TOM GREENE

1
 Six Ways to Thrive Before You Die
A few years ago my wife’s best friend and mentor was
diagnosed with terminal Cancer. On her death bed she
looked deep into my wife’s eyes and said, “I have some
advice for you.” After a dramatic pause, she whispered,
“eat the fried chicken”.

My wife asked her why eating more fried chicken was

important. She responded: “because you love fried
chicken. And, when your days on this earth are numbered,
you’re really going to wish you’d taken more time to enjoy
the things you really love.”

Beyond just eating fried chicken, doing the things you love
creates meaningful, lasting memories. Memories that
add richness and fullness to our lives.

Since none of us will get out of here

alive, don’t you think we ought to
identify the things we truly love to do?

And, try to do them as many times as

possible before we die? I do. And, so
does Bill Perkins, the author of my new
favorite book: Die with Zero.

As Perkins explains, “life isn’t simply about surviving; life is

about thriving”. Or, as the saying goes:

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 Life’s a journey not to arrive at the grave safely in a well
preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally
worn out, shouting ‘holy shit….what a ride.
Unknown

The goal is to thrive in our limited time here. So that

at the end of the road we are full of memories and
experiences that leave us satisfied with the journey.
That’s the premise of Perkins’ new book and a philosophy
we should all consider. The book is about making the
most of your adventure on earth before it’s too late.

The book comes with numerous important lessons for

creating “memory dividends” before you die. That is,
memories that become more valuable over time.

How to Thrive Before You Die

Here are the top six recommendations from the book:

01 Maximize Your Positive Life Experiences

We all have those positive life experiences that we
wouldn’t trade for any amount of money. I remember
biking through my neighborhood with my daughter on a
beautiful summer day.

I remember thinking in that moment that I want to do

this as many times as I can-before I die.

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02 Start Investing in Experiences Early
Now, I know what you’re thinking. I don’t have the time
right now to create a “memory dividend”, whatever
that is. I get it. But, if life really is the sum of all our
memorable experiences, can you really afford not to
invest in positive life experiences? Can you afford not to
create “memory dividends” that will give you a return on
your investment for the rest of your life? Of course not.

Having piles of money isn’t the key ingredient. The

key ingredient is the vision and creativity to seek out
memorable and meaningful experiences, even if those
experiences happen in your own backyard.

We all think that that life remains static over time. That
we will always have more time later. That our friends and
family will always be there. They won’t. Life is in constant
flux. Friends come and go; children grow up and move
away; people we care about get sick and die.

The fullness of your life won’t be defined by the amount

of money in your 401(k). After all, isn’t the point of
making that money to create the flexibility to enjoy the
things we love with the people we love?

03 Time Value of Money

The usefulness of money diminishes with age. How
would your thirty year old self spend $1M? You could get
a graduate degree, buy a Porsche 911 Turbo, climb Mt.

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Kilimanjaro, start a business and buy Apple or Tesla stock
that will be worth millions in a few years.

But, how would your 85 year old self spend that money?
You aren’t likely to climb Kilimanjaro, buy a Porsche
911 Turbo or start a new business. So, the money likely
becomes part of an estate plan that ultimately transfers
the money to your children, who are already in their
60’s-and probably don’t need it anyway.

So, one might argue that the utility of money diminishes

over time in direct correlation to our ability to enjoy that
wealth.

04 Plan to Die with Zero Money

What if you spent your whole life working to save a nice
nest-egg so that you could travel when you finally retire
at 70 years old. That seems to be the American dream
and also the advice of every financial planner on the
planet. It’s horrible advice. If you are 50 years old today,
you only have a 50% chance of living to see age 80.

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And, even if you do live to 80, there’s no guarantee that
you’ll be in any condition to travel and do the things you
dreamed about during all those years driving the desk
at work. So, start spending that nest-egg now. See the
chart below.

05 Life is Comprised of Seasons

Bill Perkins opines that life is comprised of seasons and
that, more importantly, “we die many deaths in the
course of our lives”. For example, by the time we turn 12
or 13 the child in us dies. Then, once we graduate from
college the college student dies. You get the point. But,
what about the rest of our lives? Do we continue to go
through seasons and watch versions of ourselves die?
Unfortunately the answer is yes.

His summers and winters

Scattered like splinters
And four to five years slipped away.

-Jimmy Buffett

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It’s important to recognize the season you are in. And,
what seasons lie ahead. Perkins suggests that we use
“time buckets” to discover what life could look like in the
future. What key experiences, activities or life events to
you want to accomplish before that ten year window
closes?

It’s a more proactive approach to naming a season for

creating those meaningful and memorable life experiences.

Take Your Biggest Risks

06 When You Have Nothing to Lose
We all have regrets about things we didn’t do when
we were younger. Things like spending a semester in
Washington, DC or backpacking through Europe after
college. Things we had no business doing cause we were
broke. But, since we were broke, what did we really have
to lose? Nothing.

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 ….some of it’s magic, some of it’s tragic
But I had a good life all of the way.
-Jimmy Buffett

Always remember that you’re better off taking more

chances when you are younger than when you’re older.

That’s it. Just a few nuggets of wisdom for the journey.

Now, go create a list of the things you love to do…and
start creating meaningful memories.

It comes down to a simple choice, really.

Get busy living or get busy dying.
-Andrew Dufresne (Shawshank Redemption)

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 Why Uncertainty is the
Key to Happiness
Can it really be true that uncertainty is the key to
happiness?

Many years ago there was a Chinese farmer in a small

village. He owned a single horse who helped him earn a
living for his family. The other villagers constantly told the
farmer how fortunate he was to have such an amazing
horse.

”Maybe,” he replied.

One day, the amazing horse ran away from the farm.
The villagers exclaimed, ”Your horse ran away. How
unfortunate!“

”Maybe,” the farmer replied.

A few days later, the amazing horse came home, with

three beautiful wild horses in tow.
”What good fortune. What an amazing blessing,” the
villagers exclaimed.

”Maybe,” the farmer again replied.

The following week, the farmer’s only son was riding one
of the wild horses in the fields, when it kicked him off and
broke his leg.

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The villagers arrived to express their concern.
”What terrible misfortune,” they said.

”Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next month, a military officer knocked on his door

recruiting able-bodied young men for the war. The
farmer’s son, with his shattered leg, was not selected. The
villagers were elated, “your son has been spared from the
war. What amazing luck!”

The farmer simply smiled. “Maybe.”

The parable of the farmer and the horse is wonderful

lesson in embracing uncertainty.

Friar Richard Rohr is an American author, spiritual writer,

and Franciscan Friar based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
He authored a human developmental theory into three
stages called Order, Disorder and Re-order. It mirrors the
parable in many ways.

The theory suggests that we cannot grow unless we move

through significant periods of uncertainty in our lives.
The Order stage is when our lives are bumping along as
anticipated. Pride is at an all-time high. The universe is
cooperating. No lost horses or broken legs. things are
predictable, more or less.

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 Order

Order can be calming and re-affirming-and we can start

to feel invincible: “pickin-em up, and layin-em down”, as
the kids like to say. Don’t you think there is comfort in the
ordinary and predictable nature of life? I do.

These are the times when every dimension is firing on

all cylinders. You are at an optimal performance level
emotionally, spiritually, financially, relationally, physically,
occupationally and parentally. Okay, parentally isn’t really
a word but I’m on a roll.

Everyone and everything is following the rules of the

universe….at least for a minute.

And then there is a knock at the proverbial door…..

Disorder
Disorder is kinda the evil step-sister of the Order stage.
When she shows up she is smoking a Marlboro Red and
drinking a warm can of Natty Light. She is pissed off. She
doesn’t bother to remove the cigarette butt from her lips
before she tells you to kiss her ass.

You can bet that when Disorder shows up at the party,

some property is gonna get destroyed. And everything
is gonna smell like cigarettes smoke and stale beer after
she’s gone. Think: fraternity house basement.

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Or maybe Disorder is like bad Tequila. The kind that
comes in a plastic bottle. The kind that makes you wish
you were dead— about six hours later. The kind that
makes you swear to God in heaven that you’ll go to
Seminary and call your mother every day if He just lets
you get your face out of the toilet for five minutes. C’mon,
don’t act like you’ve never been there.

Disorder turns life upside down. Like the time I got laid
off from my job, unexpectedly. And they FedEx’d me a
copy of What Color is Your Parachute? Nothing says
you’re fired like a book on identifying your “parachute”
color. And, all the rules of the universe went out the door.

The Disorder stage is a stark reminder that we are not in

control of our lives….ever.

The Disorder stage is intended to be painful & confusing

to us. Like being forced to watch a foreign movie with
subtitles or watch network television shows or eat
unsalted potato chips. The Disorder stage is intended
to break us open enough so that new wisdom can get
in. That’s called growth. And that’s the beginning of the
Reorder stage.

The best word to define the Reorder stage is

Resurrection. It’s the beginning of something new. Like
the very first twinkling of light when the sun rises. The fog
of Disorder begins to lift.

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 Reorder
We start to see things clearly again. And, it’s usually
about this time that we start to have a very small
amount of gratitude. Gratitude for being broken open.
Gratitude for being transformed. Gratitude for being
kinder, stronger, wiser and humbler (yes, that’s a word; I
looked it up).

See, life is gonna have a certain amount of disorder. And,

we are never in control of life’s events. When we stop
trying to coerce life to go exactly the way we want, we
naturally experience a greater sense of fluidity and ease
no matter what happens. Just like the Chinese farmer.

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 The Importance of
Delayed Gratification
A well-known study conducted at Stanford University
in the 1960s explains a lot about why it’s important to
delay gratification. In the study, young children were
seated alone with one marshmallow on a plate. An
adult researcher gave each child two choices: eat the
marshmallow now, or wait 15 minutes and receive two
marshmallows. Some of the children barely hesitated
before shoving that marshmallow in their cake hole.
Others tried to control themselves and nearly had a
seizure before giving in. Only a few were able to actually
hold out for the extra marshmallow, but even they
struggled.

The researchers followed the participants into adulthood

over a period of 4o years. The kids who were able to
hold out and receive the extra marshmallow were more
successful in nearly every aspect of life. They scored
higher on standardized tests, had better health, and were
less likely to have behavior problems.

Delayed Gratification is a Learned Skill

In full disclosure, I would’ve shoved that marshmallow
in my pie hole as soon as it hit the plate. Why? Because
at six years old few children have the discipline to delay
gratification. See, delaying gratification is a skill that
must be developed over time. The question is whether this

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generation of high school and college kids are capable
of developing the ability to delay gratification. Let me
explain.

People who learn to manage their need for immediate

gratification will thrive more in their careers, relationships,
health, and fitness. But, it’s hard. We aren’t wired to
delay our gratification. And, today we are surrounded by
more temptation than a toddler in a candy aisle. How
many times have you scrolled through Tik Tok at night
until your eyes could barely stay open? How many times
have you binge watched a Netflix show in just three
nights? And, I don’t even need to ask how many times
you’ve eaten the ice cream when you know you shouldn’t.

You hated yourself later, didn’t you? If it’s hard for adults,
imagine how much harder it will be for today’s kids to
resist temptation when it really matters.

See, even beyond careers, relationships and fitness,

most of the world’s problems are a function of delayed
gratification. Ever watched an episode of Behind the
Music? Or wondered why most Lottery winners file
bankruptcy?

Ever wondered why Bernie Madoff got away with a multi-

billion dollar Ponzi scheme for over twenty years? Or how
Jeffrey Epstein convinced the world’s most powerful men
to sexually abuse teenage girls on a private island? Or
how Elizabeth Holmes was able to raise nearly $1 Billion
for Theranos, a healthcare technology company that
she knew was a complete fraud? Ever wonder why Bill

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Clinton did not have sexual relations with that 22-year-
old intern who could have been his daughter? Ever
wonder why Richard Nixon bugged the Democratic Party
headquarters when he was virtually guaranteed to be re-
elected in a landslide? All of these regrettable scenarios
can be attributed to the perps inability to delay one thing:
gratification. Apparently none of them could wait 15
minutes for the second marshmallow.

Instant gratification can drive some of our most

regrettable behaviors. Beyond those examples above,
addiction to alcohol, drugs and shoplifting are a
function of our inability to control the desire for instant
gratification.

As a byproduct, our military cannot meet its recruiting

goals. Our youngsters are too fat, addicted to drugs or
have a criminal attorney on speed dial. The Air Force
recently revised their previous standards, allowing men to
be 26% body fat; women can be 36% body fat.

You can also add anger, porn and excessive credit card
spending to the list. Ever watched an episode of Hoarders
or Intervention? Every episode is a gross display of instant
gratification gone amok.

Why is it So Hard to Delay Our Gratification?

According to James Clear, “many studies have shown the

ability to delay gratification is a crucial life skill and leads
to greater success in a range of areas. Those who appear
to be good at delaying gratification are actually good at

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finding alternative ways to be satisfied in the moment.”
But, let’s agree that delaying gratification is unnatural.
It’s hard.

We all have examples of things we regret after our

impulse control short-circuited. Since it’s just you and me
talking, let me go first. I once chased a girl in college like
a puppy chases his tail. She had absolutely zero interest,
but that didn’t stop me. For months I would knock on her
window at late at night after too many $1 beers. (It was
the 1991 version of today’s drunk texting.) Fortunately her
roommates never called the police. I’d still be in jail.

One might also argue that the inability to delay

gratification is biblical. The seven deadly sins of pride,
greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth are pretty
much a handbook on delayed gratification. Some of those
sins are more fun than others.

Today’s Technology Feeds Instant Gratification

Our technology and strive for efficiency is driving this

trend towards immediate gratification. We’ve all come to
love the dopamine hit from Instagram likes and Tik-Tok
videos. Yes, the iPhone might as well be a syringe loaded
with dopamine.

The iPhone has taken away many of the “rights of

passage” experienced by prior generations. Today’s youth
will never know the pure panic of waiting in the carpool
line and wondering if the janitor will have to drive you
home cause Mom is late and cell phones haven’t been
invented yet.

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They’ll never experience the utter dismay of the
President’s State of the Union address interrupting
their favorite television show. They’ll never know the
frustration of a busy signal on a telephone. They’ll never
know the joy of finally getting through to the DJ to
request he play your favorite song. Yes, it’s a brave new
world but it’s a world fraught with instant gratification.

The world seems to be accustomed to delaying

gratification less and less, which means the rewards
of delaying gratification grow more and more.

James Clear

Today we order up a ride from Uber and are irritated if

it takes more than five minutes to arrive. We no longer
wait for “Must-See TV” night to see our fav show. We
binge watch the latest show and are instantly gratified
at finishing the entire season in our own time. Can you
imagine today’s kids having to wait to find out who shot
JR? They’ll never experience the utter dismay of opening
the fridge to find two hot dogs, some yellow mustard
and a slice of American cheese. Items that turn into a
surprisingly good dinner cause UberEats doesn’t exist yet.

According to studies by psychologist Daniel Kahneman,

“humans consistently overestimate the value or pleasure
of what they don’t have and underestimate the pain
or loss of losing something they do have.” That kind of
thinking is what causes us to do really dumb things.

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How to Fight Instant Gratification

It takes willpower to resist the desire for immediate

gratification. Willpower is that internal desire to keep
yourself from eating the entire box of Thin Mints in one
sitting.

And, the conscious desire to resist something pleasurable.

Discipline, on the other hand, is the ability to form healthy
habits and practice them consistently.

Instant gratification comes at the expense of willpower

and discipline. Because nothing hard in life comes without
a certain amount of discipline. Want to get in shape?
Discipline. Want to run a marathon? Discipline. Doctors,
Lawyers, Athletes, Musicians, Artists all need a certain
amount of discipline. It takes discipline and willpower
to delay gratification. Something nearly impossible for
today’s kids.

Social Media & The Empty Promise of Instant Gratification

The challenge here is that today’s high school and college

kids are still in the Petri dish. They are the first generation
to grow up with an iphone and mobile Social Media.
The question is whether this generation is capable of
migrating from immediate gratification and dopamine
hits to delayed gratification, willpower and discipline.

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The Uncertainty of Life Teaches Us to Delay Gratification

Social media teaches our kids that everyone succeeds at

everything—all the time. It’s full of bullshit artist who only
show their successes, never their striving or their failures.
There’s no evidence of the hard work, the constant reps in
the gym, the failures. Real life takes work, hard work, and
resilience. It takes feeling uncomfortable. Too many young
people shy away from these things today. But, life isn’t
like that. Life is full of uncertainty. Its messy, at times.
It’s a natural part of living and growth and developing
resilience. I wrote about uncertainty here.

Can the youngsters tolerate hard work? Can they tolerate

the inherent messiness that comes with a disciplined
(yet failed) pursuit of their dreams. Can they develop the
adult skills of willpower and discipline and resilience? Can
the resist the desire for immediate gratification?

Said another way, can today’s young adults delay

gratification and wait on the second marshmallow?

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Who Do You Spend Your Time With?
As we travel through the various seasons of life, there
is a dramatic shift in who we spend our time with. We
develop relationships with friends, family, co-workers,
partners, etc. But, how does our commitment to these
constituencies change over time-and why?

It turns out, the people at Our World in Data spend time

studying our habits. And, my friend Sahil Bloom has done
a masterful job of analyzing the data. He points out that
our time is limited and that, more importantly, who we
spend our time with changes dramatically over time.

Family

When our children are young, time moves slowly. The days
are long but the years are actually very short. The first 19
years of raising a child is prime family time.

After age twenty, family time declines and it never recovers.

The message here is clear: we should seek to cherish
these moments as fleeting and understand each hour is
precious. That appreciation of the finite nature of time
can do wonders to raise our appreciation for each other.

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Friendship
Our appreciation for friendship grows over time in inverse
proportion to the amount of time we get to spend with
those friends. Time spent with friends peaks at age 18
and begins a very steep decline that never recovers.

Perhaps that’s why our appreciation for friendships

grows as we age. Particularly those friendships that
endure through the good times and bad. We value those
friendships that deepen. We trim those that wane.

A few very committed friendships are exponentially

more valuable than a large number of surface level
relationships. But, as with our family, time with friends
declines substantially as we age and it never recovers.

Marriage / Partner

As I wrote about in How to Build a Happy Life, our choice

of life partners is our single most important life decision.

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It is the only relationship where the time spent together
increases over time. So, if you’re miserable at 30, you can
look forward to spending even more time together at 60.
Choose wisely.

Children
No time is more fleeting or bittersweet than time spent
with our children.

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Time with our children peaks in our 30’s and takes a face
plant that continues into our 60’s before it levels out.
Yes, children make our lives infinitely more meaningful-
as I outlined in this letter to my daughter on her 16th
birthday:

When that day comes, I want you to take comfort in one

thing. You filled one man’s days with more joy than he
was due. A joy unknown in all my prior years. If you never
accomplish another thing in your life, you will have done this.
You will have exponentially and meaningfully increased the
happiness in one man’s life. And that is enough.

Co-Workers
During our prime working years, ages 20-60, we spend an
enormous amount of time with co-workers.

Next to our spouses/partners, no other constituency

demands more of our time. That’s why who you choose to
work with is as important as what you choose to pursue.
In a perfect world we find work that is rewarding and
people that we like.

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Alone
As we age, the constituency we spend the most time with
is ourselves. It dramatically outpaces all others. See the
green line below.

That’s why it’s incredibly important to learn to embrace

solitude as we age. Part of that is learning how to
embrace boredom. We must learn to find happiness and
joy in the time we have to ourselves, because we will have
a whole lot of alone time in our later years.

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That’s why it’s incredibly important to learn to embrace
solitude as we age. Part of that is learning how to
embrace boredom. We must learn to find happiness and
joy in the time we have to ourselves, because we will have
a whole lot of alone time in our later years.

Summary
By looking at all graphs together, a few things become
clear. In our 40’s all the lines seem to cross. A time when
all our constituents seem to demand the maximum
amount of time. But, here is the real lesson:

The time spent with our family of origin peaks during

childhood. We must prioritize our time with family and
loved ones. Our time spent with friends peaks at age 18.

We must cherish the limited time we get with our friends

as we age. The time spent with our spouse/partner grows
as we age.

Choose wisely. The time spent with our kids peaks in our
30’s. Make sure you cherish those younger years with your
children. You will spend an enormous amount of time
at work. Make sure you like your co-workers. Learn to
embrace solitude. As you age the amount of time spent
alone far surpasses all other constituencies.

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 Why Are American Millennials
So Darn Unhappy?
The oldest Millennials will turn 40 years old this year. Yes,
the kids are all grown up but they’re terribly unhappy.
Many millennials are lonely, burned out and depressed.
But, why? This is the most educated, upwardly mobile
generation in American history. Yet, the Millennials
struggled more than any other age group during the
pandemic.

Let’s dig into this and see if we can learn something

together.

First, Millennials get a bad wrap. We still think of them

as kids, but they aren’t kids anymore. They are labeled as
tough to manage, narcissistic, unfocused and lazy. But,
I think that’s more conjecture. Millennials simply want to
feel a purpose and have an impact on the world. Who
doesn’t? And, they don’t wanna sell their soul to the devil
for a paycheck. Fair enough.

To their credit, the millennials have dramatically changed

the workplace. Employers are more accommodating than
ever before, allowing for more flexibility and mobility. Their
efforts led to a step-down from business attire to all-
jeans, all the time. And, for the first time ever, employees
took the upper hand in creating true work/life balance.
It was a nice change for everyone. And, that was before
the pandemic created the ultimate employee benefit:
working from home in your day-jammies.

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Parenting the Millennials
As a parent, we all want our children to do better than we
did at their age. But since the first Millennials entered the
workforce fifteen years ago, Millennials have experienced
slower economic output than any other generation.

According to Scott Galloway, for the first time in history,

the millennial generation is worse off than their parents
were at the same age. That’s troubling considering that
the Millennials now make up the largest demographic in
our workforce. Perhaps that is reason number one why
this generation is so darn unhappy.

Who is to Blame?
I recently listened to a talk by Simon Sinek, a British
author and inspirational speaker. He blames “failed
parenting strategies” for the millennial unhappiness. It’s
pretty harsh, but he makes some valid points. See, many
millennials grew up hearing that they are “special and
talented”, that “they can have anything in life”.

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Those seem like inspirational parenting messages, but
they just aren’t true. Particularly when some of those kids
found themselves where they didn’t belong. In Honors
classes and on sports teams cause the teachers and
coaches were afraid of their parents. Those same coaches
handed out participation medals and trophies. Trophies
that the kids themselves knew they didn’t deserve.

All those participation trophies were handed out in the

vacuum. But, out in the real world, kids find out quickly
they aren’t “special”. And, they learn that they simply
cannot “have anything in life”. Mom can’t call the boss
when the promotion gets delayed. And, in Realville, few
of us really get to “make an impact” with our work. Over
time they learn that the promotions don’t ever come as
quickly as we want. And, they aren’t as special as they
once believed. That can feel like failure to them.

Over the longer term, the kids find themselves falling

short of their parent’s (and their own) lofty expectations.
According to Lori Gottlieb, author of the book, Maybe You
Should Talk to Someone, their struggles fall into three
categories:

1. Difficulty choosing or committing to a satisfactory

career path: some of this is a result of choosing
careers for which the millennials had no passion.
That’s a another function of trying to please Mom
and Dad by choosing the high-stress, investment
banking gig over teaching high school history and
coaching JV Lacrosse.

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 2. Struggling with relationships: the millennials are
putting off marriage until much later in life. Many
of those who are in a committed relationship
are simply living together outside the bonds of
matrimony. There is little permanence in these
relationships and certainly no spiritual foundation
for the relationship. This impermanence avoids the
possibility of divorce, but leads to anxiety over the
future since the relationship can be terminated with
ease. And, that impermanence is causing them to
delay having children.
3. Feeling a sense of emptiness or lack of purpose: the
millennials have migrated away from traditional
faith in something bigger than themselves. Now
that they’re reaching their 40’s, they feel a lack of
meaning or purpose in life. Basically “life’s a bitch
and then you die”. There is no higher power or larger
point to their earthly existence. That lack of faith in
a higher power or an after-life can lead to a feeling
of emptiness and a host of other problems.
The simple truth is that all that mollycoddling set
unrealistic expectations. And, by limiting our children’s
disappointments we created a generation that is simply
less resilient. Because kids need to occasionally fail in
order to learn resiliency. And, the result is an entire
generation with lower self-esteem than others.

Major depression rates are rising at a faster rate

for Millennials than any other generation.

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Once the kids got to college they were mollycoddled even
further. Well meaning colleges and universities set about
designing “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” to limit
the millennial’s exposure to opposing pints of view. Even
the most gifted millennials were conditioned to believe
they couldn’t handle opposing viewpoints at places like
Berkeley and Yale. Places where free speech blossomed in
the 60’s. College Professors now routinely must provide
“trigger warnings” if class material might possibly cause
someone momentary discomfort.

Avoidance Isn’t Immunity

Deep down, we are all trying to out-parent our parents.
We will do anything to keep our kids from feeling
discomfort or disappointment. But, what if by taking
this approach we fail our children? What if we are
simply creating adults that are ill-prepared for the
ordinary frustrations of adult life? Because avoidance
of disappointment doesn’t result in immunity from
disappointment. It results in a generation of empty,
anxious and confused adults.

Lab Rats
We also can’t forget that this generation is the first to
grow up with technology. That alone is a lot to handle.
But, it wasn’t just the tech. They were the pioneers of
Social Media. The lab rats for Silicon Valley.

©2023 All Rights Reserved www.tomgreene.com | 31

It’s in the longest running, highest stakes sociological
experiment in history. That experiment is like Pavlov’s
mutt, who was trained to salivate at the sound of a
bell. Only the bell is a series of likes and follows in a
meaningless, virtual world. Constant feedback on
life. And they have a hard time developing deep and
meaningful relationships because they grew up watching
people get cancelled and unfollowed

But Realville doesn’t work that way. We don’t go through

life with constant attaboys over what we cooked for
dinner or the memo we drafted for the boss. I imagine
that it feels cold after a lifetime of affirmations. And,
that lifetime in the social media laboratory is taking
it’s toll. A recent research study reports that certain
behaviors on social media were linked to higher likelihood
of major depressive disorder (MDD) in millennials.

The millennials also grew up with a sense of impatience.

When you were a kid things were different. You had to go
to the movie theater, the mall and the record store. You
waited for the radio station to play your favorite song-
or you called and asked them to play it. That created a
sense of patience with the world that served you well.

But the millennials grew up in a different world. Imagine

growing up with immediate gratification and a total lack
of patience. That’s our millennials. They subscribed to
Napster and Apple Music and had access to the latest
and greatest music available (often free) with the click
of a button. No saving up your allowance and no trips
to the record store. They introduced us to TiVo, which

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allowed them to watch television shows whenever they
wanted. Later they were the missionaries for movies
on-demand and Netflix. They were the first generation
to adopt Amazon instead of a trip to the mall. Now we
order lightbulbs on-line and are incensed when they don’t
show up in 24 hours. And, they were the first generation
to experience “go-anywhere” internet service through the
magic of wi-fi.

No saving up your allowance and no trips to the record

store. They introduced us to TiVo, which allowed them to
watch television shows whenever they wanted. Later they
were the missionaries for movies on-demand and Netflix.

In his book, Stolen Focus, Johann Hari opines that social

media exacerbates short-term, immediate reward
behavior. It’s not surprising that the “lab rats” are
suffering from record-levels of anxiety and depression.
It’s not surprising that they are feeling adrift in their
careers and relationships. It’s not surprising that they
feel a lack of purpose and an overall sense of emptiness.
They’ve grown up with unreasonable expectations about
the speed at which life’s successes should happen. And,
they’ve grown up with a lack of patience in every other
aspect of their lives. And, as they ease into their forties,
these two forces are crashing into each other with
nuclear force. We may well have an entire generation on
our hands who will go through life feeling like they got
handed a raw-deal.

And, lastly, many of the millennials first learned of a

higher power during their first visit to an Alcoholics

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Anonymous meeting. Going through life is challenging
enough. It’s a lot more challenging without some degree
of confidence in a higher power than your parents.

So, what do you think about my opinion? Did I get this

right? I want to hear from you. Leave me a comment
below, especially if you’re a millennial or a parent of a
millennial. I promise you’ll hear back from me.

©2023 All Rights Reserved www.tomgreene.com | 34

 How to Die with a
Big Fat Smile on Your Face
Harvard professor and Social Scientist, Arthur Brooks
has figured out exactly how to ensure you will die with a
smile on your face. It’s all outlined in his New York Times
bestselling book, From Strength to Strength - How to
find success and fulfillment in the second half of life.

Brooks, the former head of the American Enterprise

Institute, is a true scholar in the arena of happiness and
fulfillment. But, Brooks suggests that the foundation of
your happiness later in life must be built in the first half
of life.

His extensive research for this book began on an ordinary

flight across country. While in flight, Brooks overheard an
older man behind him say to his wife, “I’d just be better
off dead.” Immediately, Brooks began to surmise that
this gentleman had missed out on his calling. Or, perhaps
had missed out on a life of significance. Perhaps he
regretted some of his life’s decisions.

For the remainder of the flight Brooks ran through

various scenarios that might result in such a drastic
statement. Was the man terminally ill? Was he bankrupt?
Once the flight reached the gate, Brooks finally had a
chance to look back at the man behind him. It turns
out the man was an American icon. He had truly led a

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life of significance and was extremely wealthy. He often
appeared on television and in the news as an expert in his
field. Yet the older man had simply given up on life. Why?

The Glass is Half Full

Research shows that when people turn age 65, one-half
get happier. The other half get sadder. What is the key
difference between these two groups? Before we answer
that question, I think we can agree that we are all trying
hard to be successful. Regardless of what your definition
of success might be. But, the reality of life is that the
more successful you are, the sadder you are likely to be
later in life. Most people assume it’s the “retirement
blues”, but it’s way bigger than that. The resulting
sadness is derived from the loss of identity, satisfaction
and purpose that success brings.

Brooks refers to this as “the striver’s curse”. The higher

people climb, the more attached they become to
success. And, of course, the harder they fall when success
ultimately begins to fade.

The Key to Happiness

If half of the country gets happier at age 65, I want the
recipe for that secret sauce. What is it that brings people
true happiness later in life? According to the Italian
philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274),
we think “true happiness is derived from money, power,
pleasure and fame”. That statement was made over

©2023 All Rights Reserved www.tomgreene.com | 36

800 years ago. Yet, I think we’d both agree that money,
power, pleasure and fame and pretty good ingredients
for that secret sauce. Aquinas countered that statement
by writing that “happiness is only known by the direct
knowledge of God enjoyed by the blessed in heaven”. But,
since we (hopefully) aren’t going to heaven any time soon,
let’s take a look at the alternatives.

The happiest people are committed to faith, family,

friendship and work that serves others.
—Arthur C. Brooks

The Happiest People

Brooks suggests that if you boil the ocean of all the
research on happiness and fulfillment, you can reduce
it down to the following. The happiest people are
committed to faith, family, friendship and work that
serves others. Even more telling is that people who are
happiest in their 80’s are the people who are happiest
with their relationships in their 50’s. To the contrary,
those that are saddest in their 80’s are those who
underinvested in their relationships earlier in life.

So, what do success and friendships have in common?

It turns out that most successful people struggle with
friendships. Who knew?

©2023 All Rights Reserved www.tomgreene.com | 37

The Golden Idols
According to Brooks, the “golden idols of success,
material possessions and social status represent the
biggest impediments to finding true joy in the second
half of life”. I think what Brooks is getting at is that these
“golden idols of success” are a result of marketing. See,
the world does not have your true happiness at-heart.
The world has it’s own designs on your life.

If I watch enough network television I will be bombarded

with advertisements for products intended to enhance
my happiness. Those can be boiled down to the following
categories: bigger pickup trucks, younger women and
more stuff. Those things typically take money; a lot of
money to acquire. So I work harder in order to acquire
the trucks and stuff that will, ostensibly, make me
happier. But, as you might imagine, true happiness is not
derived from harder work, nor is it derived from bigger
trucks, younger women and more stuff.

Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink,

the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.

—Arthur Schopenhauer

Suffering
So, what does create true, lasting happiness? In a
nutshell, it’s relationships. See, much of life is built on
suffering. As time passes, marriages fail, people get fired,

©2023 All Rights Reserved www.tomgreene.com | 38

we get sick and some people we love die. The incredible
joys and sorrows of life are simply unavoidable. Life can
be truly painful and challenging to survive, at times.
Especially if we are alone.

Deal Verses Real

It’s during these challenging and difficult times that
we learn the difference between “deal friends and
real friends”. According to Brooks, deal friends are a
byproduct of thinking that work friends are real friends.
And, the biggest mistake we often make is to exchange
real friends for deal friends. According to Brooks, “if you
do not develop good friendship skills by age 25, I can
guarantee you will not be happy at 75”. To be successful
as people you need other people.

In the words of Brene’ Brown, “social media has given us

this idea that we should all have a posse of friends when
in reality, if we have one or two really good friends, we are
lucky”. But, the best way to develop really good friends is
by being vulnerable. And, since vulnerability is often seen
as a sign of weakness, it makes it challenging to develop
deep friendships at work. And, tossing in a little more
Arthur Brooks, “the happiest people are those who can
relax in their weakness and stop hiding everything”.

Mike & Carol Brady

In a recent survey, 36% of young men are now more
likely to rely on their parents for personal support than

©2023 All Rights Reserved www.tomgreene.com | 39

other people in their life. That habit can lead to missed
opportunities to connect and deepen friendships. Perhaps
that’s the reason why the number of Americans reporting
“no friends at all” has grown 400% since 1990. We clearly
aren’t investing the time and energy needed to maintain
our friendships. If Brooks is right, all of this is shaping up
to create a generation of very unhappy older Americans
in a few years.

Money, Power, Pleasure & Fame

So, what is it about successful people that makes them
so miserable in their later years? The simple truth is
that many successful people believe their happiness is
derived from the Aquinian “money, power, pleasure and
fame”. As these people age, their sadness is derived from
a loss of enjoyment, satisfaction and purpose; a loss of
significance. Meaning that their value is diminished once
the spotlight fades.

Nobody is ever rich enough,

famous enough or powerful enough.
—Arthur Schopenhauer

©2023 All Rights Reserved www.tomgreene.com | 40

When the spotlight goes out completely, they find
themselves like the gentleman on the airplane. Feeling
like they would be better off dead than alive. On the other
hand, those that led a more substantive life based on
faith, family, friendship and work- that serves others are
happier and more relatable. They simply go to their grave
happier.

So what about you? Are you going to be in the happier

group at age 65? Are you going to be smiling at the Grim
Reaper when he rings your doorbell and asks if you ate
the Salmon mousse for dinner?(Monty Python) If not,
what are you willing to do to ensure you die with a big fat
smile on your face?

©2023 All Rights Reserved www.tomgreene.com | 41

 How to Build a
Happy Life in Six Easy Steps
A recent survey suggests that the happiness of today’s
young adults has crashed over the last few years. So,
what’s making the kids so unhappy?

Bestselling author and Professor Scott Galloway has

some answers. Galloway is a very salty Professor of
Marketing at NYU/Stern School of business. (Think: Larry
David)

According to Galloway, young adults are stressed. It’s

partially a function of how we’ve raised them. Many grew
up hearing how “special” they were. And, how they should
follow their “passion” and chase their “dreams”

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It turns out that most kids aren’t really special. And,
following their “passion” is a fast-track to a lifetime of
making caramel macchiatos at Starbucks. Because no
matter how special your kid may seem, they aren’t likely
to be the next Tom Brady or Taylor Swift. As my brutally
honest dad used to say to me: “son, lucky for you, the
world always needs more ditch diggers.”

The problem is that parents are not always the best judge
of how special their kids really are. Everybody sees their
own children as a reflection of their own wants, needs,
desires and regrets. And, too often, we try to encourage
our children to be more like us - or at least more like we
see ourselves. After all, we made them. It’s the least they
can do.

Lawnmower Parenting
We no longer helicopter parent. Today’s parents are
more like a lawnmowers. While the helicopter parent
observes obstacles from above,
the lawnmower parent mows
them down before the child
even sniffs the obstacle. By
removing any possibility of fear
or failure from our kids lives we’ve
created a generation of kids
lacking any measure of resilience.
Thus, the slightest obstacle or
disappointment looks and feels
cataclysmic to young adults. That’s
making life hard for them.

©2023 All Rights Reserved www.tomgreene.com | 43

Professor Galloway shares these and other thoughts in
his book, The Algebra of Happiness: Notes on the Pursuit
of Success, Love, and Meaning. He offers hard-hitting
answers to life’s biggest questions:

• What’s the formula for a life well lived?

• How can you have a meaningful career, not just a
lucrative one?
• Is work/life balance possible
• What are the elements of a successful relationship?
So, what’s making the young adults so darn angsty? The
simple truth is that our happiness peaks at around 18-
20 years old. It declines every year until we reach our mid
50’s.

So what’s the cause of the long, slow slide to

melancholia? According to Galloway, “real-life” is a lot
more challenging than the four’ish years of free beer and
cheap sex in college. As a result, the euphoria experienced
in the early years begins to wane.

In their mid-20’s kids start to realize that mom and dad

were F.O.S. They begin to realize that they aren’t special

©2023 All Rights Reserved www.tomgreene.com | 44

and can’t really do anything they set their mind to. As a
result, their 20’s can seem like a let down.

That let down is leading to some major sociological

trends, namely delayed adulthood. The irony of that
delayed adulthood is that once the happiness starts to
slide in your early twenties, it doesn’t return until your
mid-70’s. So delaying adulthood only serves to delay the
return of happiness. Kinda depressing, huh?

Show me a guy that spends weeknights watching ESPN

and all day Sunday watching professional football and I’ll
show you a guy headed for a lifetime of anger and failed
relationships. Show me somebody who sweats every day and
spends as much time sweating as he does watching others
sweat on TV and I’ll show you someone who is good at life.

In our 40’s, most people begin to realize that life is pretty

good, even if they aren’t Taylor or Tom. And, those with
a spiritual foundation seem to reach this nirvana sooner
than others. We begin to recognize our blessings and
acknowledge our own mortality. We practice a little more

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gratitude over what we have and hold. Our happiness
slide begins to bottom out. We start a steep climb out of
the pit of despair and realize that life’s not so bad after
all.

Professor Galloway opines that there are a few indicators

of who will be happy and who will continue to wallow in
the pit of despair as they age. Here they are:

Sweating vs. Watching People Sweat

There is a direct correlation between sweating and
watching people sweat on television.

That is, those who go into the gym or practice some other
form of regular exercise are happier than those who
don’t. And, more importantly, Galloway suggests that the
ratio of time spent sweating vs. watching others sweat is
a forward looking indicator of your success.

Show me a guy that spends weeknights watching

ESPN and all day Sunday watching professional
football and I’ll show you a guy headed for a lifetime
of anger and failed relationships. Show me somebody
who sweats every day and spends as much time
sweating as he does watching others sweat on TV and
I’ll show you someone who is good at life.

©2023 All Rights Reserved www.tomgreene.com | 46

“Overnight Success”
If you wanna be in the top 10% of wage earners in the
second half of life, you have to plan to spend the first 10-
20 years of your career working hard, very hard. Those
years include lots of sacrifice, hard work, disappointment,
late nights, etc.

That grinding during your younger years pays off later

in life once your credentials are established. See, those
who establish their credentials and find some financial
security in the form of savings and equity will ultimately
enjoy a great deal of freedom in the second half of life.

It’s true that money can buy happiness, but only to a

certain point. But, most people don’t regret investing in
themselves and their careers early for the trade off of
time and security later in life. Especially when compound
interest starts to kick in.

©2023 All Rights Reserved www.tomgreene.com | 47

Partnership/Marriage
As we’ve all heard before, the most important decision
in life is who you choose to partner with. Those who
derive their happiness from their home life are happier
than those who make lots of money and are lonely. If
a spouse isn’t a true partner, that can lead to extreme
unhappiness. Choose wisely.

According to Galloway there is a simple formula to

relationships.

It takes a mutual attraction. But, it also takes an

alignment of values. Those things like religion, children
and politics. Then, of course, there must be an alignment
as to the approach to money. In the proper proportions
those things can add up to exponential pleasure and
happiness.

Understanding Wealth
Being rich isn’t making a lot of money. Being rich is simply
having your income exceed your expenses. No matter how
much money you make, if your spending exceeds your
income, you are poor.

Life is About Experiences

While many believe that money and things will lead to
happiness, research shows that happier people invest
in experiences. And, those who enjoy those experiences

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with their children fare better. A recognition of the finite
nature of the amount of time our children are with us
tends to focus the mind on spending that time wisely.
You are much better off driving a ten year old Hyundai
Sonata and taking your kids on a ten day vacation to
Yellowstone in the summertime.

Booze:
In the world’s longest running study on happiness,
Harvard university outlines the key ingredients to living
a happy life. But, more importantly, it outlines the key
ingredients to unhappiness. In eighty years of analysis
there is one, single item that nearly guarantees to factor
into all failed marriages, career failures and financial
instability: alcohol. Drink in moderation.

Resilience:
If you live long enough and take a few risks in life, you will
ultimately fail at something (maybe more than once).
Success isn’t about avoiding failure, it’s about being
resilient when failure happens. Economic instability can
happen, but it usually passes quickly. Suck it up and get
back on the horse.

©2023 All Rights Reserved www.tomgreene.com | 49

 The Laziest Generation
in American History
In early 2021, employees began voluntarily resigning
from their jobs, en masse. By the end of 2021, 47.4 million
employees bailed out. This surprising trend has been
labeled The Great Resignation.

This trend has alarmed employers, talking heads and

economists as they struggle to make sense of the mass
exodus from the workplace. What could possibly be
causing this?

As you might imagine, part of the blame for this lies at

the feet of Covid-19. We had all been operating a warp
speed. Then everything just stopped. And, the sudden
slow down gave many folks an opportunity to pause and
reflect. It allowed workers to reimagine their careers,
their stress level, and their long-term goals. Many found
the unexpected down-time to be eye-opening. Workers
finally got to see exactly what they were missing in life.
Turns out they were missing a lot. Last month another 4.3
million pulled their best Tom Brady impression and walked
off the field.

These resignations exasperate a market that needs more

humans. The civilian labor force participation rate is still
below pre-pandemic levels. Even with the proliferation
of vaccines and wide availability of jobs, 38% of of those
able to work choose not to.

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With fewer workers to fill openings, companies have to
increase compensation to compete. That causes the price
of goods and services to go up. Economists call this a
wage-price spiral. It’s one of the reasons why Bacon is ten
bucks right now.

Over the past few decades, the United States has seen
a precipitous drop in the labor force participation rate.
Surprisingly, this trend is most pronounced for young men
ages 20–24. The labor participation rate for this group
fell by almost 10% between 1996–2016. That’s a larger
reduction in hours than any other demographic, male or
female. At this point only 73% of those age 20–24 are
even trying to find work.

Russian economists refer to this trend as a demographic

drought. That is, there simply is not enough available
labor in the United States to meet the supply. But, why is
there such demand for labor today? Part of the answer is,
of course, Covid. In 2020, US economists predicted that
approximately 2M baby boomers would retire from the
active workforce. Instead, the Covid virus accelerated the
baby boomer retirements in excess of 3M people. That’s
an extra 1M retirements in a 12 month period, at a time
when the economy was booming. And, because of a drop
in the US fertility rate in the 1970’s, there simply aren’t
enough Gen X’ers and millennials to fill the void. Experts
predict that by 2028 there will be a deficit of 6 million
workers. And, that’s before contemplating the impact of
The Great Resignation.

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So what is causing the decline in the desire to work?
Finding a good paying job is typically a high priority for
20 year olds. Some suggest it’s a lack of marketable skills
and training. It could also be the migration of many entry
level jobs to India and Puerto Rico, so-called offshoring.
One expert suggests it’s something totally different. In
1996 California shocked the world by legalizing certain
forms of Marijuana. By 2019, 30 states had legalized
the use of marijuana. That legalization has created a
tremendous supply of THC products that often find their
way into non-legal states-and every hunting and fishing
trip I go on. In the spirit of Bill Clinton, I tried one but I
didn’t chew it so it doesn’t count.

A recent study by the University of British Columbia

confirms what many suspect. The use of Marijuana
contributes to a condition known as amotivational
syndrome. That’s a fancy way of saying that weed makes
you lazy.

The major decline in the motivation of the 20–24 age

cohort began around 2004. Not coincidentally, 2004
saw many blockbuster sequels and prequels in the
video video game industry. These include Doom 3, Gran
Turisimo 4, Grand Theft Auto and Halo 2. Economist
Edward Castranova opines that “we are witnessing what
amounts to no less than a mass exodus to virtual worlds
and online game environments”. And, it isn’t just in the
US. In Hong Kong, the average male spends 113 minutes a
day playing video games.

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There is also the impact of legalized, mobile betting. It
has literally transformed the gambling landscape in the
country. DraftKings is the largest fantasy sports service
with 8M users. Roughly 16 states now allow on-line
betting on sports games through apps like DraftKings.
The Meatloaf Generation

In 2015, 14.3% of all men ages 21–30 went the entire year
without a single hour of work or compensation. And, 70%
of lower skilled men without jobs live with a parent or
close relative. They squat on relatives Netflix, WiFi and
Spotify accounts and become digital parasites. With
deference to Will Farrell, I like to call this The Meatloaf
Generation.

An academic study from the University of Rochester

confirms that since 2004, data shows that young men
shifted leisure time to video gaming and recreational
computer activities. And, that the attractiveness of
gaming is directly correlated to the innovations in
computing power and in the sophistication of the games
themselves.

But, historically, access to media (music, movies, video

games) was limited by our access to money. Growing up, I
stayed at the arcade playing Galaga, Asteroids, Defender
and Centipede only until I ran out of quarters.

Today, our media is mostly all-you-can-eat. Netflix offers

an unlimited supply of movies and shows. And, video
games are all inclusive. Once you purchase the game
there is no limit on the number of gaming hours. Same

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goes for music. So there are no financial speed bumps for
the Tic-Tok generation. Everything is all you can eat. They
embrace a life of premium mediocrity.

So, who is trying to fill this employment gap? Males age

62–69 are returning to the workforce in droves. Their
labor participation rate is roughly +10%. Same goes
for females age 60–70. So the youngest Americans are
refusing to work while the older Americans are returning
to the workforce in numbers higher than any other demo.

Do you find these statistics surprising? That able-bodied

men are using marijuana, playing video games, gambling
and watching Netflix all day? Do you have a young
parasite living in you basement, eating your food and
milking off your Wi-Fi, Netflix and Uber accounts. Maybe
it’s time for some tough love before you find yourself
returning to the workforce when you should be enjoying
the fruits of your own labor.

©2023 All Rights Reserved www.tomgreene.com | 54

 What Happened To Healthy
Masculinity And Our Boys?
There is a boy crisis in America. By any objective measure,
from Pre-K to College, boys are less resilient and less
ambitious than they were a short time ago. Worldwide,
boys are 50 percent less likely than girls to meet basic
proficiency in reading, math, and science. And, by virtually
any objective measure, girls are thriving more than ever.

It’s simply a bad time to be a boy.

The Gender Gap

Across the US, alarm bells are going off at two- and
four-year colleges. According to the National Student
Clearinghouse, for every four men enrolled, there are six
women enrolled. It’s the widest educational gender gap
in history, but it isn’t limited to undergraduate study.
Women earned more than 60% of all master’s degrees in
2020. That’s a new record. Women earned 151 master’s
degrees last year for every 100 degrees earned by men.

The past 50 years have redefined what it means to be

female in America. Girls today are told that they can do
anything, be anyone. They’ve absorbed the message:
They’re outperforming boys in school at every level. But
it isn’t just about performance. To be a girl today is to

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 be the beneficiary of decades of conversation about
the complexities of womanhood, its many forms and
expressions.

Boys, though, have been left behind. No commensurate

movement has emerged to help them navigate toward a
full expression of their gender. It’s no longer enough to “be a
man” — we no longer even know what that means.

— MICHAEL IAN BLACK, THE BOYS ARE NOT ALRIGHT

This gender gap was first revealed in 1980 when female

enrollment outpaced men for the first time in history.
It marked a watershed in the evolution of education,
as women finally gained equal access. But, the trend
isn’t slowing down and it’s shining a spotlight on boys.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the overall rate of
college enrollment is dropping, down 1.5 million students
compared to just five years ago. And, 70% of that
reduction is attributable to men.

So what is driving this sudden lack of ambition in young

men?

The Emasculation of Masculinity

As Ian Black opines above, we no longer know what it
means to be a man. There is so much confusion and
mixed messaging around masculinity. Toxic Masculinity
has become a virtue signaling device for some. All that
virtue signaling is great until your roof is on fire.

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You’ll want the firefighters to be more like The Marlboro
Man and less like a Calvin Klein underwear model.
You’ll want a guy straight out of a Hollywood casting
department. A super-masculine guy who isn’t afraid of
anything. He’ll drag you out of the burning house with one
arm, stopping to light his Marlboro on your flaming couch.

The Identity Crisis

But in today’s world masculinity is frowned upon. That

kind of messaging is tough enough for an adult male. It’s
nearly impossible for a boy to understand:
• Men should be strong but not too strong.
• Men should be in control but not controlling.
• Men should be masculine, but not too masculine.

While nobody is going to feel sorry for men, it is

important to recognize that men today are feeling more
confused and isolated than ever before. The traditional
measures of masculinity: strength, independence,
courage, bravery, and assertiveness are toxic in many
circles. And, it’s creating an identity crisis.

