Jedidiah Ng

“Young women are seizing opportunities with much greater zeal than young men. Take studying abroad as another example. In recent decades, this has become much more popular (at least until the pandemic) with increasing numbers of undergraduates now grabbing their passports and phrase books and heading overseas, most often to Europe.32 And why not? Going to another country for a few months is a great opportunity.”
― Richard V. Reeves, Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It

“More money does not necessarily buy more happiness, but less money is associated with emotional pain.”
― Robert Waldinger, The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness

“Among women, the Fort Worth initiative “tripled associate degree completion.”7 This is a huge finding. But as with free college in Kalamazoo, it had no impact on college completion for male students. Why? Again, the evaluators can only speculate. James Sullivan, one of the scholars who is examining the program, says, “We don’t know.”8 That phrase again. His research team does note that the case managers assigned to work with students, called “navigators” (great name by the way), were all women. When a program relies heavily on a close one-to-one relationship, matching the gender of the provider and recipient may be important. This is consistent with research showing that when the racial or gender identities of teachers and learners or mentors and mentees match, results are often better.9”
― Richard V. Reeves, Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It

“Confidence doesn’t come from doing the work out of fear or neuroticism—to practice because you are afraid to lose or fail. When fear drives the motivational ship, then insecurity pervades. When the work is done in the name of getting better, of enjoying the process, of searching for mastery of the craft, then confidence gradually grows.”
― Steve Magness, Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness