When Unhealthy Sexuality Becomes an Addiction

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called "When Unhealthy Sexuality Becomes an Addiction."

Let’s face it, even for those in society who are proponents of pornography, not everyone would admit it if they had an addiction like that. A porn addiction invokes all sorts of social fears and anxieties about “perverts, rapists, and sexual offenders.” In fact, in a Youtube video, The Blessing of Porn Addiction, featuring Beny Schonfeld, as he walks into a recovery meeting, he describes fearing the other people he will meet there and asks, “Is that who I am?”

People in our communities are going through all sorts of problems and addictions. Beny’s message is not to suffer in silence: “If you feel ashamed about what you’re doing, speak up and ask for help.”

(Credit Photo by Charcoal Soul via Flickr Creative Commons: https://flic.kr/p/7ZxCPG)

When Unhealthy Sexuality Becomes an Addiction

Donuts With Syringe

So I never actually saw donuts being sold with the syringe. 

I get that they use the syringe to put the custard, jelly, and other fillings inside.

But leaving the syringe hanging out of the donuts like that conjures up images of addicts and junkies.

DESPITE that, these incredibly rich and overflowing donuts with gobs of toppings were some of the finest I've ever seen. 

Takes more than a good dose of willpower to resist and not become an addict of these carbohydrate powerhouses. 

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Donuts With Syringe

Tuna Salad - Eating Healthy

Intermittent fasting is going, thank G-d well. 

When I broke my fast today, I had a healthy salad with tuna fish. 

Dieting and eating healthy, and feeling good about it!

All the processed food is completely addictive and 100% poison!

Broke the addiction and I don't plan to go back to the corrupt food industry fools that don't care for atom about the people, but rather just the profits. 

Fruit, vegetables fish, nuts, seeds, and tea. 

The fleecing of America by all the processed food players--it's disgusting.

I'm detoxing and I am grateful to G-d for helping me through this and showing me the way! ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Tuna Salad - Eating Healthy

Choosing Good Over Vice

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel, called "Choosing Good Over Vice."

But yet, if everyone would just act out on each other based on their unbridled wants and desires, oy vey what a truly terrible world that would be...From uncontrolled desires for food, drugs, alcohol, gambling, honor, money, power, sex, and more–it seems like everyone has their little secret fetish. Whether it's coming from their head, their heart, or down below...the key questions is how much can they control themselves.

However, inside us, our soul, like the Ten Commandments in the Holy Ark, guide us so that we aren't just animals chasing game or tail, but are human beings trying to become angels.

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Choosing Good Over Vice

How Do I Choose?

So I thought this was an interesting topic for the sermon on Shabbat by Ben Shemony. 

It was about how we are confronted in life with whether to follow our impulses or our values. 

I think there is a lot to this topic...

Some may see it as the little good angel standing over one shoulder and another bad angel standing over the other trying to convince us what to do when it's decision time.  

Others may be perpetually torn between temptations or pleasures of materialism and the flesh versus of pursuing what you know to be spiritually good and right in this world. 

Either way, as human beings, we are a complex make-up of both body and soul.

Do we give in to temptation and do what feels good--more money, more food, more clothes and jewelry, more houses, cars, and yachts, more vacations, more carnal pleasures from the proverbial "wine, women, and song" or do we pursue the path of spirituality, serving our maker, caring and giving and doing good for others and the world?  

It sounds simple, but our impulses tell us one thing and our values tell us another. 

Are we being selfish or selfless?

Perhaps, too much of anything is bad for us--even too much giving and selflessness--we need to care for ourselves too--we are mortal, we have needs, we have to nourish ourselves, and we need to live. 

But you can't be a glutton or a slave to your impulses--you can't take and not give, your can't indulge until you make yourself sick, or take at the expense of and harm to others.

Like all things in life, there is a need for balance.

Certainly our spirit should guide our animal. 

If and when our animal is dictating to our spirit then we are in real trouble. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

How Do I Choose?

Have a Heart: Leadership With Heart

So many of you already know my leadership mantra. 

It's all about:

Leadership With Heart

That means understanding that workers are human beings. 

Yes, they should act as professionals.

But also, they are people with imperfections and problems.

Whether they are fighting addiction, debt, illness, mental health issues, family problems, abuse, or personal loss. 

Life happens.

And it's not always pleasant. 

Unfortunately, it seems like we are tested all the time. 

Therefore, good leaders, real leaders...lead with heart. 

They focus on the mission, but also empower, develop, and have empathy for the people. 

Think of the people you know in leadership positions today. 

