Author Chris Brady's Blog

Caption Contest 2012.11 and a Winner Announced

I was recently reminded that it's been a while since we've had a caption contest on this blog, and, not wanting to disappoint, I thought we'd take a break from the lofty literary heights to which we've recently ascended and take a moment for some fun. But first, we must announce the winner of the previous contest. 

Congratulations goes to Todd Moser for the following caption to Contest 2012.8:

After another panic attack, a Walenda family counselor is called to talk down the lesser known Dudley Walenda from his riskiest attempt yet.

This lucky winner will be receiving a free, autographed copy of Orrin Woodward and my NY Times best seller, Launching a Leadership Revolution. Simply email us your mailing address (which will remain confidential, of course)!

And now, here's the new photo. What does this image say to you (notice the date)?

Sincerely,

Chris Brady 

Calling Light Darkness - The Power of Words

I don't believe in magic, but there is a power that operates a lot like magic - the power of words.

Lemmesplain.

The book of James (3:3-5) compares the tongue (our spoken words) to a tiny bit in a large horse's mouth, and to a small rudder on a massive ship. Both are pictures of enormous power controlled by a small point of leverage.

Who hasn't seen this power on display? Who hasn't been stung by the acidity of the tongue? Who hasn't been hurt by the careless or vindictive words of another?

James goes on to warn that "the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell." (3:6)

Pretty strong words, those.

So I got to thinking about the power of the tongue in our society. If the spoken word is so powerful in the case of individuals, how much more so in our culture as a whole? What I see the most is the power of words to distort the truth, and to rename darkness as though it were light.

It seems to start with a little side-shift, a neat reframing of the perspective. You can't call black white directly, you must do it subtly over time. Here are a few examples I've observed. See if you agree with them, and comment with others you've observed.

1. What used to be considered rude is now renamed "candid." This makes it somehow seem noble to be crass and mean, as in, "Well, at least he's being candid."

2. A lack of self-control is now called being "passionate."

3. Selfishness is now called "independent" or "personal choice," or worse, a "right."

4. Arguing and interrupting (especially on the stomach-churning political talk shows) have now been renamed "debate."

5. Handouts and special deals have been rebranded as "funding."

6. Credentials have been renamed "education."

7. And amatuers, for a short time, were called "NFL referees." 

 

 

 

Do Cell Phones Cause Cancer in Children?

Have you ever wondered if cell phones pose health risks?

Do you know that researchers say children absorb twice the amount of radiation as do adults?

With the recent theme of this blog of refusing to take things at face value and learning to see our world around us with wide open eyes and discerning thoughts, the article below from Huffington Post caught my eye. It's a quick, thought-provoking read about a technology that has crept largely unexamined into our daily living. And with the trend of parents buying their children cellular phones at earlier and earlier ages, it might be worth considering.

Here's a portion of the article:

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Cell Phone Study 'Misleading': Children May Still be At Increased Cancer Risk, Experts Say

"Cell Phones Don’t Increase Cancer Risk in Kids." From USA Today to CBS News, variations of this hopeful-sounding headline now abound after yesterday's release of a new study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

But experts have some serious concerns regarding the methods and conclusions of the first study evaluating the connection between cell phone radiation and brain cancer in children and teens. Not only was the study flawed, they note, but it was also financially supported by the cell phone industry.

"To have moms assume that kids using cell phones are safe is the wrong conclusion to make," Devra Davis, president and founder of the consumer advocacy group Environmental Health Trust, told The Huffington Post.

After looking at brain tumors and cell phone use among about 1,000 boys and girls between the ages of 7 and 19, European researchers determined that kids who averaged one or more weekly cell phone calls over a period of at least six months were not at an increased risk of developing a brain tumor compared to peers that were non-users. Overall, less than 15 percent of the children and teens had spent more than 4 years as a cell phone user.

"It’s ridiculous to think that because you didn’t find a significant increase in brain cancer among kids that now cell phones are safe," added Davis. She likened the study to looking at 16-year-olds who smoked as children to see if they had lung cancer. “You’d find nothing,” she said.

Dr. Keith Black, a brain tumor expert at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, agreed. "It usually takes decades of exposure for a person to be at an increased cancer risk," he told The Huffington Post, adding that the extent of the exposure observed in the study was extremely small.

