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Pursuing a reasonably good life in a complicated world is good enough.   KEY POINTS Even while being fed a stream of doom and gloom in the news, there are good reasons to be more hopeful than most of us are. Consider that about 200 years ago, about 90% of the world lived in extreme poverty. Now, less than 9% does. Skillfully using reason and flexibility are critical in the pursuit of the good life during a complicated time. The world isn't as bad as we may think. Sometimes it feels as if we are living in a very, very mad world. We have been dealing with a global pandemic,  climate change , intense political sectarianism, rising racial tensions, fires, floods,  mass shootings , electronic surveillance, and the loss of privacy, and the list goes on and on.  Despite the constant news stream of doom and gloom , there are good reasons to be more hopeful than most of us are. By about every metric that counts, the world has gotten better and is not worse over the past several hundred years. For instance,  about 200 years ago, about 90% of the world lived in extreme poverty . Now, less than 9% does.  COVID-19  has killed over 4 million people globally in the past 18 months, which is indeed a tragedy. However, about a century ago,  the 1918 Pandemic virus killed about 50 million people worldwide , and that was with a quarter of the population that we have now. So, that would be the equivalent of about  200 million people  today. Much Room for Improvement Let's avoid a dualistic, either/or debate about human progress. We can agree that  humans have made tremendous progress   and  that there is still much room for improvement. As Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker argues in  Enlightenment Now , much of what we would call progress (e.g., humans living longer, happier, and healthier lives) is due to enlightened reason, science, and humanism. Evolution has given us these big brains and when we utilize them for good and work together, we can accomplish amazing things. Navigating a Complicated World While we have made progress, the reality is that we are not making as much progress as we could or should. Too often, political polarization and cognitive biases hinder our progress on complicated issues such as climate change, vaccinations, privacy, personal freedom, health care, homelessness, and so on. This isn't a problem of the right or left. Rather, it is a shared problem of the right  and  left. The many human biases that distort our perceptions, judgment, and behavior affect liberals and conservatives equally. There's no need to finger point to determine who is more to blame. In fact, when we do so, that's part of the problem. Our world is changing at a breakneck pace. We have almost 8 billion people on the planet. We have some extremely complicated societal problems to tackle. These aren't going away. To improve at the societal level, perhaps it would be helpful to step back a little bit (or a lot) to gain a more grounding perspective. An  ultimate question  that we should ask ourselves is: Why are we here in the first place? A Purpose of Life I don't know what the purpose of life is. But let's simplify this question a bit and instead ask what  a  purpose of life is . I will offer not one but two defensible answers: One purpose of life is to be happy. By 'happy,' I refer to life satisfaction rather than fleeting pleasures like  sex , drugs, and rock and roll. While such pleasures certainly have their place in life, focusing solely on fleeting pleasures can lead to a lot of unhappiness. We can see that much of our lives are dedicated to pursuing  happiness  in one way or another. Concurrently, most of us prefer to avoid suffering whenever possible unless it serves some greater happiness in the long run (e.g., studying hard in school, training for a marathon). From an evolutionary standpoint, meeting our survival needs well results in happiness as the payoff. Thus, a "good life" could be considered one filled with deep-rooted happiness. The second purpose of life is to change, learn, grow, and improve. Our evolution is based upon adaptation. We adapt to the conditions of our environments so that we can survive, mate, and raise our offspring. Adaptation is what helped us to survive and thrive in the first place. Adaptation inherently requires change, and change is inherent to the universe. "The world is maintained by change."  –Marcus Aurelius,  Meditations "Change is not permanent, but change is."  —Rush "Tom Sawyer" On an individual level, our survival depends upon our change, learning, and growth. The better we can learn and grow, the more likely we will survive. Once again, happiness is often the payoff as we learn, adapt, survive, and thrive. As we learn, we often experience happiness as the  dopamine reward system is involved in the learning process . Good feelings are produced as we learn to encourage and reinforce the learning process. A case can be made that  we exist because of learning and growth and we exist to learn and grow. We Need to Be Flexible We cannot learn and grow  unless we are flexible . When we become rigid, we cannot grow, learn, adapt, improve, thrive, and be happy. This happens on a societal level with political polarization and various forms of extremism, but rigidity or " stuckness " also occurs individually. Various mental health issues, such as  anxiety  and  depression , occur when individuals perceive themselves, the world, the future, or the past in overly negative ways. Flexibility is the key that unlocks us from the prison of rigidity. “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”  –Heraclitus One of the great challenges of the era in which we live is that our world is changing much more rapidly than our biological evolution, especially regarding the rapid evolution of technology . Look at the proliferation of  fake news , misinformation, and conspiracy theories as a case in point. Again,  this is a problem for both the right and left . It's a human problem because we simply did not evolve to take in and sort through the massive amounts of information that now inundate us. As our world is changing more rapidly than ever, we need to up our flexibility game to navigate the many challenges that we face. Pursuing The Reasonably Good Life “Thus, whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life.” — Lao-tzu,  The Tao Te Ching “Hold on loosely. But don’t let go. If you cling too tightly, you’re gonna lose control.”  —.38 Special, “Hold on Loosely” Some of life's challenges are indeed quite daunting. While we have made progress in so many areas, we often get in our own way. Sometimes the challenge of finding ways to work together is greater than the problems we are trying to solve! If you are fed up with the angry, hateful, and extremist, unproductive rhetoric coming from both sides, you might be thinking to yourself, "There has got to be a better way." I'm with you. We need to pursue change and growth skillfully through using reason and equanimity. The road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions. That's why I'm an advocate for pursuing what I call "the reasonably good life." We use our reason to pursue the good life in this complicated world, and we also use this reason to accept Voltaire's  wisdom  that "The perfect is the enemy of the good." A reasonably good life is a  good enough  life. For more, see my  YouTube channel  and  podcast  on  The Reasonably Good Life .

The latest research on screens should relieve some of our worst fears.   KEY POINTS For most kids and teens, screens don't have a sizable positive or negative impact on well-being. The best answers to the question of, "How much screen time is too much?" are "We don't know" and "It depends." Parents should focus on building and maintaining strong relationships with their kids before trying to manage their screen time. Disclaimer: I don't claim that what I say is totally "true" because the  truth is elusive  in this complicated world. Rather, I'm offering some ideas to help perceive the world, others, and ourselves in a manner that opens pathways for change and growth. While I am more concerned more broadly about life satisfaction and  happiness , I have written quite a bit about how screens affect our well-being, including in my book,  Tech Generation: Raising Balanced Kids in a Hyper-Connected World . Technology evolves so rapidly that researchers are constantly playing catch-up. We should strive to adjust our views according to findings from the latest research and be careful not to fall prey to the scary headlines. "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"  — often attributed to British economist John Maynard Keynes For Most Kids, Screens Don't Help or Harm Well-Being Much For most kids and teens,  screen time   does not have a significant impact on their well-being, positive or negative . This may be because, as human beings,  we are incredibly resilient . If we think of the horrors that our ancestors had to put up with (e.g., famine, plagues, wars), screens represent a relatively minor threat to our well-being. In part, our  r esilience  can be explained by the  hedonic treadmill  (or  hedonic adaptation ). Experiences that boost or lower happiness in the short term fade over time as we return to our baseline levels of happiness. However, there are always exceptions; Thus, it can be true that, for a specific child or  teen , screen use contributes to increased  anxiety ,  depression , and failing grades. Similarly, for another teen, his or her screen use may help them live a richer, more fulfilling life. Such anecdotal examples can and do exist,  and  it can also be true that, for most kids/teens, screens don't affect well-being all that much. Often, parents become frustrated and critical of their kids who are frequently on the screen. Persistent conflicts and criticisms about screen time within the family can be harmful in their own right.   It might be the case that the conflict in the relationship over screens is worse than whatever concerns we have about screen time in the first place! For many kids and teens who appear to be suffering from the ill effects of screens, it is likely that their screen use is a  symptom  of depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues rather than the  cause  of them. We must be careful to not direct all of our  attention  on screen use because we will likely miss the underlying problems. Still, as some kids retreat into their screens to find a reprieve from their suffering, their problems worsen. We Don't Know How Much Screen Time Is Too Much There's no empirical consensus that answers the question,  How much screen time is too much?  The best answers, which most of us find deeply unsatisfying, are: "We don't know" and "It depends." Since, in general, typical screen use does not cause lasting harm (or happiness), for most users, parents shouldn't lose sleep over them unless there are  significant struggles . Our views of screens often reflect concerns about our values rather than harm per se. That is, we see our kids on the screens and think they could be doing "better" things with their time. For instance, for the kids who are playing  Minecraft , we might wish they were out building a fort in the neighborhood with friends in real life (IRL Fort Night!). While there might be some validity to this grievance, missing out on some of the positives of building a fort with neighborhood friends in person isn't the same as saying that the time spent on  Minecraft  is  actually  causing harm. That said, at some point, screen use might begin to infringe upon basic needs for sleep, physical activity, time outdoors, and in-person relationships. When screens do cause harm, chronic sleep loss would be one of those ways and probably the one that is most controllable as a parent, at least for kids and tweens. In addition, academic grades can understandably start to suffer when kids spend too much time on their screens. At some point, just about every parent has told their child something like, "If you spent as much time studying as you did on your screen, you'd have A's in every class!" Our kids just  love  to hear that one. With many caveats, my (revised)  educated guess  is that 2-3 hours of recreational screen time per day for kids on school days might be the point at which screen use starts to cause some noticeable harm. Kids might be able to do double that on weekends, summers, and holidays before experiencing any harm. However, I am  not  suggesting that parents  should  allow that amount of screen time for kids. There's a difference between "What's the 'ideal' amount of screen time?" and "When does too much screen time actually cause noteworthy harm?" As a parent and a psychologist, I think keeping younger kids (3-10) to more like 30-60 minutes of recreational screen time per day during school days and perhaps double that on weekends, holidays, and summers might be an appropriate soft target. However, we should keep in mind that we can allow for many exceptions. Also, kids don't drop off into some abyss of suffering if they go over that amount. Being a parent can be a tough job as it is, and we don't need some dark cloud of   guilt  and self-judgment looming over us if we don't manage screen time "perfectly." When it comes to managing screen time, we should aim for "good enough" and trust our  parenting . If our children are doing " good enough ", we may want to avoid unnecessary conflicts over screen time. "The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good." —Voltaire Focus on Your Relationship Over Screen Time All this focus on screen time misses the most important point. Before focusing on screen time, we should focus on  building and maintaining a strong relationship with our kids . A strong relationship with our kids forms a protective factor and, after meeting our kids' basic needs, is probably the best thing we can do for our kids' well-being (in both the short- and long-term). A strong relationship is our leverage of influence as parents:  Rules Without Relationship = Rebellion . Our kids are more likely to listen to us and abide by our rules and limits when we have a healthy relationship with them. We don't want to let the push/pull over screen time start to define the entire relationship. We must pick our battles as parents, and oftentimes this means backing off about screens,  especially as kids get older . Once kids get a smartphone, it is really difficult to limit their screen time (except for bedtime!). While there's no "right" answer for  when a child should get a smartphone , sometime around middle school seems reasonable. For kids and tweens, perhaps around 8-12 years old, a "smarter" phone option might be one like the  Pinwheel phone  that is built to be a tool and not a toy. It has parent-managed contact lists and does not have some of the trappings of a full-fledged smartphone that are of concern to so many parents (e.g.,  social media , YouTube, games, Google). Finally, we need to model balanced screen use as parents. Importantly, the stronger the relationship that we have, the more that our modeling can influence our kids in positive ways. Even so, we need to strive for "good enough" modeling. There's no such thing as a perfect parent, and we don't need to  stress  ourselves out over trying to achieve the impossible.

Hate is often considered to be a negative emotion. So why are we drawn to it? Disclaimer: I don't claim that what I say is totally "true," because the  truth is elusive  in this complicated world. Rather, presenting ideas to encourage a new perspective on the world, others, and ourselves in a manner that opens pathways for change and growth. One of my favorite sayings is, "Hatred is the poison we drink hoping the other person will die." There are other versions of this, replacing "hatred" with "resentment" or " anger " or "holding onto anger." The origins of this bit of  wisdom  are murky but might have been inspired by the writings of a 5th-century Buddhist monk, Buddhaghosa. In discussing anger, he said, "By doing this you are like a man who wants to hit another and picks up a burning ember or excrement in his hand and so first burns himself or makes himself stink." (Visuddhimagga, IX, 23.) This sentiment holds truth regardless of its original source , yet it cannot be  absolutely  true because this complicated world does not work in a  dualistic, all-or-nothing way . One can always think of exceptions and create straw man arguments (e.g., "Oh, yeah? We hated Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, and we used hate to defeat them!"). Still, most of us consider feelings such as anger, resentment, and hatred to be negative emotions. We all want to be happy in life and don't want to suffer. We can't be happy when we are filled with feelings such as anger, hatred, and resentment... right? So why do we seem to be curiously drawn to hating others? In fact, if you look at the media headlines on both the right and the left, we seem to love to hate. Why is this so? The Purpose of Emotions Emotions evolved for a reason. They are mental shortcuts that, in general, move us toward things that are good for us (e.g., caring relationships, pleasurable experiences) and away from things that are bad for us (e.g., mistreatment by others, rattlesnakes). In this sense, negative emotions such as anger, resentment, and hatred are not inherently bad. Indeed, they are often useful. If they were not, we would not have evolved to experience them! For instance, hate can motivate us to avoid or defeat others who could threaten our well-being or that of our family or tribe. Evolution and natural selection are about the survival of the fittest, not about loving our enemies. We can't pass on our  genes  if we meet an untimely death at the hands of an assailant. Tribalism and Evolutionary Mismatch The problem is that we live in a world that is very discrepant from that of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. This  evolutionary mismatch  likely contributes to many of the societal problems that we see today. We perceive "enemies" and threats to the well-being of ourselves, our family, and our tribe in forms that would make no sense to our ancestors. Issues such as gun rights, taxation levels, abortion rights, immigration and healthcare reform, and  climate change  are incomprehensible from an evolutionary standpoint. Yet, arguments over such issues have contributed to the rise in  political sectarianism  and  negative partisanship . At this point, substantive disagreements over issues take a backseat to "us" versus "them" sentiments. "Anybody can become angry—that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way—that is not within everybody's power and is not easy." —Aristotle How Hate Hurts Us Evolutionarily, feelings such as anger and hate motivated our ancestors into immediate action to deal with perceived threats. Our autonomic  nervous system  would be activated and the "fight-flight-freeze" instinct would kick in. For feelings of anger and hate, this would likely involve more of the "fight" aspect. However, in this evolutionarily mismatched modern world, perceived threats to our well-being are plentiful and come in forms that would be totally foreign to our ancestors. The media feeds us a constant stream of threats from those "others" because we can't help ourselves but be drawn to it. As described in books like  Hate, Inc. , many media outlets on both the right and left profit from fomenting hate so they continue to do so. The internet and  social media  also make it all too easy to access information that keeps us seething. However, we did not evolve to stewing in such feelings so constantly. Being in a chronic state of  stress  is literally unhealthy for us both physically and psychologically. As a result, we can suffer from a host of  negative health outcomes  such as increased inflammation, heart disease, a weakened immune system, gastrointestinal problems,  depression , and  anxiety . This is the poison we drink hoping the other person will die. Alternatively, we might view hate as the candy that everybody wants. Why Hate Sometimes Feels Good In the words of the song, Candy Everybody Wants  by 10,000 Maniacs: "If lust and hate is the candy, If blood and love taste so sweet, Then we... We give'm what they want."  We are drawn to hate because it can feel good. It feels good because it reinforces the tribal connections that, historically, were essential for our survival. Being cast out from a tribe could mean death, motivating our ancestors to maintain their tribal allegiances. Thus, although hate might have some negativity associated with it, such negative feelings are largely offset by the positive feelings associated with increasing our tribal connections. This is why misery loves company. Our hatred shared with ingroup members is transformed from misery to intoxicating, righteous anger. It's also why heated sports rivalries, even ones that turn hateful, can feel so good... especially when our beloved team defeats our hated rival! It's interesting that Buddhists might have inspired the wisdom of, "Hate (or anger) is the poison we drink hoping the other person will die." I suspect that Buddhists, because of their practice, rarely experience the positive feelings that are derived from ingroup hatred of an outgroup. I mean, can you imagine a group of Buddhist "face-painter" fans screaming vulgarities at their rivals during an intense hockey match? The Takeaway? The media is both a mirror and a lens. It reflects and magnifies our inherent attractions to tribalism, anger, and hatred. As Natalie Merchant from 10,000 Maniacs sings, the media provides the candy that everybody wants. However, like eating too much candy, the rising levels of anger and hate that we are seeing are unhealthy for us as individuals and as a society. Until we realize this, we will continue to consume this candy oblivious to our own slow suffering. Importantly, this does not mean we all sing "kumbaya" and give up on addressing very real problems we have in our society. It means that we need to find ways to transcend the anger and hate because the amount of candy we are consuming is making us sick.

Inspiration for how to get along better can come from unusual sources. I have a confession to make: I like mixed martial arts (MMA) and the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). Yes, I understand that, as a psychologist advocating for peace, compassion, kindness, and well-being, this might seem contradictory. One might understandably call me a hypocrite, especially if you have read some of my other blogs! I can accept that. Maybe it's just a  rationalization  to say that we are all hypocrites in ways. None of us lives up to our own ideals. Also, we are tempted to judge others, and sometimes ourselves, in dualistic, all-or-nothing ways. Thus, when I say I like the UFC, that seeming contradiction or hypocrisy might be enough for many readers to judge me harshly and discount anything I say. I hope you don't though! To be quite honest, I do feel a certain level of  cognitive dissonance  about my enjoyment of UFC (and American football). I'm still trying to understand these contradictions within myself. Let me provide a little backstory that might help you understand how I first became enamored with martial arts. From Bruce Lee to UFC I became a fan of martial arts as a kid after catching my first glimpses of  Bruce Lee  in his movies such as " Enter the Dragon ." He had me at "Aiiyaaa!!!" His passion, energy, physicality, and amazing speed, power, and skill were like a meteor blazing across the night sky. But  the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long  and, sadly, Bruce died at the age of 32 from cerebral edema. His legacy and influence live on to this day. Bruce might be considered the first mixed martial artist. He said, "The best style is no style," as he borrowed from different martial arts styles and practitioners based on what worked. In a way, the UFC is a natural evolution of something that he helped inspire. As an impressionable young  teen , " The Karate Kid " showed me another side of martial arts that I found deeply appealing—the discipline, honor, principles, and, perhaps most of all, the sacred relationship between teacher and student (and least with Mr. Miyagi, not those Slytherin Cobra Kai!). Unfortunately, as a kid, I was unable to take martial arts classes, but I started training in karate as a young adult and have trained in various martial arts ever since. When the first UFC aired on November 12, 1993, most of the teachers and students from my first dojo watched it together. We were mesmerized. It was extremely controversial at the time, but the UFC has evolved into a well-regulated sport that has millions of fans around the world. It's not without controversy these days as well, but if you watch the UFC, there are some valuable lessons from which we might all benefit. In Opposition Without Hatred As we look at the ugly  politics  of America, most of us can agree that it has become toxic. Many, or even most, people on both sides are sick of the hate and would like to see Washington, and the rest of the United States, have less vitriol. After all, most of us want the same things—freedom, equality, security, respect, connection, and, perhaps most of all,  happiness . We have different ideas about what American greatness looks like and, importantly, how to get there. Of course we do! Life is complicated! Yet, we end up getting caught in dualistic mentalities of right/wrong, good/evil, win/lose, us/them that are tearing us apart. Is it possible to disagree without hating one another? Can we be in conflict about our ideas and yet still respect one another at the end of the day? As odd as it seems, that's where we could learn a few things from (most) UFC fighters. Sure, sometimes there is really bad blood between UFC fighters... some of which might be to promote the event or for fighters to hype themselves up. But if you watch a few contests, the level of  sportsmanship   and  respect  shown by the end of fights can be quite inspiring. Many of these fighters, after trying to defeat one another in a grueling, violent, physical chess match, will often hug, bow, and effusively praise one another. Such demonstrations of mutual respect are displayed between rounds or even during the rounds.   The fighters put everything they have into the octagon, but when the contest is over, they usually bear no animosity toward one another. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if many of them go out for a beer together after the match. What most of these fighters are able to do is separate "fighting" and "hating." This goes back to the concept of nondualism. It is possible for fighters to "violently disagree" with one another in a physical contest, yet still have mutual respect. Each fighter desperately wants to win. They literally shed blood, sweat, and tears in preparation for a bout. They sometimes shed all of those in the octagon as well! After the contest, they typically show a warrior's respect for one another. Each knows that the other gave it everything they had, adhered to predetermined rules for each other's safety, and are able to treat the other with dignity and honor. Any bad blood entering before entering the octagon is gone when the contest is over... or even during the fight itself. The Takeaway? If UFC fighters are able to separate a physical fight from hatred of their opponents, why can't we separate our political differences from hatred of those who hold different political views? We don't have to drink the poison of negative partisanship. Political opponents can fight hard to win, but each side agrees to play within predetermined  boundaries . There are rules of engagement. Sure, those might be stretched at times, but when the dust settles and one side emerges victorious, there is no need for ill-will. There is a mutual respect for a hard-fought contest. We don't have to hate those whom we oppose. Negative partisanship has come to define American politics. Each side views the other with not only  distrust , but as a national threat. Oddly, this makes us more alike than different since both sides are contributors to this divided state of America. In my view, both the Left and Right need to be united in their efforts to cool the fires of extremism and hatred that are engulfing this country. We need to take a cue from UFC fighters who can literally fight without hating. They know the truth that one's rival need not be one's enemy. If we can learn to disagree without hating, then America can more closely live up to the lofty ideals upon which we were founded.

It's often extremely difficult to admit when we are wrong. Just why is that? Disclaimer: I don't claim that what I say is totally "true," because the  truth is elusive  in this complicated world. Rather, I'm offering some ideas to help perceive the world, others, and ourselves in a manner that opens pathways for change and growth. For most of us mere mortals, admitting we are wrong is very difficult, even under the best of circumstances. At times, we argue vehemently over trivial matters, even with loved ones. In such instances, we might notice how we avoid admitting we are wrong, or how we quickly point out how the other person was wrong about something else. "Oh, yeah, well maybe I did forget to take the trash out, but you constantly leave your dirty dishes in the sink!" When it comes to more substantive issues, such as  politics , we will often argue as if our very lives depended upon it. "To your common sense firm arguments, I won't listen to your voice of reason trying to change my mind. I mind my feelings and not your words. Didn't you notice I'm so headstrong even when I know I'm wrong?" —"Headstrong," 10,000 Maniacs. The Consequences of Not Changing Course Like the attack on Pearl Harbor, January 6, 2021, will be a date that will live in infamy as a Trump-incited mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, resulting in the deaths of five Americans. What went wrong? What we can we do differently so something like this never happens again? Politicians are notorious for not admitting wrongdoings. In part, this might explain the oxymoron of "an honest politician." Many of us have trouble admitting minor mistakes, so we can only imagine how difficult this would be for a  leader  in the political spotlight. Importantly,  this pertains to both Republicans and Democrats . Our difficulties in admitting when we are wrong is a human problem that transcends our political battle lines yet contributes to their existence. In these  deeply divided political times , it's critical for both sides to admit when they are wrong in order to help us come together as a nation.  Our learning and growth depend upon us recognizing our errors and making changes to correct them. Change and Identity This complicated world is ever-changing, which is part of what makes it so complicated, to begin with! Even as we try to grasp the truth, grasp reality, it slips through our fingers as if we were trying to hold water. We know that change is constant from our own experiences. Our kids grow older, we change jobs and careers, technology evolves, thoughts and feelings come and go, the sun rises and sets, and  even stars and galaxies are born and die . Our present becomes the past every moment. Adhering to a fixed mental position of "I am right, and you are wrong" is at odds with the dynamic, changing nature of the universe. "I watch the ripples change their size, but never leave the stream of warm impermanence." —"Changes," David Bowie The changing complexities of this world can be overwhelming and scary. The world of modern humans is orders of magnitude  more complicated  than that of our nomadic, hunter-gatherer ancestors. Knowing who we are, and what we are about, imposes an organizing force upon chaos. Unconsciously, we feel compelled to categorize ourselves and others into groups. We want to identify with roles, teams, and groups because doing so helps us feel more connected, more grounded, and safer. We know where we stand and who stands with us. This simplifies complexity. Our ego, or sense of self, finds comfort in our various identities. Just as we have fight, flight, or freeze instincts to protect our physical well-being, we defend our psychological sense of self when our various identities are threatened. This is why if someone makes fun of our favorite football team, city, state, country, music artist, political party, hero, religion, ideas, and so on, we feel a surge of  emotion  to defend them. In a way, this is quite curious. Why does our favorite football team or music group need defending? They aren't  actually  under any attack. They don't need our protection, yet we experience this almost irresistible urge to defend them. Our ego, or sense of self, becomes attached to being right in the same way it becomes attached to various roles, groups, and identities. Being right allows us to feel superior to others whereas being wrong makes us feel inferior. When our sense of self, our psychological  projection  of who we are, is being threatened, we defend — or even go on the attack. Right or wrong, win or lose, it becomes a zero-sum game. Yet, the struggle over right/wrong can almost feel like life or death. Our evolutionarily based fight/flight/freeze instinct becomes activated. We argue, deny, and distort reality to protect our status and sense of self.  Importantly, the ego (sense of self) that makes us inclined to defend our mental positions and identities is the same ego that makes us inclined to gloat when we are right. In a sense, gloating about being right or  attacking others for being wrong  makes us wrong. Our Sunk Cost: Going Down With the Ship We are all for fairness, reasoning, and impartiality when it benefits us. The greater level of psychological investment we have in an idea, a view, political party, cause, etc., the more inclined we will be to defend them when they are threatened. Borrowing from  behavioral economics , this is related to having a sunk cost. When  our personal or social identity is at stake , we are more likely to distort reality and deny that we are wrong to defend such identities. If we think of our sunk cost (psychological investment) as descending a ladder into a deep pit, as we go further and further down the ladder, it becomes easier to go one rung further down to see where it leads us than to climb all the way back to the top. Thus, if we've championed a movement, cause, group, or belief, it is extremely difficult to back out and say, "Um, yeah, I was wrong for spending all that time, money, and energy promoting that cause for the past 10 years. I'm terribly sorry that I wasted part of my life, and yours, doing that!" On top of that, if we have others within our social group with whom we are well-connected, there is a very painful social cost to admitting we are wrong. When we don't  conform  to our group's ideals and identity, we will be cast out. From an evolutionary standpoint, the loss of our group, our tribe, frequently meant death. This alone is often enough for us to engage in various mental acrobatics to persuade ourselves of our correctness  so that we can stay within our group and preserve our social connections and identity. The Takeaway Admitting we are wrong is difficult because we attach our sense of self to an idea, cause, or group. When we feel that idea about the self, our identity, is threatened, our evolutionarily-linked fight, flight, or freeze survival mechanism becomes activated. We defend against being wrong and fight to be right. However, this creates a major problem. Change is the nature of the universe, and change is our evolutionary  purpose of life .  We must be flexible to learn and grow, and this necessitates that we recognize when we are wrong.  We are in disharmony with the change that is inherent in this universe when we stubbornly, inflexibly refuse to accept when we are wrong. In turn, this disharmony, this fundamental incongruency, creates suffering for us and those around us. There is great, untapped power in the flexibility inherent within the admission: "I am wrong." If there is one thing that we need right now is greater flexibility in order to escape from the toxic, rigid partisan hatred that is dividing America.

