When you look at the average life of an American, you can see that most of what makes a person who they are is determined by just a few leaps of faith in their life. It can be terrifying to think about, but how many decisions do you make between the ages of 18-30 that determine what years 30+ look like? A lot.

Some of these decisions are big. College after high school or not? Are you going to marry someone? Do you want children?

Other decisions aren’t as big, at least on paper, but they have major implications. What kind of physical health are you going to have? What are your vices going to be? Who do you spend your time with? You can always change these, of course, but it’s hard to train an old dog new tricks, speaking from experience.

In my own life I have found that those leap of faith moments, when I truly committed 100%, have resulted in the moments in my life I am most proud of.

Did you know that we’re currently a little over 45% of the way through the year? I personally have little doubt that 2020 will be one of the most bizarre 365-day stretches in my lifetime, and I’ve been obsessing over how the impacts of this year will change the world forever. I work in the world of higher education (but also extremely far from it at the same time) and it’s been incredible to watch an industry that has provided a consistent product for 200+ years shift to online courses for an entire student population in a matter of weeks. There are a lot of stories like this, too. Restaurants that always had full dining rooms are delivering their food in styrofoam through your trunk. Major companies are letting employees shift to working from home full-time for their well-being. DogMaster Distillery, among thousands of other of alcohol producers, have shifted to making hand sanitizer...

Positive and negative vibes are a powerful force. I’ve noticed this a lot with this extra free time that social distancing has brought, and it’s given me a lot of time to examine my own thoughts.

I spent the first half of my “quarantine” consuming the news during every waking moment. I would watch 30 minutes of a big network and then switch to a different one. The general consensus between mid-March and April: things. are. bad. People are dying. People my age are dying. Coming up at 7:00, an interview with a 30 year-old woman who just lost her husband who, before COVID, was in completely good health. I found myself feeling down, a lot. I was the guy in the group text, “Numbers don’t look good in China today. If they go back up, we’re screwed.” We watched the press conferences for maybe three weeks straight during dinner. I was obsessed. I was depressed.

So I turned off the news...

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.
Paul Romer, Stanford economist

Today is Day 70.

It has officially been 70 days since I’ve been working from home due to COVID-19. It’s been 70 days since the reality of this started to hit me. It’s been 70 days since I first heard the quote above. And that quote has been on my heart every day since.

I will start by saying that I understand how fortunate I am to, at least up until this point, not have been immediately impacted by this virus. My favorite passion - going out to eat - turned into a good deed. I’ve been asked to take 80 hours of vacation over the summer. Jacqueline is still employed. We’re all in good health. The most raw impact that I have seen was this past weekend while attending a heartbreaking funeral for my Uncle Don, with dozens of people mourning, sitting every other pew, singing through mandatory masks and being reminded to...