"It's interesting that most of the studies that have shown a correlation between brain cancer and cell phone use have tended to look at long-term exposure -- at least 10 years -- and at higher doses such as using a cell phone for 60 minutes or more each day," said Dr. Black. "Studies that have tended to not find a link looked at short-term use -- maybe an hour or so a month."

Unlike ionizing radiation such as X-rays or gamma rays, which are strong enough to damage the DNA in cells, far less is known about the cancer-causing potential of radiofrequency waves emitted by cell phones. What's more, most of the studies thus far have only looked at adults. Adults, however, absorb about half as much radiation while using one of the devices compared to children.

The latest addition to the conflicting assortment of studies was partially supported by money from mobile communication companies. However, senior author Martin Roosli of the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel, Switzerland, told HuffPost that the industry "did not have any say" in how the study was conducted. The author of an accompanying editorial that affirmed the finding is employed at the International Epidemiology Institute, which has reportedly received funding from the telecommunications industry.

Published yesterday, the study also comes on the heels of Tuesday's unanimous ruling in San Francisco that will soon require all local cellular retailers to post radiation exposure warnings on every phone and hand every customer education material. The city's mayor is expected to sign the ruling into law within the next week, with more cities likely to follow San Francisco's lead, according to Ellen Marks, director of government and public affairs for Environmental Health Trust. Berkeley, Philadelphia and New York City are among those looking to impose similar legislation.

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Marks suggested that cities had been waiting to see how San Francisco fared. Their legislation had been previously tabled after a lawsuit from the cell phone industry, which claimed that the measure violated their first amendment rights.

Such a warning is not unprecedented. In fact, the Federal Communications Commission already requires a safe distance warning with every cell phone. (For example, a Blackberry is not to be held closer than an inch from the body.)

(For the rest of the article, click here).

(Another interesting article here.)

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What do you think?

Are cell phones the new cigarettes? 

Do you think we'll be reading about their medically confirmed damaging affects to our health someday, seeing huge lawsuits on television about corporate coverups and burried medical studies, or is it all a bunch of hype?

Were you shocked to read that part about keeping Blackberrys at least an inch away from the body?

How many hours a day do you hold a device up to your head?

Thanks for reading (and, if you're reading this on your cell phone, you might want to hold it at a safe distance from your face!)

Sincerely,

Chris Brady

"Not Necessarily" - Cultural Contrarianisms

I recently heard someone say, "It's not what you don't know that's hurting you - it's what you think you know that isn't so that's hurting you."

In coaching and counseling individuals through all kinds of situations and circumstances over many years, one thing I've noticed that comes up again and again is self-deception. Blindness to or denial of a limiting or damaging belief can have all sorts of negative repercussions in a person's life.

More simply stated: wrong information believed and acted upon produces poor-to-terrible results.

If this is true for individuals, it begs considering whether it's also true for cultures. Listening to the things people say and put forth in conversation reveals a lot about how they think and what they believe. Hearing the same things said enough times by enough people leads one to conclude that much of our culture has bought into particular beliefs as though they are obviously and comprehensively true.

So if incorrect beliefs lead to damaging behavior for individuals, it follows that they are just as destructive to cultures. As we hear the ever-increasing warning siren for the collapse of our American culture, we might do well to analyze anew commonly held "truths" that seem to be swallowed hook, line, and sinker by the greater majority of people - and - swallowed as such with nary a voice to the contrary. In other words, what "everybody" knows and accepts to be true might just not be quite as true as "everybody" seems to think. 

What follows below is a brief list of several commonly held "truths" that, contrary to popular and unexamined opinion, are maybe not always true, and in some cases, not true at all.

1. Going to college is a good thing, and the automatic next step for a kid graduating from high school.  Not necessarily. College isn't and shouldn't be for everyone. Many people have, do, and will continue to thrive in life without the official status of a college degree of any kind. Furthermore, college can be damaging in many ways (financially, for starters) and is, by no means, a universal "good."  

2. Waiting until after completing college is the best time to get married. Again, not necessarily. I know countless couples who have wonderful marriages that began in or after high school, or even during college. While this may not be ideal for many depending upon a whole host of considerations, there are legitimate reasons an earlier start on marriage and parenthood may be a positive.

