Carissa Ramirez was less than six months out of college when she realized she would never reach her goals of owning a home, starting a family and attaining financial stability if she continued a career in her chosen field.

Eric Lam didn’t care for college. In 2018, as a freshman at UC Davis studying managerial economics, he decided to drop out. “I knew I wanted to do something in business, and I knew that I could probably learn that off YouTube,” says Lam. A friend suggested real estate.

The pandemic forced many parents of young children to reduce their volunteer time. Dr. Nkiruka Ohaegbu was not one of them. While guiding an essential government service from her home computer and overseeing her children’s remote education, Ohaegbu maintained her extensive commitments to the community.

Ken Imwinkelried went to work for River City Bank around the time of the Great Recession. Logging extra time on nights and weekends, he learned everything he could about his profession at a very challenging time in the banking industry. And over the course of several years, his extra work paid off with promotion after promotion. But about five years ago, as Imwinkelried implored other staff to not stay too late, he realized he had to do the same.

As Walt Kelly’s cartoon possum Pogo said on posters for the first Earth Day in 1970, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Comstock’s president and publisher considers how the motto applies to California.