Alex Trebek

LOS ANGELES >> Alex Trebek, who presided over the beloved quiz show “Jeopardy!” for more than 30 years with dapper charm and a touch of school-master strictness, died today. He was 80.

Trebek, who announced in 2019 that he had advanced pancreatic cancer, died at his California home, surrounded by family and friends, “Jeopardy!” studio Sony said.

The Canadian-born host, who made a point of informing fans about his health directly, spoke in a calm, even tone as he revealed his illness and hope for a cure in a video posted March 6, 2019.

In the video, Trebek said he was joining the 50,000 other Americans who receive such a diagnosis each year and that he recognized that the prognosis was not encouraging.

But Trebek said he intended to fight it and keep working, even joking that he needed to beat the disease because his “Jeopardy!” contract ran for three more years. Less than a week later, he opened the show with a message acknowledging the outpouring of kind words and prayers he’d received.

“Thanks to the — believe it or not — hundreds of thousands of people who have sent in tweets, texts, emails, cards and letters wishing me well,” Trebek said. “I’m a lucky guy.”

“Jeopardy!” bills itself as “America’s favorite quiz show” and captivated the public with a unique format in which contestants were told the answers and had to provide the questions on a variety of subjects, including movies, politics, history and popular culture.

They would answer by saying “What is … ?” or “Who is …. ?”

Trebek, who became its host in 1984, was a master of the format, engaging in friendly banter with contestants, appearing genuinely pleased when they answered correctly and, at the same time, moving the game along in a brisk no-nonsense fashion whenever people struggled for answers.

He never pretended to know the answers himself if he really didn’t, deferring to the show’s experts to decide whether a somewhat vague answer had come close enough to be counted as correct.

“I try not to take myself too seriously,” he told an interviewer in 2004. “I don’t want to come off as a pompous ass and indicate that I know everything when I don’t.”

The show was the brainstorm of Juann Griffin, wife of the late talk show host-entrepreneur Merv Griffin, who said she suggested to him one day that he create a game show where people were given the answers.

“Jeopardy!” debuted on NBC in 1964 with Art Fleming as emcee and was an immediate hit. It lasted until 1975, then was revived in syndication with Trebek.

Long identified by a full head of hair and trim mustache (though in 2001 he startled viewers by shaving his mustache, “completely on a whim”), Trebek was more than qualified for the job, having started his game show career on “Reach for the Top” in his native country.

Moving to the U.S. in 1973, he appeared on “The Wizard of Odds,” “High Rollers,” “The $128,000 Question” and “Double Dare.” Even during his run on “Jeopardy!”, Trebek worked on other shows. In the early 1990s, he was the host of three — “Jeopardy!”, “To Tell the Truth” and “Classic Concentration.”

“Jeopardy!” made him famous. He won five Emmys as its host, and received stars on both the Hollywood and Canadian walks of fame. In 2012, the show won a prestigious Peabody Award.

He taped his daily “Jeopardy!” shows at a frenetic pace, recording as many as 10 episodes (two weeks’ worth) in just two days. After what was described as a mild heart attack in 2007, he was back at work in just a month.

He posted a video in January 2018 announcing he’d undergone surgery for blood clots on the brain that followed a fall he’d taken. The show was on hiatus during his recovery.

It had yet to bring in a substitute host for Trebek — save once, when he and “Wheel of Fortune” host Pat Sajak swapped their TV jobs as an April’s Fool prank.

In 2012, Trebek acknowledged that he was considering retirement, but had been urged by friends to stay on so he could reach 30 years on the show. He still loved the job, he declared: “What’s not to love? You have the security of a familiar environment, a familiar format, but you have the excitement of new clues and new contestants on every program. You can’t beat that!”

Although many viewers considered him one of the key reasons for the show’s success, Trebek himself insisted he was only there to keep things moving.

“I’m introduced as the host of ‘Jeopardy!,’ not the star,” he said in a 2012 interview. “My job is to provide the atmosphere and assistance to the contestants to get them to perform at their very best,” he explained. “And if I’m successful doing that, I will be perceived as a nice guy and the audience will think of me as being a bit of a star.”

7 Books that Will Change How You See The World

Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert

On The Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche

Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder by Nassim Taleb

The True Believer by Eric Hoffer

Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud

The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil

The Denial of Death by Ernest Becke

-- by Mark Mason

[OK, seven more to go...]

Sean Connery

(CNN) Sean Connery, the Scottish actor whose five-decade-long movie career was dominated by the role of James Bond, has died at the age of 90, according to his publicist.

The actor "died peacefully in his sleep," publicist Nancy Seltzer said in a statement Saturday.

"His wife Micheline and his two sons, Jason and Stephane have confirmed that he died peacefully in his sleep surrounded by family. There will be a private ceremony followed by a memorial yet to be planned once the virus has ended," the statement said.

Connery, who was awarded a knighthood in 2000 for his contribution to the arts, played the British spy in seven movies, beginning with "Dr. No" in 1962, the first of the Bond movies.

He wasn't just Bond, of course. Connery starred in an Alfred Hitchcock film, 1964's "Marnie," opposite Tippi Hedren; was part of the all-star cast in 1974's "Murder on the Orient Express"; played Indiana Jones' father, in 1989's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"; and won an Academy Award for best supporting actor for his performance as Chicago cop Jim Malone in the 1987 film "The Untouchables."

But like so many characters in the Bond films, he could never quite escape 007. He gave up the role twice before finally ending his involvement with 1983's puckishly titled "Never Say Never Again."

James Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli said they were "devastated" by the news of Connery's death in a statement posted to the official 007 Twitter account.

"He was and shall always be remembered as the original James Bond whose indelible entrance into cinema history began when he announced those unforgettable words "The name's Bond... James Bond" -- he revolutionized the world with his gritty and witty portrayal of the sexy and charismatic secret agent," the producers said.

"He is undoubtedly largely responsible for the success of the film series and we shall be forever grateful to him."

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she was "heartbroken" to hear of Connery's death.

"Our nation today mourns one of her best loved sons," she said in a statement. "Sean was born into a working class Edinburgh family and through talent and sheer hard work, became a film icon and one of the world's most accomplished actors."

Sturgeon also paid tribute to Connery as "a patriotic and proud Scot," saying it was a privilege to have known him. "He was a lifelong advocate of an independent Scotland and those of us who share that belief owe him a great debt of gratitude," she said.

Actor Daniel Craig, the most recent Bond, said Connery had "defined an era and a style" and was one of cinema's true greats.

"The wit and charm he portrayed on screen could be measured in mega watts; he helped create the modern blockbuster. He will continue to influence actors and film-makers alike for years to come," said Craig in a statement shared by the official 007 Twitter account.

Actor Hugh Jackman tweeted: "I grew up idolizing #SeanConnery. A legend on screen, and off. Rest In Peace."

Britain's Pinewood Studios, where the Bond films are filmed, tweeted: "Memories of this outstanding actor and his unforgettable embodiment of superspy James Bond will forever be cherished at Pinewood."

Friends of the Library online

Foodies and home cooks can have a field day perusing the online catalog of cookbooks available from Friends of the Library of Hawaii, not just for recipes but nostalgic glimpses into different circles of community life.

It seems every group in Hawaii, from the Koko Head Elementary School A+ program to the Junior League to the Honpa Hongwanji Hawaii Betsuin has put out a cookbook at one time or another.

“The local cookbooks sell very quickly,” said executive director Nainoa Mau. “People are looking for family recipes.”

These community cookbooks usually are published in small quantities by churches, clubs and organizations, which make them hard to find. Most are inexpensively bound with plastic spines and covers, illustrated by hand, and average just $3 to $5. In fact, everything for sale by the Friends goes for a mere fraction of the cover price, and less than at other second-hand sources.

Normally, most of these books would find new homes through the Friends’ annual book sale, a colossal fundraiser usually held over 11 days in June at McKinley High School. The sale was canceled this year due to COVID-19. That means 150,000 items (including CDs and vinyl records) are still taking up space at the Friends’ Halawa warehouse.

But the books are all still available to the public via the nonprofit’s website, he said. More than 26,000 titles of all genres have been uploaded to the site, with lots more added every day.