3. Waiting until you can afford kids is the intelligent way to plan a family. I should maybe just begin each of these explanations with a standard, "Not necessarily." Again, "affording" to have children is nearly a nonsensical concept. While children are unarguably one the most costly endeavors parents will ever experience, some things are so important as to be placed above financial considerations. 

4. Government exists to solve problems for the people. There is no "not necessarily" to this one, but simply a "not." Our nation has absorbed a creeping assumption that government is it's nanny, that it not only should solve our issues, but that it actually can. Even a cursory reading of the founding documents reveal that the list of areas in which government was intended to operate was small, intentionally limited, and deemed almost a necessary evil. An abundance of historical examples exist in plain site to confirm the founders' beliefs that government was a monster needing to be chained within its few productive boundaries. We've flipped the coin all the way over on this one. 

5. If the technology exists, we should automatically adopt it into our lives. I've been blasting away on this topic lately and thereby likely testing the patience of my three readers (whose indulgence I will continue to appreciate). Just because technology can do something doesn't mean that it necessarily should. We should be more discerning and attempt to understand both the benefits and drawbacks of new devices and technologies before wholesale incorporation of them into our lives and culture.

6. People with credentials are experts. It's time for another "not necessarily." The list of contrary examples is both enormous and often humorous. (The possible exception to this one is bloggers, who, well, let's face it, might just be infallible.)

7. Democracy is good. Somewhere along the way we have almost entirely lost the realization that our government was intended to be a "republic" and not a "democracy." The two types of government are radically different, and the founders considered democracy an evil as ugly as a lynch mob with sticks and clubs. However, this doesn't prevent people from saying that the United States is a democracy, or that the concept of a democracy is somehow good (e.g. former President George W. Bush boasting that the United States wished to "export democracy around the world." Sheesh.)

8. Politically correct is the correct way to be. In many ways, refuting this one isn't even controversial anymore. "Politically correct" has gotten so wacky that most people understand that if it's "politically correct," there's a good chance it's not Biblically correct, morally correct, or correct. It's a sliding scale moved by whom?

9. The government should be the only one to issue money to the citizens. Leaving the government as the only issuer and controller of the money supply is like assigning the fox to the hen house. Privatized money with commercial interests competing for customers would work to keep stranglehold power out of the hands of government. As Patrick Henry said, "The junction of the sword and the purse . . . are the ingredients of despotism." But we've been conditioned to not even realize that government doesn't have to be the one in charge of issuing or controlling money in any way.  

10. You have your truth and I have mine. This is logically impossible. What most people mean when they consider this is "preferences," such as "I like the New England Patriots the best." It's perfectly legit for me to hold that "preference" or opinion, while you instead like the New York Giants the best. These are preferences, and my preference does nothing to negate yours, and visa versa. This is all fine. However, if we move the conversation into a discussion of "truths," such as which team is the best, then there are concrete measurements for such things which are absolute. The NY Giants recently defeated the New England Patriots in the Superbowl, thereby proving to the world that they are definably the best (much to my chagrin, I might add). There is only one "best," and in this example it is measurable and therefore absolute. In the same way, what is true in the world is absolute, and immovable and unyielding to anyone's opinion.   

11. You can afford something if you can afford the payments. This one was likely propagated by those who stand to gain from people requiring credit, however, the jig is up on this one too. People are awakening more and more to the enslaving dangers of credit for consumption.

12. You need two incomes to make it these days. It might feel like it, but this one isn't strictly true either. It's a matter of priorities. I know of couples who have cut back in ways many would find extreme just to make it on one income, thereby proving that it all comes down to the definition of "make it."  If "make it" means a consumptive, materialistic, "keeping up with the Jones's" lifestyle, then that's one thing. But if it means doing with less material trappings for the sake of other priorities, it can and is being done. (Nobody is saying it's easy, though.)  

13. Electing the right political party will make all the difference. During election season especially, we're sold this one as an absolute truth. "If only the blue team wins we'll be saved!" "No! If only the red team wins we'll be saved!" Hmmm. I wonder if there's a puppet master behind the scenes working hard to get us distracted by the show out front? Because we seem to get more of the same (at different rates of speed, perhaps) no matter which color gets elected.

