Maybe it’s the fact our world is so connected but there appears to be an outbreak of worry affecting us these days.

Forethought – the ability to look ahead is fair game.

Fear thought – worry for no good reason at all can lead to unhappy lives and terrible outcomes.

If you find yourself worrying more these days and liking it less, a few ideas …

• A proven fact is that the majority of what we worry about never comes true and when it does, it is rarely the way we feared.  Translation:  colossal waste of time.

• Getting the facts and weighing the facts is an effective way to stop worry in its tracks.  Worry is fueled by irrational thoughts (what if he fires me?).  So when that worried feeling starts hitting your stomach, get the facts straight (am I really going to be fired right this moment?) and weigh the facts (I don’t like this job any more than the company may like me – time to look around).

• Let go of it – sounds hard because we rarely do it.  Set a time limit – say, today.  For today, I’m not going to spend one second worrying about my blood test that has me so concerned.  I will accept it and deal with it when I get it.  And so you will.

• Beware of the fear of other people.  I don’t know about you but more than once I have had my worst fears underscored by a well-meaning person who fuels the flames instead of calms you down.  From now on, do not give anyone permission to inject even well-meaning concern based on their life’s experiences.

“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.” – Leo Buscaglia.

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That’s what privately held Hilcorp Energy gave each and every one of their employees for a Christmas bonus last year.

Every one of their 1,381 employees from the receptionist to top execs.

And it isn’t the first time billionaire owner Jeffrey Hildebrand paid bonuses.

In 2010 he set a goal to grow the company by double over 5 years. He offered employees their choice of a $50,000 car or $35,000 in cash.

In today’s world of venture capital greed, cash dollars as a reward are very unusual.

But believe it or not, most employees will settle for a lot less.

Over the decades research shows that the number one thing employees crave from their bosses is appreciation which last time I checked is free.

And that the ability to actually do their job unfettered by corporate politics even outranks money as a motivator.

No one is turning down money, but the fact is that most people will happily accept a lot of other things in lieu of it proving once again that all of us have the ability to deliver big bonus impacts at no real cost at all.

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This smartphone game is all the rage.  The location-based augmented reality game has people so distracted that they are walking into cars, trespassing and ignoring their surroundings.

Players capture, battle and train virtual Pokémon (pocket monsters) who appear in the real world using GPS and the camera of compatible devices.

The problem is not that the game is fun and addicting.  It points to just how unappealing parts of our real lives may be in comparison.

People worried that we have become prisoners of our digital devices have every reason to worry as we find more and more ways to withdraw from the real world for the world of augmented reality.

Here’s a text from the Moorestown, NJ police:

Advisory: If you’re out taking part in the Pokémon GO game, respect residence and business property. Do not trespass! 

And if you’re concerned that we are turning into a world of robots chasing our lives on the smartphones, here is a way to achieve a healthy balance.

For every minute devoted to games and augmented reality experiences on digital devices, match it with in-person, 100% present face time with real live individuals.

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1. Trust
2.  Inability to effectively communicate
3. Fear of intimacy

Inability to effectively communicate comes from not being able to listen, not the notion that expressing yourself better is the problem.  It is ironic that we spend so much time worrying about how to communicate when it is the exact opposite skill that accomplishes the goal.

Trust is everything between people.  Once it is breached, it is a hard thing to overcome.  Look at trust as the ticket to admission for a healthy relationship.  Do everything you reasonably can on your part to be trustworthy.  Without trust, it is hard to be close to another.

Fear of intimacy is the number one problem in our society.  This means that we are reluctant to let others see us for how we really are and it applies to not just those who we are close to but to all the people in our lives.  Fearing closeness is never a good thing.  Rise up and get the courage to be the person you want to be in every situation.

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Nothing will kill your chance at success more than “I can’t”.

Most of us – if we are to be honest – do not need others to limit our potential because we are subconsciously doing it in our mind with limitations such as “I can’t”, “not possible”, “not for me”.

One strategy is to reject others who put such limitations on us – i.e., your child gets 3 A’s and one B and your first comment is, “What did you get the B in?”

The other is to take this vow today – this very morning – to stop saying “I can’t” and replace it with one or all of the following.

I will. 

I can try real hard.

I’d love the chance.

We can reprogram ourselves to think in the affirmative, reject the limitations directed at us by others and always believe that we have a can do attitude.

The difference between winners and losers in sports is the attitude of possibility and this same statement of positivity works in other areas of our lives as well.

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The last thing any of us need is a better “To Do” List.

In fact, we are multitasking ourselves into madness, frustration and increased anxiety.

