+1 #574: Love Kryptonite

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another optimize plus one. In our last plus one, we talked about love. Specifically, we talked about love 0.0, love 1.0, love 2.0, and love 3.0. Today we're going to talk about what I think is the number one thing that gets in the way of all of those forms of love. Can you guess what it is? What's love's ultimate kryptonite? Answer in a moment. First, quick context. In his newest book, Yuval, Noah Harari gives us a quick look at 21 lessons for the 21st century. One of the most important things he says we need to address is community. In the chapter he dedicates to Community, Yuval makes some very powerful points. One of the most simple yet powerful distinctions he makes is the fact that humans have bodies. Of course, that's not a news flash, but it's remarkable how easily we can forget that. He continues by saying, during the last century, technology has been distancing us from our bodies. We have been losing our ability to pay attention to what we smell and taste. Instead, we are absorbed in our smartphones and computers. We are more interested in what is happening in cyberspace than in what is happening down the street. It is easier than ever to talk to my cousin in Switzerland, but it is harder to talk to my husband over breakfast because he constantly looks at his smartphone instead of me. Now, at the end of that last line, Harari has the seventh reference to that chapter's notes. He has so many great chapter notes that are worth reading that I have a little index card serving as a bookmark for me to easily find this reference. So I flipped to page 342, which leads us to today's plus one and the number one kryptonite for all our forms of love. Here it is. It's the seventh chapter. Note number seven. Lisa. Americans Check. This is the title of one of her articles in Time magazine. Americans check their phones 8 billion times a day. It's from Time magazine, December 15, 2015. Semicolon. Julie Beck. Ignoring people for Phones is the new Normal. The title of her article in Atlantic, June 14, 2016. Did you catch that? Americans check their phones 8 billion times per day. That's astonishing. And they that's love's ultimate kryptonite. I'd say that at least 5 of those 8 billion smartphone checks per day decimate all of our loves. Let's do the quick inventory. If the Cornerstone of love 0.0 is self love, then how does checking our phones 8 billion times a day diminish that kind of love. Well, let us count the ways. Where to begin? How about this? If science says we need a good night of sleep to be at our optimist best and you're blowing yourself up late at night on nonsense, you've lost your next day before it's even started. Now that's not a loving thing to do to yourself. How about this? If science says checking your phone all day every day erodes your ability to focus and go deep, how will you ever do your best work? Are you a cognitive athlete who smokes? Check out that plus one. That's not helping the Loving ourselves Cause I could go on, but moving on. We know that phones erode connections via the iPhone effect research. Yet do you still keep your phone out and buzzing and dinging all day every day while you're with your family and friends and colleagues? No. All caps that you're destroying your ability to go deep, that's not a loving love 1.0 thing to do. By the way, in addition to diminishing the quality of your connection, smartphones also destroy your productivity and your presence even more. Kryptonite assaults on love 0.0. Then we have love 2.0 and all those potential micro moments of positivity resonance that Barbara Fredrickson tells us are so important to our health and and humanity. She says we need to exit our cocoons of self absorption and open ourselves up to the world and those in it if we're going to create more of those Love 2.0 moments that nourish our souls and our vagal nerves. Of course, our smartphones are the ultimate suction cup for our self absorption love 2.0 kryptonite then we have love 3.0, our heroic love of life and all of its challenges. The Lead yourself first guys tell us that solitude is required to optimize our clarity, our creativity, emotional balance and moral commitment. Now if they're right, and I think they are, then those billions of checks are like throwing a grenade into your soul's heroic fortress. Not a good or loving idea. All of which leads us to today's plus one. If you're feeling so inspired, how about doing an inventory of how many smartphone checks you are contributing to those mind boggling stats. Bonus credit for the ambitious Allocate your inventory of those checks across the different love categories. So here's to tapping into your love potential by swiping your phones off my fellow hero. And a little P.S. you know how many times Harari checked his phone yesterday? Zero. As discussed in an earlier plus one. He gave up his smartphone years ago.