan. Families can’t plan. States can’t plan. And yet we are trapped inside a system that the Supreme Court itself refuses to define with finality.

This isn’t constitutional clarity.

This isn’t leadership.

This is judicial cowardice wrapped in confusion.

And the American people are still paying the price.

There are stories you never want to write. Stories that feel like an intrusion. Stories that make you stop mid-sentence because the weight of what happened refuses to let you move on as if everything in the world is normal.

The death of a 16-year-old student at Regis High School is one of those stories.

A quiet, shy boy—described by those who knew him as gentle, non-threatening, the kind of kid who slips into a seat in the back of the room—walked to a fifth-floor window, looked out over a city that will never know his name, and stepped into nothingness.

And according to the reporting, he did so while waiting to be punished.

For what? According to the NY Post, for having an opinion in an ethics class.

Not a threat.
Not an outburst.
A philosophical opinion in a discussion about a utilitarian society.

And here is the part that should chill every educator and parent: it has been reported that the parents of his fellow classmates were uncomfortable with the opinions he expressed in that class—uncomfortable enough to complain formally, uncomfortable enough that the administration felt compelled to step in, uncomfortable enough that what should have been a classroom debate became a disciplinary matter.

Think about that.

A student at a prestigious Jesuit school—an institution supposedly devoted to forming young men of conscience—found himself under scrutiny not because he violated rules, but because his thoughts made adults uneasy.

At a school that prides itself on teaching critical thinking, a student was reportedly chastised for thinking critically. At a school that lectures boys on moral reasoning, a boy was made to fear his own reasoning. At a school that preaches cura personalis—care for the whole person—the person was left alone with his fear until it swallowed him whole.

This is not a Jesuit failure alone. This is a cultural failure.

We have built an environment where students walk on eggshells not just academically, but ideologically. Where the wrong opinion, voiced in the wrong room, can ignite a chain reaction of emails, complaints, administrative meetings, and, ultimately, pressure a young mind simply cannot withstand.

And somewhere in that maze, kids who are already fragile—kids who struggle silently—learn a dangerous lesson:

“One misstep and your world collapses.”

It should never have come to this. Not at Regis. Not anywhere.

Schools need to stop pretending that disciplinary systems are neutral. For teenagers—especially shy, anxious, sensitive ones—discipline is not a minor bureaucratic process. It’s a psychological avalanche. It’s terror. It’s shame. It’s confusion. It’s the sense that you’ve crossed a line you can’t come back from.

Combine that with the suffocating academic pressure of elite institutions, the heightened social anxiety of adolescence, and the chilling fear of disappointing adults—and the results can be lethal.

The tragedy at Regis is not about politics. It’s not about ideology. It’s not about right or left.

It’s about the duty of adults to protect children’s minds, hearts, and dignity before anything else.

It’s about how a young man with his entire life ahead of him ended up believing he had no way out.

And it’s about how quickly institutions release statements of sorrow while gently sidestepping the harder questions:
• Why was a child being disciplined for participating in the very kind of discussion the class was designed to provoke?
• Why were adult complaints prioritized over the emotional safety of a minor?
• What support systems failed to detect a boy in crisis?
• How do educators respond when a student’s words challenge comfort, but not safety?
• Who speaks for the quiet, shy children who don’t know how to ask for help?

The Jesuit tradition has produced thinkers, leaders, theologians, scientists, writers—men trained to question, analyze, and push boundaries. But that tradition means nothing if a boy can die under their roof because expressing an unpopular view resulted in fear rather than guidance.

A school that cannot protect its most vulnerable students has forgotten its mission.

A society that cannot differentiate between disagreement and danger has lost its way.

And a culture that treats teenage missteps as moral catastrophes is building tragedies faster than we can mourn them.

Somewhere tonight, that boy’s parents are living through the unthinkable. Somewhere in the halls of Regis, students are whispering, grieving, and trying to understand what happened. Somewhere in a classroom, a teacher is replaying every moment, wondering what signs they missed.

We will debate policies and protocols and procedures in the weeks ahead. But none of that changes one heartbreaking fact:

A child is gone.
Because the adults failed him.

We owe him more than thoughts and prayers.
We owe him the truth.

And the truth is this:
This tragedy didn’t begin at a window.
It began the moment his opinion became a problem instead of a conversation.

May God rest his soul.
And may every school—Regis included—learn before another family faces this same unbearable night.