Are they leaders with heart or heartless sons of guns. 

Who do you want to follow into the future?  ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Have a Heart: Leadership With Heart

Computer Sentiment 1984

So I found this book in an IT colleague's office. 

It's called: "The Unofficial I Hate Computer Book".

It was written in 1984, and like the George Orwell's book by that name, it is a dystopian view of technology. 

The back cover says:

Computer haters of the world unite: It's time to recognize and avenge the wonderful advances we've made thanks to computers--excessive eyestrain and headaches, irritating beeping noises, a one-ton printout where once there was a six-page report, a "simple" programming language you can't understand without five handbooks, a dictionary, and a math degree.

The book goes on with illustration after illustration of unadulterated computer hate and associated violence. 

- Dogs dumping on it (see cover)
- Contests to smash it with a hammer
- Hara-kiri (suicide with a knife) into it
- Skeet shooting computers that are flung into the air
- Shotput with a computer
- Tanks rolling over them
- Sinking it in water with a heavy anvil
- Boxer practicing his punches on it
- Setting it ablaze with gasoline
- And on and on, page after hate-filled page.

So in the last 34-years, have we solved all the annoyances and complexity with computers and automation?  

Do the benefits of technology outway the costs and risks across-the-board?

How do security and privacy play in the equation? 

I wonder what the authors and readers back then would think of computers, tablets, smartphones and the Internet and apps nowadays--especially where we can't live without them at all.  ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Computer Sentiment 1984

A New Type Of Chocolate Chips

Ok, dieting is hard enough with all highly processed junk food out there these days. 

And everything is carbs, carbs, and more carbs...it's literally poison for the body. 

But when you go into the store and see Lays chocolate covered potato chips...this just brings you to the verge of sin. 

The top are milk chocolate covered potato chips, and the bottom ones are dark chocolate covered ones. 

Choose your poison?

This is definitely a new type of chocolate chips...Hershey's eat you heart out. 

I told my wife pleadingly, "Can't I just taste one?" ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

A New Type Of Chocolate Chips

Globs of Fat

So I went to get my flu shot today in the office. 

Yes, it's that time of year to start getting ready for Winter and all the germs that come with it. 

Anyway, while I was at the health center, they had this model of what body fat looks like. 

It was sort of just laying right on the table in the waiting room--yeah a big ick! 

It said:

"Globs of Fat: This glob represents the look and feel of 5 pounds of body fat."

And this thing was enormous, bigger than someones hand, maybe even two hands. 

There was some text about another 1 pound piece of body fat, but I didn't see that lying around anywhere (and frankly the 5 pound glob was enough to get the point without comparison). 

This fat demonstration would make practically anyone want to chuck the carbohydrates and forever.

Pizza, pasta, bread, rice, potatoes, cereal, crackers, cookies, cakes--be gone!

Having recently done this myself, I can really appreciate how important this is and also how hard it can be. 

The food industry has us addicted to this crap and really it should be illegal. 

The high carb diet in America is truly of epidemic proportions and is potentially catastrophic to our health and longevity.

The only thing that glob of fat is good for is tossing it out the window and into the garbage dump. 

A high carb diet that makes people fat is death and we want to live! ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Globs of Fat

Seaweed Success Diet

Ok, I am going to let you in on a little secret. 

Part of the success of my diet. 

This is us checking out at register. 

The cashier is tallying up dozens of Wasabi Roasted Seaweeds.

The stuff is a great healthy snack. 

I had read for years now how the healthy Japanese diet includes plenty of seaweed and fish. 

And I have been imitating their knowledgable ways. 

And it is working, thank G-d.

Of course, the wasabi flavor gives it a little kick too. 

Do yourselves a favor and get rid of all the disgusting carbohydrates in your life. 

They are poison from an industry that wants you addicted to their garbage foods. 

Get back to basics like fish, meat, vegetables, and that includes plenty of seaweed. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Seaweed Success Diet

What's Your Vice?

So no one is perfect.

And no matter how outwardly pious the person, everyone inwardly has some hidden (or not so) vice or excess that they must learn to tame.

Here's a top 23 list:

Substance Abuse
1) Cigarettes
2) Alcohol
3) Drugs

Greed
4) Food
5) Money (e.g. gambling, hoarding)
6) Materialism (e.g. homes, cars, boats, planes, jewels, clothes, etc.)