“We have tons of great stuff here,” said Mau, standing among rows of shelves and boxes of books piled halfway to the ceiling at the warehouse. And frankly, he and his volunteers are getting a bit anxious. “We’re packed to the gills,” and every day more book donations pile up.

They need to move a lot of merchandise, or he and his staff of volunteers soon won’t be able to walk in between the rows.

Cookbooks in general are the most popular of all genres with 10 categories, from Asian to holiday, from baking and desserts to beverages.

“There was panic in the beginning,” Pat Oshiro, a four-year volunteer, said. People were coming every 15 minutes for weeks to drop off books after the first stay-at-home order ended in June. The warehouse was closed during that shutdown, a period many people seem to have spent culling their bookshelves. “All the cleaning they did came over here!” Oshiro said.

Mau’s 75 regular volunteer helpers are trying to sort, price and post books online, and get them ready for pickup as fast as possible. “The volunteers are so amazing, so dedicated,” he said. “Some come daily.”

Yet only 10 volunteers, about half the usual number, are allowed into the warehouse at a time, due to coronavirus precautions. “It’s like operating an Amazon with manual labor,” he joked, with Oshiro adding, “No robots.”

Oshiro, a retired social worker and administrator, said she’s loved going to the library since she was a kid on Molokai, so she revels in being surrounded by books three days a week.

Although her favorite books are mysteries, she’s been in charge of the cookbook section the last three years. Still, if a book with an unusual title or subject catches her eye, she’ll take a few minutes to thumb through it.

“I also like looking at recipes and cookbooks for different cultures and will sometimes make something inspired by a new discovery,” she added.

“At the big book sales, I saw many people crowded around the local cookbook section looking at the recipes, page by page. Some are excited when they see these books and will buy five to 10 of these books.” Oshiro said.

Very popular are collections issued by the Honpa Hongwanji and major organizations like Aloha Airlines and Hawaiian Electric. While there are plenty of books by well-known chefs and food columnists, selections also include small publications like the “Noelani Class of 1991 Cookbook” or the “Unbearably Good! Mochi Lovers’ Cookbook” from 1999.

“Cooking with Sadie and Friends,” by the Hawaii Canines for Independence from 2007, is a typical conglomeration of favorite recipes with local, mainland, multi-ethnic influences, including dishes (for humans) like Makena Hash Browns, Peggy’s Party Punch, Fast-Kine Chinese Chicken Salad and Mike’s Leg of Lamb. And (surprise!) it also includes a recipe for dog treats.

Vintage treasures include the “Hawaiian Cook Book” by Helen Alexander, published in 1938, although that sold quickly, even at a higher price of $9. It offered recipes for haupia, smoked fish and breadfruit poi, with black-and-white illustrations.

Mau said the books for sale online are all in acceptable, if not good, condition.

“The funds we raise support all 51 public libraries and their programming,” Mau said of his 140-year-old nonprofit. It pays for librarian training, technical upgrades and offerings such as author presentations and the Summer Reading Program.

But the Friends’ revenue has been severely reduced with the cancellation of the McKinley book sale, its biggest fundraiser, and two other regular sales, in November and January, are also unlikely to be held.

Still, the Friends’ are scheduled to move into a bigger warehouse in Iwilei by the end of the year. Mau is looking forward to having more space in the 11,750- square-foot building (the Halawa site has just under 8,000 square feet). The new location next to the Iwilei Costco will be much more convenient for donors to drop off books, pick up orders and for Friends volunteers to commute, he added.

Rare deals

Since 2012 Friends of the Library has opened some of its inventory to global access via Amazon.com, selling about 3,000 books through the online retailer so far.

The Friends earn about 70% of all sales.

To browse these titles, go to 808ne.ws/librarybooks (some of the prices might surprise you).

A sample of what’s available now:

>> “Hinode Rice Cookbook,” published for Territorial Savings’ 70th anniversary in 1992, going for $39.50

>> “The When You Live in Hawaii You Get Very Creative During Passover Cookbook,” released by Congregation Sof Ma’arav in 1989, $65

>> “Cooking With Hari and Muriel,” from 1994, by Hari Kojima and Muriel Miura, $34

FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY

>> Warehouse: 99-1132 Iwaena St.; 536-4174

>> Online sales: Visit friendsofthelibraryofhawaii.org; click on “Online Bookstore.” Curbside pickup.

>> To donate books: Call for an appointment. Books are accepted from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays.

>> Also: Manoa Public Library holds pickups and dropoffs on Thursdays.

what makes men happy?

[no it's not that]

What makes men happy?

To answer this question, the men’s grooming company Harry’s partnered with University College London psychologist John Barry, co-founder of the male psychology section of the British Psychological Society, to conduct one of the most comprehensive studies of American masculinity on record.

The 2018 Harry’s Masculinity Report, as it’s titled, surveyed 5,000 men ages 18-95 across the US, weighted for race, income, education, sexual orientation, military service, and more. The respondents were asked about their happiness, confidence, emotional stability, motivation, optimism, and sense of being in control. They were then asked how satisfied they are with their careers, relationships, money, work-life balance, physicality, and mental health, and also about the values that matter most to them.

The results showed an clear trend: The strongest predictor of men’s happiness and well-being is their job satisfaction, by a large margin—and the strongest predictor of job satisfaction is whether men feel they are making an impact on their companies’ success.                  

watching the news may be hazardous to your health

Of the many ideas from Eastern religion and philosophy that have permeated Western thinking, the second “noble truth” of Buddhism arguably shines the greatest light on our happiness—or lack thereof. Samudaya, as this truth is also known, teaches that attachment is the root of human suffering. To find peace in life, we must be willing to detach ourselves and thus become free of sticky cravings.

This requires that we honestly examine our attachments. What are yours? Money, power, pleasure, prestige? Dig deeper: Just maybe, they are your opinions. The Buddha himself named this attachment and its terrible effects more than 2,400 years ago in the Aṭṭhakavagga Sutta, when he is believed to have said, “Those attached to perception and views roam the world offending people.” More recently, the Vietnamese Buddhist sage Thích Nhất Hạnh wrote in his book Being Peace, “Humankind suffers very much from attachment to views.”

As the election season heats up, many Americans are attached to their opinions—especially their political ones—as if they were their life’s savings; they obsess over their beliefs like lonely misers, and lash out angrily when they are threatened. This is the source of much suffering, for the politically obsessed and everyone else.

Fortunately, there are solutions.

Little research has been conducted on the direct links between happiness and one’s attention to politics. The indirect evidence, however, is not encouraging. For example, Dutch researchers in 2017 conducted a study on how hard news that tends to provide a political perspective affects well-being. They found that on average, well-being falls 6.1 percent for every additional television hard news program watched a week. They explained this by noting the dominance of negative stories on such programs, and the powerlessness viewers might feel in the face of all that bad news. It’s difficult to imagine that stories about political news in America would have any less of a negative impact—especially given how fraught and contentious United States politics is now.

[Read: Jonathan Haidt is trying to heal America’s divisions]

In an attempt to see more clearly how attention to politics is directly associated with life satisfaction, I conducted an analysis using 2014 data from the General Social Survey. After controlling for household income, education, age, gender, race, marital status, and political views, I found that people who were “very interested in politics” were about 8 percentage points more likely to be “not very happy” about life than people who were “not very interested” in politics.

The Dutch researchers’ point about negativity and powerlessness might play a role here, but something even more important might be happening. I believe that today’s partisan climate, media polarization, and constant political debates are interfering directly with the fuel of happiness, which is love.

To begin with, our growing focus on politics is driving what social scientists call “political homophily,” which means assortative mating by political viewpoint. Scholars studying online dating profiles find that political views are comparable in importance to education levels in choosing one’s romantic partner. Presumably, this reflects a growing belief that people’s votes are a proxy for their character and morals. Right or wrong, this is a joy killer: If politics is so important as to preclude romantic love where it otherwise might have blossomed, happiness will fall as a result.

Parents might also contribute to this amorous sorting. Three decades ago, when I was on a path to marriage, I don’t remember my mom and dad asking about my future wife’s political views. And traditionally, that wasn’t too important for most parents in America. In 1958, according to a Gallup Poll, 33 percent of parents who were Democrats wanted their daughters to marry a Democrat; 25 percent of Republican parents wanted their daughters to marry a Republican. Not so in recent years: Those numbers were 60 and 63 percent, respectively, in 2016. I suspect they are even higher in 2020.

Friendships and family ties are compromised by political disagreements as well. Polling data have shown that about one in six Americans stopped talking to a friend or family member because of the 2016 election. No doubt these were mostly cases where friends and family disagree. But even when people agree politically, expressing intense views, or going on and on about politics, harms relationships. A 2018 data analysis in the journal Political Opinion Quarterly revealed that “even strong partisans dislike too much political discussion—even agreeable discussion.”

And beware especially of in-laws: To quote the researchers, “many people do not want their child to marry someone from their own party if that hypothetical in-law were to discuss politics frequently.” In other words, these days you need to have the right politics for your beloved’s folks, but you can’t be too intense about it. It’s a bit of a high-wire act.

The research doesn’t reveal precisely why we tend to dislike overly political people, but it doesn’t take too much imagination to guess that constant foam-flecked political outrage makes one quite tedious. It also impedes our ability to think clearly: At least one experiment has shown that people become less accurate in interpreting data when the data concern something politically polarizing. And lest you think you are immune to this bias if you are sophisticated with data, the research shows that highly numerate people are the most likely to contort the numbers to fit their views.

Finally, retreating too far into one’s own political bubble makes one more ignorant of the world. A 2012 survey conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University asked a sample of Americans about their news-consumption habits, and quizzed them about U.S. and international political and economic events. They found that those watching the most partisan television news sources—on both the left and the right—were often less knowledgeable about world events than those who consumed no news at all.

Read: Do you speak Fox?

This rings starkly true to me. Whether partisan news sources can misinform us or not, they shrink our world. By engorging the political, they crowd out nearly everything else; they create a kind of tunnel vision that makes it easy to equate “news” with “politics” and pay little attention to what’s happening in other realms. And thus we become more boring.

In sum, if you spend the election season glued to your favorite partisan news outlet, read and share political outrage on social media, and use every opportunity to fulminate about politics, you might become less happy, less well-liked, less accurate, and less informed.

I am not advocating for everyone to stop paying attention to politics, of course. Good citizens are attentive and active in the political process. However, for quality of life’s sake—yours and others’—you would do well to put boundaries around the time and emotional energy you devote to politics this fall. To this end, I have three suggestions.

1. Get involved instead of complaining.

Earlier this year, the political scientist Eitan Hersh argued in The Atlantic that highly educated people who consume a ton of political news are making true progress harder in this country. Their appetite for constant indignation fuels an outrage-industrial complex in media and politics, and likely makes compromise harder.

“What they are doing is no closer to engaging in politics than watching SportsCenter is to playing football,” Hersh wrote. He recommends active, local citizenship: getting involved in your community and working with others to push for positive change instead of just watching cable TV and ranting about it. Hersh recommends this for the good of the country; I recommend it for the good of your mental health and relationships.

2. Ration your consumption of politics and limit the time you spend discussing it.

A key characteristic of addictive behavior is the displacement of human relationships by the object of addiction. A good way to gauge whether you have a problem is to ask: Is this activity a complement to my relationships, or a substitute? In the case of politics, for many people, an honest answer would clearly be the latter; hence the willingness to damage friendships and romances.

The solution is to ration your consumption of politics, and set proper boundaries around where you talk about it. I recommend limiting the consumption of all news—not just politics—to 30 minutes a day, unless news is your vocation. Much more than that and you might just be upsetting, rather than informing, yourself, or at least becoming one of Hersh’s “hobbyists.” Further, resolve to avoid political discussions during most nonpolitical occasions. It may be hard at first, but I’d wager that eventually you will savor the respite, especially during election season, when politics is everywhere.

3. Turn off ultra-partisan news sources, especially on your own side.

In 2017, the website The Onion introduced a satirical current-events talk show called You’re Right. In it, the host feeds viewers their own beliefs and biases, assuring them that they are right and that those who disagree are stupid and evil.

It’s a parody, of course, but it captures a real reason why people often turn to partisan news sources: It brings emotional satisfaction to hear experts and famous people saying things you agree with, and denouncing those with whom you disagree. But this has deleterious effects on your relationships, and leaves you poorly informed. Once you step away for a while, you’ll most likely start to realize how much of your energy it was consuming, and how much better you feel without these influences.

The fall is going to be rough, politically. The election will be brutal and bitter; there’s no way to avoid this. But Americans have to decide whether we want our own lives to be brutal and bitter as well. Each of us has political views, many of them strongly held. Each of us is convinced that we are right—and some of us might well be. But if we let these views dominate our thoughts, our time, and our conversations, they will harm our relationships and happiness. We can be happier if, sometimes, we follow the Buddha and just let our opinions go.

Especially with the in-laws.

Arthur C. Brooks is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, a professor of the practice of public leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, a senior fellow at the Harvard Business School, and host of the podcast The Art of Happiness With Arthur Brooks.

Warrior

Bruce Lee fans might be interested in watching Warrior: Inside the Series (8 episodes) which features Shannon Lee presenting a lot of background information on her father.

Warrior is a Cinemax series based on Bruce Lee's writings.  Kind of a TV-MA rated version of Kung Fu (the TV series starring David Carradine).

You can currently watch season 1 of Warrior for free on the Roku channel.  (Season 2 started on October 2, 2020.)

cruel and unusual

Three former jail employees in Oklahoma are facing criminal charges after they forced inmates to listen repeatedly to “Baby Shark,” the wildly popular song beloved by children and despised by parents around the globe, according to court records.

Christian Miles and Gregory Butler, both 21 and former Oklahoma County Jail detention officers, as well as their former supervisor, Christopher Hendershott, 50, were charged on Monday with cruelty to prisoners, corporal punishment to an inmate and conspiracy, Oklahoma County District Court records show.

On at least five occasions in November and December involving five inmates, each separately, Mr. Miles and Mr. Butler placed the inmate into an empty attorney visitation room, according to affidavits. The two then handcuffed the inmate against the wall, forcing him to stand for as long as two hours, an internal investigation preceding the charges found.

“Baby Shark” was played on repeat, through a computer, while the inmate was forced to listen to it.

Oklahoma City attorney Casey Davis compared the allegations to Guantanamo Bay torture tactics.

The 27 Best Decluttering Tips of All Time

Decluttering is just editing your home. And since your home story is always being written, decluttering is a never-ending task.

The reward—and the reason that keeps me going when decluttering seems like an overwhelming task—is that at the end, your home will contain only the things that serve you. You’ll be surrounded by things that make you happy. Because just like editing, once the extra, unnecessary stuff is deleted, only the best is left.

“Keep what you need and what makes you happy” is enough of a north star for some people. But many of us need a little extra guidance to help decide what’s worth keeping. These 27 time-tested decluttering tips can help.

1. Don’t treat your home like a storage unit.

Keeping something because you might need it someday is like paying mortgage to a storage company—and it comes at the expense of living in an empty, breathable space. So think twice about hanging on to the curtain rods or the six old cell phones. 

2. Realize that what you keep costs you a lot.

Many times, you’re tempted to hang on to things because you feel like it’s a waste of money if you should ever have to buy them again. But there’s a cost to keeping something. You need to think about where to store it, give up the actual storage space, or take up precious empty space. Then you’ll need to spend time organizing it and then remembering where you put if and when you need it, and then putting it away, organizing it again when it gets messy, and well…. you get the picture. Is that item really worth the time and effort it’s going to take to keep it?

3. Give yourself permission to buy again.

Since the thought of having to part with money down the road is painful, you may choose to keep many things that you may not otherwise. But the simple but powerful conscious act of giving yourself permission to buy again down the road (with the knowledge that you’re gaining so much now by letting go) will help you get so many more things out of your home. 

4. Touch it once.

So much clutter comes from holding on to things that need action. Keeping the “touch it once” principle at the forefront of your mind will help you build smart practices. For example, standing by the recycling bin with your handful of mail as you sort it and signing those permission slips as soon as they come. This cuts down drastically on paper clutter, take-it-upstairs clutter, and more. 