The Real Reason Every Generation Thinks Differently — And How I See It Every Day

Every so often, a simple post scrolls across your screen and stops you cold. The one I saw recently did just that — laying out, in blunt and sometimes uncomfortable honesty, the way each generation views work, life, responsibility, and meaning. And in my daily professional life — in HR, leadership, and community engagement — I don’t just read these generational attitudes. I see them. I live them. I navigate them.

This isn’t theory. It’s the conference room. It’s the Zoom call. It’s the hiring discussion, the benefits review, the “why does this matter?” meeting. It’s the human experience across decades, colliding in real time.

Let’s walk through these generations — not as abstract labels — but as very real personalities I encounter every single day.

Baby Boomers (1946–1960): The System Builders

“Work hard, stay loyal, and the system will reward you.”

Boomers built the scaffolding of the modern workplace — pensions, corporate hierarchies, loyalty programs, the very idea of a “career.” When I speak to them, I hear a deep pride in building something… and a frustration as they now witness the cracks.

They don’t resent the younger generations — but they don’t understand them at times. They worry we’ve lost discipline, patience, and commitment.

In the workplace, Boomers are the steady hands, the “be here on time and do it right” crowd. They expect order. They believe in showing up — literally and figuratively. And when someone leaves after 18 months? To them, that’s not ambition — it’s quitting.

Generation X (1965–1980): The Survivalists

“Trust no one. Figure it out yourself.”

Gen X is often described as the “forgotten generation,” and in many offices, they feel that. They grew up between tradition and transformation — latchkey kids turned self-reliant leaders. They saw systems break before anyone else acknowledged it.

They don’t ask for praise, but they deserve it — because they’re often the quiet backbone holding everything together. They are skeptical, independent, allergic to corporate fluff, and master translators between Boomers and Millennials.

When something needs to get done without drama? A Gen-Xer usually handles it.

Millennials (1981–1996): The Meaning Seekers

“Find purpose. Escape the 9-to-5.”

Millennials entered adulthood with housing crises, student debt, and a job market built for someone else’s America. They chased passion, only to find burnout. Many are exhausted — juggling side gigs, rent increases, and expectations that rarely align with reality.

In my day-to-day? They are driven, values-oriented, loyal when treated with respect… and brutally honest when they feel misled. They demand balance not out of entitlement, but survival.

Where Boomers trusted the system and Gen X learned to navigate it, Millennials are asking:
Why was the system built this way in the first place?

Gen Z (1997–2012): The Questioners

“Question everything. Protect your mental health.”

Gen Z is the first generation fully fluent in technology — and often painfully aware of the world’s flaws. They don’t want to play the old game. They want to rewrite the rules.

They value authenticity, wellness, transparency. They’ll work — hard — but only when they understand why and feel aligned with the mission. They’re not afraid to walk away from workplaces that dismiss them.

In meetings, I see their courage and vulnerability coexist — a willingness to call out inefficiency and a deep need to be seen as human, not just labor.

Gen Alpha (2013–Present): The AI Generation

“Born digital. Raised by screens.”

Gen Alpha is still forming, but they are the first to see technology not as a tool, but a companion. They grow up with AI the way Boomers grew up with neighbors and front porches. The world will shape them in ways we can only guess — but their reality will be instant, interconnected, and constant.

Where Does All This Leave Us?

I’ve learned that managing across generations isn’t about choosing sides. It’s about understanding perspectives:
• Boomers built structure.
• Gen X navigated chaos.
• Millennials sought meaning.
• Gen Z demands humanity.
• Gen Alpha will redefine connection.

Every day, I see workplaces that thrive when they honor these differences — and collapse when they fight them.

The future isn’t about one generation replacing another. It’s about learning from each other, valuing what each era brings, and choosing to build a workplace — and a society — that doesn’t discard wisdom or ignore innovation.

Because the truth is simple:

Each generation isn’t right or wrong — they’re responding to the world they inherited. And they all carry a piece of the story.

And perhaps our job — my job — is to make sure those pieces fit into something stronger.