Growth is one purpose of our existence, but how do we achieve this growth?   KEY POINTS We strive to be successful in life, and certain strategies and skills can help us achieve this success. Flexibility is one of the greatest keys to success in life. Rigidity is the antithesis of flexibility, and rigidity in its various forms (extremism, dualism) contributes to suffering. The world is changing faster than ever, so it is critical that we "up" our flexibility game. Disclaimer: I don't claim that what I say is totally "true," because the  truth is elusive in this complicated world . Instead, I'm presenting ideas to encourage a perception of the world and ourselves that opens pathways for change and growth. “Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life.” — Lao-tzu, from The Tao Te Ching “Hold on loosely. But don’t let go. If you cling too tightly, you’re gonna lose control.” — .38 Special, from the song “Hold on Loosely” Lao-tzu and the southern rock band .38 Special are onto something. They both offer profound advice about how we should live our lives. It is this key bit of  wisdom : Our effectiveness in life requires flexibility. This idea seems so simple and commonsensical that we might be tempted to dismiss it without deeper reflection. However, I'm here to sell you on the idea that there is a vast, untapped potential hidden within this deceptively simple concept. Given the increasing madness we are seeing in this world, we need to navigate these challenges more skillfully or we will pay the price. Psychologist, Heal Thyself As I reflect upon my life, I've caused a lot of unnecessary suffering for myself and others because of my inflexibility. I hate to admit this but for much of my life, I've been one of those people who had to be right and convince others that they were wrong. I cringe as I recall the many times throughout my youth in which I argued with friends over trivial matters as if my life depended on it. Instead of "going with the flow," I would plant my flag and argue until things turned from unproductive to ugly (never to blows though...except that one time many, many years ago....ahem). Armed with my strong convictions, I tried to help others "see the light" as well as the errors of their ways. Early on, this frequently involved religion (a long story, that one) but expanded to involve psychology,  philosophy , and  politics . At other times, I was just trying to win an argument with friends, colleagues, or my wife over matters large and small. I was often more focused on being right than being effective. Thankfully, I did soften my dogmatic and rigid ways of thinking over the years. It's an ongoing process! While there wasn't a single turning point, I gradually realized that my views on many topics had evolved over the years.   If I was wrong when arguing that I was right in the past, doesn't that imply I shouldn't have argued about it in the first place?  Doesn't it also mean that there are things that I think I'm right about now that I won't believe, or believe as much, later on? Shouldn't I cultivate greater humility and tolerance for others' views, considering I've changed my perspectives on many topics over the years?   “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.” — Quote of unknown origin often attributed to Mark Twain "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” — Socrates Although I became more flexible in much of my thinking with age, I would still resort to either/or, dichotomous thinking more often than I'd like to admit. As a participant in a theological discussion group in my early 30s, I frequently slipped into either/or thinking in my views. The de facto  leader  of our informal group was an extremely wise Episcopal priest by the name of  Greg Rickel  (now the Bishop of Olympia, Washington). He would gently point out some of my rigid thinking and offer a more expansive, nuanced "both/and" way of understanding things. "I think this might be viewed more in terms of a both/and than an either/or," Greg would often say. There's something to this "both/and" way of thinking that deeply resonated with me at that time and does so now more than ever. The Insidious Allure of Dualism in an Intricate World I didn't have a word for it during my youth, but I often viewed the world through the lens of dualism.  Dualism , as the name implies, is about thinking of the world in dichotomous, either/or, all-or-nothing terms. There is no middle ground in dualism: Black or white, good or bad, right or wrong, good or evil, light or dark, mind or body, male or female, nature or nurture, self or other, for or against, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, heaven or hell...dualism or nondualism (DOH!). It’s either one or the other. From this perspective, me trying to be right and viewing others who disagreed with me as wrong was a manifestation of dualism. There is an inherent allure to being right. We long for certainty in this complicated, rapidly-changing world. Uncertainty is often scary because it could mean our survival is threatened. Evolutionarily, we are fundamentally driven by the duality of  survival is good and death is bad.  Thus, our ancestors needed to separate friend from foe, danger from safety, and healthy from unhealthy to survive. Paradoxically, although change is often scary,  our evolution depends upon change . Adaptation, which is a type of change, has facilitated our survival and evolution as a species. Yet our ancestors were unconsciously driven to impose order and predictability in a challenging and often chaotic world. This necessitated the evolution of biases and mental shortcuts so that we could make quick, decisive choices. Fight or flight. Approach or avoid. These were life or death decisions. Hesitation and uncertainty could mean death. The unknown and unpredictable were existential threats. We were compelled to reduce uncertainty to both reduce our   anxiety  and enhance our chances of survival. As discussed in  my previous blog post , we didn't necessarily need to know what was "true" in our world. We needed to survive. Thus, our fitness (i.e., continued survival) was more important than reality. From this point of view, certainty at the expense of reality to enhance survival could be the birth of dualism. What's the Problem Here? Our evolutionary ancestors exhibited the necessary flexibility in their thinking and behavior to survive and thrive.   After all, if we weren't adaptive enough, we wouldn't be here today! However, our modern world is orders of magnitude more complex than the world of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Imposing rigid, dualistic thinking on an extremely complicated and dynamic world is causing a lot of unnecessary suffering on both individual and societal levels. We are experiencing the pains of a profound  evolutionary mismatch  because we are not being flexible enough for the demands of this rapidly-changing world.  We need to level up our flexibility game or we will pay the price.  That is what I will be exploring in a series of posts on this important topic, and I hope you will join me!

