I’ve attended a lot of funerals this year. Funerals in the mountains and on the beach. Funerals on a train and beside a private plane. Funerals disguised as parties, one with a signature drink designed by the deceased. Everywhere people a mere ten years older are popping off, dropping like flies. The last memorial service I attended was a grim affair. What made it painful wasn’t so much the loss of the deceased but of her final opportunity. It killed me that such a smart, funny woman had such a boring funeral.

To help you prepare for your upcoming medical appointment, we have prepared a list of brutally honest details. Please read them and attempt to sign your name in the box, which is roughly as small as the box we will put you in if you are female and have a pain complaint.

Thank you for your message regarding a new product you’d like to sell in our store. Despite your assurance it’s “bad ass,” Spinach Around the Cyst is not a good fit with our artisanal products. Good luck and thank you for considering Gourmet Foods.

As a Thought Leader, parents often ask me: “How can I get my son to major in stacking Benjamins instead of squandering our cash on medieval Catalan poetry?” Or: “Why is my daughter’s hair indigo? Why is she majoring in Women’s Studies—whatever that is?”

As burnout rates reach unprecedented highs, with 76% of professionals reporting chronic exhaustion and workplace attrition threatening global productivity, individuals are taking matters into their own hands. Sometimes with the help of biotech startups, sometimes with just a dash of performance training, and other times with solutions that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago.