Modern life is fast moving and egocentric.

TV commercials tell us that companies wishing to do business with us are letting us have it our way. 

Social media by its very nature is egocentric.  We take “selfies” and post them and “like” the pictures posted by our social media “friends”.

Our lives are narrated on Twitter where our next thought becomes part of the thread of our lives.  Following others sometimes gets us caught up in their limited world.

Dale Carnegie used to say to make another person truly like you “talk in terms of the other person’s interests” yet now we find that the “other person” is already talking in terms of their own interests.  The world has changed that much.

Social media is perhaps the greatest invention of the Internet age but it has more potential to be a real tool for friendship.

Parties, events and special occasions are just plain fun and social media makes them even more fun by extension.

To live among the self-absorbed, make a conscious effort to remove yourself from self-absorption.

Spend some of your time talking in terms of the other person’s interests and make sure you’re not monopolizing the conversation whether it is in-person or through social media.

For those willing to deflect attention from themselves will come the reward of being sincerely liked if not loved by others.

In other words, the other person’s self-absorption stops and starts with us.

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Bronnie Ware who is a nurse to the dying in Australia wrote a book about dying that is actually very much for the living.

In The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed By the Dearly Departed, Ware gives us a second chance to avoid the regrets that so often come at the end of life.

They are:

1. I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.  To me, this regret hits home and is a timely reminder to be the person you want to be.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.  I’m sure you can relate.  Life has a way of interrupting our master plan.  No one ever regrets more time outs spent with family and friends.
3. I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.  There is a nice, pleasant way to say how you feel.  What is left unsaid at the end of life is more painful.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.  Friendship takes work that pays a dividend all during life.  It is not an accident.
5. I wish I had let myself be happier.  People from mid-life on often say that they consider their personal happiness more than when they were younger, a practice that will leave few regrets.

Just writing these five things that I have shared previously makes me hope that I won’t have these regrets someday.  How about you?

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There is appropriate anger, which is good and inappropriate anger, which is self-destructive.

1. Are you sure you are angry with the right person?  Often we take our frustrations out on the wrong people or even people who are close to us who have our best interests at heart.
2. Is it the right place and time?  Tempers tend to flare when we can’t deal with things that irk us.  But just as important as our response is asking ourselves the question “Is this the right place or time to express my anger?”.
3. Is the anger we’re feeling directly related to the issue we are responding to?  You don’t have to think too far back to the last time you witnessed an unfortunate display of anger that started dragging in the past.  Couples do this all the time at the expense of their relationship. 
4. Is my anger intended to vent in a constructive way or retaliate for being hurt?  Inappropriate anger is that which is directed at a person who may have hurt you through something they said.  Only respond if your goal is to express your feelings to the issue at hand.

Believe it or not, two tools that can help are deep breathing as you are getting amped up and postponing your response – even a second or two – to fully hear what is angering you.

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Every son should be a champion of empowering women because their mothers are women who deserve to be treated no less than a man.

Every father should be willing to fight for equal opportunity and advancement because their daughters need a strong advocate.

Every husband who is married to a woman should be anxious to see that their partner is treated with the same respect and gravity as any man.

Every friend who has a dear female friend should advance their cause because that’s what real friends are for.

My sister once told me that equal rights and treatment liberates men not just women.

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A delightful school psychologist from Haddonfield, NJ – Libby Falk once shared with me an effective way to get people to butt out of your business.

On personal matters, people have the right to know only that which you want to tell them.

But some people push boundaries.

They pry.

They cajole. 

Some even bully to get access to information and feelings that we are uncomfortable to share with them.

You make the decision of what you want people to know.

Here is Libby’s advice when faced with intruders who want to get too personal:

• Fog the issue by changing the subject or making the request for information appear to be watered down.
• Use humor.  Humor is our friend once again.  If someone says, as one of my “friends” said to me – “How did YOU become a professor at USC?”, my answer was “They ran out of real professors so they called me”.  I never answered and never had to because the invasion of privacy was not his business.  He was probably jealous.

We give social media a lot of slack these days by revealing more information than our parents ever shared in their day.

There are big debates about government snooping into our cellphone calls.

