I tried this with measured expectations. Admittedly because of preconceived assumptions, I figured it was another formulaic celebrity bio of the usual recipe. A surface skimming with one part intimacy, two parts fun and frolic, a few dashes of zaniness, and maybe some outrageousness thrown in. Just to keep us all watching.
Val is not this. It is not formulaic. It is much more. Its real.
Certainly, one reason I was caught off guard is because I haven’t followed the news of Val Kilmer. I had no idea, or just forgot, that he battled through a very tough throat cancer a few years ago. Whether you are aware of this, or not, if you know little else, or if you have not seen this film, I am here to recommend it.
I always found Val Kilmer an interesting actor, and a person. It sounds trite to use an ordinary word, but, to go much further in describing him, is to risk painting a portrait that could distract from his profile simply as a human being. And this is entirely the point.
Val is a human being that lived, and lives, a life in a way that isn’t particularly profound. At least as compared to world changing politicians, global humanitarians, or medical pioneers. He’s an actor. Actors (at least in costume) entertain us. We follow them. We have fun with them, turn them on, turn them off, and then move on to other things in our life.
Val has been fortunate. He was born with a matinee idol smile, grew up in privilege, and found a career he loved. He has also been slammed to the canvas with cancer. For this, as with anyone who has struggled against major health adversity and then comes out standing with their fist in the air, he deserves a look.
In full disclosure, I’m a pushover for deep thinking introspects. I know it can be a self defeating navel gaze, but in some cases, it is unavoidable, and truly the best way ahead if you haven’t come to terms with things that need resolution as you, and we age further. There really is no other way.
Here is a film that has this presentation. It is, of course, sad. It is also elevating and inspiring in an offbeat spiritual way. Which is part of who Val is anyway. It is also very touching. Disarmingly so. If you stay with it, and let yourself connect with the voice of his son who narrates most of Val’s words against the visuals of his family, and his loves, you might even bond a little as you listen and take it all in. Either way, it doesn’t take long to see what this film is about. It really is about Val. It is deeply personal. It is deeply honest. There really is no other way.>MB
At some point in every relationship we all need a shoulder to cry on and an open ear to listen to us. While you may think venting to your friends is helpful, it can also be hurtful. Unless you’re going through a major issue in your relationship where you seek the counsel of a therapist, rarely can any good come from others sticking their noses into it. Here are the 10 reasons why it’s better to keep your mouth shut about your partner.
1. THE LAW OF ATTRACTION.
The law of attraction basically states that you receive the same kind of energy you put out into the universe. If you believe this, when you speak negatively about your partner and your relationship, you’ll be encouraging more of it. Whether you believe in this theory or not, when people constantly rant and rave about their partner, they’re usually in worse moods because they continue focusing on only the things that aren’t perfect.
2. YOUR FRIENDS WON’T EVER FORGET.
Friends are like elephants – they’ll remember that one incredibly hurtful insult your boyfriend hurled at you mid-fight that you shared with them pretty much forever. They’ll never forget when you told them about the one or two times he was incredibly selfish or acted like a total D. When you share too much information ,you’ll inevitably taint their perception of him. They may smile and nod when you talk about him after that fight, but might secretly be hoping for you to end the relationship and move on.
3. YOUR MAN WILL FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE AROUND YOUR FRIENDS.
Your guy will know when you gossip about him to your friends. Not only will your friends’ opinions start becoming unfavorable when you share every disagreement, but your man won’t want to be around them. Guys are inherently more private than women and he probably won’t want to sit through happy hour feeling the glare from your pals that they know that one time for an hour last year you suggested taking a break or embarrassed that they know that he had trouble getting it up on your last weekend getaway.
4. NO ONE KNOWS WHAT IT’S REALLY LIKE BESIDES YOU TWO.
You can describe, vent and discuss your relationship until you’re blue in the face. You can get advice from your mom, your friends or even your mailman, but everyone’s advice will be colored by their own experiences and insecurities. No one really knows what it’s like to be inside of a relationship other than the two people who are actually in it. Instead of looking to outside sources, you should learn to trust your gut. It’s usually spot on. You just have to learn to pay attention to it.