Why are we here? Here's a reasonable answer.   KEY POINTS Existence is a cosmic lottery we've won. There's no single "correct" answer to life's purpose. We are here to evolve, adapt, and grow. Happiness is a by-product of fulfilling our purpose. Disclaimer: I don't claim that what I say is totally "true," as the  truth is elusive in this complicated world . Rather, I'm offering some ideas to help perceive the world and ourselves in a manner that opens pathways for change and growth. The Ultimate Question As far as most of us know, we only have one life to live. The odds against our existence are, quite literally, beyond comprehension. Out of some cosmic miracle that we don’t appreciate enough, we are here. One chance event after another had to occur for each of us to be born into this world. This starts with the Big Bang and includes the countless factors that had to line up for life to evolve on this planet to your great grandparents randomly bumping into one another at a country grocery store. The fact that we are living and breathing on this big blue marble we call Earth is statistically inconceivable. It might not always feel that way, but if we step back, we can see that this is true.  We are all the winners of the biggest … lottery … ever! Given that we defied all odds to exist, that begs the most important question that philosophers, theologians, and countless others have attempted to answer. We might even consider this The Ultimate Question: What’s the purpose of life? Furthermore, how should we live to fulfill this purpose?  Another way to think of this is: if we are the winners of the cosmic lottery, how are we supposed to spend our winnings? An Answer to the Ultimate Question “Conan, what is good in life?” Conan: “To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of the women.” —Conan, from the movie “Conan the Barbarian” While everyone is entitled to have an opinion about why we are here and what to do with our lives, I’ll go on the record as disagreeing with Conan’s answer. I, of course, do not possess the definitive answer either. However, I promise that I'm not going to say  The Answer to the Ultimate Question is 42 . Your head might be spinning right now, because I just said that I am going to try to answer The Ultimate Question. However, I’m not arrogant enough to claim that I have The   Answer. But I don’t think anyone has The Answer for that matter, although many people claim that they do. Can you agree with me, even partially, that there are many ideas about the purpose of life? Even if you already believe in One Answer to The Ultimate Question, you still recognize that other people and groups have different answers to the same question. If there were just one, clear, unequivocal answer to The Ultimate Question, wouldn’t we all have the same one without any disagreements? In fact, would there even be an Ultimate Question if we all had the same answer to it? Assuming we can even agree upon the nature and wording of The Ultimate Question, the different answers can’t all be right…or can they? If you disagree with me, you actually agree with me because it proves that finding The Answer to The Ultimate Question is open to debate and different points of view! I’m going to tell you a little secret about The Ultimate Question: There is no secret, "correct" answer to this question. How could I, or anyone else, have a secret answer to The Ultimate Question that few have stumbled upon? The “right” answer as to the purpose of life there is no single right answer. It would be more accurate to say that there are right “answers.” Here’s what might really bake your noodle: You already know an answer to The Ultimate Question, but you might not know that you know it. Although I'm telling you what you already know, instead of that being a limitation, consider the possibility that this is where its power resides. “All secrets are open secrets. Nothing is hidden. Nothing is revealed. People can only be told what they already know. Although they know, they may not be conscious of their knowledge.”—Camden Benares, from “Zen Without Zen Masters” An Answer to the Purpose of Life "Why are we here? Because we're here. Roll the bones. Roll the bones."—from the song "Roll the Bones" by Rush We evolved so that we can live. Thus, we could also say that we live to evolve, so there's a circularity here. Evolution is the process that allowed organisms to survive and thrive. Humans, along with every living animal or plant, owe our existence to it. Our purpose is to "evolve" during our lifetime because that is consistent with our evolutionary purpose. Thus,  an  answer to The Ultimate Question of "What is the purpose of life?" is that we are here so that we can continue to live, adapt, learn, and grow. A purpose of life, and our purpose, is to continue to evolve. We Evolved to Evolve When we think of "evolution" as meaning as a process of learning, adapting, and growing to be more effective and efficient, we see evolution everywhere. Kids learn more advanced skills and concepts in school and this continues on through college and throughout their careers. Growth, in terms of profitability, is one of the primary  goals  of any business. Technology is always evolving—offering faster internet speeds, more powerful computers, better  productivity   tools, and more engaging and entertaining experiences. Athletes strive to improve their skills and performances through better  nutrition  and training methods. They aim to win more championships and set records. Musicians and artists want to become more technically proficient, creative, and successful. Communities and societies not only grow in number, but they try to serve the needs of the people to enable the citizens to live healthier, happier lives. Even with most religions, we seek to grow in our faith—to be a "better" Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or Jew. On the biological level, learning recruits the reward systems in the brain so that the learning is reinforced. We evolved to grow and learn ... to become better than we were the day before so that we might survive and thrive. In general,  we feel happy when we learn and grow . One could say that this  happiness  is a purpose of life as well, yet it could also be said to be the by-product of fulfilling our life purpose of learning and growing. The Takeaway? What is the purpose of life?  An  answer (as opposed to The Answer) to The Ultimate Question is that we exist to continue to exist. We evolved to evolve. This is fundamental to every living organism. Inherent to our existence is that we learn, adapt, and grow. Health, happiness, and longevity are the payoffs for this. Since our biological evolution is the foundation of our existence,  a  purpose of our lives is to continue to "evolve" during our lifetime by learning and growing. Each day, our purpose is to strive to be a little bit better than the day before and to continue this evolutionary process throughout our lifetime. This purpose in life might sound like a simple, anti-climatic answer to The Ultimate Question, but there's more to this answer than at first glance. Our purpose in life to learn and grow throughout our lifetime also holds the key to  how  we should live our lives. If you'd like to take the "red pill" and join me as I explore this and other topics, you can follow me down the rabbit hole here:  Finding Greater Peace and Joy in Our "Crazy" World.

Why do we keep viewing the world more negatively than it is? KEY POINTS ·         Every generation seems to fear that the end of the world is upon them. ·         While 2020 was a really rough year, and we do have significant problems to address, the world is not as bad as most of us think. ·         By most metrics, including life expectancy and homicide rates , the world is a much better place than it used to be. ·         We have a negativity bias that causes us to focus on negatives over positives, and this evolutionary tendency contributes to our pessimism. Note: This is the third blog in   my series about truth and reality  as they relate to problems we are experiencing as a society. "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine." —R.E.M., in the song of the same name. 2020 has been an unprecedented year of challenges. We are in a global pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, have a financial crisis, high unemployment levels, toxic tribalism, a monumental upcoming presidential election, Russian election interference, the killing of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement,  wokism and the "cancel culture,"  social unrest, an upcoming chaotic school year, global   climate change ,  forest fires in Siberia , hurricanes,  rising levels of depression, anxiety, and suicide , and...  murder hornets . There is no denying that society is facing some serious problems, As we doom scroll through our news feeds, it might feel as if it is the end of the world as we know it. How fine are we feeling? Is the World Really Getting Worse? "Nothing is more responsible for the Good Old Days than a bad  memory ." —Franklin P. Jones If we step back a bit, though, and view the world from a longer time frame, we would see that, by most metrics,  the world is doing much better than in previous generations  (the present pandemic notwithstanding). This might seem surprising, but we live much longer, healthier, and happier lives than at any point in human history. Infant and child mortality rates have gone way down, longevity and literacy rates are way up, and far fewer people die from pandemics, genocide, war, and homicide than in our history. As one example, in 1820, about 90 percent of the people in the world lived in  extreme poverty , and this has fallen quite dramatically to only about 9 percent today. As another example of world progress,  racism  and sexism still exist in society, of course, but they used to be much worse (e.g., there was institutionalized slavery, women and African-Americans couldn't vote in the U.S., Jim Crow laws). Yay for enlightened reasoning, science, and human progress! Even our current pandemic pales in comparison to the great plagues of history. For example, the  Black Death  killed half of Europe in the 14th century, and the  Spanish Flu of 1918  killed 50 million people worldwide and 675,000 Americans.  Smallpox killed a whopping 500 million people  during the last hundred years of its existence (the WHO declared it eradicated in 1980). We should thank our lucky stars that, even during our   COVID-19   pandemic, many of us can work from home, our kids have online school options, we can get food and household items delivered, and we should have a  vaccine in record time . While there is, without a doubt, a lot wrong with this world, there is a lot that is  right  with it too. Put another way, there is at least  less wrong  than there used to be. With a clear understanding of societal progress, it seems to many that no one in the right mind would want to live in Medieval Europe or the American Old West. Who wants to live in a world without indoor plumbing, access to clean water, modern medicine, refrigeration, heating and air-conditioning, and Netflix? No thank you! Social Pessimism and Individual Optimism Even with seeing such progress in the world, it sure  feels  like things are spiraling downward. Our incessant stream of doom and gloom headlines makes it seem like the Apocalypse is upon us. What's the truth here? Well, there are two truths that coexist. Contrary to our instincts, these truths are not mutually exclusive. The world,  in general , is far better than it used to be by most major metrics. Yet, we have some real societal problems (e.g., this pandemic, global climate change, the threat of large-scale military conflicts and nuclear war, homelessness) that we need to address. Despite all the progress that humans have made in so many areas, most people, especially in Western countries, do feel like the world is getting worse. For example,   according to a 2015 survey , only 6 percent of Americans 4 percent of Germans, and 3 percent of Australians think the world is getting better. What a gloomy outlook! One can only imagine that these numbers look even worse since then. Curiously, we tend to be socially pessimistic about the current and future states of our world, but  optimistic  when it comes to our own futures. Despite feeling the end is near, most of us feel fine. R.E.M. nailed it with their song. However, with rising rates of  depression ,   anxiety , and   suicide ,  especially among young people , over the past decade, we are feeling less fine than we used to feel. This  pandemic is making this downward trend even worse . Our Negativity Bias Why are we so pessimistic about the world despite all of the progress that we've made? As  discussed previously , we want to understand our world, to see the truth more accurately so that we can make more skillful decisions as we navigate our way along this journey of life. Yet truth is elusive. We don't see the world as it truly is.  "Truth" serves the master of "survival."  This is rooted in our evolutionary heritage. Our ancestors needed to be more alert to the negatives of their world than the positives or else they might suffer fatal consequences. For instance, if our ancestors weren't fearful that a pride of lions occasionally visited a water hole, they could end up as their dinner. But if those same ancestors missed out on a tree bearing fruit nearby, they would likely still live to see another day. The legacy of our ancestral  negativity bias  still lives on within us today. Across just about every domain of human experience, the  power of bad outweighs the power of good . For instance, an insult will likely sting and be remembered much more than a similar level of praise. We will likely feel much worse about a bungled company presentation that we give than we will feel good about an excellent one. Just writing that sentence evoked some painful memories for me just now! Our negativity bias also explains why we are drawn to   negative over positive news . The difference is that our access to this negative news, with the rise of cable TV and the 24-hour news cycle, the internet, and   social media , has increased exponentially in recent decades. We can't totally blame the media for exposing us to a constant stream of negative news—we have an   appetite   for it! Due to what's known as the   availability bias  (or  availability heuristic ), if we can readily think of examples of events (e.g., abductions, shootings, police brutality), we think they are more commonplace. The proliferation of negative news makes it all too easy for us to recall instances of rape, murder, social injustice, human trafficking, racism, and so on. In turn, this causes us to be pessimistic about the state of the world and our future. The Takeaway? Strangely enough, because of our negativity and similar biases,  every generation tends to feel as if it is the end of the world . This is why R.E.M.'s song is just as relevant today as when it was released in 1987. We might be thinking, "No, this time it  really is  worse than ever!" Perhaps we'd be falling prey to the negativity bias by thinking it is. But there are legitimate reasons to be concerned... and hopeful at the same time. Please follow me as I explore these topics in this blog series!

