What is Curiosity?

Curiosity sets us apart from other species. It allows us to develop our intellect and invent new tools that make our life easier. Curiosity is not only the engine for material progress, but also closely correlated to individual mental and physical health, intelligence, happiness, and positive outlook on life in general. Curiosity in us is innate and can anchor us in the present while we are deeply involved in investigating, researching, and exploring. It makes us feel more awake, more alive, more passionate and has a rejuvenating effect. Considering all these positive qualities that accompany curiosity, one can only wonder why we don't cultivate and harvest its positive energy much more. It seems that with age, curiosity is slipping away and with it a lot of fun, passion, empathy, happiness and a special connection to the world that we live in. Wouldn't our lives be a lot more interesting, if we regularly dared to try new things, never stopped challenging ourselves to learn new skills and pick up new interests? Wouldn't we feel much happier in our neighborhoods, communities, and towns, if people were a little more curious about their surroundings, each other, the world, big and small ideas, and all the infinite possibilities in our communities that we currently leave unexplored?

In babies and toddlers curiosity is the driving force. They rely on it to learn all skills necessary to survive in their habitat. Constant observation helps them to figure out how things work. Little children touch things to understand what they are, what they are made of, what they can do, and what they can be useful for. They play around with them in as many different ways as possible. Every object is worth discovering and exploring in the same meticulous way, because it will help with comparing all new things to these first ones and will allow them to make sense of their world. Parents and caregivers know that the acquisition of knowledge and curiosity are intrinsically connected and encourage their little ones actively to explore and discover. But as they master the basic skills of walking, talking, eating, and understanding of how human interaction works, they become integrated into a broader learning system, in which curiosity gradually becomes marginalized.

Once institutionalized learning takes place, children remain encouraged to explore, but in much more directed ways. As they gradually become part of institutionalized learning, students' curiosity is just one aspect among many that dictate the curriculum and prepare the students for important standardized assessments. Due to teachers' performance pressures, kids' curiosity often becomes discouraged as it can slow down or even disrupt teaching. Institutionalized learning at times backs away from hands-on investigation in favor of a reproduction of knowledge in pre-selected, pre-approved packages. As a well-known study of divergent thinking of 2011 showed, schooling actually has a negative effect on creative thinking and creativity in kids. One specific experiment asked Kindergarteners to come up with as many uses for a paper clip as possible and the average 5-year old could think of 200. When the experiment was repeated with kids a few years older, the results were sobering: on average these older kids were only able to imagine 5 uses for a paper clip in contrast to 200 imagined by 5-year-olds.

As adults with steady jobs and more static lives, curiosity and imagination recede even further. Unless we perform a diverse set of tasks or have jobs in creative fields like research, design or the arts, we generally do not have many chances to follow our curiosity or interests. Considering that 80% of adults in the U.S. admitted to "hating their jobs" in 2010 and spent endless hours on tasks without being positively emotionally engaged, they live a rather monotonous lives. While some individuals may manage well accepting this dull outlook thinking that it is part of being an adult, the majority of us becomes discontent, bored, and frustrated not only with work-life, but also with themselves, their relations, and their surroundings. Without taking the extra time or effort to make our lives more interesting by doing something different and incorporating curiosity into the little stretches of free time that we do have, we tend to become lazy and depressed. We accept the social expectations that adulthood means lots of responsibilities and obligations and don't expect much excitement.

Last year, research confirmed that the brain of curious individuals worked much better and enhanced the individual's ability to learn information easier than those of the less curious people. They found that when curiosity is piqued, new information can be best learned and turned it into useful facts. It will also be memorized for much more extended period of time than for those who are less curious. In addition, the investigators found that when curiosity is stimulated, there is increased activity in the brain circuit related to reward. When curiosity motivated learning, there was increased activity in the hippocampus, a brain region that is important for forming new memories, as well as increased interactions between the hippocampus and the reward circuit. So curiosity recruits the reward system, and interactions between the reward system and the hippocampus seem to put the brain in a state in which you are more likely to learn and retain information, even if that information is not of particular interest to you. This could be useful information in the classroom or the workplace, when learning what might be considered boring material could be enhanced if teachers or managers are able to harness the power of curiosity about something they are naturally motivated to learn.