5. DISCRETION IS A VIRTUE.
Regardless of how close you are with other people, sometimes your relationship is none of their damn business. Not everyone is as tight-lipped as we may like to believe, and there are some details both good and bad that should remain inside of the relationship.
6. ENDLESS DISCUSSION CAN CREATE MORE PROBLEMS.
Ever heard of self-fulfilling prophecies? For example, if you become obsessed with a single complex issue in your relationship that requires joint effort and commitment to address and resolve together, but you instead decide to treat your partner with mistrust and judgement, like they’ve done something wrong, they will feel that and may actually start looking for someone else outside of your relationship to make them feel good about themselves. Not an excuse, just a realistic example.
7. IT MAKES YOU SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF.
When you incessantly discuss your relationship, you’re bound to nitpick. That’s a slippery slope because you inevitably augment the little things in your relationship that if you hadn’t examined ad nauseam, you probably would have been happy letting go, therefore creating more problems.
8. THE ONLY PERSON YOU SHOULD BE TALKING TO IS HIM.
If you have real issues in your relationship, you have to talk to your partner. As much as we’d like to believe that our partners must also realize there’s an issue or a problem, they don’t. Sometimes simply making them aware of your gripes is the easiest way to fix it. If they’re aware, no one will be able to fix it besides the two of you (or possibly a licensed therapist). Other conversations are literally a waste of your energy.
9. YOU NEED TIME TO THINK.
If all you’re doing is yapping, you aren’t necessarily processing a situation. If you need to make a major decision like working on your relationship or splitting or even something like whether you two are ready to move-in together, you need to silence your mouth so you can listen to your inner voice to figure out your true feelings about how you should proceed.
10. THE ONLY OPINION YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO IS YOURS.
You may make a choice that you’re happy with for the rest of your life, or the decision you make might be one that you regret in six months. Regardless, that means the decision was yours. There’s nothing worse than realizing that you based a major life decision on people who aren’t living your life. Sometimes we make mistakes, but we should grow from them. If you’re only listening to others you will never be able to mature into the person you’re meant to be.
Stephen Covey published The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People in 1989. For those of us who read it, it changed the way we interacted with others, with ourselves, and with how we strove to grow, and achieve balance in personal and professional lives. Decades later, I feel the weight today, perhaps more than ever, of how important these lessons remain. >MB
Most social obligations would be best left in the Before Times.
Jessica Grose, New York Times
When I was in my early 20s, my friends started calling me “The Bailer.” I was infamous for making plans and then canceling the day before. Even at the time, I knew this was irritating and ungenerous behavior. But I made the plans with the best intentions: I love my friends! I want to see their faces! That spoken-word event in a dank, low-ceilinged bar sounded like fun when you told me about it three weeks ago!
About 24 hours before many social outings, I would start to feel sweaty and inert. After a long day’s work at an office, I would often feel drained from human contact and all I would want to do is buy an enormous burrito at the spot near my apartment, get home, take off my pants and eat it in privacy while watching reality television. After a few years of disappointing my friends last minute, I learned that it’s much kinder and less stressful for everyone involved to be honest with myself — and my friends — about what I would actually show up for.
I began to evaluate what I really enjoyed doing and what I valued about interactions with friends. I did not like standing for prolonged periods of time, for almost any reason. I did not like waiting in line for food. I did not like anything that included the word “networking.” I did like getting drinks or dinner in a place where we could really talk, or lounging in someone’s living room, or going to a party if there were going to be lots of people I knew there and ample seating room.
Having children at 30 was a great excuse for being the hermit I naturally am, and it also helped clarify my socializing needs even further. I was both more tired but also more starved for grown-up conversation. I opted for even more socializing in small groups without my daughters, and when I was with them, I experienced the joy of raucous dinner parties with a separate kids’ table. I learned the valuable skill of continuing conversations through multiple interruptions.
During the pandemic I added a few more types of socializing to my repertoire, including outdoor walk-and-talks, like I’m some jerk in an Aaron Sorkin TV show. Though some pandemic behavior comes easily to me, because I do hate leaving my house, this year of enforced isolation has been depressing, and even a shut-in like me has been missing human contact with people I am not related to.
That does not mean I will come to your spoken word performance in the future. I am still short on time on this mortal coil, and I imagine I will return to my previous socialization preferences.
