There were five kids in my blended family, growing up during the 1950s, and my stepfather was a genius at keeping all of us busy. As kids, we were allowed to play, but first, there was a myriad of chores and maintenance projects that kept us busy doing productive things. The usual chores, like regularly mowing the lawn, trimming hedges, and raking leaves, over time grew into adding an extra room to our house, painting the house, stripping hardwood floors for waxing, and painting and hanging wallpaper in an upstairs apartment. All this industry did not go unnoticed.

In northern Ethiopia, more than 350,000 are living in a food “catastrophe,” according to a UN-backed analysis that defines a food “catastrophe” as “starvation and death affecting small groups of people spread over large areas” (BBC, June 10, 2021). Since November 2020, 1.7 million people in the Tigray region of Ethiopia have been displaced by civil war.

In the year 2000, “the Western U.S. entered the beginning of what scientists call a megadrought—the second worst in 1,200 years” (CBS News, April 12, 2021). Today, 60 percent of western states in the United States are in severe, extreme, or exceptional drought—conditions that extend even into the Pacific Northwest. “Lake Powell [which provides water to California, Nevada, and Arizona] is within just a few feet of its lowest level ever observed since it was first filled....

You don’t have to have a degree in economics to recognize inflation. Just go to the grocery store, retail store, gas station, or shop online, and you discover higher prices.

For years, my dad has run—not jogged—down an unpaved road located just a few miles from our home. “The Old Dirt Road,” as we called it, was just one of the many farm roads that decorate the American South. This three-mile, undeveloped byway served my father well for his exercise of choice after a hard day’s work. It also served me, by giving me a chance to learn an important lesson from my father about planning for the future.