Big market leaders like Google or Apple have long integrated this knowledge into their companies. They have elevated the role of curiosity, imagination, and creativity and allowed employee's to have a more flexible work schedule which leads to more free mental space that in turn encourages and embraces different, innovative ways of thinking that can lead to great inventions. Google for example has allowed employees to spend 20% of their work time on projects of personal interest. Giving employees control over their time and how they approach a project, the management gives up control, but gains loyalty, passion, and furthers the talent of their employees, who in turn engage with the project on a much deeper level than they otherwise would. Google understands not only that unstructured time, inspiring surroundings, and minimal supervision are necessary for more creative output, but also that monotony poses a main obstacles to innovation. In the last couple of years, many other business leaders have confirmed that the specific skills that the job market will require in the near future cannot be known for sure at this point, but the qualities that many companies will look for are creativity, adaptability, and critical thinking skills, which are most likely found in humanities or art majors.

Despite the popularity and wide distribution of these findings (also to be found in some great TED talks), the current trend unfortunately continues to favor the opposite. At universities more and more funding has been cut for the arts and humanities, where the instructional focus lies on the development of critical and free thinking skills, as well as creativity. Japan has taken this to the extreme as the recent announcement by Minister of Education Hakubun Shimomura shows in which he said that all Japanese universities will stop accept entering students into programs of social sciences, law, and humanities. In the U.S. and many other nations (like Britain) the government are partial to STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) over the arts, social sciences, and humanities, which resulted in massive budget cuts for the latter. While this decision is clearly driven by economic concerns, it may have a much larger impact. Not only will it further pre-select areas of interest to humanity and thus limit the direction in which curiosity and imagination are allowed to operate, but it will ultimately also create a world in which even more people favor a calculable reality. If the broad majority of higher educated people worked in STEM fields, it would alter our world significantly, but not in a positive way. In the end, it would be a less colorful and far less diverse place, where most of our interests center around similar things. It would become a static and grim world of decreasing tolerance for alternative ways of thinking, being, and approaching life.

The power of curiosity, which demands an open mind and is inherently connected to hope, can transform us and should not be sidelined in our lives no matter our age. Life is an adventure and can remain such in all stages of life, if we stay curious. If we dare to look at the world beyond our daily framework, we can only benefit from it. Acquiring new skills, challenging ourselves to learn, we view life from different perspectives, which helps us to remain energized and awake. When exposed to the new, we --like children-- reevaluate the old, the traditional and have the chance to create something new. Not only does it add to our basic sum of experiences, but it also allows us to rethink our own identity. This may be especially valuable in an age when many people are unhappy with their jobs and we are regularly confronted with horrible violence committed by individuals who struggle to find a place in this world. Engaging people, arousing and channeling their curiosity may create a way to transform their frustrations and anger into something positive and lead them to reconnect with their peers and their communities.

What is Vanity?

These days, it seems that a big part of our lives revolves around vanity. We are constantly connected to social media sources, where we share many instances or sequences of our lives. We keep others informed about what we are doing, with whom, and how much fun that was, etc by posting regular selfies. Last year, more than one million selfies are taken per day. The majority of them were shot by individuals in the age range from 18-24. So even mundane situations, like picking up fruit in a grocery store, buying a latte in a coffee shop or finding a rare creature while working in the yard, will be documented, shared, commented on. Since everyone desires positive feedback from their connections, friends or followers, we begin to imagine our next post long ahead of time: the situation/event that would lend itself; the interesting backdrop; the facial expression that would work with it; and not to forget a witty caption. Then, while posing and clicking the picture of ourselves, we use various slightly different angles to get the best shot, which we carefully select afterwards. And even after deciding which one to use, more than a third of selfie posters admitted to changing/editing their self portraits in some ways before publishing it on social media.