While obviously there are some obligations you show up to because you love and honor your friends and family even if you don’t want to attend, I invite you to figure out what you actually like about seeing people in the “After.” Especially now that people are making plans with frenzied abandon, saying yes to all manners of activities without a second thought because they are so starved for socializing. Yes to that group sound bath! Yes to the wine-cooler tasting! Yes to the early morning rave! Oh honey, no. No. No.
Be honest with yourself. If you like the energy of a big crowd, say no to that intimate coffee and parry with a trip to a concert. If you hate going out, invite people to come over.
Tell people the real reasons you’re saying no for things you say no to. This has two benefits: it will give you deeper intimacy with friends who will know you for the true crank you really are. And it will mean that they stop inviting you to things that you really don’t like to do. My friends no longer call me The Bailer, because now I always show up.
Social media is designed to keep us scrolling even when we know we’d be better off putting the phone down. Yale SOM’s Fiona Scott Morton and her co-authors argue that smarter and more robust antitrust enforcement can help, by making room for new social media platforms that promote themselves as healthier alternatives.
Theodore Nierenberg Professor of Economics, Yale University
Written by Susie Allen
If you’ve ever delayed sleep to doomscroll on Twitter or checked Instagram just one more time to see if someone else liked that selfie, you know that social media can be a time suck. But is it addictive?
A growing body of medical evidence suggests it is, economist Fiona Scott Morton of Yale SOM writes in a new paper, co-authored with James Niel Rosenquist of Harvard Medical School and Samuel N. Weinstein of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. That has important implications for how regulators should oversee social media platforms. And it also has surprising implications for antitrust enforcement.
Scott Morton, Rosenquist, and Weinstein argue that antitrust enforcement has long relied on assumptions about how to measure consumer welfare that simply don’t work when a company is making a habit-forming product. Indeed, Scott Morton points out, the entire field of behavioral economics has arisen to give us more sophisticated ways to understand “irrational” decision making, including evaluating the impact on our welfare of goods and services that come with self-control issues, from gym memberships and energy-inefficient air conditioners to opioids.
The addictive qualities of social media are compounded by a lack of competition in the industry. When air conditioners compete, the more efficient ones can gain an advantage by advertising their low running costs. But without meaningful social media competition or regulation, companies have little incentive to change the addictive quality of their content.
“We don’t want to ban cars because they are dangerous, nor would that be a good solution for social media,” Scott Morton emphasizes. “Instead we limit the danger of cars with tools like speed limits, traffic lights, drivers’ licenses, and seatbelts—and we have lots of competition and choice. In digital media we need to find a way to control the stuff that’s harming us, and our children in particular, while keeping the healthy part.” She believes smarter antitrust enforcement could help, making room for newer and safer social media platforms in the market as well as more competition.
For decades, the medical community was hesitant to accept that addiction was possible without the ingestion of a physical substance. But, as Scott Morton and her co-authors write, growing understanding of so-called behavioral addiction has chipped away at that resistance. In fact, gambling addiction is now recognized in the latest edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Social media and gambling can hijack the brain’s reward system in similar ways, the researchers argue. In the case of gambling, you’ll keep pulling the slot-machine lever even after you’ve lost hundreds of dollars, just in case the next one is a winner; in the case of social media, you’ll get lost in the infinite scroll, no matter what else you should be doing.
It’s no coincidence that many of us find social media so hard to resist. The business model platforms have adopted depends on people giving up their time: the longer a user is swiping away, the more revenue-generating ads they’ll see. Features such as likes, comments, autoplay, and algorithmic promotion of emotionally arousing content are designed to keep users coming back again and again.
Scott Morton has seen it all firsthand. “Twitter will show me some posts, I’ll look at them, and then two minutes later, they’ll meter out some more…You can watch them try to drip it out so that I stay on the platform longer,” she says.
In theory, of course, there’s nothing wrong with spending a lot of time on social media. Companies have argued that the hours we log represent positive engagement with the platform: we like what we’re seeing, and so we stay.
But in practice, Scott Morton and her co-authors note, survey data finds that a large number of heavy social media users wish they used social media less because of its negative effects on their lives—a classic tug-of-war between short-term impulses and long-term goals that is a hallmark of compulsive behavior. Early data also links social media use among adolescents to mood disorders and ADHD. The dangers seem particularly acute for girls.