5. Ask yourself if it’s “the best, the favorite, or necessary.”

This decluttering mantra coined by Emily Ley helps you narrow down your possessions to the cream of the crop. If you’re looking at an overly large collection of mixing bowls, for instance, narrow it down to the best ones. A kitchen towel collection can similarly be whittled down by choosing to keep only the favorites.

6. Ask yourself if it’s useful or beautiful.

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” Adhering to this famous saying attributed to William Morris is a good way to avoid accumulating excess.

7. Ask yourself if it sparks joy.

Marie Kondo has become a cultural standard-bearer of a movement to declutter and minimize. Her famous shtick is having people ask themselves if each and every single belonging in their possession sparks joy. It works for some (including me), and if it works for you, it’s a galvanizing way to let go of so many things.

8. Recognize that the important part of a gift is the act of giving and receiving.

It’s so hard to get rid of gifts. You appreciate the thoughtfulness shown in getting and giving you something and you wouldn’t want to dishonor that in any way. But if the gift itself is something you don’t need or enjoy, it’s okay to let it go, guilt-free. The transaction of love and care—what makes the gift meaningful—has been taken to heart.

9. Keep a box in your closet.

This super simple trick is disproportionately powerful. The idea is that every time you put something on and don’t feel good in it, you toss it in the box. It’s an in-the-moment, painless way to declutter your wardrobe.

10. Practice one-in-one-out.

Promise yourself that with each new thing that comes into your house to stay, you’ll get rid of one other thing. It helps keeps your storage-math straight: You shouldn’t accumulate one single “extra” thing if you truly stick to this rule. Having a designated “outbox” for the items you’ll donate or give away (as opposed to just toss), helps you keep the habit.

11. Use the 90/90 rule.

The Minimalists’ 90/90 rule has you ask yourself if you’ve used the item in the last 90 days and if you will use it in the 90 days to come. If the answer is to both is no, out it goes. The actual time of 90 days is flexible, and you can adjust it to whatever suits your lifestyle, but the framework helps you decide whether an item is as necessary as you might think.

12. Use washi tape to declutter your kitchen.

To decide what’s worth keeping in the kitchen, set a designated length of time, such as six months or a year, to give you a chance to see what tools you actually use. You’ll know which items pass the test by sticking a piece of washi tape or masking tape to each thing at the start of your experiment. When you use the tool, peel the tape off. At the end of the time, get rid of any unused thing that still has tape on it.

13. Declutter by area.

Looking at one freshly cleaned-out space might inspire you to declutter the rest of your home, too. So keep the momentum going by decluttering deeply in small areas, instead of decluttering a little at a time all across your home—because at the end of the latter, you have a full bag of donations, but no specific peacefully-decluttered space to point to. For instance, you could decide to declutter—all the way—the junk drawer or a particular cabinet in the kitchen.

14. Go on a decluttering binge.

On the other hand, an empty garbage bag or donation box might be just the thing to spring you into action. If the idea of filling it with things you no longer need inspires you, get to work. Don’t forget to put it in your car to get it completely out of your house.

15. Employ the “Ex Test.”

This mind trick helps you evaluate how important something really is to you and it goes like this: Would you contact a detested ex (romantic or otherwise) to get the item back? If not, then it can’t be that important. Say goodbye.

16. Ask yourself if you’d buy it now.

Asking yourself, “If I were shopping now, would I buy this?” is so useful. It will help you cull your collection of things down to only what’s serving you in your present life. The question will help you shed clothing that’s no longer “you,” no longer fits you, “useful” items that are not part of your current life, and broken things that—be honest—you are never going to fix.

17. Try the hanger trick.

This decluttering hack is similar to the washi tape one, only this time you’re turning hangers around in your closet. Commit to a specific period of time, say three months, and get rid of anything you haven’t reached for and worn within that time span. You won’t have to think and remember, because you have the hanger trick: If all your hangers hook over the bar right now, flip the hanger so it hooks from behind when you hang every worn-it-already garment back up. At the end of your time period, donate what hasn’t been turned around.

18. Shop for others.

Rather than approaching decluttering with the mindset of finding things to get rid of, consider instead what you could part with—books, clothes, craft supplies—so that others can have it. This takes the sting out of parting with items and the fresh tactic could renew your efforts to lighten your own load.

19. Pretend you’re moving.

This one’s a mental exercise: Pretend you’re moving from one apartment to another, and you need to pack everything up, pay to have it moved, and then unpack it. Use this mental framework to scan your closets and storage spaces—if you see an item that you wouldn’t go to all that effort to keep, get rid of it right now.

20. Paper stacks begone with a three-pronged approach.

To work through paper clutter, create three options for each paper you handle: shred, file, recycle. By confining your options, you force yourself to actually deal with the paper piles you’ve been avoiding. “File” includes storing digitally.

21. Try the 10 percent method.

The 10 percent method works especially well for those who have a hard time letting go of what they own. The key to the method is being able to see everything that belongs to a certain group of items. For instance, your shoes. Pull them all out and into one space and then make it a goal to reduce the total number by 10 percent.

22. Do a little bit at a time.

“Little bit” can vary, but the idea is that you put a parameter on your time and energy. You can do this by designating a certain area you’ll work through start-to-finish (as long as it’s not a huge one) or by pre-determining a set amount of time. This way you won’t sabotage your big-picture decluttering efforts by burning yourself out before you really even get going.

23. Remember what you gain by letting go.

Decluttering opens the door for some pretty great things. You gain space, time, and energy, among other things. Keep your eye on the prize and use the motivation to redouble your decluttering verve.

24. Limit yourself.

One way to decide how much to keep and how much to set free is by setting a limit on how much space you’ll take up with that one category of items. For instance, if your collection of t-shirts is spilling out of the two drawer dividers you designated for them, pare down.

25. Don’t buy containers or organizers until you purge.

Buying baskets and bins and dividers is my favorite part, too, but if you have these around before you declutter, you risk organizing stuff you don’t need and that’s risky. Purge before you splurge and then get exactly and only what you need to organize what’s left.

26. You won’t start liking something you never liked.

You might have perfectly useful hand-me-down lamps stuffed in your closet because it feels wasteful to get rid of them, but you don’t really want to use them in your own home. The solution is simple: Out they go. You aren’t going to suddenly start liking them. But someone somewhere out there will.

27. These two common pitfalls aren’t reasons to keep things.

Having something for a long time or something being valuable does not mean that you have to keep it. The same criteria (useful, beautiful, joy, etc.) apply just as much to these types of items as to anything else.

Shifrah Combiths has been writing professionally for twenty years. She loves lifestyle photography, memory keeping, gardening, reading, and going to the beach with her husband and children.

This post originally appeared on Apartment Therapy and was published June 14, 2020.

50 Habits

here are 50 important habits linked to a longer life that you should consider adopting

3. Watching funny movies

It's true what they say: Laughter really is the best medicine. In fact, according to one revered 2003 study published in Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, laughing decreases stress-related hormone levels in the body, plus increases the number of immunity-boosting activated T cells and natural killer cells needed to fight diseases and infections.

12. Brushing and flossing

Brushing and flossing at least twice a day isn't just a crucial habit for visibly pearly whites. According to a 2013 study published in the Journal of Dental Sciences, poor oral hygiene can have a negative impact on all aspects of your health—and in some instances, it can result in a heightened risk of heart disease and stroke. To ensure that you live as long as possible, listen to your dentist and keep your teeth in tip-top shape.

18. Owning a pet

Unfortunately, with age often comes a slow but steady decline in the function of the heart, easily one of the most important organs in the body. So, if you want to ensure that your ticker stays in tip-top shape, consider adopting a pet. Why? According to one 2013 study published in the journal Circulation, owning a pet can reduce your heart disease risk and, should you get heart disease, a pet can increase your chances of survival.

26. And being more positive in general

A good attitude does more than just brighten your day. According to Harvard Medical School, a series of studies confirmed that being a "glass-half-full" kind of person is associated with increased longevity. In fact, a 1999 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine revealed that optimistic patients who had undergone coronary artery bypass were half as likely to require re-hospitalization within the following six months as pessimistic patients.