Vanity has become a constant companion and in our thoughts that creates and highly censors the self-image that we present to the world. As people engaged more and more with social media, individuals become their own brands intending to appeal to the broader audience. Approval ratings can be measured in likes, new friend requests, new followers, new connections or new additions to one's circles. While the spheres of the public and private become more blurry as the number of narcissistic individuals increases and life begins to revolve more and more around the intended effect of a post, some real life activities become far less spontaneous and more planned out than many of us would care to admit. The current narcissistic trend of constantly double-checking oneself reminds us of the Greek myth of Narcissus who drowned because he could not take his eyes off his own reflection in the water. Many of today's young adults who over-engage with social media experience similar psychological and social problems that may seem unexpected judging from the happy and confident images that they post. Their own vanity can isolate them, like Narcissus, and take them away from society. For the broader community this leads to a set of other, much deeper lying questions about young adult's identity: What is the real reason that leads them to crave the constant desire or even need of approval and specifically the approval of people they mostly don't even know or don't know well? Why and how have superficial perceptions become so important that they can trump other values that have a much more important effect on our communities?

The generation of my late grandmother would find this trend to document oneself tasteless and misplaced. She and her contemporaries would have wondered who would feel comfortable or rather important enough to record themselves throughout the day. She would have found this absurd. She would have wondered how anybody could think that their daily life could be of interest to others to such an extent that they document it, unless they people of interest in public life. Humbleness and willingness to work hard were the characteristics that people of her time and her context (rural Western Europe) adored. They believed that one should always do good, but not talk about it, because bragging was simply taboo. Showing or appearing arrogant or boastful were unforgivable sins. But individuals of her time made the utmost effort to appear appropriately dressed, even in the harshest economic times. They wanted to be regarded as respectable people in their community and display and guard their good reputation.

The generation of my parents who grew up in the postwar years experienced very harsh times in which hunger, losing loved ones, and poverty unfortunately were the norm. Interestingly enough, though, despite all the hardship vanity still survived and, as I was told, some teenage girls were so concerned with fashion trends that they slept with their hair in curlers made out of toilet paper rolls. Due to economics, fashion was simple those days in Western Europe. After the war, it consisted of patchwork styles (as seen on the skirt on the right) and of re-purposing military uniform jackets, because that was what was available. Since many men were gone after the war, women competed over the few that were there (and not wounded) and were extra careful with their bodies and looks, but life certainly did not revolve around vanity, but much more substantial things: money to buy the basic necessities, education, work, and rebuilding life in a very different way than the previous generations.

Today, vanity and selfies are not at all frowned upon, but instead they are acceptable, expected, and even encouraged among peers. And yes, there is social pressure to post more selfies, so that all the connections can get a better picture about what is going on in someone's life. This is a competitious enterprise and full of judgments. You don't only want to look as good as possible, but hopefully much even better than some of your connections, friends or ""frenemies." You want to come across as more fashionable, skinnier, outgoing, and brave. You also want to have the more interesting/diverse backdrop for your selfies. With the invention of the selfie-stick even better self-documentation can be achieved and a more realistic images of your surroundings can be captured while taking a self-portrait. Unfortunately, the competition over the most exclusive shots has led to a rising number of death in 2014. Not only do many people risk their lives by taking selfies hanging from walls or jumping off buildings, but also being in close proximity to dangerous animals or standing on the tip of the highest skyscrapers. It appears to be a highly disproportionate risk for the possibility of a great photo of oneself. Still, for many young people the possibility of short-lived fame on social media may justify it. This not only goes to show that we humans or a large portion of our species are not at all as intelligent as we could be. Self-protection and securing one's own survival should be highest on the list of priorities.

Taking selfies can not only leads to physical danger, injuries, and possible death, but also and more importantly to deep psychological problems. Narcissism does not only encompass revolving around yourself and needing constant reaffirmation of ones own importance from outside sources, but it is above all the result of a deep-rooted inner insecurity. There is the sad, unimaginable story of the British young man Danny Bowman (19), a so-called "selfie addict" who was aiming for a perfect selfie and attempted hundreds of times per day, but was never satisfied with the outcome. He skipped school and stayed inside his house for six month while he kept on trying. He lost a lot of weight and his whole life tilted out control with an attempted suicide attempt. It is taking long-winded treatment to make it possible for him to rejoin society and participate in normal life. This shows that the mental problems that accompany selfie addicts are serious and should not be underestimated. According to a medical professional selfie-takers have an "extremely high suicide rate."

