Three things I need to achieve in 2025

I am, by nature, a goal-driven person. Perhaps it was the topic of my dissertation and the extensive literature search and subsequent research I have done that has honed this aptitude, but there it it is. After fifty years of university education -- learning, teaching, researching, opining, listening -- it is just as clear that I gravitate towards what I labeled in my seminal 2004 publication as "prosocial leadership." This means applying those goals to positive, constructive, beneficial-to-others behavior.

And having learned from the inspirational Cary L. Cooper, there is the critical value of a social support group to reduce stress, build resilience and produce other positive -- prosocial -- behaviors. A social network suggests that "you got to have friends" to have a full and meaningful life, and not just to reduce loneliness, anxiety or anomie.

My 'base' of friends has shifted in these past years, due primarily to death or distance, not indiffference. Male friends -- e.g., Bobbly Friedmann and Larry Timm -- are gone. Of late I have found as much camaraderie with old female acquaintences, namely Dianne Van Beber (from my Kansas years), Kathy Thomas (from Eden high school years)and Nancy Galli (from my last three years at Binghamton). Collectively, they comprise 150 years of friendship, which is a good foundation for building any social network. They can not replace those schmoozing, testosterone-oozing talks with Bobby, or the Binghamton and later life memories with Larry, or the Saturday Penn State football phone call reminiscences with my dad, but they are something. The Lorenzi semi-weekly crossword Zoom is another pillar. Compared to my pre-pandemic contacts with my survivig brothers and sisters, this activity has provided probably a 10- or 20-fold increase in traditional "face time," (not FaceTime).

Family is critical. Peace at home, based on strong shared values, provides a foundation. Then there is the need for a clear purpose in life, a purpose with which faith plays a large part. And friends help support and fuel that support. Family. Faith (purpose). Friends.