We are routinely asked to trade some personal information when we sign up for something online that we want.

But in the end, what is ours is ours to share as we wish.

Now you have two more ways to push back those who invade your personal space.

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I love writing and I love texting.

Both.

Texting is just emerging as a powerful way to communicate.

Not just the trivial back and forth stuff we all do.  Texting can enhance relationships.

• Texting “thank you” is powerful.  Try to do it several times a day.
• Texting a short message of remembrance is warm and friendly.  “I’m with you on your job interview”.
• Statements of love.  Love u is good.  Love u because you always have my back is better.  Statement + evidence to back it up.
• Requests.  Can we talk?
• Discovery.  Guess where I am?  Guess what I am doing?
• Apologies.  I’m sorry.  Politicians have made apologies a national joke, but a sincere apology perhaps even with a few words to promise better is.

These six things make us better people.

Why not unlock your cellphone and make texting the powerful tool it is.

And pay attention to what’s around you while texting.  One of my readers wrote to tell me her son was on a school bus that hit and killed a person who was texting.  He’s still not able to fully process what happened.

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That’s what the old saying says, but the old saying is wrong.

Nice will soon be the new self-absorption.

We’re getting tired of things being all about me.

Study after study shows that happiness is derived from giving and not receiving.

Giving your time. 

Focusing your attention. 

Doing kind deeds. 

Ironically, no one is truly happy even if they get precisely what they want because often they don’t even know what they really want.

If I am reading this right – and I believe I am – having the courage to be nice, to be honest, to be authentic, to be compassionate – these are advantages that accomplish two important things.

One, you will be happier being the fine person you are instead of the person who you may not want to be for one reason or the other.

And two, you will be more successful because being focused on the other person’s interest is always the way to personal and career success.

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A USC student whose father was a math professor asked me in the middle of a music industry class, when do you stop chasing your dreams?

It’s complicated.

First, you have to have dreams and even early in life people give up on them as unattainable because of the negative influence of those around them.  And if you manage to hold on to your dreams, then reality often checks in – student loans, marriage, babies.

The answer is:  never stop chasing your dreams.

This doesn’t mean my music student should turn 70 still hoping to be the next hot country artist.

It does mean that we must never give up the things that inspire us the most.  Often, different opportunities occur – things we could not have seen in advance.  So a performing artist may not be in his future, but this young man would be wise to make sure music was somehow in his life.

When do you stop chasing your dreams?

You know.

This is not a decision to outsource to those around you.  It is your decision to make.

Abandon no dream – keep them close by throughout your life at any age.

A life well lived is one in which is driven by our deep dreams and desires and this is a gift not a problem.

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An artist creates a new picture on a canvass or piece of paper.

They do not cover over what they have painted on a previous canvas.

In life, we all too often go through the stressful routine we are up against just to get through the day even if every day gets to be the same.

One way to break that habit is to think of each day as a new canvas.

• Before getting out of bed, think of three things you are grateful for.
• As you fully awake, see in your minds eye a blank canvass on which to create your day.
• Routines are good – nothing wrong with Starbucks in the morning if that’s what you like – but create a new routine to add to your canvass.  Maybe you stop at a different location.  Perhaps you order something different.  Maybe you brew your own.
• Look for every opportunity to do something different even if it is routine.
• And sometime during the day, splash a lot of color on your canvass.  Surprise others.  Surprise yourself.

At the end of the day look back on how you created a day that was different from the others.

When something great happens – you get a promotion, your child is born, etc. – you remember these days because they are not routine.

No one ever sits on their deathbed wishing they had lived each day of their lives the same way.

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The Mayo Clinic Stress-Free Living Program found that 70-90% of program participants say their life is right and only 10-30% think it is wrong.

But they actually live their lives thinking 10-30% is right and 70-90% is wrong – the other way around.

Imagine the sea change that can be brought about if we start to believe what is right about our lives trumps what is wrong.

Everything meaningful starts in our brain.

As long as we have another day to work on that which needs improving and have the ability to be grateful for what we have, positive change occurs.

As the director of the Mayo Stress Free Program says, “even more important than being blessed is to know that you are blessed”.