Studies have shown though, that most of selfies are taken by young women. On the one hand it has to do with the stereotypes about women. Women are always expected to look gorgeous, even if they happen to have stressful lives (e.g. full-time jobs and a family to take care of) with little time to work out or focus on their eating habits. On the other hand, it has been argued that this is a way for women to reclaim their own bodies. Taking selfies, women are in total control of their own pictures and decide on the concrete composition of the image. This has been understood as a form of empowerment. If this is actually a way of cutting the chains of expectations that surround women is clearly debatable. In many ways, it seems to feed into the old stereotypes that women are only seen and not heard. As long as this doesn't lead to any further action that is relevant for a broader section of society, in my opinion, this has little to do with empowerment. The time spent on rotating around oneself and finding the perfect image of oneself could be spent with many more useful activities that would change the world (and the image and perception of women) in a more positive way. Maybe vanity and narcissism are used as a way of escaping reality and ignoring the larger problems that need to be addressed (like poverty, education, racism, violence, etc.)? Maybe some young people can avoid the world and their responsibility in it as long as they don't admit that they are actually part of it. If they live in vanity and rotate around themselves, they identify more with their online world than the real world, which leads to a whole new set of problems.

As parents, we have to wonder how we can protect our children from this growing trend of vanity. We have to make sure that we raise our kids with enough confidence that they don't need constant reassurance from third parties, that they grow up with a secure belief in themselves and the community around them. We have to let them know that as humans we have to accept ourselves and our bodies and that those images of seemingly perfect people that flood the media are highly edited and unnatural. We have to make sure that they are grounded in the real world, so that they grow up with a feeling of belonging. This will allow them to feel empathy and become active for people who need them and causes that they find worthy. We have to teach them that vanity is short-lived and the important things in life take time and a lot of effort to come to fruition. Real accomplishments through dedication and hard work will earn them respect, whereas even the greatest selfie will only give them fame for a very short time, should they even get there. We have to let them know that vanity leads to isolation and despair and cannot make anyone happy in the end.

What is Laziness?

We all have lazy days when we do not want to get up, drag taking a shower, getting dressed, and simply do not want to accomplish anything. Usually laziness occurs after we have completed a bigger project almost like a reward to ourselves, e.g. after acing a test, doing a good job at a major meeting, signing a big client, etc. We allow ourselves to relax and recover for a short period of time, recharge, and then get ready for the next challenge. However, for some people, laziness has turned from a temporary condition into a chronic condition or a life style. As obesity and physical inactivity are on the rise, laziness has also become an alarming health risk as it is responsible for about 5 million deaths a year that could be prevented.

Chronic laziness has nothing to do with recovery time. Instead, it happens when one would be expected to do something productive, but one cannot and doesn't even intend to do it. While procrastination and laziness share some commonalities since in both cases individuals do not do what they are expected to, psychologists have found that procrastinators intend to do them after a long period of avoiding them, whereas people with chronic laziness have no intention of achieving anything. In their world, the effort it takes to complete a task doesn't seem worth it, so they simply refuse to do it, without consciously deciding so. Laziness is the avoidance of physical and intellectual challenges, any kind of stimulation, change, or long-term goals. The only goal of the chronically lazy individual is the maintenance of status quo. A recent study by Vanderbilt University has detected that not only the minds, but also brain functions were altered in people with chronic laziness. They found that people with less motivation have a different brain activity from those that are highly motivated. Amounts of the chemical dopamine in three brain regions determine if a person is a go-getter or an avoider of work. The chemical does distinct things in different areas of the brain. So while high levels of dopamine in some brain regions were associated with a high work ethic, a spike in another brain region seemed to indicate just the opposite — a person more likely to slack off, even if it meant smaller monetary rewards.

