For 20 years, I’ve gone away on a personal retreat to The Center for Spiritual Renewal in Montecito. The four-hour drive created a vacuum in which I could eventually still my busy mind. The last hour brought sweeping vistas of the Ventura coastline, following by densely wooded streets until I stopped at the base of a mountain and the front door of a magnificent home built in the 1930s. By habit, my first meal would be in a small Italian restaurant and then home to the great house with Italian tiles, intricate teak ceilings, big beds, and a kitchen accessible 24-7. There I would write, meditate, and hike to the ridgeline some four miles above the town.

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For the past three years in December, my twin brother has sent me a pot of amaryllis blubs from Harry and David’s. But this Christmas, the blubs came looking less than hardy: very dry, small, and pretty pathetic compared to past years. 

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A recent study at the University of Michigan found that empathetic skills in college students have declined by as much at 48% over the last 8 years. The reasons for the decline are many, but two in particular stand out: 

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