Yes, these are confusing times for men. And, that’s

making it harder to raise boys to be good men.

Must-See TV
Roll the clock back a few years to the time when the
nation’s most popular television shows were all about

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family. Shows like The Brady Bunch and Father Knows
Best. These shows, and many others like them, presented
the typical American family. And they presented Dad
as the source of wisdom and a sprinkling of tough love,
when necessary. It’s different today. Replace Mike Brady
with Homer Simpson or goofy Phil Dunfey. Could either
of them raise six children in a three-bedroom house? Mike
Brady managed to support a wife, six kids, and a maid.
Despite his chops and killer 70’s get-up, he was quite
remarkable. He was wise, calm, and demonstrated a
strong moral compass. Where would those Brady kids be
without him?

Eat What You Kill

Since it’s just you and me talking, I’d like to share an
example. I’m a hunter. I love to be out in the woods in a
deer stand or walking through the crisp, early morning
fog with a pack of overeager bird dogs searching for
Quail. There’s nothing quite like it.

But I’m extremely careful about telling people that I’m

a hunter, until now. It’s frowned upon these days. The
senseless and violent taking of a life for sport, etc. Except
that same frowning, judgmental person waits in line
at Chik-Fil-A for twenty minutes for their kid’s chicken
sandwich.

Historically, hunting and fishing have been wonderful

adventures. Opportunities for men and boys to be ……men

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and boys. To share a time-tested and healthy tradition.
To be out among nature. To smear your face with camo
paint and crawl on the forest floor. To overhear a dirty
joke. To sneak a first sip of cold beer at the end of the
day. But, these days boys aren’t exposed to any real
adventures. Because adventures are just too “dangerous”
for our boys.
But, deep in the soul of every young man beats the heart
of a warrior. A man looking for adventure, for danger. An
opportunity to slay the dragon snd rescue the damsel in
distress.

See, as John Eldredge so eloquently writes in Wild at

Heart, “adventure, with all its requisite danger and
wildness, is a deeply spiritual longing written into the soul
of man.” And, further, “deep in his heart, every man longs
for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to
rescue.”

The Dopamine Addiction

Instead of a real adventure, boys are growing up with
less-involved fathers. They’re more likely to drop out of
school, drink, do drugs, become delinquent, and end up
in the basement. Instead of real adventure, boys spend
time with their digital drug of choice: video games.
Because when we do something we enjoy—like playing
video games, the brain releases a little bit of dopamine
and we feel good. Dopamine release causes adolescents
to gravitate toward thrilling experiences and exhilarating
sensations. (Source: The Atlantic.)

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Teens can literally become addicted to that little jolt of
dopamine. This explains why many teens feel “bored”
unless an activity, like school, includes a commensurate
release of dopamine. Perhaps that research partially
explains why a growing number of boys are not pursuing
college degrees.

Boys play violent video games like Mortal Kombat, a

blood-soaked fighting game with its graphic displays of
human decapitations, beheadings, and other over-the-
top bloody carnage. Not the blood of a small bird that
will be eaten for dinner, but the spurting and gurgling
blood of a fellow human being that you just beheaded.
And, that human kill comes with an enormous jolt of
dopamine. Dopamine is a tough competitor for algebra
homework.

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According to Dr. Leonard Sax, author of Boys Adrift, “…
boys who have been deprived of time outdoors, who have
spent more time interacting with screens rather than
with the real world, sometimes have trouble grasping
concepts that seem simple to us.” To put it bluntly, boys
who spend most of their free time looking at screens
continuously, and don’t spend any time outside in play,
begin to lose motivation.

Dr. Sax argues that a combination of social and biological

factors is creating an environment that is literally toxic
to boys. “Because these games give boys the feeling of
power and control: the power of life and death,” writes
Sax, MD. And, at some point, the virtual world becomes
more real than the real world. And the real world,
including school, becomes boring.

Failure to Thrive
So how is this playing out for us, college enrollment
notwithstanding? Well, according to Statista, 60.1% of all
men ages 18-24 are still living at home with their parents.
Many bereft of purpose, feeling alienated, withdrawn,
and addicted to immediate gratification. I like to call
this group The Meatloaf Generation. It’s a recipe for
disaffection, isolation, and alienation.

So what’s the answer here? How do we re-think

masculinity and the role of young men in our society?

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 Why Friendships In America
Are Dying
Friendships in America are dying. Even prior to the house
arrest, the role of friendship in American social life was
waning. That finding is the result of a recent survey on
American friendships.

According to the survey, fewer Americans now claim to

have a BFF. Just imagine Thelma trying that epic road
trip without Louise.

Best friends are the people in your life who make

you laugh louder, smile brighter and live better.

— Unknown

The main culprit for the lack of “best friends” is time.

Americans are busy. Or at least we seem to be. And, life
seems to get busier as we age. Our friendships take a
backseat to nearly every one else in our orbit: spouses,
parents, children, grandchildren. You get the point.

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The secondary culprit is self-reliance. That is, Americans
are simply not engaging friends for emotional support.

The trend is concerning when you consider that deep

friendships are proven to enrich your life and improve your
health.

More than half of respondents report that their first

choice for talking through difficult personal problems
is their spouse or partner. But, with the average age of
first marriages rising faster than the price of Starbucks
pumpkin spice latte, a surprising surrogate has stepped in
to fill the gap: parents.

Young men are now more likely to rely on their parents for
personal support than other people in their life. Thirty-
six percent of young men say their parents are the first
people they reach out to when facing a personal problem.
Roughly one in four (24 percent) young women say their
parents are their first call.

Another likely culprit is work. American’s spend more

waking hours at work than at home. And, employers
are spending more time and energy creating cultures
that facilitate deeper office relationships. Part of the
reason is having a best friend at work is convenient and
it fuels greater performance. However, the pandemic has
changed all that.

Throughout 2020, employers were forced to make

staffing changes to stay solvent. Those who remained
employed were asked to work remotely, dramatically

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reducing the amount of time that co-workers spend
together. This, during a time when more than one in five
Americans say the past 12 months have been much more
difficult for them than usual.

Many Americans found themselves driving a 1972 Dodge

Challenger (again) with a live Cheetah in the backseat.
And, just like Ricky Bobby in a torn Crystal Gayle t-shirt,
many of them didn’t have a Cal Naughton, Jr. to lean on.

Almost half of Americans surveyed have lost touch with

at least some of their friends over the past 12 months.
Further, sixteen percent of women ages 18-29 report
having lost touch with “most” of their friends during the
pandemic. Only nine percent of men in that age cohort
report similar results. This is not surprising information.
Women invest more time in friendships than men do. And,
those friendships are deeper emotionally.

Nothing delights the mind as much

as a loving and loyal friendship.

-Seneca

In contrast, male friendships tend to be transactional.

So, while women need to see friends to connect, men are
totally the opposite. Men can go months or even years
without face-to-face contact and still consider someone
a close friend. Men can simply pick up where they left off,
despite having missed important birthdays, funerals, and
bar mitzvahs.

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Last year I wrote a popular piece called Top Five Regrets
of the Dying. Ironically, the fourth most common regret of
the dying is, “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends”.

Of those who do rely on friendships, many report a

reduction in the number of close friends. In 1990, thirty-
three percent of Americans reported having ten or more
close friendships, not including relatives. Today, only
thirteen percent report having that number. So, ironically,
the TV show Friends would never get the green light
today. It’s just too unrealistic to think someone could have
that many friendships.

Back in 1990, three percent of respondents indicated

having no close friends. The number of Americans
reporting “no friends at all,” has grown 400% since 1990.
And, that means we have a growing number of folks in
the US that are just plain lonely. More on that topic in the
weeks to come.

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As we age, we only devote about 30 minutes a day to
maintaining friendships. That’s about 90 minutes less
(per day) than when we were age 18. As a result, we’ve
replaced deep friendships with “situational friends.” These
friendships are casual and a byproduct of seeing people in
a consistent place.

Further, 51 percent report having “activity friends,” or

friends as a byproduct of sports, community service, or
hobbies. And, these friendships were the first to
die when Covid hit.

Historically, Americans have relied on houses of worship

for at least some friendships, as social relationships lie
at the very heart of religion. However, our membership in
houses of worship continued to decline last year, dropping
below 50 percent for the first time in eighty years. In
2020, 47 percent of Americans said they belonged to a
church, synagogue, or mosque, down from 50 percent in
2018 and 70 percent in 1999.

Regardless of age, our friendships are a key driver of

happiness. According to the Mayo Clinic, friendships
enrich our lives and make us healthier.

As we ease out of our Covid hidey-hole, let’s reinvest our

time and energy into being happier and healthier. How
about sending this article to an old friend with an invite
for a pumpkin latte? It’s a great way to crack the ice and
reinvigorate your friendship.

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 The Kindness of Strangers
The Celtic Christians believed that there were mystical
spaces, called "thin places." Where the line between
the spiritual and physical is so close that we can literally
feel our soul move. As if for one “God Moment” we have
transcended our natural world to feel the spirit of God
walking alongside us.

And, that’s where the story begins…

I’ve walked the hallowed beaches of Normandy, France.

Thousands died on those beaches in pursuit of freedom
from the Third Reich.

The German bunkers are standing tall and ominous, with

their rusty metal guns pointed to sea, as they did on that
fateful day. I put my index finger into a bullet hole and my
soul moved. Immediately I was one with the pimply faced
18 year old kid from Camden, South Carolina. He smelled
of American tobacco. His cold and wet hands held the
rifle. His trembling finger squeezed off the round.

It missed it’s mark, leaving a permanent blemish in the

wall of the bunker for me to insert my trigger finger 75
years later.

Everything is frozen in time.

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When the Celtic Christians envisioned thin places, I think
they envisioned Normandy, France. If you cannot find God
there, you need to check your pulse cause you might be
dead already.

These thin places are hard to explain.

The most important things are the hardest to say,

because words diminish them.