So, what does this all mean for regulators trying to decide whether social media platforms are engaging in anti-competitive conduct? Baked into antitrust enforcement is the idea of increasing consumer welfare: enforcement ought to make life better for consumers by promoting competition so that goods become cheaper, better, or both.
And economists have long argued that one especially useful way to look at consumer welfare is through what’s called output—the quantity of goods or services produced in a given market. “Historically, we have thought of pro-competitive things as being those that increase output and non-competitive things as those that decrease output,” Scott Morton explains.
If the merger of two ice cream companies results in an overall larger ice cream market, then (the basic argument goes) consumers must have benefited, either because ice cream was cheaper and they bought more, or because it was better and they bought more. If the merger reduces the size of the ice cream market, it must have been anticompetitive.
But the logic of output maximization falls apart when it comes to any addictive product. For someone addicted to, say, OxyContin, giving them more OxyContin represents an increase in output—but it surely doesn’t represent a simple increase in consumer welfare.
“This shortcut, which is, ‘Let’s use an output measure like number of pills to proxy for consumer surplus,’—it isn’t a valid shortcut anymore, not when you’ve got an addictive product,” Scott Morton says. “Giving people a larger quantity of something they’re addicted to is likely not increasing social welfare.”
So, rather than looking at output, regulators need to take a more expansive view of consumer welfare, Scott Morton and her co-authors argue—a view that incorporates the specific nature of the product in question. In the case of social media, an antitrust case might rely on whether a company’s business model offers incentives for addiction or has other negative effects on users’ behavior.
By looking at social media companies from this perspective, regulators can promote competition and innovation. It may seem paradoxical to argue that the answer to the problem of social media is more social media, but there’s good reason to believe it. Basic consumer protection regulations would also help by creating a level playing field.
With more companies vying for users, Scott Morton explains, they’ll have a greater incentive to differentiate in ways users value. In all kinds of markets—cars, movies, food—companies have thrived by promoting themselves as the safe option. A non-addictive social media platform could have similar consumer appeal.
“More social media sites means I can choose the site that offers me fewer ads, less addiction, more of the content that interests me,” Scott Morton says.
How far are we from a world of safer social media? Scott Morton thinks there’s reason to be optimistic. Indeed, considering how long it took to rein in exploitative practices in products such as cigarettes and credit cards, there’s an argument that social media regulation is on a fast track.
Lawmakers and regulators are paying more attention because “today, the harms are really much more visible to everybody,” Scott Morton says. “I think the younger generation is speaking up more and they understand it. The Europeans are moving quickly. So all of that is, I think, creating an environment where there might really be some progress.”
Studies show that moments of disruption offer a unique opportunity to set and achieve new goals.
Tara Parker-Pope, New York Times
If there was ever a perfect time to make a life change, this is it.
Behavioral scientists have long known that times of disruption and transition also create new opportunities for growth and change. Disruption can come in many forms, and it happens when life knocks us out of our normal routines. It can be moving to a new city, starting a new job, getting married or divorced or having a child. And for many of us, there’s never been a bigger life disruption than the pandemic, which changed how we work, eat, sleep and exercise, and even how we connect with friends and family.
“I think this fresh start is really a big opportunity,” said Katy Milkman, a professor at the Wharton School and author of the new book “How to Change: The Science of Getting From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. “I don’t know when we’ll have another one like it. We have this blank slate to work on. Everything is on the table to start fresh.”
Much of Dr. Milkman’s research has focused on the science of new beginnings, which she calls “the fresh start effect.” Dr. Milkman and her colleagues have found that we’re most inclined to make meaningful changes around “temporal landmarks” — those points in time that we naturally associate with a new beginning. New Year’s Day is the most obvious temporal landmark in our lives, but birthdays, the start of spring, the start of a new school year, even the beginning of the week or the first of the month are all temporal landmarks that create psychological opportunities for change.
In one study, Dr. Milkman found that students were most likely to visit the gym around the start of the week, the first of the month, following birthdays or after school breaks. Another study found that “fresh start language” helped people kick-start their goals. In that study, people were far more likely to start a new goal on a day labeled “the first day of spring” compared to an unremarkable day labeled “the third Thursday in March.” (It was the exact same day, just labeled differently.)