14. The news reports the facts. If you've ever had occasion to be on the "inside" of a story and witness how things get distorted (not merely from bias, but even with honest mistakes, details lost in the translation, etc.) you know firsthand that you can't believe everything you read or hear. This one is not new. But yet, how many people leap to hysterics because they "heard it on (fill in the blank) that so-and-so said or did such-and-such?"

15. Television and movies are harmless entertainment. This may have been true at one time (maybe, a long long time ago when people moved in jerky motions and didn't speak on screen), but today's entertainment is an ongoing social indoctrination program. It shocks me how undiscerning many people can be when it comes to what they put in front of their (and, don't get me started, their children's) eyes and ears. Everything you watch, listen to, and take in has an effect.

I know what I am saying here is controversial. I could probably argue most of the above statements from both sides, and there are certainly exceptions and intelligent counterpoints to many of them. But the key is this: when a culture blindly adopts so many half, partial, or non-truths without any critical thinking or contrarian consideration, that culture is sick indeed. In fact, so infected, if left unchecked by independent thought, such a culture cannot long endure.

Sadly, this list is only a partial one. Can you think of other "truths" we swallow without hardly a contrary thought?

Why do you think critical, independent thinking is apparently so rare in the cases above? Or isn't it?

Sincerely,

Chris Brady

 

 

Either Control Technology or It Will Control You

In A Month of Italy: Rediscovering the Art of Vacation, I wrote about the accidental joy that resulted from poor Internet and cell phone connections. "Going dark" electronically was one of the biggest blessings of our "radical sabbatical." 

This topic seems to be gaining more and more momentum, as people everywhere are waking up to the danger of non-stop connection. Just because technology can do something doesn't necessarily mean it should - at least - not all the time.

In strategy + business, a recent article by professor Henry Mintzberg and Dean Peter Todd considers the concept from the perspective of effective management. One of the most poignant excerpts from the article is:

Indeed, managers who are in touch only through their keyboard are out of touch with the vast world beyond it. They risk substituting breadth for depth. Recent research shows that we may have more connections today, but fewer relationships.

Here is the article, with some questions for you below:

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The Offline Executive

A manager’s effectiveness depends not only on using e-mail and other electronic communication, but also on learning to shut it down.

by Henry Mintzberg and Peter Todd

Do you ever disconnect, even for just a few minutes? Think about the last time you used your “off button.” Was it at home over the weekend? On vacation? Or were you at the office? BlackBerrys, iPhones, Androids, iPads, and all their digital relatives are transforming our lives — for better and for worse. They are also changing the nature of how and when (and where) work gets done.

This new reality has profound implications for management, although studies on the topic have been surprisingly limited. We know that managers at all levels spend at least half their time collecting, receiving, and disseminating information. New technologies have extended the speed and breadth of this communication across vast distances. Yet studies going back a half century and more (long before e-mail) have made it clear that managing is characterized by high levels of variety, brevity, fragmentation, and, perhaps most significantly, interruption. Often to managers’ detriment, their attention is frequently diverted from one activity to another in their attempts to reconcile conflicting demands. The first of these studies, carried out by Sune Carlson and involving managing directors in Sweden in the late 1940s ― when the first computer was developed ― found that managers were inundated with reports. If they only knew what was to come.

Mobile computing seems to help managers cope with these distractions effectively. Smartphones, for instance, allow them to attend to the variety of demands on their time and leverage brief moments between interruptions to complete minor tasks. But new technologies can also have unintended negative and harassing effects; managers need to understand the dangers of an overreliance on electronic communication.

(Click here for the rest of the article).

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Thank you to strategy + business for contacting me with this article.

Readers:

Have you noticed an increase in electronic interruption in your life over the past ten years or so?

Do you notice an erosion of your creativity and clarity when inundated with electronic connections?

How do you control the "urgent" vs. the "important?"

Thanks for reading!

Sincerely,

Chris Brady

Device Addiction

I don't know if it's just my heightened awareness since releasing my latest book, A Month of Italy: Rediscovering the Art of Vacation, or if the world is also catching on, but it seems as if more and more people are talking about the need for restorative breaks. In the following article from the New York Times, even the executives responsible for producing and advancing the consuming technologies of our time are starting to ask the tough questions. 