Many people claim that video games are a waste of time. Are they really? Podcaster Joe Rogan of the  Joe Rogan Experience , who also happens to be a UFC ringside commentator, recently went on a tirade about video games and warned that people who play video games are " gonna waste your time ." He's not the only one to cast aspersions upon video games. Many parents, educators, researchers, politicians, and scholars have leveled similar accusations against video games since they first gained widespread popularity in the 1980s. As Joe Rogan reminds us, this attitude is  still  around 40 years later. Are We Having Fun Yet? My response to Joe Rogan, and to others who claim video games are a "waste of time," is: not if you have fun playing them. According to a recent study by the NPD group,   73% of Americans over the age of 2 play video games  of some kind. They are popular for a reason. They are a lot of fun, and  fun is not a waste of time . For a moment, let's set aside the very small percentage of people who become "obsessed" or "addicted" to video games. We shouldn't use outliers as a reason why a near-universal activity should be vilified. If we were to go down that road, then we'd have to blacklist cars,  alcohol , sports, French fries, cats (cat-hoarding  is  a problem for  some  people), as well as a painfully long list of other interests and activities. The vast majority of people who play video games lead healthy, productive lives.   Given that we are suffering enough through this   COVID-19  pandemic,  thank goodness  we can have fun  and  connect with others safely through video games! On his podcast, Joe Rogan uses the comparison of wasting time playing video games to dedicating oneself to practicing the martial art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ). Rogan states that if someone dedicates themselves to the practice of BJJ, in several years, they might start winning tournaments and then ultimately open their own BJJ school and end up driving a Mercedes and having a nice family. Really? Is this the litmus test? While this might be true for a very tiny subset of BJJ practitioners, most do not go on to making a  career  out of their martial arts training. Does this mean that all of these other folks are wasting their time? People engage in an extensive variety of activities, including martial arts, because they find such activities enjoyable. Consider these broad categories of leisure activities: ·  Sports ·  Art ·  Dancing ·  Board and card games ·  Music ·  Gardening ·  Travel ·  Reading They even have a name for this bizarre idea in which people regularly engage in activity for fun or enjoyment. They are called  hobbies . If we are going to throw video games under the bus as a waste of time, think of all the other types of entertainment that would need to go under the bus with them. This list would include every type of entertainment to which we watch or listen. This includes movies, streaming content, plays, musicals, concerts, sporting events, stand-up comedy (Joe Rogan, has done stand-up comedy), game shows (Joe Rogan hosted the game show  Fear Factor  for several years), viewing works of art at a museum, and so on. Consider some of the acclaimed, much-beloved arts and entertainment that we have enjoyed over the years such as  Game of Thrones, Star Wars, Stranger Things, Breaking Bad, Seinfeld ,  The Wizard of Oz, The Godfather,  college football, The World Series,  Harry Potter  books,  The Catcher in the Rye, The Odyssey, Hamilton, Wicked , Mozart, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Elvis Presley, U2, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé ... just to name a few. Are these a waste of time? We watch and listen because we enjoy the experiences they provide. Arguably, such experiences make life worth living. A Matter of Values Joe Rogan and others often argue that video games are excessively enjoyable, leading to prolonged playtime. Thus, people end up spending inordinate amounts of time playing them at the exclusion of other, more "productive," or perhaps edifying, activities. The (sort of)  straw man  argument here is to take people who are spending 12 hours per day  playing games such as Fortnite , failing classes, not  s leeping  enough, not leaving the house, not interacting in person with others, etc. to illustrate how video games are a waste of time. Well, one might make the argument that engaging in any hobby or activity for 12 hours per day is problematic. A case could be made that it is acceptable for aspiring professionals or Olympians to spend this much time devoted to an activity, but even then many hobbies don't lend themselves to becoming lucrative professions (e.g., archery, chess, gardening, leisure reading, blogging). However, most people are able to keep their video game playing to reasonable levels, even if it gets intense at times. Also, for a subset of people who do seem to be "addicted" or obsessed with video games, it is often the case that the  excessive gaming is a symptom of some underlying issue  (e.g.,  depression ,  social anxiety ,  autism  spectrum disorder). Critics of video games often imply that time could be better spent on more productive activities. However, this is a value judgment. To me, knitting would be a waste of time. If I really want a quilt, I can always buy one on Amazon. But for all the people who love to knit, more power to you! I still enjoy playing video games. I have three boys who love video games too—perhaps a little more than I'd like sometimes! I do think there is  value  in having a range of activities and interests, but that's different than saying video games are a waste of time (or harmful). We have to be careful not to compare the time spent playing video games to some mythical ideal in which we, and our kids, always get the perfect amount of sleep, eat a balanced  diet , meditate 30 minutes per day, get at least 10,000 steps per day, always wear sunscreen, learn a musical instrument and foreign language, read at least one book per week, and so on. Yes, there are benefits to living a life in which we are meeting our needs through a range of activities. But we are a very  resilient , adaptive species. We don't need ideal to thrive—we just need "good enough." The idea that we can lead a perfectly balanced life is a delusion. Even with this big caveat,  a balanced life includes engaging in fun activities . For millions upon millions of people, playing video games represents an enjoyable hobby that has earned its rightful place as part of this balanced life.

Many people are woke to society's challenges. Here's when that's a problem.   It's undeniable that society has a long history of bigotry, sexism, racism,  discrimination , homophobia, and related ills. In humanity's checkered past, most people have not been treated fairly, equally, or even humanly. There have always been certain groups of people who claim that they are superior to others by  sex , religion,  ethnicity , family name, and so on. This perceived superiority by groups in power has frequently justified their maltreatment of other minority and/or disempowered groups. It's easy to treat others as less than equals if you believe they are inferior. While frustration and righteous  anger  over various types of discrimination and mistreatment has been around as long as civilization itself, it seems like things are coming to a head. With the recent killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers, we are seeing protests against racism and discrimination not just in the United States, but   across the world .  Confederate monuments and memorials  are being torn down left and right in America. Streets and schools that were named after Confederate leaders are being changed. Across the globe, citizens in other countries are also realizing their brutal histories, and tearing down statues of dictators, despots, and racist leaders (e.g.,  Belgium's King Leopold II ). Just What Do We Mean by "Woke" Anyway? Many people, especially the youth, have a heightened awareness of our troubled past and, understandably, seek to correct our collective wrongs. This is where the term "woke" comes into play. It is  defined as , "aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)." Given that we have a long history of racial and social injustices, it seems like being "woke" to such problems is a very  good thing . How can we address such problems without first being aware of them? Movements such as Black Lives Matter, at their heart, are about correcting racism and injustices that have long been ignored or swept under the rug.  We need to wake up. When Wokism Creates a Wake Perhaps the long-overdue correction of wokism is, sometimes, leading to an over-correction of sorts. This can happen when people who are "woke" call out or cancel those they perceive not to be woke (or woke enough). "Canceling" someone occurs when one person says or does something to which others who are woke object and then that person gets roundly shamed and criticized, usually on  social media . That person's reputation is sometimes ruined, and he or she might not ever be able to recover from being canceled. In 2019, in an interview for the Obama Foundation on youth activism,   President Obama expressed strong concerns about wokism  and the call out/cancel culture that is emerging. “This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically ‘woke’ and all that stuff,” Obama said. “You should get over that quickly." He went on to explain, “The world is messy; there are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids, and share certain things with you.” Be Woke, But Be Mindful and Compassionate As Well While it might be tempting to call out,  shame , or cancel those who are not woke (or woke enough) to racism and social injustice, doing so can create a number of problems. No one wants wokism to be the road to hell paved with good intentions. We must proceed mindfully so that wokism doesn't have unintended consequences. 1.   No matter what one's religious  persuasion  is, there are deep words in the  wisdom  of Jesus when, before a woman was to be stoned to death for the accusation of  adultery , he said, " Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. " Can you think of something you've said or done in the past that was stupid, ignorant, mean-spirited, demeaning, callous, insensitive, or perhaps even racist, sexist, etc.? If you can't think of one thing, well, either you are in   denial , have a horrible  memory , or are Jesus. Let's face it, we all have. What if a momentary lapse was amplified on social media or captured on video? Even more troublesome, what if this thing you did or said was totally taken out of context and not representative at all of your true views or feelings? Can you imagine how horrible that would feel to be tried and convicted as a racist or worse by one thing you've done or said? 2.   