Sure, there is love, security and a lot more in life.  However, after 84 years, I've found that something called   confidence   is key to a successful life of comfort and happiness.  The beauty of this state of mind is that you can help anyone around you--not only your family and friends, but more so, your community, local and throughout the world--to gain confidence by suggesting a pathway towards this objective. At one point, the title of this posting today was THE GIFT OF CONFIDENCE.  This is because one grows up with no sense of what confidence is all about.  I found that someone in your family, teachers, coaches and even organizations provide you this gift that, if you learn it right, can lead to a better life.  Actually all of them, in my case, were involved. But then, I thought about that word, confidence, and found it is a lot more meaningful to underscore the significance of power. Confidence is contagious.   You can more effectively...

It was a rough night.  Nightmare became reality.  Not only will Donald Trump again become president, but the U.S. Senate will be Republican controlled.  Probably the House too.  Said   Time : Trump campaigned on an authoritarian agenda that would   upend America’s democratic norms , and he is already preparing to deliver on it: mass detention and deportations of migrants; revenge against political enemies via the justice system; deploying the military against his own civilians. How far he chooses to go with the power the public has handed him is a question that will shape the fate of the country. A good look at  Project 2025  provides you the Trump agenda.   Global warming?  While it might not be a hoax anymore, the U.S. will not be cooperative, citing the actual recalcitrance of China and India as reasons.  Trump is also beholden to fossil fuel interests.  The world will suffer. Freedom?   Abortion rights will b...

While love and happiness prevail, my mind nevertheless wanders and wonders a lot.  I see homeless people and realize that with only a wrong decision or two, that could have been me.   I have been lucky,  Very lucky. I consider my life to be a success.  Of the  117 billion born , surely I rank in the top one-tenth of one percent.  In other words I am among the best 11.7 million  Homo sapiens  who ever lived.  I'm tempted to improve this by another order of magnitude to 1.17 million, for it has only been in the past century that life became tolerable for most, but all this analysis is meaningless, for what is success? In this thoughtful mood, I looked back on certain points in my life and wondered where I would be today if I made another decision.   A big one was, which college? As a junior at McKinley High School in Honolulu I was only an above-average student, with no athletic talent and little social skills. Then my life chang...