Chronic laziness is like giving up. It is filling time in the most meaningless ways and refusing to live one's life. It is a life without direction, passion, purpose, and connection. Laziness is not only harmful for the body and the brain, but most of all to the self as it systematically reduces self-confidence, self-worth, happiness, and the individual loses the feeling of being connected to the world. As laziness cannot be conquered, the individual loses hope and stability and settles into the mindset of disappointment with himself/herself. This paralysis that chronically lazy individuals find themselves in leads to and is even further increased by lethargy. Psychologists have found that laziness is often connected to Dependent Personality Disorder. An individual affected by this has low self-confidence and doesn't believe in their skills at all so that they are more comfortable to ask others to do something for them, instead of doing it themselves. Laziness has also been linked to Avoidant Personality Disorder, in which an individual is afraid of others' judgment of their performance and thus would rather not do anything (and risk being perceived as ignorant or unskilled) than being judged. A non-psychological, medical condition that chronic laziness has been linked to is Upper Airway Resistance Problem (URAP). URAP is a condition where a patient has smaller than average airway openings that prevent them from getting enough oxygen while in deep sleep. Due to the obstruction of airways, they suffer from chronic sleep deprivation and consider themselves too tired to engage in any kind of effort and thus avoid it. 

An article in the medical journal The Lancet explained in 2012 that for lazy individuals, who get close to no physical activity, the health risk factor is comparable to that of a heavy smoker or someone who is obese. In fact, some current research shows that inactivity now kills more people than smoking, which means that chronic laziness has become even more alarming. It is estimated for the UK that only 7 our of 10 individuals aging 15 and up reach the recommended amount of physical daily exercise. For teenagers aged 13-15 years the numbers are even more dramatic: 4 out of 5 do not move enough. Lack of exercise causes an estimated six percent of coronary heart disease cases, seven percent of type 2 diabetes (the most common form) and 10 percent of breast and colon cancers. Reducing inactivity by a mere 10 percent could eliminate more than half a million deaths every year. In a global comparison, the levels of inactivity in adults were especially alarming in the UK: 63.3% of adults (with higher rates in women than in men) do not meet recommended amounts of activity, such as walking briskly for 30 minutes or more five times a week or taking more vigorous exercise for 20 minutes three times a week. Only the numbers for Serbia and Malta in Europe were worse than those of the UK. For the U.S., the numbers were only slightly better, but still alarmingly high: The Center for Disease Control found that in 2008 about 52% of U.S. adults were not getting the recommended amount of exercise, although these numbers differed greatly with regards to ethnicity, socio-economic status, and level of education. A study by the University of Missouri revealed that blood sugar went increasingly out of control, the longer individuals remained inactive, but if inactivity is the chosen way of life, this experiment showed that the knock-on effect is that the insulin loses its effect and individuals are on the slippery slope to ill health.

Here in the United States, a strong misperception persists about laziness. It is generally assumed that poverty is the direct result of laziness and refusing to work hard, but in most cases the opposite is true. Many poor people have to work extra hard, e.g. several jobs just to get by, some are single parents which adds even more to their plate. In the wrong argumentation people neglect to factor in that here in the United States the social system (although based on hard work) does not grant the same opportunities to all socio-economic classes and once you end up in poverty in a bad neighborhood and a poor school district, it is extremely difficult to ever experience social upward mobility. Historically speaking, it was always the rich people who were physically more inactive as they could afford to hire helpers for any possible physical jobs, like cooking, cleaning, gardening, child-rearing, washing clothes, etc. Throughout history, poor people worked the hardest as they had little or no education and thus had to work more for less money while still having to organize their own lives to keep their families alive and afloat. In social market economies, where the government has a more secure network in place to help people who cannot work (due to mental of physcial restraints), cannot find work (due to high unemployment rate) or cannot find the right kind of work, etc. you will find more cases in which poor people will reject to work for money and chose to solely rely on welfare. In that context, the common link between poor and lazy is a bit more adequate.

