Growing up in Kansas City, I was always neat, the teacher's pet, know-it-all type.

I'm constantly on the hunt for insights about happiness or ideas about how to be happier - which probably makes me a somewhat tiresome companion at times.

Often, if there's something that I want to do, but somehow can't get myself to do, it's because I don't have clarity. This lack of clarity often arises from a feeling of ambivalence - I want to do something, but I don't want to do it; or I want one thing, but I also want something else that conflicts with it.

Whenever I'm trying to decide how to spend my precious time, energy, or money, I ask myself a series of questions. 'Will this broaden or deepen my relationships?' 'Will this contribute to an atmosphere of growth in my life?' 'Is this a way to 'Be Gretchen?' and 'Will this help connect me to my past?'

The media in the States can be quite self-reflective. When I lived in England, I was much more aware of the day-to-day politics that were happening. Living somewhere where the media involvement is greater and so omnipresent, you become pulled into it and, at the same time, because of that, politics changes and the way it's handled changes.

I am very close to my family, and there's something life-affirming about that. Even if you feel completely different from them and have totally different views on politics and ethics, you're still family and have that immediate acceptance.

My fear was of being offered a job that would be kind of a full-time position at a veterans organization or even in the government... I'd prefer to not be that, to come up the Beltway every day.

We face a choice this election. President Obama is fighting for changes that grow the economy from the middle out and help all Americans succeed - jobs, education, health reform, the DREAM Act, equal pay for women. He is moving us forward with opportunity today for prosperity tomorrow. Mitt Romney wants to take us back to yesterday.