Another study found that when people were advised to start saving money in a few months, they were less likely to do so than a group of people told to start saving around their birthday that was also a few months away. The birthday group saved 20 to 30 percent more money.
Although the pandemic is far from over, for many people, the lifting of restrictions and getting vaccinated means planning vacations and returning to more-normal work and school routines. It’s exactly the kind of psychological new beginning that could prompt the fresh start effect, said Dr. Milkman.
“We have this opportunity with this blank slate to change our health habits and be very conscientious about our day,” said Dr. Milkman. “What is our lunch routine going to look like? What is our exercise routine? There’s an opportunity to rethink. What do we want a work day to look like?”
It’s Not Too Late to Reset.
As the pandemic recedes, some people are worried that the past year of lockdowns, restrictions and time at home was a missed opportunity. Leslie Scott, a nonprofit event organizer in Eugene, Ore., said she feels that she just muddled through a stressful year, rather than using the time to make meaningful life changes.
“I sometimes wonder if I squandered this gift of time,” said Ms. Scott, who is an organizer of the Oregon Truffle Festival. “I have all this anxiety that we’re just going to go back to what people think of as normal. As we come out of our cocoons, am I emerging from something and moving toward something new? Or am I just stuck?”
While some people did develop healthy new habits during pandemic lockdowns, it’s not too late if you spent your pandemic days just getting by. The good news is that the end of the pandemic is probably a more opportune time for meaningful change than when you were experiencing the heightened anxiety of lockdowns.
“Covid-19 was an awful time for many of us,” said Laurie Santos, a psychology professor at Yale who teaches a popular online course called “The Science of Well-Being.” “There’s lots of evidence for what’s called post-traumatic growth — that we can come out stronger and with a bit more meaning in our lives after going through negative events. I think we can all harness this awful pandemic time as a time to get some post-traumatic growth in our own lives.”
So What’s Your Next Chapter?
One of the biggest obstacles to change has always been the fact that we tend to have established routines that are hard to break. But the pandemic shattered many people’s routines, setting us up for a reset, Dr. Santos said.
“We’ve all just changed our routines so much,” she said. “I think many of us have realized during the pandemic that some of the things we were doing before Covid-19 weren’t the kind of things that were leading to flourishing in our lives. I think many of us were realizing that aspects of our work and family life and even our relationships probably need to change if we want to be happier.”
One reason fresh starts can be so effective is that humans tend to think about the passage of time in chapters or episodes, rather than on a continuum, Dr. Milkman said. As a result, we tend to think of the past in terms of unique periods, such as our high school years, the college years, the years we lived in a particular town or worked at a certain job. Going forward, we’re likely to look back on the pandemic year as a similarly unique chapter of our lives.
“We have chapter breaks, as if life is a novel — that is the way we mark time,” said Dr. Milkman. “That has implications for the psychology of fresh starts, because these moments that open a new chapter give us a sense of a new beginning. It’s easier to attribute any failings to ‘the old me.’ You feel like you can achieve more now, because we’re in a new chapter.”
Take the Fresh Start Challenge!
While the start of a new chapter is a great time for change, the pages will turn quickly. Now that we’re emerging from the restrictions of pandemic life, social scientists say it’s an ideal time to start thinking about what you’ve learned in the past year. What are the new habits you want to keep, and what parts of your prepandemic life do you want to change?
“It’s time to rethink your priorities,” said Dr. Milkman, who outlines more detailed steps for change in her new book. “We have to ask ourselves, ‘How am I going to schedule my time?’ We have a limited window to be deliberate about it, because pretty quickly, we’ll have a new pattern established, and we probably won’t rethink it again for a while.”
A good first step is to take our 10-Day Fresh Start Challenge. Each challenge will prompt moments of mindful reflection, help you build stronger connections and offer small steps toward building healthy new habits. You can find all 10 installments on The Fresh Start Challenge page.
“I think a lot of us have realized how fragile some of the things were that gave us joy before, from going to the grocery store, to going out to a restaurant with friends, going to a movie, giving your mom a hug whenever you’d like,” said Dr. Santos. “My hope is that we’ll emerge from this pandemic with a bit more appreciation for the little things in life.”