If you want to see real change in your daily life real fast, make a “Don’t Do List” – the things that are in your purview that you have consciously decided to not do.

Nothing pays dividends more than this.

Over 50 years ago an author named Alan Lakein came up with a system of prioritization that would have you organize everything in A’s, B’s and C’s

A’s must get done today.

B’s are tomorrow’s A’s.

C’s are on hold.

The on hold tasks are the ones I discovered never get done so why not relegate them to a “Don’t Do List”.

Being more efficient is not going to make us happier.

Doing more things every day is not going to make us richer.

Multitasking is contributing to high anxiety.

Some things just shouldn’t be done at all and knowing the difference and putting them in their place means everything.

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The murders of innocent Black people caught on cellphone video incite the masses.

Innocent Dallas policemen just looking to protect the rights of protesters to speak at a peaceful rally gunned down by a lone gunman with hatred in his heart.

And all this replayed over and over again on traditional and social media.

Makes it tough for people who reject this type of behavior or who have children who are witnessing what appears to be the unraveling of America as if it were the 1960’s all over again.

Living in a world of racial violence requires small, steady steps of positivity that will in the end prevail over such hatred and violence.

1. 99.9% of America is made up of good people who do not condone nor encourage racial violence – a statistic worth remembering because you won’t hear it on social media or television news.
2. Focus on the first responders, the people who do good in bad situations – this is our hope because it represents the majority of Americans.
3. Hatred now travels at the speed of social media that explains why shootings and even arrests are streamed live on sites like Facebook.  We need to govern our use of social media to allow a moment of context. Social media is an excellent source of exposing wrongdoing but it is also an excellent source at starting a riot.

A day after the Dallas shootings in a post office far away in Moorestown, NJ a black father never let go of the hand of his son – not for one moment. He experienced no threats or cause for concern but to neutralize the less than 1% of the popular that harbors hatred and hurts people, it is our responsibility to show our humanity to others and remind them that we are all one.

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I recently met a woman – a nurse – who had just returned from Ecuador for one year helping the poor and sleeping on the floor of the village’s only schoolhouse every night.

As I professed amazement, she lovingly told of the people and how kind they were even though “they had nothing”.  They lived in poverty.

But whatever she could do for them they appreciated.

Their way of showing gratitude was to prepare a meal using all the food they had gathered for themselves for the week ahead.  (And she said you had to eat it all lest you insult them).

There is goodness all around us.

And people who have “nothing” that have everything.

Surveys show the happiest places on earth tend to be the South Pacific islands where people live virtually stress free which is why even we can’t invade their islands and get them upset.

What is nothing and what is everything?

Gallup tells us $70,000 is the average income of an American family of two earners where the most happiness is reported.

And when a couple makes $80,000 together each year their income may go up but their happiness doesn’t increase in kind.

My takeaway is this.

Happiness has less to do with how much income we make and more to do with living a less stressful life in deep gratitude for what we have.

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A lot of time and money is spent on trying to get us to change ourselves.

Improvement programs, books, apps, psychologists and counselors.

I prefer to think of it like this:  we’re unique.  There is only one of each of us on this planet and for better (and sometimes worse) that makes us special.

The focus should be on unlocking that which is already good about ourselves more often, bigger and more dramatically.

For instance, someone could spend a lifetime trying to live up to the expectations of others and fail when we have one or two special attributes that get lost in the self-improvement program.

We might be an unusually good listener.

Or a good friend.

Or generous.

To spend a lifetime listening to others who would have you become what they want is a zero sum game all the way around.

The time spent on trying to be what we’re not is subtracted from the time we have available to be all the good things we are.

Improve?

By all means.

But unlock more of the good stuff first.

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That’s the average time we Americans are spending on our phones, digital devices and to a lesser extent TV.

That’s more time than we sleep.

More time than most people work per day.

If you don’t think the digital revolution is starting to present us with some real problems, just think about 10.6 hours a day in front of a screen – on average.

I have confessed to my addiction so I claim no high moral ground here, but I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t really concern me.

What to do:

• Cut it now.  Get the average screen time down and replace it with either something introspective (a walk, a run) or interactive (a conversation with no phone able to be accessed during that time).
• Think of your cell or Netflix as a tool not a lifestyle.  Dole it out don’t just consume it.
• For every indulgence in digital screen time that you can’t seem to break, add an equal and opposite one for in person talking.

Millennials hate talking on the phone.  Most won’t even listen to a voice mail all the way through if at all.

Facebook is working on ways to expand the huge amount of time their billion users spend on their app and many of them are older so it’s not just a youth thing.

Even Steve Jobs and his wife limited their children’s screen time and Jobs is the guy who arguably started all this.

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