The thing no one ever talks about is that we acquire worries and rarely let them go.

Once we accept them, we add them to a collection of previous fears that have not been resolved.

My mother was like that.

I can never remember her letting go of a worry to replace it with a new one – she kept them all.

And today we have a mental health crisis especially among young people under 25 who are connected constantly.

The human brain was designed to be on edge for survival of our cave dwelling predecessors fearing their safety not 24/7 social connection.

Constant stimulation overload takes its toll slowly because fears keep piling on top of each other.

41% of adults say they have more anxiety today than they did in the early days of the pandemic.

Half say they will never fully recover from it even after it’s over.

Fear is useless – trust yourself to discard things that make you anxious.

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The more we focus on ourselves and our needs, the more stressed we become — isn’t that interesting?

The reason anxiety and depression are exponentially growing is that we’re faced with more problems, trying hard to deal with them and not being able to limit the number of concerns we have at any given time.

It is why Dale Carnegie warned us to talk in terms of the other person’s interests, ask questions rather than make statements and learn to become a good listener.

Even though he taught public speaking, happiness was a focus of not talking about yourself.

Have you seen In Treatment on HBO?

Compelling half hour shows about people who are essentially in a therapy session – it’s a hit perhaps because we love to talk about our problems.

You’ll never hear anyone thinking of others, focus on the needs of someone other than themselves or become skilled at using their ears more than their mouth.

Step one is get the focus off you and direct it to others to start feeling less overwhelmed.

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Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman wants you to check these three things off before you listen to your gut feeling:

1. Is this an area where patterns actually exist to make a judgment?
2. Do you have long experience of the subject?
3. Have you tested your understanding of it against reality previously?

That’s 3 yeses to reassure yourself that your gut feeling is more than a reckless impulse. 

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Living someone else’s dream is like driving another person’s car.

It gets you to your destination, but you don’t own it.

I always wanted to be a dj and I didn’t want to go to college.  My father insisted saying “you’ll be the smartest dj”.  I listened and got my college education but never gave up my dream.

Be the person you want to be.

Take control of your own dreams.

Make them bold and adventurous.

And there’s no time limit – you can even start today.

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Pick a number, say 20.

The first 20 people you meet today, smile at them.

No need to engage in conversation, a smile will work just fine.

Most people will smile back, a few won’t – some won’t make eye contact because they are distracted.

By the time you’ve counted 20 people in a row you can smile at, you’ve programmed your happy mood for the day.

If you still have doubt, what happens when you carry your burdens in facial expression – most people know to avoid you and you’ve pretty much set the wrong tone for your day.

The brain likes to be programmed and 20 smiles can do it.

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Recovering from a critical mistake, a bad break or a bad day has less to do with what went wrong than what went right.

Take any success and break it down – there are some pretty steep low points for the average person on the way to their goals and eventual happiness.

Bouncing back requires looking forward not back – a lesson learned is not always the answer.

So the new term is bouncing ahead – looking forward to the next time at bat, understanding that no one hits 1.000 and that setbacks are to be expected and even welcomed because turning things around isn’t about what went wrong but what went right.

The biggest mistake is to believe that we must never make a mistake.

Mistakes are what drives success.

If you were told that mistakes will lead you to where you want to go, you would welcome the challenge.

We see all these people who have worked through adversity on their way to the top and yet we hold ourselves to an impossible standard of zero screw ups.

Don’t fear mistakes, learn from them because without pain there can be no gain.

There are people who are constantly interacting with others who are lonely.

And there are those who have a much smaller and limited friend universe who are feeling anything but alone.

Loneliness plagued 54% of 20,000 Americans surveyed by Cigna in 2018 – a year later it shot up to 61% with 18-22 year-olds the loneliest.

Facebook friends are nice but they don’t count.  In fact, social media makes us feel lonelier than ever.

It’s not the number of people in our lives, it’s the quality of honest conversations we have with others.

It’s not a day off.

It’s a day on — with expressed goals of refocusing on life other than anxiety, complexity, frustration, work and digital devices.

A planned walk, a conversation with someone else, an entirely different routine and things that are opposite from the stressors that weigh us down.

The difference between a sick day and a mental health day is one is a retreat from being overwhelmed and the other is a structured treat for becoming refreshed.

When I was on the air, I worked for a boss who was a task master – very tough on his air staff and he listened to the station all the time (even the middle of the night) to catch your mistakes and then call you during your show.

Talk about PTSD.

Looking back, it wasn’t the criticisms I remember, it’s the compliments – a tough coach who also knew how to pay a meaningful compliment.

We can live with high expectations and high standards.

But we cannot live without appreciation.

Allen Stone was an iconic, longtime newsperson on WFIL in Philadelphia when one Sunday, the station’s programming suddenly changed from adult music to top 40 and Stone’s career on Monday morning was thought to be over.