Obsessive Compulsive
7) Work
8) Sex
9) Popularity (e.g. talking, partying)
10) Religion 
11) Sport
12) Control

Anger
13) Violence
14) Abuse (e.g. verbal, emotional, physical)
15) Rape 

Callous
16) Indifference
17) Tardiness
18) Laziness

Egotistical
19) Selfish
20) Boastful

Crooked
21) Lying
22) Cheating
23) Stealing

Think about the people you know--love 'em or hate 'em--and is there anyone that doesn't have one of these to some extent or another?

And for those of you wondering, my vice is, of course, pizza! ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

What's Your Vice?

German Chocolate Cake -- A Cold Stone Favorite

So I took this picture at Cold Stone ice cream parlor. 

The guy is in action making German Chocolate Cake Ice Cream for us--one of their "signature creations."

A big wad of Chocolate Ice Cream and then add the caramelized nuts, chips of coconut, and wedges of chocolate--then mix until all creamy and gooey. 

OMG, this was pretty good.

We used to get the Cookie Dough You Want Some flavor...also to die for, but I didn't see this one on the ice cream menu anymore (although I bet you can still ask for it). 

The way they charge, they push you to get the largest size called, "Gotta Have It"which is only about 20 cents more than the "Love It" (medium) and 30 cents more than the "Like It" (small).

One of the large ones costs about $6 and can easily be shared between between 3 people. 

This ice cream is made for me on the spot and is a special treat, so don't get addicted, please. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

German Chocolate Cake -- A Cold Stone Favorite

Starbucks - BYOF

Okay, this was the second week in a row at Starbucks that I've seen people BYOF.

BYOF = Bring Your Own Food.

This gentleman relaxing on a Sunday has brought his ziplock bag and with some nice looking pound cake at that.

Message to Starbucks...either your food is really bad, overpriced, or perhaps a little of both. 

You pride yourself on your coffee and everyone pays a premium for it, but you are slacking on the food side of the coffeehouse. 

Seems like a big opportunity--fix your food (finally!) and make gazillions of dollars more off the addicted masses that flock to your coffee havens. 

My consulting fee...we can discuss. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Starbucks - BYOF

Just Can't Bear To Think

Whether though endless work, family activities, exercise, computer time, or whatever, people have a hard time just stopping to think. 

According to the Washington Post, a study in Science shows that people would rather do just about anything--including administer electric shocks to themselves--rather than having to just think for a little while. 

Fully 67% of men and 25% of women chose electric shocks over sitting and thinking for just 6-15 minutes!

People are "desperate for distractions"--whether through social media or smartphones and more. 

This is why many ancient practices such as Buddhism, martial arts, yoga, and other disciplines teach meditation--sitting silently, without distraction, deeply in thought. 

People are afraid to stop their endless running, rounds of chores and activities, hustle and bustle, and just think about what they are actually doing and where they are going.

Sitting alone with yourself--you have to confront you!

• Fears and anxieties
• Life problems of all sorts
• Mistakes and personal inadequacies
• Bad habits and even dangerous addictions

Keeping yourself endlessly busy is an enabler to avoid sometimes painful reflection, introspection, and even necessary self-help. 

While you often hear that doctors recommend a certain amount of activity to keep physically healthy, I believe that similarly, mental and spiritual guidance would be for carving out time for physical inactivity and instead focusing on meditation and reflection. 

Perhaps, this is one reason that the Sabbath (kept in various ways by religions around the world) is so important to the mind and soul--it is a time to stop the work and daily mundane activities and instead focus on your spiritual side. 

Contrary to what you might think, refraining from all the activity may be one of the hardest things to actually do, but stopping and thinking (instead of just continuously doing), confronting yourself, and making life course corrections can be some of the most rewarding. 

Can you stop and think for just 15 minutes or do you need that next fix of compulsive distraction? 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Just Can't Bear To Think

Addictions R Us

I was having an really interesting conversation with a friend--okay, and it got a little deep. 

He said something fascinating to me--which is that everyone is addicted to something. 

Think about it--some are addicted to the hard stuff...drugs, alcohol, smoking.

Others are addicted to sex, work, shopping, exercise, even religion. 

In modern times, there are new addictions to technology, gaming, and social media.

My friend is smart and we discussed or alluded to a number of reasons for the addictive nature of all people. 

1) Meaning - Many people have a tough time dealing with the seemingly meaningless, mortal nature of their lives. Without a strong purpose and meaning, we can sort of float through every day looking for some anchor, stability, or rhythm. Addictions, for better or worse, can provide that habit or repetition compulsion. While not very meaningful itself, these addictions help people forget--temporarily, during their high or while they are being kept busy--that they are perhaps lost amidst it all. 