-Stephen King

The Irish describe these places as “the places in the

world where the walls are weak”, where the separation
between the ordinary and the divine is suddenly changed.
Some people refer to these kinds of experiences as God-
moments. Moments where we are jolted out of our old,
ordinary way of seeing the world. As if a pebble has been
tossed into a pond. The pebble quickly disappears, but the
energy creates ripples. Those ripples move outward. They
touch anything in their path, long after the pebble hits
the bottom of the pond.

All this mysticism got me thinking. What if the whole

world is thin? What if every moment is actually a God-
moment, but we are too busy to notice? Too busy driving
in a hurry to get some place “important”. Too busy looking
down (at our phones) to look up. Too busy to stop and
care for others. Crazy thought, huh?

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Religious, smarty-pants people call this Providence.
Everything - every breath, every encounter - is a God
moment simply waiting to be recognized.

A few days ago I was driving alone on a Sunday afternoon

through Rabun County in Georgia.

I saw a group of people gathered on the side of the road.

Then another group-and another-and another. You get
the point. Then I started to see the First Responders. They
were everywhere. It appeared to be a terrible accident. A
few seconds later a convoy of tow trucks were parked in
the median.

A mile or so later there were two fire trucks hoisting a

giant American flag on the overpass. So clearly it wasn’t
an accident.

I witnessed enormous crowds waiving at the passing

cars. It was the epitome of #nothingbeatsnice. People
apparently putting some kindness out in the universe.
Downright refreshing.

Finally after about ten miles of fire trucks, ambulances

and crowds waving American flags, my curiosity got the
best of me. In an extremely uncharacteristic move for
me….I pulled off the highway into the dirt and put the
car in Park. I walked up to the first person I saw on the
roadside:

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 Me: ”Excuse me, ma’am, I’ve been driving for ten miles.
What’s the deal with all the crowds and waving flags?”

Her: “My brother died.”

Wait, what? Out of the thousands of people lining the

highway, you really think I just randomly found her? No
way, Jose’.

Her name is Cheryl. We chatted on the roadside for a few

minutes. She felt it. I did too. It was a strangely emotional
God moment with a complete stranger.

She told me that her brother was David Burch Ramey,

age 50, of Wiley, Georgia. David served in the United
States Army’s 82nd Airborne Paratrooper Division.
He deployed to Desert Storm during the invasion of
Kuwait.

Like a modern day Cincinnatus, the local hero of Desert

Storm returned home to Wiley, Georgia where he quietly
served his community as a firefighter and an EMT. After a
life full of enormous risks, David simply died in his sleep a
few days ago. He leaves behind three children.

I touched her gently on the arm and offered my

condolences. The moment got “thin”. We both knew it. In
full disclosure, I had a hard time holding it together. She
did too.

A few minutes later the fire truck (above) carried David’s

body down the highway. His firefighter buddies made a
pine casket for him-with their own hands. Gulp.

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They say that when you have one of these God moments
that you feel your physical presence lean into the spiritual
world.

My friend Steve describes it this way:

For me, God moments are any moment where I can feel
the hand of God. I felt it when I touched Cheryl’s arm.

When it happens, I feel this sudden lightness of my soul and

an energy coming through the top of my head like I am being
“plugged in”. All I know is when it happens I want more of it.

Like a giant jolt of spiritual electricity exchanged between

us.

God moments can be sacred moments spurred on by a

spiritual practice or a deep conversation that pierces the
soul. Or, perhaps, a random encounter with a stranger on
the side of the highway.

Look, we live on a gigantic blue marble spinning at over

1,000mph. It circles around a ball of molten fire, next to a
moon that moves the sea. Don’t you think it’s reasonable
to assume that some higher power put this whole thing
together? And, that your God might try to get your
attention once in a while? I do.

So why did God stop me on a lonely highway? Why did

he put Cheryl in my path on a quiet Sunday afternoon? I
wasn’t sure, but I was determined to figure it out.

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It didn’t take long.

It turns out that David spent his life in service to others.

And, not just as a soldier and a firefighter. David
was known to tackle home improvement projects for
disabled veterans. Then have the money deducted from
his paycheck at Reeves Building Supply to pay for the
materials.

A life of service to others doesn’t make you rich, at least

financially. So, as a result of his life of service, David’s
young kids got left holding the bill for his funeral.

I had my answer.

So with a few phone calls, and the help of some generous

friends, we cleared up David’s funeral expenses. It
was a small price to pay for a life of service. It’s what I
mean when I say “Nothing Beats Nice”. And the world
desperately needs some nice right now.

As my Pastor Tony Sundermeier said recently, perhaps

if we expect more from the world and our politicians,
maybe we should also expect more of ourselves at the
same time.

I don’t think one need to travel anywhere to draw closer

to God or to find a hero or to practice kindness. In fact,
you can find God-moments and heroes in common,
everyday places. And, you can practice being kind every
day. We just have to pay closer attention. And, pull off
the highway. And, talk to a stranger on the roadside. And,
expect more of ourselves.

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See, there are thin places and heroes and opportunities
for kindness nearly everywhere we go, if we are willing to
put down our phones long enough to see them.

God is in a beautiful sunset and a roaring storm; in the

uncontrollable laughter of children and in the sound of
really great music. Simply watching the waves crash on
any beach can be a thinning experience, even without
the memory of blood in the foaming surf on Normandy
Beach. Or He can be found on the side of a highway on a
small American town, if we are willing to stop.

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 Top Five Regrets of the Dying
Okay, I know this is not exactly an uplifting title. I get
it. But stick with me, my friend. Maybe we can learn
something that help us get through the next few weeks
of house arrest.

Every couple of years some movie Producer decides to

reinvent the time tested story. The formulaic story of the
couple that meets on the subway (insert airplane, blind
date, internet, etc.) and instantly falls madly in love. (See
also: any Hugh Grant movie and/or any movie that ever
aired on The Hallmark Channel).

The couple has the storybook romance. I usually don’t get

too deep into the trailer before I lean over and whisper in
my wife’s ear: “she’s gonna die.’’

And that’s where the story begins.

Guys hate these movies. The only way you can get us into
the theater is through pure trickery. There should be a law
against trickery.

Despite my personal dislike for sappy, Rom Com turned

tear-jerker, I will admit that I’m intrigued by the wisdom
of the dying.

I’ve sadly watched a few friends and family members

go through the slow, painful malignant demise. It’s

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awful. But there’s something beautiful and instructive
in the transition. Or at least it appears so in movies and
television. Are you with me on this?

We all wonder how we are gonna die. Long, drawn out

illness? Or like Kobe Bryant. Enjoying a Sunday afternoon
with his daughter. No warning. Game over.

Perhaps the pandemic caused us to more carefully

contemplate our own mortality.

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 I WISH I’D HAD THE COURAGE TO LIVE A LIFE
1 TRUE TO MYSELF, NOT THE LIFE OTHERS
EXPECTED OF ME.

If you’re a regular reader, you’ve probably heard me say

that “life is a journey.” It’s one of my favorite sayings-and
I usually follow that up with, “…..and not all the roads are
straight or paved.” So if it’s truly a journey, then isn’t it
logical to occasionally ask the question: “Am I going in the
right direction?” Of course it is.

The problem is that we don’t often choose our direction.

It’s either happenstance, or the journey is chosen for us.

I know a ton of lawyers who are miserable. Someone

told them when they were 18 that they should go to Law
School. Next thing you know they’re billing hours.

According to Ware, this is the Yahtzee! of all regrets. The

one that hangs up almost all people contemplating their
own death. Deep down inside they’ve known for a very
long time that they aren’t on their chosen path. Ever
since that boring speaker at graduation droned on and on
about “going confidently in the direction of your dreams;”
they’ve known.

Yet they pressed on, head down, leaning into the

headwind. Or as David Byrne croons, “Letting the days
go by.” Assuming that there will be time to reorient, once
they pay off the student debt, get married, or buy a
house. You get the point. But life rarely works that way.

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As you might imagine, clarity comes easy when time is
short. People begin to realize that some of their dreams
will go unfulfilled. Sorta like when you finally realize that
you aren’t gonna be President of the United States or
climb Mt. Everest or race in the Kona Ironman. Same
thing except those decisions have, at least, some measure
of choice in them.

Ware supposes that the average person “had not

honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die
knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not
made.” Heavy stuff.

The simple truth is that our health brings us a

certain amount of freedom. That freedom begets
procrastination. We can always do it later because time
is infinite. But when time is short and our health is failing,
we begin to really question the major decisions made on
the journey. And that’s where the regret creeps in.

2 I WISH I HADN’T WORKED SO HARD.

Apparently working too hard is mostly reserved for men.

(Hey, don’t shoot the messenger I didn’t write the book.)
This one struck a little close to home. You may recall
an earlier story I wrote on this subject. My sweet little
girl came home from Kindergarten or first grade with a
picture. She handed it to me and said, my teacher asked
us to draw a picture of Mommy and Daddy doing what
they love. My wife was drawn arranging flowers. I was
drawn sitting in the window seat of a Delta jet. Ouch.
That framed picture spent the last 15 years on my desk.

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According to Ware, “all of the men I nursed deeply
regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill
of a work existence.” That word “treadmill” got me
thinking. Do the people in this story regret the amount of
time they spent working? Or do the people in this story
regret what they spent that time doing?

Every year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics conducts

an American Time Use Survey. The Bureau asks thousands
of Americans to document how they spend their time.
According to the study, most people spend 8.68 hours/
day sleeping, 7.78 hours/day working and 3.45 hours/day
watching television.

I wonder if the problem here is that people do not have

a sense of pride in the type of work that they perform.
Therefore, the countless hours at work seem wasted-a
chasing of the wind. Just a hunch. And then they simply
regret the time wasted at the office…as they start to run
out of time.

It wasn’t about working too hard. It was about working

too hard on things that seem inconsequential—in the end.
Oddly, nobody seems to regret the amount of time spent
watching The Voice or American Idol.

Ware goes on to say, “the chase for more, and the need to
be recognized through our achievements and belongings,
can hinder us from the real things, like time with those we
love, time doing things we love ourselves, and balance. It’s
probably all about balance really, isn’t it?”

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 3 I WISH I’D HAD THE COURAGE TO EXPRESS MY
FEELINGS.