Silicon Valley Says Step Away from the Device:

Tech firms are uneasy over the effect time online has on relationships.

By MATT RICHTEL

Published: July 23, 2012

Stuart Crabb, a director in the executive offices of Facebook, naturally likes to extol the extraordinary benefits of computers and smartphones. But like a growing number of technology leaders, he offers a warning: log off once in a while, and put them down.

Soren Gordhamer is the organizer of Wisdom 2.0, an annual conference about the pursuit of balance in the digital age.

In a place where technology is seen as an all-powerful answer, it is increasingly being seen as too powerful, even addictive.

The concern, voiced in conferences and in recent interviews with many top executives of technology companies, is that the lure of constant stimulation — the pervasive demand of pings, rings and updates — is creating a profound physical craving that can hurt productivity and personal interactions.

“If you put a frog in cold water and slowly turn up the heat, it’ll boil to death — it’s a nice analogy,” said Mr. Crabb, who oversees learning and development at Facebook. People “need to notice the effect that time online has on your performance and relationships.”

The insight may not sound revelatory to anyone who has joked about the “crackberry” lifestyle or followed the work of researchers who are exploring whether interactive technology has addictive properties.

But hearing it from leaders at many of Silicon Valley’s most influential companies, who profit from people spending more time online, can sound like auto executives selling muscle cars while warning about the dangers of fast acceleration.

“We’re done with this honeymoon phase and now we’re in this phase that says, ‘Wow, what have we done?’ ” said Soren Gordhamer, who organizes Wisdom 2.0, an annual conference he started in 2010 about the pursuit of balance in the digital age. “It doesn’t mean what we’ve done is bad. There’s no blame. But there is a turning of the page.”

At the Wisdom 2.0 conference in February, founders from Facebook, Twitter, eBay, Zynga and PayPal, and executives and managers from companies like Google, Microsoft, Cisco and others listened to or participated in conversations with experts in yoga and mindfulness. In at least one session, they debated whether technology firms had a responsibility to consider their collective power to lure consumers to games or activities that waste time or distract them.

The actual science of whether such games and apps are addictive is embryonic. But the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, widely viewed as the authority on mental illnesses, plans next year to include “Internet use disorder” in its appendix, an indication researchers believe something is going on but that requires further study to be deemed an official condition.

(For the rest of the article, click here).

What do you think?

Are people too connected to their electronic devices?

What impact, if any, do you think this is having on our society?

What have we gained?

What have we lost?

Sincerely,

Chris Brady

 

Passivity an Active Destroyer

There is a simple step people can take to radically improve their lives. Most, however, will not do it.

In almost two decades of working with people in personal development, I am continually amazed at the lack of proactive behavior exhibited by the "average" individual. Food is consumed almost absentmindedly, mass media programming (movies, television shows, satellite radio, etc.) is imbibed without even a thought (even when it comes to children). Video games are played incessantly. Days, weeks, and often years go by without any intentionality in family interaction. Scripture, worship, and prayer are, at best, reached for only in times of trouble. Relationships are used only for personal gratification and cause shock and surprise when strained and ruptured. And our political freedom is ignored to the point of neglect. 

I could go on.

The results of this passive attitude toward life and the living of it are enough to cause despair. Obesity is at an all-time high in the United States, television watching and Internet surfing are through the roof, video game addictions are a reality (especially among grown men!), family units are breaking down and disappearing, churches are either emptying or if full, often full of nothing, meaningful relationships have, to at least some degree, been relegated to "friends" on social networks, and our freedoms are slipping into the history books.

What lies behind all this?

Rampant passivity.

In my opinion, at least part of our sad state of affairs can be attributed to a habitually passive approach to life. The society in which we live seems to accept everything that comes along without scrutiny. Cries of warning are disregarded as prudish, old-fashioned, or simply no fun. But these cries have tremendous merit. We DO need to be vigilant. We DO need to be intentional about how we live our lives. We MUST be discerning when it comes to technology, media, food, relationships, worship, family, and our responsibilities as citizens. If we don't, we will necessarily and summarily suffer the consequences. If ideas have consequences, imagine what ignoring them produces!