If you’re reading this, it means in some way — large or small, quiet or unforgettable — you’ve been part of my life. And as another trip around the sun arrives for me, I find myself feeling deeply grateful for that.
Life isn’t measured just in years or milestones — it’s measured in the people who walked beside us, who lifted us when we were tired, who believed in us when we needed believing, who laughed with us, argued with us, taught us, forgave us, and loved us through each imperfect chapter.
You are one of those people for me.
Some of you have been constants; some were lights that appeared for just a moment and changed the direction of my days. Some stayed, some drifted — all mattered. Every conversation, every kindness, every hard lesson, every shared memory helped shape who I am and how I see the world.
Thank you — for the warmth, the wisdom, the laughter, the grace, and even the tears. Thank you for showing up in my story, however briefly or beautifully. I carry pieces of you with me — pieces that live in the way I love, the way I hope, the way I keep going.
My heart is fuller because we crossed paths.
And as I step into this next year, I do so with gratitude — for where I’ve been, for who I’ve known, and for the quiet truth that none of us makes this journey alone.
If I ever touched your life even a fraction of how you’ve touched mine, then I’ve been blessed more than I could ever say.
Thank you for being part of my world.
Thank you for helping shape my heart.
And thank you — simply — for being you.

With love and gratitude,

Ed

We didn’t lose our attention spans all at once.

It happened gradually — one notification, one “quick check,” one baby-goat-in-pajamas video at a time. (Yes, it was adorable. No, I did not find out the weather.)

There was a time when waiting in line or sitting in a lobby meant thinking — not scrolling. When the mind wandered, and sometimes wandered into something meaningful.

I miss that version of myself.

I still love reading books — real books — and I still use a highlighter when a sentence hits me right between the eyes. There’s a satisfaction in marking a line that feels true. And one of my quiet joys is pulling those books off the shelf later, flipping through, re-reading what once stopped me in my tracks, and asking:

Why did this matter to me then? Why does it matter now? What changed — the world, or me?

Those moments feel like checking in with past versions of myself.

No algorithm curating — just reflection.

But here’s the honest part: even when I’m holding a book and a highlighter, my phone still calls to me. Phantom buzzes. Reflexive reach. The “just-one-thing” trap.

And suddenly, I realize I’ve traded a deep thought for a quick dopamine hit.

So lately, I’ve been trying to reclaim my mind in small ways:

Leaving my phone in another room when I read

Taking walks without headphones

Letting boredom breathe

Being fully present in conversation

Revisiting the thoughts I once highlighted, instead of chasing new noise

It’s not about rejecting technology — I love it. I need it. Most of us do.

It’s about not letting it run the entire show.

Because attention is the currency of our minds, and I’d like to invest mine with intention — not impulse.

So here’s to slow thoughts, quiet moments, analog margins, yellow highlighters, and the small act of reclaiming focus in a world very determined to steal it.

And if today you catch yourself staring out a window…

letting your mind wander instead of your thumb scroll…

Consider it progress, not pause.

(I’ll check the weather later.)

There’s a new Bruce Springsteen movie out, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, and America’s reaction has been crystal clear:
We don’t need another bedtime story from the millionaire mascot of the working class.
The myth is dead. The routine is tired. And the audience has officially run out of patience for America’s most pampered “blue-collar hero.”
For fifty years, Springsteen sold the image of a grim-faced factory saint — an eternal shift worker, a guy who sweats diesel, bleeds Jersey asphalt, and stares nobly into the distance like he’s personally carrying the weight of every laid-off dock worker in history.
And sure — it worked. For decades, America bought it.
But eventually the curtain got pulled back.
And behind it?
A brand.
A business.
A man who left the factory floor so long ago the zip code doesn’t even exist anymore.
The working-class champion who hasn’t worked a day job since Nixon was president.
We’re supposed to buy another round of “look how tortured I am by the struggle of Real Americans” from a guy who hasn’t seen the inside of a break room since before barcodes were invented?
Come on.
At some point, the hard hat becomes a costume
The lunch pail becomes a stage prop
And the union-hall speeches sound like a billionaire reading Yelp reviews of poverty
This new movie?
It’s cinematic worship of a persona that stopped being true sometime around the third mansion and the private jet.
This isn’t grit.
It’s performance art for coastal liberals who think putting Springsteen on a playlist counts as understanding the middle class.
You don’t get to be the poet of the forgotten laborer while charging four-figure concert ticket prices and vacationing with hedge-fund donors.
You don’t get to call yourself the voice of the working man from inside a gated estate with its own helicopter pad.
And you don’t get to talk about hard roads and hard lives when your biggest hardship lately was pretending your accountant didn’t just find you another tax shield.
The movie tanked not because America forgot Springsteen.
It tanked because America finally remembered who he really is now:
A nostalgia-industrial-complex employee
A brand wrapped in blue denim
A corporate folk hero maintained by PR fumes and aging sentimentalists
Bruce didn’t lose the audience.
The audience outgrew the fairy tale.
We don’t need another sermon about struggle from Mount Olympus of Real Estate Holdings and Royalty Catalog Sales.
We don’t need a god of the factory floor who hasn’t smelled machine oil since before MTV was born.
And if the movie feels empty, it’s because the mythology is running on fumes.
Springsteen didn’t deliver us from nowhere.
He delivered himself from reality.
And now the crowd that once worshipped at the altar is quietly filing out of the church.
No boos.
No cheers.
Just a tired shrug from a country that’s tired of being sung to by someone who hasn’t lived the song in half a century.
The Boss isn’t fired.
He just doesn’t run the shop anymore.

