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Ezra Klein endorses this sentiment from a Fast Company article on happiness:

Younger people feel happiest when they are excited, while older people equate happiness with peacefulness.

This only struck me because of how strongly I disagree with it. I’m quite a bit older than Ezra — though, admittedly, maybe not yet antiquated enough to qualify as “older” in the context of the article — but I have no interest in peacefulness at all. In fact, I feel like I’d kill for some genuine excitement in my life these days. Not the constant faux tension inspired by modern media and our kindergarten-level politics, but real excitement, the kind generated by believing that there’s a real chance of something new and rewarding and galvanizing taking shape.

I haven’t felt that in a while. But I’d sure like to.

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE ON MOTHER JONES' FINANCES

We need to start being more upfront about how hard it is keeping a newsroom like Mother Jones afloat these days.

Because it is, and because we're fresh off finishing a fiscal year, on June 30, that came up a bit short of where we needed to be. And this next one simply has to be a year of growth—particularly for donations from online readers to help counter the brutal economics of journalism right now.

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Urgent, for sure. But it's not all doom and gloom!

Because over the challenging last year, and thanks to feedback from readers, we've started to see a better way to go about asking you to support our work: Level-headedly communicating the urgency of hitting our fundraising goals, being transparent about our finances, challenges, and opportunities, and explaining how being funded primarily by donations big and small, from ordinary (and extraordinary!) people like you, is the thing that lets us do the type of journalism you look to Mother Jones for—that is so very much needed right now.

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