With our change to online-culture and increased time spent sitting, inactivity has become much more prominent in the last decade, even more socially acceptable. And although all major religions (Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism) condemn laziness, it is still on the rise. All of them admonish their believers in their own way to stay on the religious path and stick to religious habits as a means to fight inertia and don't fall prey to sloth. Buddhism for example even distinguishes between three forms of laziness: 1. not wanting to do anything, 2. discouragement with the task at hand; 3. being too engaged in the world to remain conscious and reflective of oneself and the world. Buddhism also understands only experiencing superficial things and nothing profound (e.g. to many fun activities, but no focus in the self) as a form of boredom. In Hinduism inertia is one of the three ganas: 1. Sattwa = purity; 2. Raja = activeness, and 3. Tamas = inertia. The three ganas, Hindus believe, compete with each other and bind the self to the body. Each individual faces the challenge to keep inertia at bay. They believe that Tamas is born out of ignorance, causes delusion and strongly blinds the affected individual with miscomprehension, laziness, and sleep. In Judaism, time is perceived as sanctified and believers are constantly reminded of the fleeting character of time. Wasting time is considered evil and everyone is encouraged to make the most of every single moment. Similarly, in the Christian realm sloth is perceived as one of the seven deadly sins. "Idleness is the beginning of all vice," people believe. Despite the condemnation of laziness in all major religious and most cultural contexts, still millions of individuals die every year from the effects of physical and mental inactivity.

While chronic laziness has always been negative for one's health and mental state, throughout history the ambition to avoid hard work has served as inspiration for new inventions. Smart people who wanted to avoid physical work, always sought of ways to make life more comfortable and less physically challenging. Bill Gates is quoted having said that he would always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job, because he/she will always find an easy way to do it. In today's modern world however, the necessities and discomforts of survival have become so little challenging and almost non-existent that there is no requirement of physical activity, unless we create it for ourselves. This development requires a far more conscious and responsible individual who is willing to accept the challenge posed by this oversimplified world and consciously reject the path of least resistance. In many industrialized nations a good part of the population has become well aware (some by the "Sitting is the new Smoking" campaign) and try to integrate physical activity more and more into their daily lives. Some walk, run, or otherwise exercise during lunch break, add standing desks to their office furniture or bike or run to work to make sure that they get the recommended amount of physical activity. Next to that we also have to remember to keep challenging ourselves not only physically, but also intellectually, so that we don't fall into the trap of overindulging in time spent in passive, meaningless behaviors. We don't want to be remembered as the ones who did nothing of importance, wasted a lot of time, and died young, but as those who created great memories and added meaning and purpose to their own lives as well as that of others. It is especially important for parents to be role models and to protect their children from the patterns of inactivity, so that they can have a more fulfilling, active, and healthy life. We have to use the limited chain of moments on earth to do good and achieve something worthwhile for ourselves, our families, and our communities.

Is a Life Equal to a Life?

A life should be equal to a life, but it is not. Historically speaking, it never has been. In every society, especially those that we remember as great civilizations, there were sharp economic and social distinctions between those who ruled and those who provided the manual labor necessary for the state to function. The disadvantages of the lower socio-economic groups were always a calculated part of any state's system. While slavery in ancient societies was understood as a necessary evil, racial discrimination is a byproduct of modern day colonialism. 19th century racism not only undermined the cultures, traditions, and belief systems of colonized peoples by labeling them barbaric or "uncivilized", but also by introducing the white Western perceptions as the norm. Even though currently whites are clearly the minority with only about 16% of the total world population, beauty ideals, fashion designs, and white Western modes of thoughts still dominate global understandings today. Even in the decolonized world racism is still exists and is a big market for enterprise as e.g. skin whitening creams still are profitable products and in some rural peripheral regions a whiter skin color is still the sign of higher social status.

Here in the U.S. racial discrimination is illegal, yet it occurs on a daily basis. Not only are there still white supremacist movements plotting against African-Americans in various parts of the nation, but the recent unfortunate incidences in Baltimore and Ferguson (and elsewhere) have revealed that there is a much broader segment of society that not only believes in segregation, but even active attacks on African-Americans. A recent study has pointed out that it is much harder for African-American college graduates to find an appropriate job than for Caucasians. Their unemployment rate was twice as high as that of other college graduates. A different experiment investigated racism that job applicants faced with Hispanic and African-American sounding names. In both cases the call backs for an interview were significantly lower than for typical "Caucasian-sounding" names. The experiment clearly showed that candidates with Hispanic or African-American names do not have the same chances at getting a job interview as Caucasians. In fact African-Americans have 50% less of a chance at a call back than Caucasians. Research has shown that they get hit twice by discrimination, because it is not only harder for them to find a job, but also to improve their employability.