Birthdays used to be about cake, noise, and pretending time wasn’t moving.

Now they feel quieter.

Not sad — just honest.

When another year shows up on the calendar, I don’t count candles; I count lessons.

And as this birthday approaches, here are a few I’ve earned, one season at a time.

I’ve learned fear never protected me — it only postponed the life meant for me.

Fear doesn’t stop death; it just stops living.

The moments I’m proudest of weren’t the ones where I played it safe,

but the ones where I stepped forward even with shaky hands and a racing heart.

I’ve learned peace is priceless.

I’ve lost it before — to ambition, to pride, to trying to be all things to all people.

I won’t do that again.

Anything that demands my peace as payment costs too much,

no matter how shiny it looks from the outside.

I’ve learned people love to judge decisions they never had to make.

They see the outcome, not the choices available.

So I take criticism now only from those whose advice I’d actually seek.

The rest is background noise — and life is too short for static.

I’ve learned the work we avoid becomes the weight we carry.

The magic people talk about —

the breakthrough, the success, the confidence —

it’s not in inspiration.

It’s in the unglamorous grind.

Early mornings. Hard conversations. Showing up when no one sees you.

I’ve learned that comfort can become a cage if you stay there too long.

Harbors are safe, yes — but ships weren’t built for harbors.

I lingered in comfort longer than I should have in a few chapters of my life.

Then life whispered: Move. Grow. Go live again.

And I listened.

I’ve learned ambition without action turns into anxiety.

Dreaming is beautiful.

Doing is better.

Motion heals doubt more than thinking ever will.

I’ve learned the life you want requires choices others don’t understand.

Early hours. Quiet discipline. Risk without applause.

Most of the victories in my life began when nobody was watching.

I’ve learned you can do anything — but not everything.

Age teaches you that.

You stop chasing every door

and start choosing the right ones with intention and gratitude.

I’ve learned wisdom doesn’t come from asking everyone —

it comes from asking yourself and being brave enough to honor the answer.

Clarity usually lives in stillness, not in the crowd.

I’ve learned that when you stop moving long enough,

you feel the weight of what was holding you.

Stillness can sting —

but it also sets you free.

And above all, I’ve learned it’s okay to live a life others don’t fully understand.

The older I get, the more sacred authenticity becomes.

I don’t need universal approval.

I need peace.

I need purpose.

I need people who show up with love, not conditions.

This birthday isn’t just another year.

It’s a reminder that life has never been measured in decades —

but in moments.

In grace.

In second chances.

In choosing again and again to grow, to love, to stay grateful,

and to believe the best chapters aren’t behind me —

they’re still unfolding.

I am older, yes.

But I am also deeper.

Calmer.

Clearer.

And more willing than ever to live on my own terms,

quietly guided by the lessons time taught me —

and the peace that only comes from living them.

Next week I hit a milestone — sixty-seven trips around the sun. Birthdays tend to make us look forward, count candles, and joke about getting older. But I’ve always thought it odd that we don’t stop each year and look back — all the way back to the person who was there the moment we arrived. Our mothers were present for every single one of our first birthdays, even if we don’t remember it.

So before I mark this next one, I want to pause and tell you about my mom.

There’s a scene in the 1941 movie Dumbo. The mother elephant, locked away, reaches through the bars and cradles her baby with her trunk while singing:

Baby mine, don’t you cry
Baby mine, dry your eyes
Rest your head close to my heart
Never to part
Baby of mine

I choke up every time. It might sound silly, but I understand that feeling. To be held, protected, and loved without condition, even when life puts bars between you. If this is the last column I ever write about my mother, then let it be said plainly: that is what it felt like to be her son. And it was glorious.