2) Pain - Everyone has pain--emotional, physical, mental--these cause stress on people and their ability to deal or cope can be stretched thin, and they turn to some sort of addiction as a "crutch" to help them get through the day. It reminds me of a very crude song that I overheard years ago, called "F*ck the pain away" (excuse the language here, please). Anyway, simply replace the first word, with "work, shop, drink, and so on and poof, you have opiates (i.e. pain relief) for the masses. 

3) Fear - People are afraid--afraid of living, afraid of dying--and addictions take us away from having the time to stop, think, and have to deal with our fears. If every minute, I am running around doing a million things--then I don't have the time to shut it all down and out, and deal with what's really going on inside. In fact, some people credit the Holy Sabbath day, as being beneficial to us to just stopping all that daily stuff at least for one day a week!

We are all human, and there is no one who is immune to looking for meaning, avoiding pain, and dealing with their fears. 

The question is do we just throw ourselves into something to keep going or do we take more of a Buddhist approach, accept that life is suffering and try to raise ourselves above it through healthy balance, contemplative meditation, compassion and thinking about others, doing good deeds, and so on. 

Keeping busy is good too--but going through life in a drug or otherwise induced fugue is not--then we've lost ourselves, which is maybe the point for our crazy world where addictions abound and we are all too happy to dive right in. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Miles Cave)

Addictions R Us

Debt Default--Now Or Later

So reopening the government, narrowing our deficit spending, and raising the national debt ceiling is coming together in planned negotiations this week. 

Despite all the talk, we continue to spend beyond our national means and basically we must raise the debt ceiling or else the game of borrow and spend is over. 

Almost like insatiable gamblers, we use up our money at the table, head to the pawn shop to sell our watch and car to replenish for the next game, and then borrow against our credit card to fuel our addiction to the game some more. 

Eventually though the house always wins and the borrower must pay up (or they get their legs broken or something nasty like that). 

So while the question posed by the pundits this month is whether the U.S. will default on its debt now, the real question is whether a default is just a matter of time anyway--as we continue to spend more than we generate in revenue as a country. 

Sure can we raise the debt limit again--hey, why not borrow more, if others are willing enough to lend to us (and for little to no interest too)?  

And can we through sequestration or more surgical spending cuts, decrease the rate of our deficit spending--however actually balancing our budget is not even on the table anymore, as booming entitlements for Social Security and Medicare are expected soon with the aging baby boomers to drastically increase our spending again. 

The hope that we will somehow, magically grow our way out is fanciful thinking--almost rising to delusions of national grandeur--that just don't mathematically add up (since we have a median GDP growth rate over the last 80 years of just over 3%). 

Perhaps, we don't care if we can't pay our debts, because we are the superpower and what is anybody going to do to us about it anyway?  

Or perhaps, we rely as a backstop on our ability to print more money and pay off old borrowed sums with worthless new money galore?

Maybe it's not a default if no one acknowledges it or we just get away with it...but somehow, someway, no one and no country can spend more than it generates in perpetuity.

If you believe in the endless virtual cycle of borrow and spend, then the mind control program is working just great, indeed. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Debt Default--Now Or Later

Social Networks--Online and At The Beach

There was a comical editorial in the Wall Street Journal about Social Networks. 

This guy, Farhad Manjoo, is addicted to Twitter. 

He writes: "I check it first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and about a billion times in between."

And he admits he doesn't understand his own addiction: "I've never been able to explain what I get out of Twitter, or exactly why I find it so enthralling."

Manjoo is afraid of what an IPO will do to Twitter--will they have to advertise more, become more like Facebook, favor pictures over text, lose it's strength in the area of breaking news--hopefully, he is referring to more than what he ate for breakfast!

People are spending inordinate amounts of time on social media--friending and following people they don't even know!

Perhaps, it's the fantasy--compliments of virtual reality on the Internet--of being associate--"friends" or "connected--with the rich, famous, powerful, and wise or with the kids who would beat us up in the schoolyard only years earlier. 

Online--we're all sort of friends, aren't we? 

Our avatars or online profiles don't differentiate much between those we really like or not--we are free to pretty much follow anyone, anytime--unless they block you because you are annoying!

Virtual reality in social media--perhaps the great equalizer--the freedom fighters in the Middle East can post videos of the Sarin attacks as easily as the President can post his inaugural message. 

The material is there and free for the ingest by everyone.

Social media has a purpose in bringing us together and spreading the word, videos, and pictures of the times--it make the big world smaller for us to get our arms around. 