Who we are is not the mistakes that we've made. If someone calls another person a racist, the person is being put into a category. It is as if that's their whole  identity  is that of a racist. The problem is that we can't change an identity. However, we can change our behavior. For instance, there's a big difference between saying to oneself, "I'm an idiot!" when we make a mistake versus "That was a stupid thing that I did!" We can learn from doing a stupid thing and change our behavior in the future. But if we label ourselves "an idiot," how are we supposed to change that? Labeling a person a racist (or a sexist, etc.) doesn't leave a door open for change. The label becomes a prison from which escape is impossible. 3.   On a related note, labeling one as a "racist" doesn't inform the person in question what they did that was offensive, why it was offensive, and what to do to change that behavior. Likewise, if a person gets "canceled" for a perceived transgression, how can one seek redemption or restitution when their status is canceled? 4.   Calling someone a racist or similar name is offensive in itself. The recipient of such a label is unlikely to hear or respond favorably to anything you say or do because, in effect, they were just punched in the face. They will likely react with hurt, anger, resentment, or hostility. 5.   The  fear  of being called out or canceled can restrict free speech and honest differences of opinion. For instance, if Jeff thought a particular social policy advocated by a woke group wasn't going to be particularly effective at achieving the desired ends, he might be afraid to voice his concerns about the policy for fear of being called out or canceled by the woke group. At a certain point, woke activists might transform into a kind of 'thought police.' At this point, wokism might start to represent McCarthyism or some type of Orwellian future in which freedom of expression becomes severely restricted. 6.   Our ego is very sneaky. It is always looking for a way to judge ourselves as superior to other people and other groups. When we judge ourselves to be "woke" and others to be..."not woke" "unwoke," or perhaps "asleep," that is, in effect, putting ourselves in a superior position to them. We have the moral high ground. " I'm  woke, and  you  are not." It's almost like we are saying, "I'm better than you." Ironically, instead of judging ourselves as superior by race, sex,  intelligence , religion, we are judging ourselves superior to others because we are woke and they are not. We should be wary of  any  version of "my tribe is better than your tribe." Yes, this is a slippery slope. We might rightly argue that we  are  morally superior to Adolf Hitler, Nazis, or Leopold II, but that's a version of a straw man argument. The more pervasive concern here is that a person like Jeff is being called out or canceled because he does not share a woke group's views on the effectiveness of a particular social justice policy. 7.   In response to "wokism," there is a   brewing "anti-woke" backlash . Moderates and conservatives are pushing back against progressives who have strong liberal woke agendas. Thus, the woke who are judging the "un-woke" as, in some ways, inferior for not being woke are now being judged by the anti-woke as inferior for being self-righteous, judgmental, moralistic, and overly sensitive. Those who were once judges are now facing judgment themselves. I guess, in a manner of speaking, I'm claiming to be woke to the anti-woke who claim to be woke to the woke. Um, now you might be woke to me for claiming to be woke to the anti-woke...ah, I think we just entered some kind of recursive Möbius strip wormhole-thingy at this point. 8.   If we think of "woke" as having its roots in "awakening," that has a very deep, and even  spiritual , meaning. In Buddhism, " Buddha " is a Sanskrit word that means "one who is awake." In a manner of speaking, to be awakened means we have an enlightened state of consciousness. If we feel the need to show and tell everyone how enlightened we are and criticize others we perceive not to be, are we  really  enlightened? In a sense, claiming to be awakened contradicts the essence of true awakening. 9.   If our goal is to decrease racism and increase social justice, what is the best way to do that? What is the conduit for change? How do we help others to see that many corrective actions for societal injustices are in order? Here is a fundamental reality: We are most likely to influence others by having a relationship with them. When we "cancel" those who believe differently than we do, we lose the very conduit through which we are most likely to influence them.  No relationship, no change. Know relationship, know change. I came across a quote from Nelson Mandela years ago. I can't find the exact quote, but it was something to the effect of, "Try to assume the best of other people because you will help bring it out in them." When someone does or says something hurtful or offensive, avoid assuming they are a "bad" person. Like all of us, they are flawed. Like all of us, they want to be a "good" person and to be liked by others. Remember, they are not their shortcomings. Look for the good in them. It's in there. I promise.

Science and faith have long been rivals. They collide head-on in our AI world.   KEY POINTS Artificial intelligence requires wise and skillful navigation as we sail into our uncertain future. Science and faith collide and converge as we try to determine how to safely and effectively use AI. "Pascal's Wager" can be a useful thought exercise to help us decide how best to proceed. Artificial intelligence  is already beginning to rapidly change our world in ways that we didn't even consider until OpenAI released ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. The clock has officially started ticking as AI companies feverishly race one another to evolve and proliferate this powerful technology as rapidly as possible. Given that AI will be  in everything , this necessarily means that AI will  change everything . As but one example, it is likely we will soon have AI-powered, personalized assistants (e.g., Siri, Alexa, and Cortana) to help us with, well,  everything . What will such changes mean for humanity? How will they affect our way of life? Could people fall in love  with these personalized AI assistants, as depicted in the prescient sci-fi movie Her?   Unless progress completely grinds to a halt for some reason, I suppose we’ll soon find out. We understand that humanity's relentless pursuit of progress doesn't always ensure that all advancements are beneficial for us. How intelligent will AI become? Could the frantic race among tech companies to advance and spread artificial intelligence lead to a race-to-the-bottom scenario fueled by game-theory ? Will they be a net positive or a net negative for humanity? Will AI create a utopia or dystopia? What’s your  confidence  level, or perhaps your faith, that humanity has the collective  wisdom  to use AI skillfully to improve our lives? It would be wise to ask ourselves such questions now. Pascal's Wager The emergence of AI, and the often religious zeal that surrounds it, rekindled my thoughts about Pascal's Wager. You might be familiar with it already but, in brief, 17th-century French polymath Blaise Pascal devised this argument in defense of a belief in a traditional, Christian view of God. Pascal proposed a belief in this Christian view of God as a rational bet. This is because the potential benefits of believing in God (i.e., eternal  happiness  in heaven) far outweigh the finite costs of belief (i.e., living a religious life based on faith), especially when compared to the potential infinite loss of not believing if this Christian God does exist (i.e., eternal damnation). In a two by two grid, Pascal's Wager looks like this: Applying Pascal's Wager to the Rise of Artificial Intelligence While there are plenty of counterarguments against Pascal's original formulation, it struck me that we are now wrestling with modern versions of his wager. When it comes to AI, we have science and faith colliding in a unique fashion in real time. This is no hypothetical scenario. We are like a  ship sailing into an ocean of uncertainty . Do icebergs lie ahead of us in this science fiction world we are creating for ourselves? Are we like passengers aboard the ill-fated Titanic speeding into a sea of AI icebergs? The Titanic's sinking offers a cautionary tale—are we heeding it as we sail into AI's uncertain future? What is your faith that things will somehow, invariably, work out for the best? Many of us, including myself, are skeptical that technology, particularly AI, will lead to favorable outcomes for humanity. The AI Uncertainty Matrix: A Modern Version of Pascal’s Wager A modern version of Pascal’s Wager might be helpful as we consider the potential for increasingly powerful AI systems for both world-changing positives and catastrophic negatives. The dawn of the AI era could be considered an inflection point of sorts because it is perhaps only the second time in human history that science and faith have clashed with similar existential implications. The first time was with the invention of the atomic bomb as captured in Christopher Nolan's brilliant 2023 Oscar contending film,  Oppenheimer . Humans were rightly fearful that, for the very first time, we had created a weapon that could wipe out most or all of humanity. Let’s call ours  The AI Uncertainty Matrix,  and it would look something like this: The trajectory of AI's evolution—its power, speed, and the potential hurdles like technical challenges (cost, energy use, reliability), legal matters, and regulatory constraints—raises critical questions. As we head into these uncharted waters, we must each ask ourselves: What is our faith that we will be able to improve AI significantly beyond its current levels? If AI does continue to scale up in power, will it achieve artificial  general intelligence , AGI (i.e., AI can perform any cognitive task as well as any human can)? Could AI's evolution progress to artificial superintelligence (ASI), where AI surpasses not only individual human intelligence but also the collective intelligence of humanity?  