April 16, 2026
For years now, politicians and commentators have bemoaned the cost of higher education. The drumbeat is constant: college costs too much. But before we repeat that line again, we should ask a more basic question.
What does it even mean to say something “costs too much”?
Cost, by itself, tells us almost nothing. Cost only becomes meaningful when it is compared to value—and value is determined by whether something actually delivers what you need, not just what you want.
Most of the changes that matter most in life don’t happen in ways we can photograph, measure, or prove on paper. They happen inside a person. And because they happen there, they are both harder to describe and easier to dismiss.
That is one reason transformation is so rare. Not because people don’t want a better life, but because the deeper parts of life are not as easy to “hold” as the visible ones. The physical world gives us simple feedback. The spiritual world often does not.
I learned this in a way that still makes me smile, because it was so obvious once I saw it.
Leadership and administration are often spoken of as if they are interchangeable. They work side by side, so the confusion is understandable. But they are not the same thing, and treating them as equal is one of the easiest ways to build an organization that functions well while slowly losing its future.
A champion isn’t defined by trophies. A champion is defined by positive and sustainable outcomes.
We all know people who talk a big game but live unpredictably. One day they’re generous, the next day they’re cruel. One day they’re focused, the next day they’re scattered. Their life is reactive. You never quite know what you’re going to get.
There are times when I look at life and feel something settle in me that doesn’t come from logic alone. It’s not an argument. It’s not a doctrine. It’s more like a quiet recognition.
A sky full of stars. The scale of galaxies. The hidden order inside a seed that becomes a tree. The way a child’s smile can soften a hard day. The strange reality that love and compassion can move through human beings at all.