When we were kids, chain restaurants like Applebee’s and Olive Garden were considered “fine dining.” That was where people with money went out to eat. Upon meeting real rich people, we realized none of them went to such restaurants, except as a novelty.

Each time I moved, each time another adult let me down, and each time I let myself down, it was like tossing a Mentos into a Coke, sealing it, and believing everything would be fine.

The human mind is a remarkable contraption, great at keeping us psychologically buoyant in periods of chaos and allowing us to pay the price later, once the storm has settled.

Sometimes actions and outcomes are linked, I thought. But sometimes, shit just happens.

In other words, a poor kid in the US is nearly four times more likely to graduate from college than a foster kid.

Seventy percent of community college students in California never complete their programs.

The luxury belief class claims that the unhappiness associated with certain behaviors and choices primarily stems from the negative social judgments they elicit, rather than the behaviors and choices themselves. But, in fact, negative social judgments often serve as guardrails to deter detrimental decisions that lead to unhappiness. In order to avo

White privilege is the luxury belief that took me the longest to understand, because I grew up around a lot of poor white people. Affluent white college graduates seem to be the most enthusiastic about the idea of white privilege, yet they are the least likely to incur any costs for promoting that belief. Rather, they raise their social standing by

When adults let children down, children learn to let themselves down.