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?'

I'm always trying to figure out ways to keep hold of memories. My one-sentence journal, for instance.

I talk about jobs. I talk about education. I talk about making government work for people. That's really the dinner-table issues that I hear from Michiganders in every part of our state.

My brother's my teacher, my mentor, and we both learnt all the acting basics from our father.

When I got a little older, like, 10 or 11, my dad would run a training school every month, teaching people how to become wrestlers. I would get in the ring now and again and mess around with one of my brothers, and he'd teach me some stuff.

State educators have confused the length of formal education with real-life skills.