Just how can we be more proactive in the living of our lives? How can we stem the tide of mediocrity and passivity that creeps in to destroy us? Here are some suggestions I hope you'll find useful:

1. Organize your categories - this means to give some thought to the many categories in which you live out your life (parent, spouse, child of God, professional, business owner, friend, physical being, political citizen, etc) and write them down.

2. Write down your overall aspiration, highest ideal, or purpose in each category. 

3. Next, write down what threatens your achievement of excellence in each category. These are things that are outwardly bad and should be avoided entirely. You might label this column "Overt Attacks."

4. Then, write down the distractions that are possible in each category. These are things that aren't bad in and of themselves, but have the capacity to subtract away from the things that are even better. This is where "good" is the enemy of "great." You might label this column "Covert Attacks."

5. List things about which you've been passive or undiscerning for each category in the past (in other words, when you've failed to produce excellence through pro-activity).

6. List what you could have done to prevent those instances.

7. Set a specific goal for each category.

8. Develop and write out a game plan for how to hit that goal in each category.

9. Put a date for checking up on your progress toward the goal.

10. Make adjustments as necessary.

11. Involve accountability partners and/or mentors towards those goals, as desired.

12. Bathe the whole process in prayer.

Passivity in our lives needs to be rooted out with aggressive pro-activity. Intentionally seeking excellence in every category of our lives may sound like a daunting task. However, clear thinking and intentionality are almost never daunting, instead, they are liberating. When we open our eyes to all we've been allowing to creep in unobserved, we will feel more alive, more in control, and more excited about the possibilities for excellence.

Do you agree or disagree that passivity is a problem in our culture?

What less-than-excellent things have you allowed to passively enter as "normal" into your life?

What victories have you had eliminating these things? 

Thanks for reading!

Sincerely,

Chris Brady

Others Rediscovering the Art of Vacation!

Since the release of my latest book, A Month of Italy: Rediscovering the Art of Vacation, I have received countless connections to others who are also touting the power of vacations. Here is an article that appeared on CNN. For those of you who have read the ITALY book, you will notice some similar points!

 

Relax, it's only a vacation 

Vacationing with no agenda -- for some travelers it's heaven, for others a week or more of unscheduled free time is like staring into an abyss. 

Planning for a vacation is usually part of the fun for me, but largely skipping the research and reviews on a recent trip to Costa Rica was surprisingly refreshing. 

Arriving without a bunch of expectations and a long list of things to see and do and accomplish wasn't entirely premeditated. I ran out of time, and since the friend I was traveling with is a native Spanish speaker, I felt great about being able to resolve those inevitable travel snafus. Also, we did book hotels a couple of weeks in advance. (I probably would have melted into a puddle of anxiety otherwise).

We did a lot -- zip lining, snorkeling, bird watching, tarantula spotting, sitting on the beach -- but without that gnawing sense of missing something really important. Ignorance might indeed be bliss. 

Have I been doing it wrong all this time? After the trip, I consulted a trio of sages -- a travel agent, a psychiatrist and a life coach -- to see what vacationing advice they'd offer to people who want to avoid going back to work dragging, desperate for another vacation.

Maybe you don't need three professional advisers to have a nice trip, but some Type A would-be vacationers could use a little help. You know who you are.

We asked: Your vacation planning tactics

Loosening up

"If your vacation causes you stress, it's not a vacation, it's a should, a to-do or an overachieving chore," said Laura Berman Fortgang, a career and life coach and author of "Living Your Best Life." 

Trying to squeeze too many activities into one trip with "no built-in time to chill" can be exhausting, especially when your trip lasts a week or less. (Ours was a weeklong trip and we visited three places. Overly ambitious?).

27 must-sees on earth

Consider this strategy, posted by enthusiastic planner Kris Stafira on CNN's Facebook page: "I usually do plan every minute of every day, but then our family sets our priorities and we make SURE we do those things -- the rest happens or not, depending on the day. I tell my kids they can relax at home -- vacation is for SEEING and DOING and LEARNING!" 

Right. But what if life at home is just as busy? 

Berman Fortgang recommends taking at least 10 to 14 consecutive days away, if at all possible, and building in time to do nothing.

"A week isn't a lot now. At the pace that we all go and the amount of adrenaline that we force our bodies to produce because we move so quickly -- your body doesn't really recover from that in a week," she said.

