Alan C. Fox's Blog, page 4
March 19, 2019
Us vs Them – It’s Hard Wired
On Sunday morning I often watch talk shows. Today one show featured a Stanford University professor who stated that human beings are hard wired to have an “Us vs. Them” mentality. When we view photos of people who look different from us, a part of our brain lights up with a “danger” warning. Tinder, a dating app, is similarly based on someone’s reaction to a photo. Presumably people only swipe right when they are attracted to a photo and swipe left if the person in the photo triggers a dan...
March 12, 2019
On Being Kind
The devil is always in the details.
In Aesop’s fable “Belling the Cat” the mice decided that to escape the sharp claws of the cat all they needed to do was place a bell around the cat’s neck to warn them of the cat’s approach.
“But who will bell the cat?” one elder mouse asked.
It is easy to say that something should be done, but quite a different matter to do it.
In a previous blog I suggested that whatever you say to your partner-in-life should be truthful, necessary, and kind. Today I’m f...
March 5, 2019
Rushing to . . . Why?
This morning I woke at 6:00 am, rose from bed at 6:23, showered at 6:26, then packed my suitcase and was standing on the curb in front of my house at 7:08 waiting to be picked up by a Lyft driver. Obviously I keep track of time.
But I had intended to leave at exactly 6:45, so I was already twenty-three minutes late for my eight-day vacation on Maui. More precisely, I was rushing to catch a Hawaiian Airlines flight from Los Angeles International Airport because I have never succeeded in convi...
February 26, 2019
How to Effectively Improve All of Your Relationships in Three Easy Steps
If I were to take my four-year-old grandson to the Los Angeles Main Library, show him a few books, and tell him that he should learn to read, how well would he succeed without further instruction and supervised practice?
You’re right. Not well.
In our schools we teach many core subjects, including reading, arithmetic, history, and geography. As a society, however, we seldom teach how to get along with other people in an effective and consistent way. Instead we assume that our children will...
February 19, 2019
Catch Yourself Being Effective
I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change is the second-longest running Off-Broadway musical in history.
No wonder. Even the title describes a situation we’ve all experienced. Our parents were perfect until we figured out that they, like other human beings, were human. Every romantic love of our lives was perfect until we realized that they didn’t put the cap back on the toothpaste tube. Our children were perfect when they were born. That didn’t last forever.
Every one of us has a unique se...
February 12, 2019
Let Your Subconscious Solve It
The most useful idea I learned in college is this: If you have a problem you can’t solve, just put it in your subconscious and wait for an answer.
During law school I enrolled in an evening Shakespeare class taught by Professor Alan Casson. His second lecture was interrupted several times by students asking him questions.
“Please hold your questions until the end,” he said. “I’m sure I will answer all of them during my lecture.”
I thought his statement was arrogant, and promised myself I wo...
February 5, 2019
How to Climb a Mountain
I recently watched the documentary Free Solo which follows Alex Honnold as he scaled the 3,000 foot face of El Capitan in Yosemite on June 3, 2017– without ropes or safety gear of any kind. He succeeded.
Speaking literally, I have climbed only one mountain in my life. Fifty years ago, my friend John, an outdoorsman, talked me into a three day backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
After one full day of hiking we arrived at our base camp next to a beautiful lake. I was still pantin...
January 29, 2019
Loyalty and Jan
With the partial shutdown of the Federal government at least temporarily behind us, I was thinking about the comment our president made wondering why all of the Democratic members in the House of Representatives had been loyal to the Speaker of the House. I’m not going to comment on that specific situation, but it did spark my thinking about loyalty.
To me, loyalty is putting the need of another person or group ahead of your own.
If my significant other or one of my children called me and sa...
January 22, 2019
Cheating and Connection
We all know that cheating in a marriage means secretly having a sexual relationship with someone other than your spouse. This deception often causes the disruption or dissolution of the relationship.
But there is another, equally hazardous way to cheat, and that is to withhold or misrepresent how you really feel to your significant other.
By not fully revealing yourself you are cheating yourself and others of both trust and connection. Withholding your feelings will not only damage your intim...
January 15, 2019
Loving a Quiet Dog
When I was a kid I wanted a dog. For several years my father said, “No.” He believed he would end up taking care of the dog, which he didn’t want to do.
But kids have nothing better to think about each day than how to persuade their parents to give them what they want. My record on this was far from perfect – I never did get a BB gun. But after a few years of lobbying, my brother and I successfully landed a black cocker spaniel who lived in an enclosed porch next to the kitchen.
Of course...
