The Washington Post interviewed Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Riverside, and relationship expert Harry Reis, a psychologist at the University of Rochester, about their recently published book, How to Feel Loved and it turns out showing your other side is critical.

We think that to be loved, to feel loved, we need to make ourselves more lovable: “I just need to show them how wonderful I am and hide my shortcomings.” And that’s actually not what works.

To feel love, you need to be known and also know the other. And so if I’m only showing the tips of my whole self, just the positive part, I’m not going to be known. And if you don’t really know me, I’ll never really feel loved by you, because I’ll always wonder, “If you really knew me, would you still love me?

As author Brene Brown puts it “True belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”

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Apple founder Steve Jobs wouldn’t let his kids use an iPad (that his company invented) and that “We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”

YouTube cofounder Steve Chen he wouldn’t want his kids consuming only short-form content” because it equates with shorter attention spans.

Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Snap’s Evan Spiegel, and Tesla’s Elon Musk say they limit  their children’s access to devices. The Gates children had to wait until 14 before getting a phone and they banned phones at the dinner table entirely.

Children in the U.S 8 to 18 spend seven and a half  hours a day watching or using screens.

The life of a parent can be difficult but even the folks who fed the digital revolution protected their children from its addictive downsides.

But there is good news rising: 94% of university students now say they want to reduce their phone usage to improve mental health and grades. 70% of adults under 30 are cutting back.  Students who successfully cut screen time in half (from 5 hours to 2.5 hours) saw an improvement in attention spans equivalent to reversing 10 years of age-related decline.

Even current Apple CEO Tim Cook agrees:  “I’m convinced that the more we value our time and our attention, the more we will realize that they are our most precious resources.”

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Euphoria and Grey’s Anatomy Actor Eric Dane died last week of ALS.  In a posthumous Famous Last Wordsepisode, he spoke directly into the camera with words intended for his daughters, Billie and Georgia.

He admitted to wasting years “wallowing and worrying in self-pity, shame, and doubt,” and noted that ALS stripped away the ability to obsess over the future or the past.

He reminisced about watching his daughters play in the ocean in Santa Monica and Hawaii, calling those moments “heaven.”  He used this to illustrate that happiness isn’t a destination, but the quiet moments of presence he previously overlooked.

He left his daughters with four core pieces of advice, the first of which was a directive to “stay grounded in the present moment, because it is the only place where life actually happens”.

And ended with “This disease is slowly taking my body, but it will never take my spirit… I hope I’ve demonstrated that you can face anything. You can face the end of your days. You can face hell with dignity. Fight, girls, and hold your heads high.”

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Billie Eilish: “I’m getting older, I think I’m aging well. I wish someone had told me I’d be doing this by myself”.

The 80+ Hockey Hall of Fame was started by 88-year old Fred Merchant last year, for players still playing into their 80s and older — 35 men and one woman have been inducted so far.

80-year-old hockey players lace up their skates, proving that physical vigor isn’t reserved for the young. Meanwhile, in rural fire stations, 16-year-old cadets like Abby Weaver don 50 pounds of firefighting gear, proving that civic responsibility isn’t reserved for the “experienced.”

These two groups share an uncommon trait: refusal to follow the script. The seniors reject the sedentary life, while the youth reject the digital distraction. Whether it’s a 3am emergency call or a third-period puck battle, they remind us that grit is ageless.

As Serena Williams says “I’ve never let anyone define me. I just go out there and show them what I can do.”

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The world can be brutal today – public figures talking trash and not holding back to be considerate of feelings or previous social norms.  This can be very upsetting for young people getting mixed messages.

Former Mayo Clinic professor of medicine Amit Sood says humility is not a lack of confidence, but a quiet, grounded strength that fosters deep connection.  Humility allows us to step outside the “ego-trap” of constant self-evaluation, creating space for curiosity and compassion toward others. By recognizing our own limitations and the vastness of the world around us, we reduce our internal stress and open ourselves up to genuine growth and learning.

Humility is what may be missing these days yet it remains the ultimate tool for emotional freedom:

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less; it is the transition from ‘What about me?’ to ‘How can I serve?'”

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Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath testified before Congress that Gen Z is not as smart as previous generations when it comes to attention, memory, literacy, numeracy, executive function and general IQ so he says in a recent New York Post piece.

He blames phones. Horvath says “Humans are biologically programmed to learn from other humans and from deep study, not flipping through screens for bullet point summaries.”

I see good news in my college classes where young students are very aware of the burden of battling screen time.  They want to spend more time in the present.  Are disconnecting more.  Using less social media or deleting apps altogether.  They are very smart and they’ve gotten the message that life, if not learning, is best lived in the now with real people and social situations.

The very self-awareness Gen Z shows about screen damage is itself evidence of intact — even strengthened — executive function and metacognition, not cognitive decline.

Arianna Huffington noted how tech industry monetizes distractions when she spoke to Colby College students in 2016 and said “Your attention is the most valuable currency of the digital age.”

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Our ancestors had to make some pretty drastic accommodations as the world progressed to where we are today.