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The things that bring us the greatest joy are not really secrets.

We all know them.

The secret is to do these things that make happiness possible:

• Acceptance of who we are
• Being loved by ourselves and others
• The warmth of the people around us in our lives
• A feeling of security
• Optimism that realizing our dreams in some way is always possible
• Meaningful work
• Few regrets
• Being in the Now more than wandering into the past or projecting into the future

Life moves by quickly at the speed of email, texting, dealing with the stresses of others and daily distractions.

Work on each one of the above one at a time until you make progress and then move on to the next.

When you’ve completed the list, start at the top all over again.

The quest for happiness takes hard work and focus and is never ending.

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A few weeks ago a North Carolina woman posted “The Happy Song makes me so HAPPY,” on her Facebook page while driving. 

She was killed seconds later.

In early April in Abington Township, PA a 20-year old man was struck and killed by a local commuter train while texting and walking along the tracks.

According to the Deputy Police Chief:  He “never once flinched, turned around, looked at him or indicated that he knew the train was coming”.

The engineer blew the horn and locked the breaks but even those sounds didn’t get the victim to look up.

These are not isolated stories.  We hear them all the time in the digital age.

Texting is a tool not a way of life.

We should focus on what’s happening around us and the people we care about the most with the same intensity that we focus on our phones to send text messages.

Texting can teach us how to have balance in our lives.

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Polls that show if you were given money to spend on yourself or another person, you would derive more happiness from spending it on someone other than you.

Even in cases where gifts have been given in the name of a donor who was then recognized for the giving publicly such as having a building named for them, the act of giving away the gift for others have scores higher than spending it on ourselves.

In no case, no study, and no research does spending money on ourselves bring happiness.

In giving you receive.

I share this because last week I came across a letter from a dear friend of mine, Jim Weinraub, who served as a mentor to me in teaching.  Just prior to Jim writing the letter I was awarded a gift by our peers as recognition for the things this man taught me. 

I then rose to my feet to accept the award and surprised everyone by presenting it to him.

I have never missed keeping the award.

In his letter, he said he would cherish the award until the day he died.

Several years ago he died.

And now I have another thoughtful gift from someone who understood that only giving makes us truly happy – his gratitude forever.

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Selfies are a fun use of our cellphone cameras and social media sites such as Instagram.

I know a 16-year old who gives a lot of thought to producing her selfies.

And the Wall Street Journal recently wrote about the next iteration of self-absorption, selfies – Instagram photos of our valued personal belongings on a shelf.

Selfies are an expression of our creativity the way taking a Polaroid picture that developed after being pulled from a camera was to our parents.  It is not a way of life.  It’s just a fun thing to do.

In the digital age, relationships suffer because some people – not all – have become addicted to themselves.

To keep a healthy balance, be sure to also focus on other people.

We have lots of tools, social media and connectivity to unleash on focusing meaningful attention on others.

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Pursing compassion could make us happier than the pursuit of happiness.

Even in the self-absorbed world in which we live.

The author and physician Amit Sood relates a story from the 13^th century Roman Empire in which during an experiment ordered by Frederick II, a group of newborn children were to be deprived of the human voice.

Foster mothers took care of the children but they were forbidden to utter even a word to them.  All the babies died unable to live without the compassion that is necessary for survival.

In other studies altruistic adolescents who were encouraged to be compassionate had better mental health as adults even decades later.

Chemicals in the brain change when we are compassionate.

And compassion can be learned.

Feeling for others, even people with whom we disagree or dislike, promotes compassion in us.

Making your life’s goal being the fine person that you are has many benefits.

In the end, we receive the gift by first giving it.

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People seem to be programmed to be unhappy.

Happy people have a plan to circumvent programmed unhappiness.

Maybe it’s the economy or maybe just a changing world but dissatisfaction on the job is rising.

Here are good reasons to quit your job and move on:

• Lack of workplace respect for the special person you are and the diversity you may bring to the job.
• Habitually overburdening you with a workload that prevents you from doing your best.
• Lack of growth potential.  I always say, if you could write the real job description for the job you just accepted one year later, you might not have applied for the job in the first place.
• No respect for you, your family and your co-workers.  A company that doesn’t respect people is a company you want to leave.  Nothing good can come from staying on.
• An unusually long time without a fair pay raise.
• The inability to give real input on the job you are asked to perform.
• Your dream has changed in which case pursue it with all the vigor you can muster being ready to make whatever sacrifices you might have to make.