Okay, if number two is a guy thing, #3 is a mostly a

girly thing. Apparently many people regret holding their
tongue. (This is likely related to Regret #1: “I wish I’d had
the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others
expected of me.”) Maybe way back in your youth we
should have pushed back on the idea of Law School. But
most people say they regret suppressing their feelings
to avoid discord. And that’s how you end up in a Talking
Heads song.

Sometimes we don’t know until much later that a

particular moment in time has changed our life’s direction.

So people pursue things that aren’t authentic. You know,

careers, colleges, relationships and such. Stuff to make
Mom or Dad happy. The kind of stuff you don’t really
figure out until it’s too late to turn back. Or you’re on your
deathbed trying to make sense of your life. The result, it
seems, is an existence that restricts one’s ability to satisfy
our own dreams. And an overwhelming sense of regret.

It kinda reminds me of my fav Television commercial of all

time. Where the high school star sinks the buzzer-beater
to win the big game. He is offered a scholarship on the
spot. His dad is high-fiving him. The kid objects saying,
“but Dad, I wanna dance!” And he starts to march around
the court to show tunes. Hysterical and instructive.

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 I WISH I HAD STAYED IN TOUCH
4
WITH MY FRIENDS.

In many cases the dying do not realize their deep longing

for friendship until it’s too late. It becomes difficult to
rekindle an old friendship when your days are numbered.
“Hey Bill, how have you been? Say, let’s get together and
catch up. By the way I’m dying so we ought to make it
this week.”

Friendships take energy and effort and time. With

work and family and little league games, we simply
put friendships on the back burner for another day. We
become so caught up in our own busy lives that we let
their deepest friendships wane over the years.

That’s why not losing touch in the first place is important.

No one knows what lies ahead or when the time will
come that you are longing for your friends and in
between, you still have the gift of them in your life.

Apparently everyone misses their friends when they are

dying.

According to Ware, everyone wants to “put their affairs in

order”. It’s not money or stuff that holds importance. But
ensuring that things are in order for the benefit of those
that we love. Ironically, many people wait until they are
too weary to begin-or finish the task.

In the final weeks of my father-in -law’s life I attempted

the awkward conversation. He had been in bed 24 hours a

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day, for most of a year. The chat was hard on both of us.
Fortunately, he knew that I loved him and that I wasn’t
trying to write myself into his will.

I closed the door and sat on the edge of his bed. I gently
asked if his affairs were in order. He just kept saying, “I’m
gonna get up.” It was the hardest conversation I’ve ever
had.

At the end of the line, particularly in the final weeks of

life, all that remains is love and relationships.

5 I WISH THAT I HAD LET MYSELF BE HAPPIER.

I often wonder if the things we worry about are truly

the right things to worry about. That when our days are
numbered that we might regret the silliness of our own
neurosis. Do you think we will remember what we worried
about? I don’t.

Like what other people think of us. Or whether our kid is

gonna make the traveling baseball team. Or whether we’ll
finally get that promotion to Assistant Vice President.

We become comfortable in our discomfort. All that

anxiety can only seem silly when the perpetuity of life is
stripped away. But anxiety is comforting. Like an old pair
of sweatpants that we just can’t throw away.

In this state we are not truly happy. We are merely

pretending to be content—for the cameras.

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Deep within their soul the dying long for silliness. To smile
and laugh and giggle and tell corny jokes and have milk
squirt out of their nose. The intimacy of friendship and
laughter. What others think of them becomes irrelevant.

I wonder if hearing you are on “limited time” creates an

unexpected sense of relief. Relief that we can finally let go
of the rope-without fearing the rope burns of life. Relief
that the old is stripped away and we can finally focus on
what is truly important. No guilt over whether we should
be on a conference call, or checking emails, or working
out. No worry about the last time we had our oil changed
or had our teeth cleaned. An almost childlike wonder
of finally being able to see the world more clearly. As if
someone finally turned on the lights and everything came
into focus.

What about you? What are you worrying about today-

that might seem trivial if your days were numbered?

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 Reflecting the Light
in the Dark Places
I get a lot of questions about why I write stories.

Most people think I’m trying to write a book or become

an internet sensation. Make a few bucks. Get on TV.

Let me tell you a story and maybe that’ll help provide

some context.

The Institute for Peace

During the Second World War, German paratroopers
invaded the island of Crete. When they landed at
Maleme, the islanders met them, bearing nothing other
than kitchen knives and hay scythes.

The consequences of resistance were devastating. The

residents of entire villages were lined up and shot.

Alexander Papaderous was just six years old when the

war started. His home village was destroyed and he
was imprisoned in a concentration camp. When the war
ended, he became convinced his people needed to let go
of the hatred the war had unleashed.

To help the process, he founded the Institute for Peace

at this place that embodied the horrors and hatreds
unleashed by the war.

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One day, while taking questions at the end of a lecture,
Papaderous was asked, “What’s the meaning of life?”
There was nervous laughter in the room.

He opened his wallet, took out a small, round mirror and

held it up for everyone to see.

During the war he was just a small boy when he came

across a motorcycle wreck. The motorcycle had belonged
to German soldiers. Alexander found pieces of broken
mirrors from the motorcycle lying on the ground.

Later he tried to put them together but couldn’t, so he

took the largest piece and scratched it against a stone
until its edges were smooth and it was round. He used it
as a toy, fascinated by the way he could use it to shine
light into holes and crevices.

He kept that mirror with him as he grew up. Over time it

came to symbolize something very important. It became
a metaphor for what he might do with his life.

I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I

do not know.”
“Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark
places of this world–into the black places in the hearts of men–
and change some things in some people.”
“Perhaps others may see and do likewise.
This is what I am about.

(Excerpted from It Was On Fire

When I Laid Down On It by Robert Fulghum)

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A Broken and Fragmented World

As I look around I see restlessness. People hopelessly

trying to make their way in a broken and fragmented
world. Like Alexander Papaderous trying to put the mirror
back together.

Look, I’m not a Pastor or Therapist. There are others

far more qualified for those callings. But I see and hear
things in my journey. Things that indicate that people are
struggling.

College Philosophy
I remember studying Nihilism in my college Philosophy
classes.

I remember thinking that Nihilism was basically

translated to: “Life’s a bitch, then you die”. But in the
meantime you might as well live it up cause there is no
higher power. Dust to dust, I guess.

Surprisingly, that’s where a lot of folks find themselves

today, at least according to the studies.

Author David Brooks calls this “the great disembedding.”

We once embraced tight communities. And, hierarchical,
human organizations with prescribed social norms. You
know, those core institutions that made America the
greatest place in earth?

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Our core institutions have value, even if all institutions are
flawed. For all their imperfections, core institutions are
the best way to transfer goodness to future generations.
We now embrace a hyper-individualistic way of life. A
society almost totally devoid of social, emotional or
physical contact.

If it is to be, it is up to me

What Has Changed?

A few weeks ago the Wall Street Journal ran a piece
by Erica Komisar. Ms. Komisar is a psychoanalyst and
author. She has been in private practice in New York City
for 25 years.

The article focused on why so many people are restless.

Ms Komisar provides her perspective in the article:

“One of the most important explanations—and perhaps

the most neglected—is declining interest in religion. This
cultural shift already has proved disastrous for millions of
vulnerable young people.”

According to a 2018 Gallup Study, half of Americans are

church members, down from 70% in 1999. Even among
those who define themselves as “religious”, church
membership has fallen nine percent.

At the same time, the rates of every type of mental

health issue are up. Way up.

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 Addiction is up.
Self-harm is up.
Anxiety is up.
Depression is up.
Divorce is up.
Everything is up.

With so much toiling, are we looking for answers in the

right places?

Perhaps Ms Komisar is on the right track.

In an age of increasing anger, loneliness, and narcissistic

individualism, faith in a higher power provides an
antidote. Nearly every religion I know touts generosity,
gratitude and friendship. And, most importantly, believing
that you are not the center of the universe.

One of the primary benefits of faith is to provide a

sanctuary in which we can withdraw from the chaos of
our world and seek stillness. Respite from the noise and
commotion of daily life.

The antidote to restlessness is stillness.

Belief in a higher power creates, at least, the

perception of interconnectedness in the random and
unexplainable events in the universe. The occasional, yet
incomprehensible, pain and loss that can accompany life.

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 People we love get sick.
People we love get hurt.
People we love die.

Terrible things occasionally happen to some very good

people. But, we will all die someday. It’s one of the few
remaining things we can all agree on.

We can attempt to handle some of those events better

by, at least, surmising that there is some point in all of
it. How do you explain to your child that Peepaw is dead?
And that he’s not in heaven with Meemaw. But, in fact, is
just worm food.

Dr. Tyler VanderWeele published a study in JAMA

Psychiatry. It found that weekly religious service
attendance was associated with a 500% lower rate of
suicide compared to individuals who do not attend.

If life really does boil down to “life’s a bitch, then you die”,
doesn’t that make all of life kinda meaningless?

We are here.
We do some stuff. We die and turn to dust. Game Over.

The whole thing is just a curvy road leading to a dead-

end? Pointless. Ashes to ashes.

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Is There a God?
I once had a deep conversation with a “man of the cloth”,
named Kevin. I asked, “how can you be so confident that
there is a God?” His pragmatic answer was stunning.
Maybe, just maybe, the decline in our belief in a higher
power has something to do with all this struggling.

Look, if I’m right I get everlasting life. If I’m wrong I

take a dirt-nap, forever. So what have I got to lose?

All this restlessness.

All this longing.
All this loneliness.
All this unhappiness.

It wasn’t until almost 1950 that we recognized the

obvious connection between cigarettes and Cancer.
That’s 85 years of heart/lung damage before someone
made the connection. So many people died horrible
deaths. Seems pretty silly in retrospect, huh?

Perhaps it will take us another 85 years to complete

the connection between a lack of faith and our current
afflictions.

So to the question about why I write stories for strangers,

I give you the words of Alexander Papaderous

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 With what I have I can reflect light into the dark
places of this world–into the black places in the
hearts of men–and change some things in some
people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise.

And maybe along the way we can sort out some of these
big questions of life together.

After all, what’ve you got to lose?

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