If Life Is a Grocery Store, I Need Better Coupons

“I believe that every man has the potential to pull himself from the mud of which he was created up to the highest point of stardom, to overcome the greatest of indignities, whatever may be served to him, and demonstrate the greatest of inspirational abilities, making mankind far better for his appearance on this earth, if he chooses, as brief as it may be. I believe that every man is sacred, and when he realizes his individual worth, he cannot help but strive for perfection, and though he cannot find it in his own strength, will realize that the God who made him loves him and will give him the strength he needs to overcome all tribulation and failure, that we were made to be happy and excited about our existence, and that we should live and learn to love life and embrace all it has to offer passionately, eliminating the bad and enhancing the good, for ourselves and our fellow man. It is our God-given responsibility to take this gift of life and the earth upon which we were given to live to learn to love God and our fellow man, and that our journey is solely our own, and affects all of us for the worse or the better according to the choices we make guided by our character. And whether we like it or not, all of our chosen activities affect each other, and should lift up our fellow man as sacred and special as we lift ourselves up individually, and to never forget that we are not here alone, that God is watching every step we take and every action in our lives, and we are held in judgment for how we treat ourselves, our fellow man, and our relationship with our Heavenly Father.”

Keith Johnson is a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. from Ohio State University and taught in the department of linguistics from 1993 to 2005. Dr. Johnson received postdoctoral fellowships from Indiana University and UCLA, where he worked with Peter Ladefoged and Patricia Keating. His primary research field focuses on the processes of speech perception as they relate to phonetic and phonological theory. Dr. Johnson's research and teaching on acoustic phonetics and psycholinguistics is widely recognized.