Countless other occasions of discrimination have surfaced in the social media since the death of Freddie Gray, on you-tube, twitter or Facebook. Here is this one example of an African-American father who walks into a mall to pick up his children from daycare. While walking around the mall, this man is being approached by a police officer asking to identify himself. The man knows his rights and replies that he has not done anything suspicious and he should not have to identify himself. He is repeatedly asked to show his ID, which he refuses insisting on his legal right. Suddenly more officers appear and the man is handcuffed as his two children watch. He is recording the entire incident and it is heartbreaking to see that even though he has done nothing wrong, he gets arrested. This highlights the well-known fact that racial bias is part of current police practices. Just imagine that it would have been a white man in his thirties who did not display any kind of suspicious behavior. Would police officers have asked to see his ID? Most likely not. Now imagine that it was a woman walking around in the mall (white, African-American or Hispanic). Would she have been suspicious? Would the police have arrested her for no reason? Probably not. Fact is that African-Americans and other non-white (e.g. Indian, Middle Eastern, Hispanic) looking men get stopped more by the police and asked for identification, even if they have done nothing wrong. Many more incidences of this kind of injustice have surfaced recently that illustrate a reality that is far off from equal to all citizens. What makes it worse is that the officials in uniforms who are supposed to uphold the laws of the nation and protect the rights of all citizens seem to be the ones who disregard the same laws and endanger African-American lives. Why has this developed into a string of incidences and why have the highest levels not been able to put a stop to this process? Considering that the first (half) African-American President is in power whose election campaign motto was "change", the development is more than sobering. Innocent, unarmed, non-suspicious people should not be attacked by the police, let alone arrested or killed. Period. And if it happens, there should be major consequences for the police officers involved. To prevent such injustices in the future, severe retraining and education of the police force should be a priority.

While these horrific developments are ongoing, there is still a weird taboo associated with talking about issues of race. It is an underlying, unspoken maze that stretches through all walks of life, but at the same time, it should not be mentioned. It seems that those who discuss it, get stigmatized as they destroy the generally accepted illusion that racism doesn't exist in this democracy. Maybe it is because discrimination and racism are illegally, that we feel it could be perceived as unpatriotic if we point out such blatant flaws in the system, but of course the opposite is true: In a democratic nation we have to assure that practices of discrimination and racism decrease and talk about them until they do. However, the media plays its part in promoting the status quo from which it benefits. If we keep pretending that everyone has the same opportunities and that success is just about working hard, we forget that the starting point for different social, economic, ethnic and other groups varies significantly. If we look at the well cited statistics for this issue, we have to admit that it cannot be a coincidence that the numbers of incarcerations, school drop outs, teenage pregnancies, single parentage as well as areas of severe gang activities all point to African-Americans in a highly disproportionate fashion. African-Americans only make up 13% of the total U.S. populations, yet they account for 37% of all the people currently imprisoned. For the age bracket of 27-34 year-old men this means that every 9th African American man is currently in jail. Taking out the men of this age groups robs the African-American community of the group with the most potential of social mobility, but also denies them to provide for their families adequately. It leads to disadvantaged future generations who have to grow up without a father present and without having sufficient male role models. Conservatives may argue that this trend indicates behavior patterns that feed into the vicious cycle and thus prevent any change to the status quo, but they clearly forget that the chances from the beginning were not equal and there is a major historic debt that needs to be paid up before equality can truly exist. In other nations, when there has been a history of unequal treatment of certain segment of society, politicians put quotas in place to guarantee that this specific group gains access to the same opportunities and slowly catches up with the rest of the society, like the women quota in many European nations or the quota for college admissions for students from India's lower castes.