38. Living in an area populated by birds

Birds? Why birds? Well, according to a 2017 study published in the journal BioScience, people who live in areas with many a bird, shrub, and tree are less likely to be stressed, depressed, and anxious. It might sound strange, but it's true: The study subjects' depression levels were inversely correlated to the number of birds they could see in the afternoon. Since depression has been found to increase a person's risk of early death, it would be wise to move to an area full of birds ASAP.

41. Taking short naps

Why should children be the only ones who get to enjoy nap time? After all, it could very easily be argued that adults are the ones who actually need naps. Not only are naps restorative, but one oft-cited 2007 study of 24,000 subjects published in The Archives of Internal Medicine found that just three 30-minute naps per week reduced the risk of heart-related death by 37 percent.

47. Balancing on one leg while you brush your teeth

We know it sounds silly, but a 2012 study published in the American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation found that increased flexibility can lead to a longer life. So, if you want to keep your balance in good standing (pun intended) before it starts to fade, then the Cleveland Clinic recommends standing on each leg for 10 seconds at a time while you brush your teeth. This easy exercise will train your neuromotors, which assist in balance, agility, and movement. Sure, you might look a little bit strange doing it, but looking weird is a small price to pay for a long life.

48. Hanging out with friends and family

Don't underestimate the power of a beautiful bond. In the Harvard Study of Adult Development, researchers found that the strength of people's relationships was a better indication of how well they'd age than their cholesterol levels.

"Taking care of your body is important, but tending to your relationships is a form of self-care too," study director Robert Waldinger said in a press release. "That, I think, is the revelation."

50. Believing in yourself

Having a healthful and happy life really is as simple as believing that you deserve to. When Australian researchers analyzed data from 757 patients in their 2001 study, they found that individuals with positive self-esteem had greater qualities of life and greater overall feelings of happiness.

Regis

Regis Philbin, the boisterous television personality who gained a devoted following on his long-running morning show and helped reinvigorate the prime-time game show genre as host of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” died July 24 at 88.

The family confirmed the death in a statement released by a personal representative, Lewis Kay. Further details were not immediately available.

Mr. Philbin’s trademark blend of enthusiasm, quick wit and excitability made him a popular television host for more than six decades.

Initially a page on “The Tonight Show” hosted by Steve Allen, he became one of the most seasoned performers on live television. He was an actor, a singer and nightclub comedian before emerging to greater prominence in the late ’60s as second-banana to entertainer Joey Bishop on an ABC late-night talk show that tried to challenge Johnny Carson’s ratings dominance on NBC.

Mr. Philbin spent many years hosting a morning show in Los Angeles before he returned to his native New York in 1983 to take over a failing morning show on the local ABC-TV outlet in New York. He had two short-lived female co-hosts before teaming with Kathie Lee Gifford in 1985.

Three years later, the program was nationally syndicated as “Live with Regis and Kathie Lee.” Mr. Philbin’s exclamatory, teasing, air-chopping personality played well against Gifford’s much-younger sex appeal and irreverence, and they thrived on small talk about news in the headlines and what Mr. Philbin called “the aggravations, the slights, the family stuff” in their own lives.

They conveyed the chemistry and appeal of a married couple comfortable with each other’s idiosyncrasies.

“I couldn’t decide if he was obnoxiously adorable or adorably obnoxious,” Gifford wrote in her memoir.

For his part, Mr. Philbin told The Washington Post: “She does get on my nerves once in a while, as I do hers. But what I hate is the hosts who are too civil, too nice to one another. I like to keep an edge between us. And if it looks like there’s an antagonistic thing, well, maybe there is.”

Each morning, the show would open with an unscripted “host-chat.” Mr. Philbin refused to talk with his co-host until they were seated in front of the live audience, enabling spontaneous, off-the-cuff conversation.

Part of the appeal was Mr. Philbin’s ability to make fun of his enthusiasms, particularly for his alma mater Notre Dame, and the fact that so much of the daytime competition was reveling in the tasteless and tabloid.

“That was the year of discontent on television,” Mr. Philbin told Entertainment Weekly about the start of his long run with Gifford. “Geraldo [Rivera] was breaking his nose, Phil [Donahue] was walking around in a dress, Sally [Jessy Raphael] was walking around with hookers, Oprah [Winfrey] was losing 65 pounds. And here we were talking about what we did last night! Who cared? But I knew that if they could just watch us two, three times in a row that we could hook our share of the audience. And we did.”

Washington Post television critic Tom Shales wrote in 1992: “Not racy, not freaky, not remotely tawdry, the syndicated daily hour of small talk and tomfoolery has become one of television’s least disheartening hits, and the reason it’s succeeded has everything to do with the wacky cranks at the heart of it.”

Gifford left the show in 2000 to pursue other interests, including a singing career. The show, renamed “Live With Regis,” continued for the first year with guest co-hosts, including Mr. Philbin’s second wife, the former Joy Senese. He teamed with a new partner, former soap opera actress Kelly Ripa, in 2001, and their show “Live! With Regis and Kelly” aired for a decade.

In 1999, Mr. Philbin began hosting the ABC prime-time show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?,” whose format was borrowed from a game show that had aired successfully in the United Kingdom.

The ABC show was initially given a two-week limited run, and it proved such a ratings winner that the network began broadcasting it three times a week. It was also widely considered instrumental in showing that unscripted programming could attract a broad audience for network TV.

Mr. Philbin had been a game show host earlier in his career and when he heard that “Millionaire” was going to be produced for American television, he enthusiastically lobbied to be its host. He appeared on the “Late Show With David Letterman” and proclaimed that if given the new hosting duties, “I am going to resurrect ABC!”

At the very least, he helped resuscitate the prime-time game show format. Following “Millionaire,” which Mr. Philbin hosted until 2002, the networks aired a slew of game shows including “Twenty-One,” “Weakest Link” and “Deal or No Deal.” Within a few years, the “reality” game show genre, which included popular hits such as “The Amazing Race,” solidified their place on network television.

In the New York Times, journalist Alex Witchel wrote in 1999 that “the X factor of ‘Millionaire’s’ success seems to be — besides the money, of course — that Mr. Philbin genuinely wants the contestants to win.”

Mr. Philbin’s experience was suited to carry the show in front of a live studio audience. His much-imitated catchphrase, “Is that your final answer?,” kept the show suspenseful and intriguing.

“I got lucky with this show,” he told the Times in 1999. “I thought I had climbed my mountain with the morning show. Big hit locally and nationally. And all of a sudden this ‘Millionaire’ show comes along and I’m pushed to another mountain peak. I really don’t dare ask anything more. This is it. What else can I want?”

acts of kindness

Acts of kindness may not be that random after all. Science says being kind pays off.

Research shows that acts of kindness make us feel better and healthier. Kindness is also key to how we evolved and survived as a species, scientists say. We are hard-wired to be kind.

Kindness “is as bred in our bones as our anger or our lust or our grief or as our desire for revenge,” said University of California San Diego psychologist Michael McCullough, author of the forthcoming book “Kindness of Strangers.” It’s also, he said, “the main feature we take for granted.”

Scientific research is booming into human kindness and what scientists have found so far speaks well of us.

“Kindness is much older than religion. It does seem to be universal,” said University of Oxford anthropologist Oliver Curry, research director at Kindlab. “The basic reason why people are kind is that we are social animals.”

We prize kindness over any other value. When psychologists lumped values into ten categories and asked people what was more important, benevolence or kindness, comes out on top, beating hedonism, having an exciting life, creativity, ambition, tradition, security, obedience, seeking social justice and seeking power, said University of London psychologist Anat Bardi, who studies value systems.

“We’re kind because under the right circumstances we all benefit from kindness,” Oxford’s Curry said.

When it comes to a species’ survival “kindness pays, friendliness pays,” said Duke University evolutionary anthropologist Brian Hare, author of the new book “Survival of the Friendliest.”

Kindness and cooperation work for many species, whether it’s bacteria, flowers or our fellow primate bonobos. The more friends you have, the more individuals you help, the more successful you are, Hare said.

For example, Hare, who studies bonobos and other primates, compares aggressive chimpanzees, which attack outsiders, to bonobos where the animals don’t kill but help out strangers. Male bonobos are far more successful at mating than their male chimp counterparts, Hare said.