Berman Fortgang and her husband are self-employed and they shifted their family's schedules years ago to be able to take European-style, three to four week vacations in August. 

"Just knowing on that sixth night you didn't have to pack up to leave, then we started relaxing," she said.

Switching off from the 24/7 work ethic

Finding flexibility

From a psychological standpoint, vacation offers time to build resiliency, according to Dr. Gregory Fricchione, director of the Benson-Henry Institute of Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. 

The term, adopted from structural engineering, refers to the ability to bend or adapt, but not break, under pressure.

I employed a little of that when I figured out shortly after we got off the plane in San Jose that two of the three places we'd picked to visit were not in fact within day-trip distance of each other, but actually three hours apart by van and boat. (Everything looked really close on the map. This is where reading up and carefully mapping things out comes in handy.)

Strong connections with family and friends and meaningful and positive experiences bolster resiliency. Your stress response, an alert to threats that spurs you to action, is also a key component, Fricchione said.

The stress response is essential, but it burns a lot of energy, so avoiding stressors is part of what's restorative about vacation.

If you want a restful trip, ask yourself "what's a nonthreatening and socially supporting and meaningful and positive experience for me to have? And it would be different for different people," Fricchione said.

Sitting on the beach reading books is just the thing for some people. For people with highly active, risk-taking personalities that don't satisfy that side of themselves at work, an adventure trip can be very fulfilling. 

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with having a very busy vacation. Being outside your normal habitat has its own benefits.

"There is something rejuvenating about that in the sense that your mind is very alert, your senses are very alert," Fricchione said.

"If you enter into that experience and you're not exhausted at the beginning, it can be very energizing. It's a nice kind of stress, in a way, and you have enough resiliency to deal with it."

Fricchione suggests taking stock of how you feel and what would be restorative for you and planning your time off accordingly.

14 outstanding airport amenities

Listening to yourself

People who go for the trips they think they want instead of the type of experience they really want and need are the ones who come home needing another vacation, said travel agent Anne Morgan Scully, president of McCabe World Travel in McLean, Virginia. 

"The reality is a vacation should really be about you and what your body needs, what your mind needs, what your soul needs and what your heart needs, and that drives good vacation decisions," she said.

Scully asks her clients about their best trip ever and for two reasons why they loved it. She takes those and other responses and tailors a trip to suit everyone in the group.

"We try to put a balance in what they're asking for so if there are choices and options, something is going to work," she said.

(For the rest of this article on CNN, click here)

Sincerely,

Chris Brady

The Smart Phone Slouch

The world has changed a lot since I was a kid. Last evening three of my children and I stopped at a restaurant for a quick dinner. The place was an order-at-the-counter type, where you stand around waiting for your food for a few minutes before taking a seat at a table. During those brief moments I noticed a bizarre ritual performed by each and every successive patron who entered. It went like this:

1. enter restaurant and take a quick look at the queue

2. take place at back of line and dig smart phone out of pocket

3. assume the "smart phone slouch" (a position wherein the smart phone user curls spine forward and downward so he or she can peer at the little screen)

4. occasionally glance up at line and move into the empty space that was opened up because no one was paying attention

5. repeat

Man! How things have changed! When I was a kid, all those people would have been smoking!

"In Charge of the Game"

In today's political environment there seems to be two sides: 1) those who think the government can and should be in charge of solving our problems, and 2) those who think the government is evil and should be restrained. These are oversimplifications, to be sure, but I believe they at least come close to making a little sense of where people stand. 

Each of these viewpoints can easily run to extremes. Those of the first viewpoint can readily get caught up in theories of government that, in the past, have led to totalitarian states, oppression, and state-sponsored genocide. Those of the second viewpoint tend to take the form of "founding father worship," a condition whereby we deify the men who gave us America's founding documents as though they were infallible.

It is with this second viewpoint I wish to take momentary umbrage. For, although I believe America's founding to be a spectacularly singular event in the history of freedom, I do believe the founders were fallible, fallen human beings like the rest of us.

I also believe they made at least one huge error.

Lemmesplain.

