Steve Levitt, the co-author of Freakonomics cites a new study that indicates that just flipping a coin on big decisions makes people happier six months after a big life change.

That we would be better off if we did more quitting – like in our jobs.

That big life decisions like marriage and even whether to get a tattoo are better left up to chance.

Yes or no coin-flip choices were monitored at two months and again at six.

The coin flip subjects were largely happier they did it which begs the question, what is it really that makes people happy – throwing their lives open to fate or fighting to keep things the way they are?

Levitt says “A good rule of thumb in decision making is, whenever you cannot decide what you should do, choose the action that represents a change, rather than continuing the status quo.”

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If we’re going to be honest, reopening our lives comes with its challenges.

People are not meant to be hunkered down and absent a daily routine.

When a player comes off the bench cold, he or she is telling themselves I have what it takes to succeed in this game.

So why is it any different for us?

You’ve done it before and can do it again.

You’re rested or should be.

When I got my first opportunity to be on TV, the program director said, “you’ve done this before, haven’t you?”  Of course, I said skirting the truth.

I had imagined it since I was a teenager.  I rehearsed it in my mind over and over.  Indeed, I was ready.

As complicated as life is, one thing remains simple.

If we don’t believe in ourselves deeply, how can we ask anyone else to?

That’s the phrase to repeat every time self-doubt creeps in.

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We’ve all heard of the dreaded fear of failure but most of us rarely consider the fear of succeeding.

It even has a name – achievemephobia.

It’s real.  It holds people back.  Prevents accomplishments because fear of succeeding is fear of failure’s other cousin.

If I get what I want, I might lose it. 

If I open myself up to 100% commitment and fail, I may become a bigger failure. 

At least if I expect to fail, I can prepare for it.  The fear of succeeding can be so sudden.

Fight it with thoughts like “I’m worthy of success”, “I won’t go negative on myself”, “I expect success because of I am earning the right to have it”.

It is almost impossible to stop a person who expects to succeed.

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The printing press meant faster transfer of information than writing by hand.

Radio was immediate and brought us active as well as passive listening.

TV eliminated a lot of the thinking – pictures did more of the work.

Digital is instant, totally eliminating lag time.

But lag time is necessary to make good decisions.

Just because we have the technology to communicate instantly in real time doesn’t mean it helps make better decisions.

Our first idea is often the worst idea.

Our impulse to react when we feel threatened often turns into regret.

In spite of technological advances, time is still the best asset for making decisions.

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The leading medical journal Lancet says people who are physically active have 35 days of poor mental health per year.

Those who are not physically active have 53 down days.

Income has little to no effect on happiness in the recently published study.

On average a sedentary person would have to earn an additional $25,000 a year to be as happy as an active person.

There is a limit to the happiness benefit exercise can bring – for example, exercising 30-60 minutes three to five times week is the sweet spot.

Money can’t buy you love, as The Beatles sang, nor can it buy the additional happiness more activity can bring. 

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If a worry propels us to act and solve a problem, it can be good.

Otherwise worry is a waste of time and yet most of us have become professional worriers and will not give it up.

My mother was one and I learned right by her side.

The trick is to spot the worry and then change the subject because in spite of our love for multitasking, it is not possible to have two thoughts at the same time.

It becomes a matter of retraining – spotting the worry, then changing the subject if the thing we’re worried about does not cause us to act and solve a problem.

The idea that worry can be learned and unlearned is reassuring.

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A car battery likes to be used – the longer it sits, the more it loses its potency.

It takes as little as four weeks to die if left idle.

Our personal batteries have been sitting more idle than usual as we have been sitting on the couch watching Netflix, working at home, adjusting to education by Zoom and uprooting previous routines.

Jumpstart – a jolt of energy followed by sustained periods of running at high speeds.

Resume a healthy and productive routine.

Eliminate things that exhaust your power such as negativity and fear of the future.

Be grateful for the unexpected timeout we all got as a reminder of sorting out what is truly important.

Life also needs both an ignition and an accelerator to return to power.

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Being forced to spend time with yourself in isolation or with those very few people close to you has delivered an unanticipated benefit – liking to spend time with yourself.

Pre-lockdown life was demanding and often the most important things took a backseat to whatever was next up – in digital life, never-ending work situations or the challenges of life in a distracted world.

Now that the lockdown seems to be ending, some lessons learned:

1. Mister Rogers was right all along to say he likes you just the way you are – after the past few months so many people are agreeing.
2. Best relations come from the quality of time invested not from the number of hours as lockdown forced us to automatically adjust both.
3. Less is still more as the inability to buy love with money turned out to be a blessing – the gift is not cash rewards but time spent living with ourselves and others.

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In sports when you’re down and out, you rally and comeback strong.

It’s the only way to win.

We’ve all been sitting on the bench of self-isolation waiting for our moment to be called up and contribute once again.

That moment appears to arriving.

Why is it in sports when our number is called, we can’t wait to get in and do our part.

That’s how to look at our return to a more normal life.

Eagerly anticipate success and banish all thoughts of negativity.

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“By not demanding love, but by giving it, we increase our chances of getting it”.

We become more lovable and makes it easier for us to love others.

“Hatred invites and perpetuates hatred”.

By decreasing it ourselves we lessen it on others.

These words of Harry Weinberg especially ring true today.

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Demographers are in general agreement that the generation that fought in World War II was the greatest in the last hundred years.

But why?

Because they were faced with more adversity than most other generations over the same period of time – war in two far away locations, an economy rescued by the war effort and particularly by women who stepped up to serve.

The next great generation may very well be the one coming of age now – in school, college – just starting their lives.

A pandemic, the potential of tough economic times, a disruption of the magnitude that even their parents never experienced.

Which means, they are facing adversity and will rise to meet the challenges.