The dean of newscasters was told in no uncertain terms that the new rock-and-roll news format that involved loud voices, short sentences, screaming, yes screaming – would be beyond him.  After all, he was a dignified adult newscaster.

Stone asked for a chance – one week to prove that he could do it.

Within hours everyone knew Allen Stone could not only do it, but set a high bar for his younger associates to rock the news.

What if he never asked?

What if they never gave him the chance?

Life is a continual audition – always be prepared to ask for the chance to show your stuff.

Living with a sense of purpose has been shown in studies to add years to life and improve happiness.

A recent article in The Washington Post put it bluntly:

“In his 1946 book, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” the Austrian psychiatrist and holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl wrote that belief in something “external” — potentially as mundane as unfinished work, or the hope to reunite with a loved one — helped prisoners survive.”

Getting through the day is admirable but not purposeful enough to reap the benefits.

Younger people live happier, older people live longer.

What is the purpose that drives you?

Did you hear about the 23 year-old Italian woman who was mistakenly given six doses of the Pfizer vaccine at once by a distracted nurse?

Sounds like the patient may have been distracted as well as she sat there for the six jabs – six!

Healthcare workers may be forgiven considering the stress that they have been under but this illustrates the stressful world we’re living in – it’s not just the person in the car ahead of you texting when the light turns green.

You can’t just stop distractions because our minds live in a distracted state 24/7 – multi-tasking is working by distractions and it’s considered normal.

Rest is the key to better focusing – the mind can only take so much and then it needs a break.  Changing activities, refreshing your mind and putting the brakes on a life that is aroused by interruption.

An average 41.5 texts sent or received every day.

Over 120 new emails a day with most people responding to only 25% of them.

Over 560 billion texts sent every month globally.

Focus does not require concentration — it begs for fewer distractions.

Phil Mickelson who won the PGA Championship this year one month before his 51^st birthday is the same person who fought bad luck, trouble of his own creation and adversity in his career.

A lefty who was never supposed to win a major just keeps on winning through physical problems, the cancer of his wife, Amy, some classic meltdowns, a few unfortunate comments from his own mouth and his age.

Even non-golfers were taken with his PGA victory recently – some because they wanted the “old guy” to win at the younger person’s game and others because of the pure theater when he was rushed by fans as he approached the final green.

Comebacks happen when you expect them not because they surprise you.

The person who underestimates the potential of others overestimates their own ability.

Some of the most accomplished, famous and successful people in the world were marginalized by those who for one reason or another were not able to accurately gauge

the strong will of another to succeed.

A person who can recognize the good in others guarantees to raise their own ability simultaneously.

The brain tires out at about two hours.

This explains why it is so difficult to focus.

And we spend 80% of our day in the default mode of tired brain at which point we make more mistakes, become less efficient and turn to stimulants.

So, today’s DayStarters suggests that we live like an air traffic controller.

Work two hours on and then 45 minutes off to rest, rewind and refocus.

We can have 1.5 at the most intimate friends (it’s an average).

5 close friends.

15 best friends.

50 good friends.

150 generic friends.

500 possible acquaintances.

1,500 known names.

5,000 known faces.

A new report in The Atlantic says there are different kinds of friends and that we can have between 100 and 250 with 150 being the average total.

Not all friendships are equal.

The question is: are we spending the appropriate amount of time on the intimate, best and closest friends where the value is greatest or dissipating our efforts over all types of friends even though they may not be as personally rewarding?

Live like there is no tomorrow but savor each day along the way.

All we have is now – the past is useless, the future not assured.

Live life like there is no tomorrow does not mean live recklessly.

It means live today like it is your last day.

Not to get it all in but to eat it all up.

Amazingly the most common regret for people at the end of life is not that they don’t have more time but the time they previously wasted.

Sometimes you’re ready for a restart.

Products often relaunch to freshen them.  Homes get redecorated.  We change jobs.

Restart also works for personal.

First hit delete – careful to eliminate the things that you want to improve, get away from or prevent from happening again.  In other words, delete before adding to your personal life.

Then protect the things that you don’t want to change.

I know people who have survived serious surgeries that want to live their future life in a different way.

People who want to change what they do for a living who have made sacrifices to find something that reinvigorates them.

Even people in relationships who want to improve them or cancel them before the rest of their life slips away.

Restart is a second, third or fourth chance and worth it if gets you to happiness.

A new study out of Germany indicates that people who claim to feel younger are healthier, less stressed and live longer than those who bemoan their age.

People who may otherwise be healthy but feel old lose cognitive abilities, have more life threatening inflammation and feel the ravages of stress.

Stress is killing all of us – this is a fast world we live in and there are lots of pharmaceutical solutions, online counseling and physical solutions that people have been turning to.

For free – no fees or cost of entry – a youthful attitude is a proven life extender and answer to the stresses of our digital world that are not going away.

Providing that Henry David Thoreau was right when he said none are so old as those who have outlived their zest for enthusiasm.