One’s Happiness Is Inverse to Other People’s Attempts to Make One Happy

Last week marked the end of my syndicated newspaper column, one of the longest-running syndicated columns (of those written continuously by one person) in American newspaper history¹. Forty-four years. What began as an extension of a directorship I held at the Gastonia, North Carolina, community mental health center turned into a passion, then a mission, then a ministry.

I retired the column because the audience I am trying to reach is not reading print; they obtain information and opinion through the Internet. So, I’m moving my operation/passion/mission/ministry, more or less, to the Internet. In place of the column, I’m developing a podcast and a Substack, of which this is the inaugural stack.

This project will deal primarily with parenting and issues that pertain to parenting. In that regard, it will be an extension of the column with one huge difference: I will say exactly what I want to say and people, even people who are not parents, need to hear. Newspaper editors would not, generally, allow me that freedom.

What I’m going to say at the outset is that I’m writing on the most important topic of all topics. Today, the average citizen believes the most important issues of the day are climate change, the ongoing trials of Donald Trump, the 2024 election, gender, sexuality, guns, and who Taylor Swift is going to settle down with, if she ever does.