She was born in the Depression, the youngest of six in a Manhattan railroad apartment — seventeen years between her and her oldest sister. Her father drove a bus, her mother stayed home, sometimes keeping her home from school just for company. One of her favorite stories was waiting on the stoop for her brother to return from WWII. They didn’t know the day he’d arrive — but her mother believed some moments are more important than attendance sheets.

Another memory she cherished: her brother arriving late from Army leave to her school Christmas play. The nuns stopped the show and restarted it for him. She told that story with her fourth-grade pride still shining all these years later.

Her mother died when she was eleven. She stayed in that small apartment with her father and brother — and at that same age, she met the boy who would become her husband. He joined the Army and eventually guarded the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington. She traveled to D.C., chaperoned by her aunt and brother, just to watch him march in solemn honor.

She married at twenty-one and became a mother at twenty-three. A daughter followed two years later. Like so many women of her era, she poured her energy into her family. She kissed, she lectured, she believed fiercely in her children. When a nun doubted her son’s abilities, she made the long trip to the convent to set the record straight.

She cooked breakfast and dinner, made Halloween costumes, and sat up at 3 a.m. after nightmares. In winter, she heated the kitchen oven so her kids could dress in front of the open door. She carried a photo of the neighbor who had never come home from the war — Flip Finnigan — holding her as a young girl. She once dreamed of being a nurse, and instead poured that ambition into her children.

Then came illness — Multiple Sclerosis — early and unforgiving. Her body weakened, but her spirit didn’t. She lived to see her children grow, graduate, marry, and become parents. She did not get the time she deserved with her grandchildren, and she never met her great-grandchildren. Of all the hardships she endured, that is the one I believe she would have regretted most.

She was one of millions of remarkable mothers, but to us she was singular. And though I write often, I rarely wrote about her. Maybe I wasn’t ready. Maybe I could almost hear her asking, “When do you tell my story?”

So here it is, Mom.

As I celebrate sixty-seven years on this earth, I’ll raise a silent toast to the woman who made trip number one with me — who held me close, fought nuns, warmed winter kitchens, and loved without measure.

Thanks for having me, Mom.

Amazon didn’t just cut people — it exposed the quiet truth of the modern economy: work isn’t disappearing all at once. It’s disappearing one task at a time.

There’s a way layoffs used to happen in America. Company underperforms, belt tightens, lights dim, and the first folks out the door are the ones on the production line. Classic cost-cutting.

But that’s not what just hit Amazon.

Fourteen-thousand people today. Whispers of thirty-thousand tomorrow. And this isn’t the warehouse floor — this is corporate America. HR. Finance. Strategy. The so-called “safe” jobs. The thinking jobs. The ones that supposedly require a badge, not a hard hat.

Except now the thinking has competition.

AI isn’t knocking on the office door. It’s already inside the building. Quiet. Efficient. No forklift needed — just computation, pattern recognition, and zero hesitation.

Jobs don’t vanish in a single headline.

Tasks vanish first.

The spreadsheet you don’t have to build anymore.

The memo software writes faster than you.

The data a system pulls before you finish your coffee.

The “analysis” a model completes while you’re still opening Excel.

And when enough tasks disappear, the job begins to wobble. The chair feels lighter. The calendar empties. One morning you realize the machine isn’t here to help you — it has quietly learned to replace you.

Amazon didn’t simply fire workers.

It fired a layer of the future.

Corporate America has stopped pretending it’s a cathedral of hierarchy and job titles. It wants to move like a startup, not a bureaucracy. Flat. Fast. Lean. No meetings about meetings. No “alignment sessions.” Execution over explanation.

This isn’t cruelty. This is capitalism without the sugar coating.

Companies are finally saying out loud what they’ve known for years:

They’re not families. They’re systems — upgrading their parts.

Workers used to ask, Who do I work for?

Now the real question is, What tasks do I own — and can a model do them faster?

Politicians will pound podiums.

Academics will debate ethics.

LinkedIn will mourn “corporate culture.”

Meanwhile, the economy keeps moving.

And the cold truth becomes clear:

Your title never protected you. Your tasks did. And the tasks are leaving first.

Amazon didn’t trigger a crisis — it revealed one already underway. The ground is shifting. The rules are changing. The future isn’t waiting for anyone to feel ready.

This isn’t the end of work.

It’s the end of pretending work won’t change.

The question now isn’t if this wave is coming — it’s whether you’re surfing it or standing on the shoreline insisting the tide can’t rise.