In prehistoric days, you couldn’t be too content if you wanted to survive which led to what is called the negativity bias – where we focus on the negative to remind us to pursue the positive.  Sounds good, but it tends to cause our brains to wander and forget about all the good in our lives – that tires us out and we then get fatigued brain.

The brain is designed for safety.  We have to train it to be happy as former Mayo Clinic physician and author Amit Sood says “because our system is biased to focus on the negative, threats, imperfections, regrets.”

“Happiness is a skill.”

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You can live 2 months on a good compliment and sometimes hardly get through the day on negative input.  A compliment is not flattery.  It refers to something specific that you did well.  It’s not about looks or something superficial, it’s something meaningful.

Negativity sticks with us like heartburn.  A compliment can be enjoyed with pleasure for a long time.  Knowing this, why don’t people give more good compliments?  In studying stress, the feeling of not being good enough seems to always pop up.

As Mark Twain put it:  “I can live for two months on a good compliment.”

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I ask my music business students to bring a new song with them every class that helps them stay positive, upbeat and less anxious.  This week, one class member played Duke Ellington’s Reflections in D.  Interesting choice by a Gen Z student choosing a Greatest Generation musical talent.  Here’s what he said:

“I chose this song because it has always felt like my “rock” since I was in elementary school. My father is a very big fan of Duke Ellington, and would often play his records around the house. This song in particular always stuck with me, and I feel like every time I listen to it I can pick something out that is different and strikingly beautiful. Moreover, Ellington’s expression on the piano feels uniquely human and I find it to be not only entrancing, but extremely touching. The way he moves is very meditative and precise, and I tend to turn to this song in the early mornings to set the tone for my day with a feeling of comfort and security”.

“Where words fail, music speaks.” — Hans Christian Andersen

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I once saw a woman with Alzheimer’s who could not form a word of conversation sit down at a piano and play song after song flawlessly – as a music industry professor, you can bet how that got my attention.

Music decreases fatigue.  It boosts exercise performance.  It can help manage pain. It can boost memory, build task endurance, lighten your mood, reduce anxiety and depression, stave off fatigue, improve your response to pain, and help you work out more effectively.

You can give yourself a brain boost from listening to new music – basically our interest in new music starts declining in our 30’s. New music challenges the brain in a way that old music doesn’t. It might not feel pleasurable at first, but that unfamiliarity forces the brain to struggle to understand the new sound.

It was found that the happiest sounding songs are in a major key. Using a special formula for the study, music psychologist Dr. Michael Bonshor discovered that the happiest song was Good Vibrations by The Beach Boys Feb 19, 2023

1.Good Vibrations by The Beach Boys
2. I Got You (I Feel Good) by James Brown
3. House Of Fun by Madness
4. Get The Party Started by P!nk
5. Uptown Girl by Billy Joel
6. Sun Is Shining by Bob Marley
7. I Get Around by The Beach Boys
8. YMCA by Village People
9. Waterloo by ABBA
10. September by Earth, Wind & Fire

“Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears—it is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear.” According to Musicophilia author Oliver Sacks

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Psychologists tell us not to postpone joy because it trains the brain to delay contentment.  Small moments of joy rewire resilience.  So, experiencing joy makes us stronger and more resilient.

Trying to appreciate the good things we have in life is best done in small regular doses.

The famous Australian nurses’ study of hospice patients with only a few weeks left to live highlighted what they wished they did differently – in other words, their regrets.

• I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
• I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
• I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
• I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
• I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Imagine, if they didn’t wait until they were dying to express these regrets and possibly do something about them.

Or as George Eliot put it, “It is not too late to be what you might have been.”

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In a tough world, everything still comes down to three things.  You can choose to hate, remain agnostic or non-committal or you can love.  Facing those choices, loving wins.

Pop music’s most durable anthems don’t just celebrate love — they frame it as a decision, often made when easier choices exist.

From U2’s With or Without You, where love is embraced despite its emotional cost, to Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You, which redefines love as the courage to let go, the message is consistent: love isn’t merely something that happens, it’s something you choose. Rihanna’s We Found Love places that choice in chaos, Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together anchors it in endurance, and Bob Marley’s One Love elevates it into a moral act.

These songs endure not because they promise perfection, but because they honor love as an act of agency — a decision made when walking away would be easier and that applies to people in our lives.

Al Green’s Let Stay Together captures the idea that love isn’t just something you feel — it’s something you decide to continue, regardless of circumstances.

“Whether times are good or bad, happy or sad…”

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Recently I wrote about a major study of 18 shipwrecks from 1852 to 2011 that challenges the myth of “women and children first”.   Many were interested in digging deeper to understand the meaning.

Last week I posed the question in the name of resilience-building to my spring NYU mental health for musician’s class.  Their answer to who is first off a sinking ship?  Women and children.  Let’s look at the research.

• Crew members have the highest survival – 18.7% more likely to survive than passengers overall (after all, they are trained to know how to jump off the ship).
• Next, adult men with a 34.6% survival rate – significantly higher than women in 10 of 16 wrecks.
• Adult women were next off the boat with a 17.9% survival rate.
• And what about children? They had the lowest survival rate 15.3%, the worst outcome of all groups studied.