And here are reasons not to quit your job:

• Disliking an employer, boss or co-workers (with the exception of someone who is physically or mentally abusive).  Never let anyone push you out of a job you love because they are mean and disrespectful, immature or selfish. Outlast them.  They will soon be gone.
• For more money – unless – you love the job so much you would in your heart of hearts take it for less money.  That’s a better yardstick. Leaving for a raise often ends ugly.
• Waiting to retire.  Why punish yourself?  Work each day as if it was your first day on the job.  Aspire don’t retire.

Every summer while on vacation I consider myself a free agent and I spend a little time alone each day to determine if I want to do the same thing next year that I did last year (I know, I own my own business – I still do it). 

We shouldn’t just don’t put our lives and careers on autopilot. 

We are in charge.

We are all free agents not slaves to employers or to our misguided desires.

Knowing you want to continue in what you have been doing for another year or recognizing that you want to change, can be transformative.

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Helicopter moms who hover around their children are being replaced by an even more pervasive force.

Snowplow moms plow their way through their children’s lives actively doing things for them that they would be better learning to do for themselves.

Honestly, parental involvement is a good thing.

But it is better to give children the tools to succeed rather than take so active a part in their lives.

Many of my students at USC had overinvolved parents whom they loved dearly and accepted their active involvement in their lives.

But Millennials – the generation under 30 – are the most stressed generation ever.  They feel the pressure of wanting to succeed in tough times for themselves and for their parents.

The best way to help young people is to resist the temptation to do for them that which they can learn to do for themselves.

Another gift is to tell them they will fail.

That’s right – you will fail.

Just as your favorite athlete and team fails because the game of life is not about winning every day.  It’s about performing at a high level and learning from defeat.

These few thoughts cannot only motivate young people to embrace life’s victories and defeats, it reminds all of us to do the same.

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Here’s a great way to find out.

If you were to suddenly come into money – say $100,000, who would be happiest for you?

Who would not want anything from you?

Who would not be at all jealous?

Which person would share your joy?

That is likely the best friend you have.

In spite of social media misleading us to think that we have hundreds or thousands of “friends”, the only real friends are the ones who always put your interests before theirs.  Who takes pleasure in your good fortune.

By these standards, we should consider ourselves fortunate if we have but one friend like this.  And if there are more, these folks are your prized possession – the people who deserve the same consideration in return.

Acquaintances are many.

True friends are rare.

Value the small circle of people who mean the most to you.

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I am such a fan of Lena Dunham, actor, writer and producer of the HBO series “Girls”.  She artfully portrays the self-absorption of her Millennial generation.  Great characters.  Most of whom seem unhappy or unfulfilled in some way.

But wait!  It’s not just Millennials – everyone seems to be self-absorbed. 

We want what we want when we want it. 

We are always right. 

I want you to listen to me.  I don’t want to listen to you.

Trying to get others to focus on your happiness is a losing strategy.

Spend your time and resources making other people happy.

It is the only way to achieve personal happiness.

It’s about them.

Not you.

And never the other way around.

Last person to figure this out and take corrective measures gets to be miserable longest.

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Finding fault with others can consume much of our lives preventing us from happy moments.

There are two choices.

Accept others the way they are.

Or try to change them.

It is a zero-sum game that almost everyone plays.

Acceptance is the only answer because to change another person is impossible even if they appear to be altering what they think.

Thought of another way – for every person we try to change, we are committing ourselves to a life of unhappiness. 

Even trying to change a person for her or his own good or because we want to be a good teacher is not a good use of our time.

By accepting others the way they are.

By showing compassion for the way they want to be.

Then and only then can you offer up a point of view that may be valuable to them later. 

Or maybe not.

If there is any doubt about this, just consider the last time someone changed your mind about anything before and if you were ready to do so.

You cannot enjoy someone you are trying to make over.

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