McCullough sees bonobos as more the exceptions. Most animals aren’t kind or helpful to strangers, just close relatives so in that way it is one of the traits that separate us from other species, he said. And that, he said, is because of the human ability to reason.

Humans realize that there’s not much difference between our close relatives and strangers and that someday strangers can help us if we are kind to them, McCullough said.

Reasoning “is the secret ingredient, which is why we donate blood when there are disasters” and why most industrialized nations spend at least 20% of their money on social programs, such as housing and education, McCullough said.

Duke’s Hare also points to mama bears to understand the evolution and biology of kindness and its aggressive nasty flip side. He said studies point to certain areas of the brain, the medial prefrontal cortex, temporal parietal junction and other spots as either activated or dampened by emotional activity. The same places give us the ability to nurture and love, but also dehumanize and exclude, he said.

When mother bears are feeding and nurturing their cubs, these areas in the brain are activated and it allows them to be generous and loving, Hare said. But if someone comes near the mother bear at that time, it sets of the brain’s threat mechanisms in the same places. The same bear becomes its most aggressive and dangerous.

Hare said he sees this in humans. Some of the same people who are generous to family and close friends, when they feel threatened by outsiders become angrier. He points to the current polarization of the world.

“More isolated groups are more likely to be feel threatened by others and they are more likely to morally exclude, dehumanize,” Hare said. “And that opens the door to cruelty.”

But overall our bodies aren’t just programmed to be nice, they reward us for being kind, scientists said.

“Doing kindness makes you happier and being happier makes you do kind acts,” said labor economist Richard Layard, who studies happiness at the London School of Economics and wrote the new book “Can We Be Happier?”

University of California Riverside psychology professor Sonja Lyubomirsky has put that concept to the test in numerous experiments over 20 years and repeatedly found that people feel better when they are kind to others, even more than when they are kind to themselves.

“Acts of kindness are very powerful,” Lyubomirsky said.

In one experiment, she asked subjects to do an extra three acts of kindness for other people a week and asked a different group to do three acts of self-kindness. They could be small, like opening a door for someone, or big. But the people who were kind to others became happier and felt more connected to the world.

The same occurred with money, using it to help others versus helping yourself. Lyubomirsky said she thinks it is because people spend too much time thinking and worrying about themselves and when they think of others while doing acts of kindness, it redirects them away from their own problems.

Oxford’s Curry analyzed peer-reviewed research like Lyubomirsky’s and found at least 27 studies showing the same thing: Being kind makes people feel better emotionally.

But it’s not just emotional. It’s physical.

Lyubomirsky said a study of people with multiple sclerosis and found they felt better physically when helping others. She also found that in people doing more acts of kindness that the genes that trigger inflammation were turned down more than in people who don’t.

And she said in upcoming studies, she’s found more antiviral genes in people who performed acts of kindness.

Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

Carl Reiner

NEW YORK >> Carl Reiner, the ingenious and versatile writer, actor and director who broke through as a “second banana” to Sid Caesar and rose to comedy’s front ranks as creator of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and straight man to Mel Brooks’ “2000 Year Old Man,” has died. He was 98.

One of show business’ best liked men, the tall, bald Reiner was a welcome face on the small and silver screens, in Caesar’s 1950s troupe, as the snarling, toupee-wearing Alan Brady of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and in such films as “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming” and “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.”

In recent years, he was part of the roguish gang in the “Ocean’s Eleven” movies starring George Clooney and appeared in documentaries including “Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age” and “If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast.”

Tributes poured in online, including from Steve Martin, who said: “Goodbye to my greatest mentor in movies and in life. Thank you, dear Carl. Actor Josh Gad called Reiner “one of the greatest comedic minds of all time” and Sarah Silverman said “his humanity was beyond compare.” Actor Alan Alda tweeted “His talent will live on for a long time, but the loss of his kindness and decency leaves a hole in our hearts.”

Films Reiner directed included “Oh, God!” starring George Burns and John Denver; “All of Me,” with Martin and Lily Tomlin; and the 1970 comedy “Where’s Poppa?” He was especially proud of his books, including “Enter Laughing,” an autobiographical novel later adapted into a film and Broadway show; and “My Anecdotal Life,” a memoir published in 2003. He recounted his childhood and creative journey in the 2013 book, “I Remember Me.”

But many remember Reiner for “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” one of the most popular TV series of all time and a model of ensemble playing, physical comedy and timeless, good-natured wit. It starred Van Dyke as a television comedy writer working for a demanding, eccentric boss (Reiner) and living with his wife (Mary Tyler Moore in her first major TV role) and son.

“The Van Dyke show is probably the most thrilling of my accomplishments because that was very, very personal,” Reiner once said. “It was about me and my wife, living in New Rochelle and working on the Sid Caesar show.”

Reiner had joined the classic comedy revue “Your Show of Shows” in 1950 after performing in Broadway plays. Much of Reiner’s early work came as a “second banana” — although, as Caesar once put it, “Such bananas don’t grow on trees.” He performed in sketches — satirizing everything from foreign films to rock ‘n’ roll — and added his talents to a writing team that included Brooks, Simon, Woody Allen and Larry Gelbart.

It was during the “Show of Shows” years that Reiner and Brooks started improvising skits which became the basis for “The 2000 Year Old Man.” Reiner was the interviewer, Brooks the old man and witness to history.

Reiner: “Did you know Jesus?”

Brooks: “I knew Christ, Christ was a thin lad, always wore sandals. Hung around with 12 other guys. They came in the store, no one ever bought anything. Once they asked for water.”

After the pair performed the routine at a party, Reiner said Steve Allen insisted they turn their banter into a record. The album, “2000 Years with Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks,” appeared in 1960 and was the start of a million-selling franchise.

Reiner, inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame, remained involved in other entertainment projects. In the 1990s, he reprised the Alan Brady character for an episode of “Mad About You.”

waste time

The Biggest Wastes Of Time We Regret When We Get Older

There are things we all do, or don't do, that lead us to waste far more time than we realize in the moment.

Lifehacker | Kristin Wong

We spend a lot of energy looking for shortcuts to save time, and sure, those shortcuts add up. But when I look back, my biggest time regrets aren't spending too much time on Twitter or mismanaging my daily tasks. Those are bad habits, but there are bigger, more systematic time wasters that have really gotten in the way. Fixing these will free up a massive amount of time and energy.

Not Asking for Help

My first week on my first job out of university, my boss handed me a huge spreadsheet. He told me to organise it in a way that made zero sense to me. Being a quiet, timid person, I simply nodded, walked back to my desk and stared at that spreadsheet for like an hour, hoping to make some sense of it (yep, just like George Costanza and the Penske file).

Finally, my coworker came in, and I confessed I had no idea what to do. He broke it down for me, then dropped some advice that's stuck with me ever since: "You might feel dumb asking questions, but you look dumber when you don't get it because you failed to ask."

It was harsh, but true. And not only did I look like an arse, I could've also saved a fair amount of time that day by simply asking my boss what he meant. It made me wonder how much time I'd wasted by not asking for help over the years. As dumb as you might feel asking questions, it's the fastest way to get an answer.

Similarly, asking for help is a great way to, well, get help. This is why networking and finding a mentor are hugely valuable. If you feel stuck in your career or need to learn new skills and have no idea how to get started, talking to other people in your field will go a long way. Even if it's just shooting someone a short email, asking for help is like a shortcut for your career. Try Leo Widrich's formula for asking for help via email:

2-3 sentences of honest appreciation. There is a reason you are asking someone for help. They have a lot of experience in that field, worked on a startup/idea related to what you are working on or else. If you do this, it shows them you have thought about why picking them out to ask for help.

1 sentence that states a single, focused question people can give you an answer to. Here is one that worked very well when I asked Noah:

"What was the single, most valuable user acquisition strategy for Mint after you hit 100K users?"

Here's another way to look at it: if you're not asking for help, you're probably not challenging yourself enough. If you have all the answers, you're not learning new skills, trying new things or moving forward and out of your comfort zone. There are a handful of reasons we don't ask for help, but it's usually because we're too proud or scared, and that's a huge waste of time, because it keeps you from moving forward.