The bottom line: Power, strength and access – not gallantry – determined who lived.

In life trusting yourself and building resilience matters.

Dr. Benjamin Spock reminds us “Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”

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Do we have a right to expect happiness?  Should we be waking up each day demanding that our brain make us happy or is there something wrong if we are unhappy?

The brain is not designed for happiness.  It’s made for safety.  Think prehistoric days when cave-dwellers were on constant lookout for something to hurt them.  That same reflex is what is triggered by our mobile devices, by the way, but that’s for another day.

Waiting to be happy trains the brain to delay contentment and meaning comes from the present not someday.  We can retrain our brains.  How do you want to be happy and dictate it to your brain.  It’s a continuous process not a one-time finish line because progress starts immediately and continues over time.

That’s the feeling of Mayo Clinic physician Amit Sood who has written extensively about the power of retraining the brain:  “We get so caught up weeding the yard that we completely miss the tulips that nature gives us for a few precious weeks”.

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One of the most popular workarounds my music business students like – maybe even love – is don’t postpone joy.

We are constantly in search of victories personally and in our careers and when we get them, there is a tendency to move right on to the next challenge.  We forget to celebrate or even appreciate what we’ve done.

And the victories don’t have to be earthshattering because even the smallest thing that makes you happy retrains the brain to do more –yes the brain can be retrained.

As Mayo Clinic physician Amit Sood says joy is not a reward, it’s a daily practice and that waiting to be happy trains the brain to delay contentment.

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A recent Wired article says there is a real talent war for plumbers and electricians due to the AI boom in data center construction – skilled laborers are retiring and replacements are not on the way.

My NYU music students fear AI because robotically built songs are already finding their way onto music charts.  And record labels are not exactly slamming the door on AI-infused music, just looking for a way to license it.

AI is here – helpful in some ways, not so much in others and disruptive without a doubt.

I asked a chatbot who will prevail – humans or AI and here’s its answer:  “Real humans will prevail, because AI can scale ideas—but only people can build, fix, power, and sustain the physical world those ideas depend on.”

Artificial intelligence scrapes existing human thought without the ability to think. Humans are indispensable even if companies are trying to use it to eliminate some jobs.

Taking a less threatening view might be Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak “Never trust a computer you can’t throw out a window.”

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Who makes it safely off a sinking ship first?  Women and Children?

In a 2011 Swedish study crew members of ships in trouble were very helpful – to themselves.  As the New York Times reported: “Compared with passengers, they were 18.7 percent more likely to survive, the researchers found. Children fared worst: Of 621 on the ships, only 95, or 15.3 percent, lived on.”

It gets worse, there’s no evidence that the captain goes down with the ship suggesting that even where trust is strong, in the end our lives are in our own hands.

This is the point of resilience – Resilience isn’t assuming the worst in people — it’s refusing to assume they’ll save you.

Oprah says “You are responsible for your own life. If you’re sitting around waiting on someone to save you, fix you, even heal you — you’re wasting your time.”

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Apple founder Steve Jobs was fond of saying don’t live someone else’s life.  Don’t let other people’s expectations, rules, or fears decide how you live.

In his 2005 Stanford commencement speech, Jobs said “Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.”

Don’t chose to remain in a career or job because of someone else’s expectations.

Don’t follow a path just because it’s safe or approved.

Don’t measure your success by someone else’s scoreboard when the real secret is to measure success by comparing it to you.

Jobs was warning that it’s easy to wake up one day and realize you’ve been performing a role instead of living a life — checking boxes that belong to parents, bosses, society, or peers.  Life is too short to be a stand-in for someone else’s script.

Jobs’ exact words resonate loudly in a world where people are burdened to live in the fast lane.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

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New Jersey became the latest state to outlaw phones in the classroom from bell-to-bell. Mom, dads and schools have figured out a way to help their young ones focus on learning.

In my college classroom, we’ve been screen-free for many years – and I always say I don’t really know what attention deficit looks like because no matter what the condition, students can concentrate on being present (that is if I don’t throw a PowerPoint up on a screen).

Helping people separate from texting in the back of the classroom is not a punishment. I can’t tell you the number of students who, in front of classmates, thank the professor for asking them to turn their devices off.

In fact, I only have to say it once – in the first class.  No need to mention it again.

Phones aren’t just a student problem, they’re a human one choosing engagement over noise.

Author Jenny Odell says “In a world that profits from your distraction, paying attention is a radical act.”

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If you’re feeling foggy after the recent two-week holiday period, there are actually brain exercises to sharpen up.

• Do simple daily tasks with your “wrong” hand. Things like brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand forces your brain to actively solve the problem, waking it up from autopilot mode.
• Make small changes to your physical space.  Simply switching the side of the bed you sleep on or moving a few items on a shelf forces your brain’s internal “GPS” to create a new map and stop feeling stuck.
• Play a quick color or word mix-up game.  Look for a color word (like “Red”) printed in a different color ink, or name what an object is not. This creates a fun mental conflict that sharpens your focus.

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled” — Plutarch, biographer and essayist.

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