I believe in thank you notes. I believe in sending them and in receiving them. Absolutely for gifts—every gift REQUIRES written acknowledgement —but also for random acts of kindness or thoughtful behavior and for hospitality.

Ask anyone, "Hey, how are you doing?" and they will most likely respond, "Busy. I am SOOO busy. There is just too much going on."

Everyone is busy. It’s hard to make time for yourself much less for others. That’s why it is so special when someone takes the time to do something nice. It may be something small, such as checking to see if you have books that need to be returned to the library since they are going. Or something bigger, like inviting you over for dinner because they know you’ve spent the day carting around things in the yard and will be too tired to cook.

I believe people who make the effort to stop what they are doing and look around to see what another human being might need deserve to be formally acknowledged and appreciated. And I think that appreciation is more genuine and more meaningful if it isn’t especially easy.

To me, a breezy "Thanks a million,” “You are a life saver,” or “You’re the best!" is too easy and, though true, lacks the appropriate depth of gratitude. It’s what you say to a clerk in a store who helped you locate an item or made your shopping easier.

I am very fortunate to have friends across the world. I make every effort to stay in touch and see them whenever possible. But after we leave our friends’ homes, I bask in the warm recollections of shared laughter, lively conversation, and newly-rich memories. And that is when I begin to compose my thank you note—a heartfelt expression of how their hospitality, generosity and kindness made me feel and why I treasure their friendship. It is important to me that those who take the time to make me a priority are aware that I am grateful. I believe in thank you notes.

As most of you know, the first year of university is always the hardest to adapt to. The addition of taking care of yourself, making new friends, learning how to get around campus, and school can sometimes be too much to bear.

I would like to attend medical school after my four-year undergraduate. It is well-known that medical schools are very competitive and require extremely high marks. I had always known that I was meant for medical school and worked hard all throughout high school. I engaged in life sciences and knew that I wanted to do a double major in neuroscience (神经科学) and psychology, but of course, I wasn’t so fond of the preconditions to get to that stage. I had to take math and physics in my first year.

So after the choke I call the first term, I looked back on my grades and found that I had never seen numbers like this before. I really didn’t even think they were possible. I had heard that medical schools liked to see an upward trend, so I was discouraged and hurt, but tried not to think about it. Having your grades taken away from you when that was all you had was a huge thing I had to overcome — I defined my worth by how “smart” I was and getting past that mindset was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

After I saw my grades, I realized the mistake I made taking a bunch of unnecessarily challenging courses. At the end of my second term, my grades weren’t as high as I wanted them to be, but I accepted it. I knew that there were reasons for the differences between individuals, but I still saw a huge improvement in my marks from the first term. I had enjoyed my time in my second term and even though I wasn’t where I wanted to be, it had nothing to do with my place in the university. It was very eye-opening and taught me what I needed to do in order to achieve MY best — not what everyone else considered to be the best.

I’m now taking a summer school course and my marks are incredibly better than what I was getting during my first year of school. Though I had a rough start, I’m sure my lessons and new attitude will carry me much farther than just to medical school.

My husband jokes with me that my midlife crisis was having my now 11-year-old daughter in my 40s.

I started my career as Associate Editor at Woman’s World magazine in the late 1990s. Then I was a magazine editor-in-chief for five national consumer publications and also contributed to magazines like Longevity and New Woman.

Four years after getting married in 2005, I eventually gave birth to my daughter, Crystal. As I wrote on Parenting.com: “As the doctor checked her vital organs and my husband counted her 10 perfect fingers and toes, I realized that my body had produced a wonder.”

While my peers were dealing with the stresses of kids in school, I focused my creative energy on carving out my new identity. I was excited when I was offered a “Mom’s Talk” column where I wrote about toys, breastfeeding, and my ongoing (追求) for “baby-free” time.

When Crystal was 3 years old, I wrote an essay about watching her dance at a toddler (学步的小孩) reading group at the library, instead of sitting down with the other children. I expected her performance to annoy people, but her joyful dancing attracted them and made me consider my own possibilities.

“Had I ever been that way, I wondered. If so, could I be like that again? Could I become as free as a child with her whole life ahead of her, ready and willing to be the star of her own production?”

As my daughter transformed from a toddler into a young girl, she continued to be my inspiration. I wrote about the new rules for babysitting and shared research showing that fathers who participated in housework had a positive impact on their daughter’s future success on The Washington Post.

I focused on providing Crystal with resilience-building (韧性) when she neared her teens. I wrote about powerful phrases for The Week, like “no one is the judge of your self-worth”.

As my daughter continues to grow during this messy time, there is one certainty: I will continue to tell my stories, through the eyes of my midlife wisdom. I can’t wait to see her next chapter and for you to read mine.