Yesterday evening I was out with my family. Somehow, the topic of the game of Monopoly came up. Recently, my two youngest children, six and eight years old, have been completely enamored with this game. And boy, are they good at it! In one knock-down-drag-out-winner-take-all match, my six year old son cleaned my clock and left me destitute, all the while subsidizing his sister, who was not in much better shape than myself. I marvelled at their mathematical skills, their grasping of the concept of mortgages, and the agility with which they would quickly become real-estate tycoons. In yesterday's discussion, it came up that in a game between just the two of them things had progressed so far that they actually broke the bank.

"What do you mean?" I asked, smelling a rat.

"We made sooooo much money the bank ran out," answered the six-year-old with pride.

"Yeah, so we made more," chimed the eight-year-old with a freckled grin. 

"You did what?" I asked.

"We made more money."

"Just like that?"

"Yup. It was easy, actually."

Now I knew I was onto something, so I pressed further, asking, "Who gave you the authority to do it?"

They both shrugged their shoulders and answered, "We did."

"And why did you think it was ok to do?" I asked, going for the jugular.

"Because we were in charge of the game, silly!"

Out of the mouth of babes! You see, what my two cherubs had done was nothing more than the obvious - nothing more than governments have been prone to do any time and every time they find themselves in a similar jam, and, "being in charge of the game," who's to stop them?

The founding fathers put into documentary form many principles from the greatest minds of statehood from throughout history. They sought to chain the monster of government and make it subservient to the dictate of the people. Balances of powers, states' rights, a Bill of Rights, and the rule of law were enshrined in founding documents that began a great experiment in freedom unmatched in world history. However, they overlooked at least one enormous point: whoever controls the money controls the game. By assigning exclusive control of the money supply to the government alone, they dangled a carrot of irresistable size in front of the noses of power mongers and opportunists. It was only a matter of time before such a towering source of power would be abused. Without competition, due oversight, or powers of restraint provided to the people, the exclusive authority to control the money supply could eventually be the Achilles heel of the entire government.

Which brings us to today. Both sides of the political divide (the two viewpoints stated above) have found that once in office, the magic machine of money creation is easily at hand to enact their policies (no matter what their campaign rhetoric had been). The benefit is that the populace does not have to be asked, and no new taxes need be imposed. One political side promises more big government as the answer, and funds it with trillions of dollars created out of thin air. The other side yells and screams about the socialism of such programs, and then, once in office, reaches for the same easy-money spigot. The bottom line is this: when something as powerful as controlling the money supply is governed only by the false notion of self-restraint, there will be no restraint. 

"What happened next?" I asked my young Federal Reserve Chairmen.

"We made more, why?"

"Oh, just wondering," I said.

"But Dad," interrupted the eight-year-old, sharp enough to see where I was heading, "It didn't cause prices to go up!"

I was so proud of her, for she remembered the lesson of inflation I had tried to teach them a couple years ago. But she was also missing another aspect of the game.

"That's because the rents are fixed," I answered. "They are printed on each card and cannot change. If they weren't fixed, they would go up every time you expand the money supply." (Don't even get me started on the evils of price-fixing! That's another monster altogether!)

"I know, I know, Dad," she said with a coy smile, "But it's just a game!"

She was right, of course, and Dad didn't feel like infringing any further upon childhood joy with real life economics. But when it comes to real life, it is not just a game.

So what could the founders have done differently?

The concept is called "privatized money," which involves allowing the people themselves to come up with, distribute, and regulate their own money supply based upon open competition. There would be several at a time, all vying for our usage based upon merit alone. No authoritative government would be handing us one single choice and forcing us to accept it as "legal tender," all the while affecting its value with its hands on the levers behind the curtain. Privatization would be like choosing amongst Visa, MasterCard, and American Express based upon who we thought had the most stable, reliable, well-known, and dependable money. Perhaps each would offer a backing and redemption in gold. It is not such a crazy idea. Deregulation and free markets have vastly improved such things as airlines, telephones, and even postal service (Federal Express, Airborne, and others have carved a nice niche in the space around the government's strange monopoly on mail). Privatized money has been done many times in spotty moments throughout history, at points where governments hadn't yet confiscated control. It worked. Usually it went from chaos to consolidation among a handful of worthy competitors, just like most industries.

We don't need to debate the details, however, because it's unlikely to ever happen. Those in charge of the game will never give it up. Instead, they've got to work to keep us playing along.

"Hey, you just passed 'GO', collect your $200 and pay your rent."