Adversity introduces a person to him or herself and to those around them so the good news is that we will all overcome these unprecedented challenges because as history has proven beyond a doubt, adversity brings the best out of us.

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That’s what we have now – fear of the virus, of giving up the things we like, of being forced out of our comfort zone and on and on.

The thing about fear is that it breeds more fear and it becomes an obsession with worry that makes us crazy.

Now – and especially now – fear is all around us in our hands, on our screens and imbedded deep in our social media.

If you ever played sports, before a big game you probably felt concern, anxiety – okay, let’s just say it, fear of playing our best to win.  At some point we had to stop thinking and start acting.

That’s the prescription for our lives in these challenging times – stop worrying and start doing.

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Since the pandemic began, voice-only calls have increased 78%.

And the length of these calls has also increased.

We hear a lot about Zoom, the savior of business, academia and keeping families connected in public health crises but there is evidence that video apps make us feel awkward and unfulfilled.

Then there is the phone – which really is not a phone but a handheld texting machine, iPod and social networking black hole.

But now mouth to ear is back.

An iPhone is really a phone again.

“When it comes to developing intimacy remotely, sometimes it’s better to be heard and not seen”.

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When stores started cutting their orders for soap during the Great Depression that began in 1929, Proctor & Gamble doubled down and figured people would still need soap.

Instead of pulling back on advertising as most companies are doing during the current coronavirus, P&G ramped up its radio advertising sponsoring daily shows aimed at homemakers.  Ma Perkins, a kindly widow, told stories that consumers of the day loved.

By 1939, P&G was producing 21 radio shows and inventing what was to become known as the “soap opera”.  By 1950, they made the transition to TV.

With uncertain economic times ahead and lots of spare time on our hands now to think, what is your personal plan to meet adversity and take advantage of it?

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Imagine what Americans might have thought during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic.

They lived without phones, radios, delivery services, Netflix – you get the point.  I wonder how many of them said “we will survive this and things will not just get better but really better.”

Land on the moon.  Discover antibiotics and drugs that make our lives better and longer.  Prosperity the likes of which I dare say we have enjoyed in full or part for decades.  Did they ever think as bad as things got – they lost 550,000 people in the U.S. during the Spanish Flu – that the future would not only be better but great.

On the other side of hopelessness is hope.

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Viktor Frankl’s book “Yes to Life” inspired by his time spent incarcerated in a World War II concentration camp takes on meaning even in our coronavirus isolation.  It is summed up in the foreword:

“Happiness in itself does not qualify as such a purpose; pleasures do not give our life meaning. In contrast, he points out that even the dark and joyless episodes of our lives can be times when we mature and find meaning.

There are three main ways people find fulfillment of their life meaning, in Frankl’s view. First, there is action, such as creating a work, whether art or a labor of love—something that outlasts us and continues to have an impact.

Second, he says, meaning can be found in appreciating nature, works of art, or simply loving people; Frankl cites Kierkegaard, that the door to happiness always opens outward. The third lies in how a person adapts and reacts to unavoidable limits on their life possibilities, such as facing their own death or enduring a dreadful fate like the concentration camps.  In short, our lives take on meaning through our actions, through loving, and through suffering.”

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Be defiant in denouncing the negativity we hear and experience all day about this challenging time.

Focusing the mind on the present moment is a proven way to relieve anxiety or depression.

Experts say the virus will be around until there is a vaccine but even now we can see how people, businesses, schools and organizations are adapting to ways to live with the underlying threat.

There is hope.

To lift yourself from the negativity that comes from the constant drip-drip-drip of ominous news focus the mind on the present.

Gratitude.

The facts:  99% of all Americans will not be infected if they follow safe habits.

The beauty of the moment:  things are going to change and it is not all bad.  There will be many new opportunities.  New realizations of what is important and of course, what is in our lives now that is worth focusing on.

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Am I hiding something behind that mask or protecting myself and others – the way we think about it defines who we are during this?

Am I covering up my fear or am I demonstrating my confidence?

Am I physical distancing but still remembering to engage others socially for to confuse the two would make a very cold world that may take longer than a pandemic to cure?

Am I grateful to be resuming my tasks even if I have to cover my face?

What’s underneath our masks is more defining than how it looks or what it is intended to do.

We used to wear our heart on our sleeves, now it is on our face for all to see.

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You know what my 29 music business students said at the end of their 8^th and final online Zoom class that they were suddenly rushed into in March?

They should have said “thank God it’s over” but what they really said was “We did it!”.  Finished the semester, one hour and forty-minute classes, never missing a class and attending in real-time even from India, Taiwan and China where it was 11:30 at night when class started.

These are no snowflakes – they are fighters who are growing more resilient by the day and it inspires.

Embracing not tolerating adversity helps us grow stronger.

Not being defeated by fear.

Being aware of self-talk and keeping it positive.

Banishing the word “can’t”.

Then there is gratitude — especially during a pandemic.

Setting high goals not just existing (some students produced music while in isolation).

And most importantly – always giving yourself and others hope.

“See you in class this fall on campus”.

Self-care is not bingeing on Netflix.

If you’ve ever bought a gym membership, why is it that most people can’t wait not to use it.

And whether we like it or not we have a pandemic that provides us with the time that we would have killed for prior.

Two months ago if someone said “how would you like to work from home for two months and not commute to the office”, we would have jumped at our good fortune.

Or if our employer said, take as much time as you like to get healthy, most of us would pass out from shock.

Or, if our friends said they’d love to spend more time connecting with us either by phone or Zoom, who wouldn’t be flattered.

If someone said, spend more time with your family – don’t feel guilty.  Wow, what an offer.

What’s driving us nuts is the inability to see a golden opportunity when it is handed to us.