Trying to Make Bad Relationships Work

Relationships require maintenance, but there's a difference between maintaining a good relationship and trying to force a bad one that doesn't make much sense to begin with.

There's a lot of emotion in romance and friendships, so sometimes it's hard to tell when you should keep trying or you should just call it quits. Like a lot of people, I made some common bad decisions that wasted both my time and the time of the person I was with. For example:

There are good reasons for wanting to make a relationship work, but those aren't good ones. They cloud your judgment, prolong your unhappiness and distract you from things that matter to you most. At the same time, it's hard to say all bad relationships are a total waste of time, because you learn a lot about yourself from them. That's a valid silver lining, but still, the sooner you learn those lessons, the better.

Similarly, not dealing with the emotional impact of a breakup is also a big waste of time. When a relationship ends, we usually go through the typical stages of grief associated with loss. It's easy to get comfortable with denial and convince ourselves we don't really care and we're fine. In reality, ignoring the pain only prolongs it. Our work suffers; the rest of our relationships suffer.

Dwelling on Your Mistakes and Shortcomings

Learning from your mistakes is one thing. Dwelling on them wastes your time, diminishes your confidence, and keeps you from getting on with your life.

Dwelling also makes you more apt to repeat your mistakes. In a study published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, researchers asked subjects to spend money during an imaginary trip to the mall. Before "shopping", some subjects were asked to recall a past financial mistake. They found those subjects were more likely to incur debt. A press release for the study concluded:

Perhaps the most surprising, Haws said, is that searching through the past can negatively affect behaviour, depending on the ease of recall, even when past examples are positive...Instead of dwelling on the past, Haws said, her research into behaviour suggests that setting goals for the future can positively change present behaviour...In short, if we want to have better self-control, "Look forward," Haws says. "Don't look back."

When you think about your own experiences, it probably makes sense. Dwelling makes you feel like a failure. When I feel like a failure, it's easy to tell myself there's no point in trying, because I already suck. (Hence, getting further into debt when you already feel like an overspender.)

Of course, you don't want to skip over your mistakes and ignore them either. The goal is to glean something from them, then release the failure. I like Emilie Wapnick's process for doing this:

In order to let the past go, you must forgive yourself officially.

Feel the embarrassment or shame one final time. Really feel it throughout your body. Next, tell yourself that everyone makes mistakes and you know you that that outcome was not your intention. It was an accident. Finally, make the decision to forgive yourself and do it. It helps to even say it out loud.

From now on, it's OK. You are forgiven.

Every time the thought comes back, simply remind yourself that you have already been forgiven, so there's no reason to feel bad anymore. Then push the thought away.

One of my other big time regrets is not allowing myself to fail out of fear of my own shortcomings.

For years, I stayed in a comfortable place and didn't try to do things I wanted to do. I wanted to travel after high school, but I went to university close to home instead, because I was too shy to meet new people, and I was afraid I couldn't make it in another city. After university, I wanted to be a freelance writer, but I decided to find a more stable, accessible job instead, because that was easier. There's nothing wrong with wanting to live a stable, comfortable life, but I was doing it for the wrong reasons: because I was afraid to fail.

Eventually, I got tired of this. I decided to find work I actually enjoyed, travel more and live somewhere else. I made a ton of mistakes along the way, and even when I did succeed, I felt like an imposter. Still, I think the bigger mistake was not trying sooner. Even if I failed, I would have learned from my mistakes much sooner.

Worrying Too Much About Other People

It's easy to waste time worrying about other people, too. Don't get me wrong — your friends and loved ones mean a lot to you, and you want to spend time nurturing them. But we also spend a lot of time fretting over problems that don't matter in the long run.

For example, I spent years getting annoyed with people who undermine me. I complained about them, tried to understand them, wondered what was wrong with me that I inspired that kind of behaviour. Those habits always lead to a dead end, because they didn't involve action. The older I got, the less tolerant I became of this behaviour, and I learned to nip it in the bud.

I also indulged another time wasting emotion: jealousy. I compared myself to everyone, wanted what they had, and felt inadequate. Like most negative, destructive feelings, the first (and biggest) step to overcoming it is understanding it.

I paid attention to my jealousy and what triggered it, then learned that it was less about the other person and more about my own feelings of inadequacy. In short, I embraced that jealousy. Envy is a bit different, but it often comes from the same place, and here's what writer Trent Hamm suggests in dealing with your envy:

The question is, why do you want it in your life? I like to use the "five whys" when handling a question like this. Whenever I'm trying to answer a "why" question, I repeat it five times, asking it of the answer I come up with for each question. When you identify a particular strong desire that you have, step back for a moment and break it down into small pieces. Then, see if there isn't a way for you to address those smaller pieces in your own life. Again, let's take that international trip. What elements am I desiring when it comes to that trip? I want to expose my children to different cultures…. The thing is, when I start breaking that trip down into small pieces, I start seeing pieces that I can easily incorporate into my own life.

Once you understand why you feel jealous or envious, you can take action to take care of the problem, whether that means processing the emotions or coming up with goals for yourself. Either way, that's a lot more productive.

Most of us are probably guilty of all of these at some point, and really, they're human nature. Regret is another big waste of time, so there's no point in beating yourself up over these. The sooner you learn from them, though, the sooner you can free up your time and energy to live the life you want.

--- This post originally appeared on Lifehacker and was published May 29, 2018. This article is republished here with permission.

Must Keep TV

After three years of steadily climbing up the charts, SVOD pioneer Netflix took the top spot in Solutions Research Group’s 13th annual “Must Keep TV” ranking, ousting broadcaster ABC from the pole position.

SRG said it conducted 1,400 online interviews across the country between May 22 and May 26 with consumers aged 12 and older, a little more than two months into the coronavirus lockdown where most had a good chance to consume their regular brands and sample some new options.

According to SRG, respondents are shown a list of 79 broadcast, cable and high-penetration streaming brands and are asked to identify which ones would be on their “must keep TV” list if they had to choose a limited number.

While Netflix took the overall lead, broadcasters made up the rest of the top five in the rankings, with ABC No. 2, followed by CBS, NBC and Fox. Amazon Prime Video was No. 6 and Disney Plus, which launched on Nov. 12, debuted at No. 13 on the list.

ESPN was the top cable brand (No. 8 overall) for the 13th year in a row, despite the lack of live sports programming during the lockdown. PBS was ranked No. 9 and CNN came in at No. 10 as viewers increasingly tuned in news during the pandemic.

Disney Plus was the most significant momentum brand of the year, placing 13th among the total 12+ population – a higher entry position than Amazon Prime Video and Hulu which entered in No. 14 and No. 22 respectively in 2017 when they were added to the lists.

Other brands on the rise in 2020 include Discovery, Food Network, Cartoon Network and FX, SRG said. Big gainers included TLC, which leaped from No. 41 last year to No. 21 this year and MSNBC, which rose from No. 46 to No. 39 this year. Brands that lost ground include AMC, The CW and HBO. According to SRG, HBO fell from the top 10 for the first time since 2013.

Overall, Netflix was No. 1 with adults aged 18-34 for the fourth year in a row, followed by Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, ABC, and Fox.

Netflix continued its three-year streak as the top brand for men aged 18-49, followed by ESPN, ABC, Fox and CBS. Amazon Prime Video and Hulu placed No. 6 and No. 8, respectively in this demo. and Amazon Prime Video and Hulu, which each rose two spots in the rankings for that demographic.

why you so fat?

There’s a meme aimed at Millennial catharsis called “Old Economy Steve.”

It’s a series of pictures of a late-70s teenager, who presumably is now a middle-aged man, that mocks some of the messages Millennials say they hear from older generations—and shows why they’re deeply janky.

Old Economy Steve graduates and gets a job right away. Old Economy Steve “worked his way through college” because tuition was $400. And so forth.

We can now add another one to that list: Old Economy Steve ate at McDonald’s almost every day, and he still somehow had a 32-inch waist.

A 2016 study published in the journal Obesity Research & Clinical Practice found that it’s harder for adults today to maintain the same weight as those 20 to 30 years ago did, even at the same levels of food intake and exercise.

