There is no doubt that we are living in an increasingly digital world, and the pandemic has only accelerated this trend.  Sometimes I muse about whether kids in the future will even feel the need to shop at stores, dine at restaurants, attend college, or watch movies in person. For starters, we can do most of our shopping on Amazon.  And why spend time waiting for a table at a restaurant when you can have the meal delivered in less than 30 minutes via Uber Eats or DoorDash?  Then there's movies. No need to trek to the theater when you can save a few bucks by waiting a month or two for the movie to be made available on Amazon Prime or Netflix.  College students needn't leave their homes in order to get a college education as many institutions of higher learning now offer fully online degrees.  And a growing number of employers are now allowing their employees to work from home -- a trend that isn't necessarily going away post-pandemic.  Chances are there's a...

What do you hunger for so much that no matter how hard you try, your appetite never seems sated? Is it food like chocolate or French fries? Hugs and kisses? Approval from others? For me, this is an easy one: knowledge. I love learning about all things history and psychology. A day that passes without learning something -- a new word, a new phrase, about groundbreaking research in consumer psychology, and so on -- feels like a day wasted. Nothing in this world can extinguish my intellectual curiosity. While everyone has their reasons for lamenting the fact that life is short, mine include the harsh reality that we can only learn so much during our limited time on this planet. To me, few things are as enriching as becoming more knowledgeable, more intelligent, more erudite. Whether it's learning how to use a formula to solve a mathematical problem or being able to expound on significant historical events, it feels great to "get" something -- and it's...

Could you imagine living without a cell phone? I'm sure most of us couldn't, and it would take us a long time to grow accustomed to not carrying one around. Many people use their cell phones even in the bathroom and while at the dinner table. It's becoming an obsession unlike any other I've witnessed. Some of us would even admit to using it while driving, which is an awfully dangerous habit we ought to curb. From texting, emails and social media to watching YouTube videos, taking pictures, listening to music on Pandora, and using GPS, a smartphone is basically a mini-computer in the palm of our hands. One could easily make the case that it's the ultimate boredom buster, whether they're at work, stuck in jury duty, or listening to a dull lecture at school. Some kids are getting cell phones even before they hit their teens! Beyond that, there's no question they've redefined convenience. Buying something on Amazon or eBay at the push of a bu...

In this post, I'd like to share what I find are the three ingredients to a joyful, satisfying life. I call them the 3 Ls: live, laugh, love . The fact they all begin with the same letter surely makes them easier to remember. 1. Live : It's fine to be cautious and prudent, but we needn't live so austerely as to inhibit ourselves from enjoying life. In other words, we should strive to  live our lives, but in responsible ways . The trick is to achieve a sensible middle ground. Running up credit card debit and drinking while driving don't constitute living  life to the fullest. They're examples of reckless behavior that can get you in heaps of trouble, if not endanger your life. Instead, we should make the most of our lives by soaking up memorable experiences. Travel the world (without overextending yourself financially, of course). Hit up new restaurants close to home and far away. Try your hand at skydiving, scuba diving, and other exciting activities you never th...

Most people find it a tall order to be without internet for a day, let alone an entire week. We have a hard time conceiving that, at one point, people actually functioned in this world without the aid of smart phones, tablets, and laptops. Just picture yourself having to get through a full week sans internet. You'd have to dust off the old phone book to look up restaurants and other establishments in the area.  With no Netflix, you'd have no choice but to watch movies and shows via DVD or cassette.  With no YouTube, you can only hope that whatever music video or show clip you'd like to watch pops up somewhere while you're surfing the TV channels.  You wouldn't be able to download music to your phone or iPod, forcing you to tune in to the radio. If you pay your bills online, you'd have to resort to traditional payment methods like check, money order, or paying by phone.  Need to research anything for school, work, or leisure? Your best bet would be...

I hear so many people complain of boredom on a daily basis. This leaves me quite flummoxed considering the wealth of things to do nowadays. I find nothing to be as big a boredom buster as learning. There's a widely-held if erroneous view that learning stops the moment you receive your college diploma. This couldn't be further from the truth. Even though I'm no longer in college, I continue to indulge my passions for history and psychology by reading on my own. I get such bad traffic on the way to work and back that I'm usually able to get a great deal of reading done on my commute. (I only read while at a red light or in bumper-to-bumper traffic, of course.) I also read during my lunch break and before going to bed. To me, learning is not only intellectually enriching, but it gives me something to look forward to and build upon each day. I love coming across a word I didn't know the meaning of and looking up the definition. I have fun learning new historic...

Say it ain't so! It's flabbergasting how Kim Kardashian West's hijinks pass for news these days. Just yesterday, she tweeted a photo of herself in front of a mirror with no clothes on. A couple of black rectangles cover her privates, but other than that, little is left to the imagination. The photo was retweeted a whopping 15,000 times in the first two hours after she shared it. One can presume that, at this point, not too many people on the internet haven't seen or heard about the controversial picture. Can you imagine the backlash such a photo would have drawn, say, two or three decades ago? Apparently, baring it all is in style now even if you don't pose for Playboy. (Check that -- I just remembered that she posed for Playboy, too.) The internet -- and, more specifically, social media -- has made it simpler than ever to put out racy pictures and generate massive buzz. I've said it before: We're living in an age where people are far more like...

Many people say that hard work accounts for one's success while others contend that luck is the single most important contributing factor. It reminds me of a famous question posed by Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), the 3rd President of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence: "Why is it that the harder I try, the more luck I seem to have?" In other words, another school of thought is that hard work leads to luck, which in turn creates fortuitous circumstances that make success easier to attain. I am of the opinion that success depends on hard work and luck. From what I understand, before Justin Bieber became a megastar -- when he was just a regular kid no one knew of -- he would post videos of himself singing on YouTube. The videos garnered heaps of praise, but that still didn't translate into dollar signs. All it took was for Usher, who is a world-renowned singer in his own right, to take notice of the videos in order for Bieber'...

Few things have revolutionized the world in the 20th and 21st centuries like the internet has. As consumers, we depend on the internet for everything from buying groceries to making doctor's appointments. Have you ever imagined what life without the internet would be like? If the internet weren't around, We would not be able to buy gifts, groceries and other consumer goods on sites like Amazon and arrange to have them delivered in a day or two There would be no online banking, necessitating a trip or call to the bank every so often Many of us would not be in relationships or married since a good percentage of us first met our partner online We wouldn't be able to communicate with friends and family members via email, blogs, Facebook or other social media Companies would not be able to sell their products online - (can you imagine how much lower their profits would be?) There would be no iTunes or YouTube There would be little to do via our mobile devices other ...