I went to the local New Balance store to buy a new pair of shoes; unhappy with my Asics – I wound up with four teenish looking salespeople to come to my aid.  So, I asked one: “What shoes do you wear when you are not required to wear New Balance in the store?”  Without hesitation, one said, “Adidas” and that sealed the deal.  No, I didn’t buy the Adidas. I bought New Balance because I knew I would get honest answers to my questions.

Honesty isn’t always appreciated.  When I was a teen working in the West Philly Sears sporting goods department, I talked a grandmother out of buying a very expense tent supposedly for her grandson for them to use on a family camping trip – such a nice lady.

Turns out she was not a grandmother but a Sears shopper checking to see that sales associates were upselling at all costs — so, I was banished to the snack bar for a few months as punishment.

There’s something about honesty that never goes out of style even in the present age of the internet, social media and dare I say influencers.

Honesty earns something far more valuable than approval – trust.  Gloria Steinem used to echo President James Garfield when she reminded us, “The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.” 

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The LA Dodgers advanced in their playoff series with the Phillies after relief pitcher Orion Kerkering failed to cleanly field a ball hit at him on the mound as a Dodger runner was heading home to win the game.  All he had to do was throw the ball to first base and the inning would have safely ended.  He panicked and threw a wild throw to home plate and is now struggling to live with a huge mistake that eliminated his team from postseason playoffs.

His teammates are rallying behind him but it begs the question that many often feel when they have let others down not for lack of trying.  Mistakes made under pressure have a way of freezing in time, replaying endlessly in our minds. Kerkering’s error wasn’t from lack of effort but from being human — the moment when instinct and fear collide.

Eventually, he may arrive at the comforting thought that what defines him now isn’t the wild throw, but how he learns to stand on the mound again, proof that redemption often begins where perfection ends.

As Viktor Frankl said “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

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The house across from mine is getting a new roof and as I was assessing its progress, I saw a roofer standing on the crest with his phone in hand. Yes, this experienced worker even walked never taking his eyes off his phone.

As if that high wire act wasn’t enough, a second worker removed his jacket and sat on the top of the house waiting for more shingles to be hoisted – glued to his phone.

NYU Professor Jonathan Haidt treats problematic phone use as a kind of addiction that must be managed by building strong off-screen habits — for example, creating large chunks of time during the day (or week) when devices are off, enforcing “phone-free” zones (like schools or bedrooms), and delaying or limiting social media/phone access in youth to help break the cycle.

Or as they sarcastically say on social media “You need to touch some grass.”

“If your world fits in your hand, you’ve already made it too small.”

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One of my favorite college professors was Harry Weinberg – his course was general semantics and his book was called Levels of Knowing and Existence.  I know, it seems boring but it was fascinating. I took it with my best friend Bob Donze (he got an A, I got a B but don’t remind him).

In one class, Weinberg who had suffered a stroke previously and talked with a speech impediment as a result asked the class “what color is a red light?”  We laughed and made fun of him (hope my NYU students are not reading this part).  This foolishness went on for an hour until the bell rang and he said one last time “what color is a red light?” Wait until you hear his answer.

RED.  Unless you are color blind.  His point:  by adding “to me” the light is red makes it a fact because it can be observed and verified.  To someone else, red may be a different color.

It wasn’t really about traffic lights — it was about perspective. Weinberg was teaching us that truth is not always absolute but filtered through experience. That lesson feels even more urgent now, when algorithms, echo chambers, and social feeds convince us our “red” is the only red.

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” — Marcus Aurelius

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Some days are just impossible to get through – things go wrong, life happens, and somehow we persist. My broadcasting friends who read this know the many human problems that they have had to overcome to rise above sadness and make the show go on. Here’s one that motivates me from Fred Rogers (Mister Rogers):

“My greatest challenge?  I suppose to walk through the door and sing ‘It’s A Beautiful Day in this Neighborhood’ when I have had a real sadness in my life. I had to go to Miami one hour after my father’s funeral because they were having a Mister Rogers Day there that could not be cancelled. We had 23 fifteen-minute performances in one day. I had to sing ‘It’s A Beautiful Day in this Neighborhood’ for each one of them.”