Such possibilities have been explored within countless science-fiction books, movies, and television shows. Now, let's apply a modern twist to Pascal’s Wager with these AI scenarios. For simplicity's sake, let's combine AGI and ASI into The AGI/ASI Uncertainty Matrix , which would appear as follows:   In What Do You Place Your Faith? I don’t know what the future holds. I have no crystal ball. The intellectually honest answer to these questions above should be, “I don’t know.” For me, I have absolute faith in humanity to make AI more powerful. Science created AI and will continue to refine it, as it has with all past technologies. Fueled by capitalism, our free market, the glittering allure of profits, and our innate drives, humans excel at making things better. Combine this with the irresistible temptation of becoming the “Neil Armstrong of technology” by being the first to create AGI, it is safe to bet that AI will continue to evolve. But what happens if we do achieve these unprecedented levels of advancement? This question invites us to consider not only the potential of AI to transform our world but also the profound responsibilities that come with wielding such power. With the evolution of AI, we must acknowledge that its potential to be beneficial and detrimental increase concurrently. We cannot have one without the other. It's not an either/or situation but a both/and. In a yin-yang sort of way, one cannot have the power of AI to make the world a utopia without the potential of that same power being used to cause dystopia. Now, what is your faith that humanity has the collective wisdom to use AI wisely and skillfully for the betterment of humanity? What’s your faith that the tech companies, and/or the open-source community, who's racing to build more powerful AI systems, are prioritizing the well-being of the future of humanity over their profits or other motives? Our Individual, and Collective, Leaps of Faith We all have to make a leap of faith here about what will happen in the sci-fi world humanity is creating for ourselves. This is where my faith falters. I don’t know about you, but what I’ve seen in humanity does not give me as much faith as I’d like that we have the collective wisdom to use AI skillfully. We have all seen enough in our lifetimes to know that, at least sometimes, humans can be foolish, selfish, greedy, and short-sighted. Perhaps the greatest leap of faith we must make is in humanity ourselves. One thing about humanity we know is that when we work together, there is virtually nothing we can’t do. As we invariably encounter problems with AI, can humanity overcome our constant fighting and work together to harness its enormous potential for the collective good? Can we overcome what has always been our greatest obstacle — ourselves? “There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.” This sentiment, expressed by both John and Sarah Connor, from the  Terminator  series, captures the essence of our collective agency in shaping the future. While my faith is uncertain as to whether humanity will rise to the occasion, I know it is possible. We have the capacity for greatness, including overcoming our differences for our collective good. As John Lennon sang, just “imagine” what we could do if we collectively harnessed the power of AI to improve our world. Regardless of how AI evolves, if I must place a wager on humanity's future, our best bet is through greater unity. I don’t know whether there is a God, afterlife, or what will happen with AI, but I do believe that we are all profoundly connected in ways that we can never fully grasp in this world. Embracing our inherent interconnectedness gives us the greatest odds of creating the brightest future possible. Together, harnessing our collective wisdom and strength, we can steer the course of AI towards improving our world and ensure that technology amplifies our shared humanity rather than diminishes it.

Humanity has benefited from our progress, but is it our problem as well? KEY POINTS Despite significant progress during recent centuries, humanity still struggles with thorny challenges. We must keep in mind that our progress is in comparison to a highly brutal history. People in affluent countries often report personal satisfaction but are still pessimistic about the future. “Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad .” — Morpheus to Neo,  The Matrix Do you ever feel like our entire world is going crazy?  Does it seem like we are on a treadmill that keeps speeding up? We are experiencing a barrage of really thorny, unfolding challenges and problems. We have  climate change , wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, rising anti-Semitism, ongoing culture wars, toxic levels of political polarization, increasing mental health problems and  suicide  rates, and now the promise and perils of  artificial intelligence . Despite the great progress humanity has made over the centuries, it seems as if the world is devolving before our very eyes at times. Is it possible that these problems are not despite our progress, but because of it? I have a provocative claim — I know what's going on and what we need to do about it. Does this sound bold,  narcissistic , or crazy? How about this even more provocative claim:  You  already know what's going wrong with our world and what to do about it as well, but perhaps you don't know that you know it. Take the "red pill" and follow me and all will be made clear. “All secrets are open secrets. Nothing is hidden. Nothing is revealed. People can only be told what they already know. Although they know, they may not be conscious of their knowledge.”  —  Camden Benares,  Zen Without Zen Masters A Journey of Progress and Hardship Before delving into what’s wrong with our world, it’s important to appreciate the tremendous progress humanity has made .   As Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker describes in books such as  The Better Angels of Our Nature  and  Enlightenment Now , we have made some incredible advances, beginning around the late 17th century, when the world began to see unprecedented change due to the combined effects of the Age of Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and the Scientific Revolution. Most major metrics of human flourishing (e.g., longevity, poverty rates, deaths from wars, famines, pandemics, homicide) improved markedly during this time. For instance, until a few hundred years ago, approximately 27 percent of children did not live to see their first birthday, and 46 percent did not reach their 15th.  As the loss of a child is the worst suffering many of us can imagine, the fact that infant and child mortality rates have dropped so significantly should be celebrated as one of the greatest collective achievements of humanity. As another example, consider that throughout most of human civilization during the past 2,000 years, about 90 to 95 percent of humans lived in extreme poverty. Now that figure is less than 10 percent. What a remarkable triumph. One last example of our tremendous progress includes medical and scientific advances such as germ theory, vaccines, and antibiotics which have saved the lives of countless millions. For example, during its last century of existence, smallpox killed approximately 500 million people. Those who survived this excruciatingly painful disease, which had a  30 percent infected fatality rate , were often horribly disfigured. Thanks to vaccines, no one has died from smallpox  since 1979 , the year that the  World Health Organization declared it to be eradicated . The History of Civilization Was Often Brutal While Pinker emphasizes improvements in modern times, it’s important to remember that the history of civilization has often been brutal.  Our past is filled with intense hardships such as wars, genocides, religious persecution, plagues, slavery, misogyny, oppression, inequality, and famine. Yuval Noah Harari, a historian at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, offers a broader historical perspective in his book,  Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind , arguing that the journey from our hunter-gatherer ancestors to modernity has often been a bumpy road. It is debatable whether early modern civilization—say, up until about 200 years ago—represented an improvement over the typical living conditions of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. There have been many periods when one might have been much better off living in a prehistoric hunter-gatherer tribe rather than, say, as a peasant in Medieval Europe. We must not overly glamorize the lives of our prehistoric hunter-gatherer ancestors; it’s just to say that sometimes their hardships weren’t as bad as the lives of so many throughout civilization. While the stark challenges faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors were undoubtedly different from those in later periods, such as Medieval Europe, it’s essential to acknowledge the complexity of these comparisons. Each era had its unique set of hardships and advantages, shaped by varying social structures, environmental conditions, and technological advancements. The important point that we will be returning to is this:  There is a profound mismatch between the challenges that are hunter-gatherer ancestors evolved to confront and the modern challenges we face today. So, What’s the Matter Here? Imagine that we were a floating celestial consciousness that was going to be randomly placed into an organic human vessel within the past 5,000 years. When would you choose for your consciousness to be placed into that human body? When would you have the best chances of surviving and even thriving? If we were given such a choice,  now  would represent our best odds of success. Many of you might be groaning about this because it often seems as if the world is going to hell in a handbasket. In fact, most people in the world, especially in affluent countries, are quite pessimistic about the future. We are not alone in our belief that the world is getting worse and not better. While we tend to be quite pessimistic about the future despite our great progress, there is another twist and layer of complexity. Most individuals within affluent countries, when asked, will rate their individual happiness/life satisfaction as rather high. For instance, when we look at the percentage of Americans who report feeling fairly to very satisfied, the percentage is quite high :  83 percent according to a 2023 U.S. Gallup poll. Moreover, you can see that, despite the many ups and downs we’ve experienced in the U.S. since 1979, the first year these data were gathered, personal life satisfaction has remained high and stable. Thus, life satisfaction in the United States remains relatively high  despite  all of the struggles we’ve had (e.g., the terrorist attack of 9/11; the Great Recession; increased political polarization; the  COVID-19  pandemic; the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol; the toxic levels of negative partisanship; concerns about climate change; rising levels of mental health problems). Interestingly, despite most Americans rating their personal life satisfaction as fairly high, Americans are not very satisfied with America on the whole. The Perceived Happiness Gap Another curious finding regarding personal happiness and life satisfaction is that citizens of most countries rate their personal happiness as rather high, but they believe the average happiness of their fellow citizens is much lower. This is known as the "perceived happiness gap." As one stark example, 90 percent of South Koreans rate themselves as “rather happy” or “very happy” but they believe that only 25 percent of fellow South Koreans would rate themselves similarly. For Americans, according to this survey, about 90 percent rate themselves as “rather happy” or “very happy” but they believe that only about 48 percent of Americans would rate themselves similarly.  This perceived happiness gap was observed in every country that was studied . The Takeaway? While the world has improved in so many ways, it doesn't feel like it to so many of us. Moreover, many of us are quite pessimistic about the future. However, there are understandable reasons why we feel the way we do. We will continue to explore these reasons in this series, so please follow me because the implications are profound and far-reaching!