Then again, a social network of a few close family members or friends on the beach--also good, maybe better for the soul. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Social Networks--Online and At The Beach

Feeling Groovy

So some colleagues at work told me about getting a Swedish Massage.

I listened to how it helps them with aches and pains as well as to just relax. 

One guy mentioned that he tried a couples massage with his wife and it was really awesome as an event together.

Not that I thought in a million years that I would ever get a massage myself, but going away with my honey, this seemed like just the right thing to do. 

We ended up at the spa in the Westin and had the most relaxing massage that I could ever imagine. 

Some lemonade, calm music, dim lights, and a view of the ocean made it just perfect for us. 

I realized where some new pain points for me were, how important a little work-life balance can be, and could only say, "What other times are you available this week?"

Uh oh, I think I'm hooked.

OMG--thank you, but maybe I should've never tried it (it's an expensive habit)!  ;-)

Feeling Groovy

Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Cell Phone?

Some people are averse to change and to technology--and then there is Gary Sernovitz. 

This guy in the Wall Street Journal today boasts how he is one of the last 9% of American society that goes without a cell phone (let alone a smartphone). 

At 40 and as a managing director of an investment firm, he says if he needs to make a call he uses one of the 30 working remaining payphones in Manhattan or borrows his wife or a strangers phone--so much for personal independence and self-sufficiency. Does this guy (and wife) live at home with his mommy too?

He calls himself a "technology holdout" and actually goes on to says that he is scared of getting a cell phone because he is afraid of losing himself.

While admittedly, many people do go overboard with technology, social media, and gaming to the point of addiction, I am not sure that getting a cell phone is alone a major risk factor.

Sernovtiz says he adheres to Henry David Thoreau's philosophy of simplicity--and that inventions "are but improved means to an unimproved end." 

Thoreau went to live in the woods to "live deliberately" and focus on "only the essential facts of life," perhaps like many ascetics and spiritual guides before him have. And as such, this is not a bad thing when done for the right reasons. 

But Sernovitz's one-sided message is a negative one, because technology as any tool is not bad in and of itself--it's how we exert control over the tool and ourselves, balancing productive use from misuse and abuse. 

If Sernovitz is so afraid of using technology, perhaps he should question himself as an investment manager and disavow use of money--which can be used for many evils from greed, hoarding, and selfishness to financing terrorism--and instead go back to bartering forest lumber and chicken eggs?

When I asked my 16-year old daughter what she thought of Sernovitz's article, she said he can't differentiate "simpler from easier."

Don't mind me if I pass on this guy's book, "The Contrarians." ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Cell Phone?

We're All Digitally Distracted

Focus, focus...forget it!

With smartphones, social media, email, texting, phone calls, meetings, and more...it takes a lot of discipline to not get distracted and actually get things done. 

The Wall Street Journal (11 December 2012) laid out half jokingly that most people wouldn't even be able to finish the article because of all the technological and people interruptions in our daily lives. 

There are various aspects to this problem:

1) Digital Addiction--We love and are addicted to the information, connectedness, convenience, and entertainment that computerization, digital communications, and the Internet provide. Loneliness be gone!

2) 24/7 Expectations--Employers, family, and friends expect that we will be available to them around the clock. We are tethered to our jobs and each other with computers, smartphones, Blackberries, telework, social media, and more. If I can't get to you, it's because you don't want to be gotten!

3) Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)--One of the concerns we have about getting off our devices is that we may miss out on something--that critical phone call or email may be regarding an important event, a special sale, a job interview, a long lost friend or lover, someone who needs help, or whatever. But if you shut yourself off, then you may just be missing the opportunity of a lifetime!

For most people the smartphone is the last thing they look at before going to sleep and the first thing they look at in the morning...assuming your significant other doesn't intervene. 

Even going on vacation, for many, means checking work and personal emails and voicemails...a vacation is no longer a real vacation, just perhaps less work than going into the office. 

On one hand, we have more information and connectedness at our fingertips than ever before, but on the other hand, we are living in virtual, and not physical, reality.

One example is how we sit with our families and friends, but every one is on their device and no one is interacting with each other in the room. 

No wonder there is a movement now to "Turn it off!" or "Leave it at home (or work)!"--We are desperately trying to balance between cyberspace and personal space. 

We can't afford to be distracted or to distract ourselves, incessantly--we need to focus on what's important, what needs to get done, and on those who love and need us. 

Whether you do a zero email day or just leave it all behind vacation--everyone needs some time be human with each other again. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

We're All Digitally Distracted