Even in the hardest moments, he chose presence over pain — a reminder that showing up with kindness can be its own kind of healing.

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I asked one of my classes what they would do if they were stranded on a deserted island with no food but they could have either Spotify or TikTok, not both.  You see, I wanted to find out which music app they really like best.  After all, it’s a music business class.

One asked where can they charge their phones on this island – see how practical they are? I said you get to crank a box for 20 minutes to get 20 minutes of battery time.  One student said, she would probably choose Spotify because it would allow her to get over her TikTok addiction (moms and dads, it’s 93 minutes a day among American users).

More importantly, I am getting a sense with this new crop of students starting school in the Fall that they are very aware of the dangers of being too connected and want to do something about it.

By the way, 12 chose Spotify, 10 chose TikTok and almost everyone wanted to find a way to reign in social media app use – a positive thing.

It’s a spirit of wanting to use connection thoughtfully rather than letting it control them. Billy Cox, best known for performing with Jimi Hendrix says “Technology should improve your life… not become your life.” 

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What to do when the world seems unable to focus and we are beginning to believe we’re talking to ourselves.  Last week as my wife and I were driving down a country road, a truck was coming at us as it drifted way over the center line, the driver looking down not at the road – hitting the horn helped the distracted driver look up just in time.  He made a gesture toward me.

No, not that gesture but a waving of the hand, a thank you for helping to avoid what surely would have been a messy accident.

We know not to text and drive. But somehow, it is becoming more difficult to focus. Driving of only a dramatic way we’re increasingly distracted.  One way is to stop looking past now to tomorrow, beyond this moment to the future. Keep focus on the now and today.

When you look to the future you’re dreaming and hoping.  That’s why author Eckhart Tolle advises “Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the now the primary focus of your life.”

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It turns out we are not likely to have any shortage of friends in our lives, we’re just missing the right one.  Especially among younger adults there seems to be an outbreak of self-sabotage – attacking ourselves when no one else will do it.

The most important relationship is the one with yourself.  Get that wrong, let it slide, demean it and there’s likely trouble with relationships with others. I don’t know whether it’s the COVID lockdown or the challenging world in which we live but we’re not paying attention to the most important relationship.

Negative self-talk is often harsher than what others say. Self-compassion is not indulgence; it’s maintenance for every other relationship.

As the saying goes “I’m too busy working on my own grass to notice if yours is greener.”

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I saw an article recently that got me at “Your brain sort of wakes up like wet cement,”

a phrase behavioral scientist Zelana Montminy author of Finding Focus used to illustrate why checking our phones when we wake up is baking in an unhappy day.

Yes, exactly – and I still do it.  But doing it less is apparently also good taking off a few minutes a day until it makes a difference.

This semester, my NYU college students don’t even have to be reminded to turn their mobile devices off and stow them out of sight, they want to.  And you see the benefits in class engagement and happier interactions.

It’s not reasonable in a digital world to take away someone’s phone all day, but spending more time focused on now is beneficial. And as school districts begin to silence phones during the academic day, there is an increase in checking out library books.

“That phone in your pocket is like a slot machine. Every time you check it, you’re pulling the lever to see if you get a reward.” — Tristan Harris on 60 Minutes.

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In the third class of the fall semester one of my classes surprised me by turning off their digital devices before being prompted – I think in part, because they know they need a break.

A low-key day to recharge, break from noise, stress or constant contact with friends and through social media.  I felt the same way – it’s so good to be focused on one important thing or nothing.

The average TikTok user spends 96 minutes a day on the app and watching TV was the leisure and sports activity that occupied the most time (2.6 hours per day) accounting for over half of all leisure time, on average (5.1 hours per day) according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Giving full attention to one thing or nothing can be deeply satisfying:  “Wherever you are, be there totally.” — Eckhart Tolle.

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