The authors examined the dietary data of 36,400 Americans between 1971 and 2008 and the physical activity data of 14,419 people between 1988 and 2006. They grouped the data sets together by the amount of food and activity, age, and BMI.

They found a very surprising correlation: A given person, in 2006, eating the same amount of calories, taking in the same quantities of macronutrients like protein and fat, and exercising the same amount as a person of the same age did in 1988 would have a BMI that was about 2.3 points higher. In other words, people today are about 10 percent heavier than people were in the 1980s, even if they follow the exact same diet and exercise plans.

“Our study results suggest that if you are 25, you’d have to eat even less and exercise more than those older, to prevent gaining weight,” Jennifer Kuk, a professor of kinesiology and health science at Toronto’s York University, said in a statement. “However, it also indicates there may be other specific changes contributing to the rise in obesity beyond just diet and exercise.”

Just what those other changes might be, though, are still a matter of hypothesis. In an interview, Kuk proffered three different factors that might be making harder for adults today to stay thin.

First, people are exposed to more chemicals that might be weight-gain inducing. Pesticides, flame retardants, and the substances in food packaging might all be altering our hormonal processes and tweaking the way our bodies put on and maintain weight.

Second, the use of prescription drugs has risen dramatically since the ‘70s and ‘80s. Prozac, the first blockbuster SSRI, came out in 1988. Antidepressants are now one of the most commonly prescribed drugs in the U.S., and many of them have been linked to weight gain.

Finally, Kuk and the other study authors think that the microbiomes of Americans might have somehow changed between the 1980s and now. It’s well known that some types of gut bacteria make a person more prone to weight gain and obesity. Americans are eating more meat than they were a few decades ago, and many animal products are treated with hormones and antibiotics in order to promote growth. All that meat might be changing gut bacteria in ways that are subtle, at first, but add up over time. Kuk believes the proliferation of artificial sweeteners could also be playing a role.

The fact that the body weights of Americans today are influenced by factors beyond their control is a sign, Kuk says, that society should be kinder to people of all body types.

“There's a huge weight bias against people with obesity,” she said. “They're judged as lazy and self-indulgent. That's really not the case. If our research is correct, you need to eat even less and exercise even more” just to be same weight as your parents were at your age.

The exercise part is perhaps one area where Old Economy Steve doesn’t have an edge. A membership at one of the newfangled fitness centers of 1987 would go for about $2,800 per year in today’s dollars, and that’s still what it costs today.

hard habit to break?

The Behavioral Economics Diet: The Science of Killing a Bad Habit

What really motivates you more, the promise of a reward if you succeed or a debt if you don’t?

Nir Eyal

Diets don’t work. Studies show that temporary fixes to old habits actually make people gain weight. Essentially, the dieter’s brain is trained to gorge when off the diet and inevitably the weight returns.

In my previous essay, I shared the story of my father's struggle with bad eating habits. He had put on weight over the last few decades and despite several attempts, he had trouble taking it off. In his late 60s he faces pre-diabetes and a daily ritual of taking a handful of pills.

But over the last five months, something has changed. He’s found a new way to resist the temptation of the food he’s been trying to stop eating for years.

We Took a Bet

My father and I shook on a $25,000 wager that binds him to never eat refined carbohydrates again — no processed sugars, no processed grains. Many people are shocked by the dollar amount of the bet but that’s missing the point. My objective is to never win the money. The bet just has to create a moment of consequence to disrupt the current habit with an amount large enough to be meaningful.

So far it’s working. My father has lost about 2 pounds per week and his improved blood work convinced his doctor to take him off some of the meds.

Why It Works

Admittedly, my father is just one person.  His story provides little more than anecdotal evidence. However, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine provides some supporting evidence that putting some skin in the game makes people more likely to accomplish their goal of stopping a bad habit.

The study followed three groups of people trying to quit smoking. The control group was offered information and traditional methods for smoking cessation like free nicotine patches. After 6 months, 6% of the people in this group stopped smoking. The next group, called the “reward” group, was offered $800 if they were smoke-free at 6 months. Of those, 17% quit. From just these two groups, we see paying people does indeed provide an incentive to stop a bad habit, at least short term.

However, the third group provided the most interesting results. In this group, called the “deposit” group, participants were asked to put down $150 of their own money, which they would receive back if they successfully quit in 6 months. In addition, they were given a $650 bonus prize from their employer if they quit. Of those who accepted the deposit challenge 52% succeeded.

On the surface, this makes no sense. Why would winning $800 be less effective than winning only $650 plus $150 of your own money back?

Perhaps people in the deposit group were more motivated to quit smoking in the first place? The researchers admitted that over 85% of people who were offered the deposit deal refused to take it. However, the study authors took efforts to scrub the effect of extra motivation by only using data from smokers willing to be in either group.

Loss Aversion, Commitment, and a Social Out

So what else might explain the results? For one, the study authors write, “people are typically more motivated to avoid losses than to seek gains.” This irrational tendency, known as “loss aversion,” is a cornerstone of behavioral economics. As Nudge author Cass Sunstein, wrote, “a 5-cent tax on the use of a grocery bag is likely to have a much greater effect than a 5-cent bonus for bringing one’s own bag.”

There are other factors at work as well. Commitment contracts — like putting money down or taking a bet — have proven to be effective at changing behavior because they make us accountable to our future selves. People are notoriously bad at predicting their behavior due to a phenomenon called “time inconsistency.” Essentially, we punt difficult to do behaviors saying, we’ll “eat better tomorrow” or we’ll “clean the garage” next weekend.

Tim Urban, author of the Wait But Why blog, explains his struggle with procrastination writing, “I banked on Future Tim’s real-world existence for my most important plans, but every time I’d finally arrive at a time when I thought I would find Future Tim, he was nowhere to be found — the only person there would be stupid Present Tim. That’s the thing that really sucks about Future You — whenever time finally gets to him, he’s not Future You anymore, he’s Present You, and Present You can’t do the tasks you assigned to Future You … So you do what you always do — you re-delegate them to Future You, hoping that next time time catches up with Future You, he actually exists.”

By creating a binding commitment — like the $25,000 bet my father took with me — we make sure our future selves behave in line with our present goals. A website called stickK.com uses commitment contracts to help its’ users accomplish their goals. People sign legally binding agreements where they have to pay a third party if they don’t meet their obligations to stop smoking, exercise, or finish their novel, for example. The site, founded by two Yale professors, has proven effective for those brave enough to take the bet.

There’s one more important and often overlooked reason these types of commitments work — they change the language we use. When I asked my father how he manages the temptation to not cheat with just a bite of cake now and then, he told me, “I just don’t. It’s actually not a big deal any more.” Frankly, I was surprised he is having such an easy time with it. Here’s a man who has struggled with his weight for over 30 years but who suddenly finds giving up some of his favorite foods to be, well, a piece of cake. What gives?

It turns out that the way we describe our behaviors can have a dramatic impact on what we will and won’t do. A study in the Journal of Consumer Research found that people who were prompted to use the words “I don’t” versus “I can’t” were nearly twice as likely to resist the temptation of choosing unhealthy foods. The researchers believe using “I don’t” rather than “I can’t” gave people greater “psychological empowerment” by removing the need to make a decision. “I don’t” is outside our control while “I can’t” is self-imposed.

Now when my father goes out to lunch with his friends and dessert is brought to the table, he has a story to tell. “When they offer me a bite, I let them know it would be a very expensive mouthful,” he said. “I explain I just don’t eat that stuff anymore because the bet I made is for life.” He explains, “When I tried to lose weight before, I had to explain to people that I was on a diet. Eventually, I would get tired of saying ‘I can’t’ and I’d cave-in and tell myself, ‘just this once.’ But now with this bet,” my father joked, “I can just blame you!”

Here’s the Gist:

- Creating a commitment to stop a bad habit can increase the odds of quitting certain behaviors.

- Though not appropriate for all behaviors (I discuss the limitations in my next essay), the technique works because it uses loss aversion, a commitment contract, and provides a social out for not doing the behavior by changing the language we use to describe our actions.

This post originally appeared on Nir Eyal and was published May 26, 2015. This article is republished here with permission.