Growing up as a German white girl in South Africa during Apartheid has confronted me with historic guilt on many levels and made me especially aware of discrimination and racism. As a child, I remember seeing unequal, unjust treatment of Blacks everywhere, but at the same time nobody was talking about it. It was an accepted reality that made no sense to me who was taught that all human beings were equal. What Germany's bad history of the Holocaust has taught us is that civic duty and responsibility in a democracy is a force that has to be applied and should not be underestimated or ignored. Citizens' critical thinking about the nation's reality and procedures are necessary to double-check the political path that the nation is taking. If citizens believe that minority rights are violated, people are mistreated, or specific racial profiling has become a standard procedure, people have to stand up and demand justice. If lives are lost, we cannot stand by and let it happen. If it happens repeatedly, then something needs to be fixed within the system to prevent further violations. We have to remember that in a democracy, the state apparatus is the instrument that enables the rule of the majority and whose role it is to protect the well-being of all its citizens, including the minority.

Recipe for Happiness

We all want to be happy, but sometimes, we get caught up in memories that we cannot let go of, feelings that we cannot change or situations, in which we feel trapped. At those times, it is hard to imagine happiness. We all know those dark moments. This is for those days of darkness and isolation. This is for making peace with yourself and others and moving on. This is my recipe for happiness.

1. Accept yourself. It is hard, but we have to accept ourselves, which includes the whole package that we are: our body, our way of thinking, our needs, our age, our worries, our internal contradictions, our unrealistic desires or expectations, our sometimes too high hopes, our complexities, our one-sided take-away from our past, our insecurities and talents. We cannot change who we are, but we have to live with ourselves, so we have to make peace and accept ourselves. (That doesn't mean we cannot work hard to improve many aspects of our lives.)

2. Accept your past. There is no way you can change the past, so you have to accept it. This doesn't mean you have to agree to the ways in which others treated you badly or the moments your made wrong decisions that keep following you. Try to acknowledge the unpleasant experiences that you went through and then focus on the future. Learn from mistakes, wrongful treatment, painful experiences and shift gear. You have the power to change your life and make sure that your future is better.

3. Learn how to be alone. Only if we are alone, we can truly find ourselves. Don't cover that quietness up with music, TV, radio or constant company. Find the quiet inside of you and get to know yourself properly. Deal with your soul and your thoughts and figure out what you want and need.

4. See others with your heart. Measure people by their good intentions. Don't get distracted by their possessions, looks, achievements, and peer group, but see how they interact with you before you pass judgement on them. They may come from a different socio-economic class, ethnic background, another country with a different religion or culture, etc., etc. but they may be trying to do the right thing. Attempt to understand life from their perspective with all their worries and sets of constraints.

5. Be kind. Don't be suspicious about people and give everyone the benefit of a doubt. Most of us are trying to live our life as best we can, but people make mistakes, most of them NOT on purpose. Forgive them and give them second chances. Treat everyone with kindness. They will remember and think of you as they treat others with kindness themselves.

6. Don't hold grudges. Grudges don't lead anywhere, they just poison the present and the memories of the past. Forgive people their errors, their mistreatment of you and move on. Turn the energy that it takes you to hold grudges into something positive.

7. Don't waste time. Time is all we have in life, so don't waste it on things that don't matter in the long run. Spend it with people who are close to you, family and friends and try to make life better for you and them. Leave something useful behind that friends and family can remember you by, once your time is up. Leave them with many positive memories, gifts, smiles. Also leave them money, if you can, to make their lives easier. Let them think of you with warmth and gratefulness to have been close to you. Set an example. Be brave and do all the things you wanted to do while you are still healthy and have time: climb that mountain, run that marathon, write that book, travel to that special place, meet that old friend again that you miss and tell people how you feel about them. Do everything you can, so that you have no regrets at the end of your life.

8. Move. Humans are not made for being inactive. Our bodies need to move. See to it that you stay as active as you can. Go for a walk outside, play sports or run with the kids, take an exercise class. If we sit at work 8-10 hours a day, we have to compensate by being active for the rest of the day. We may fit a walk/run into your lunch break or get a desk, at which we can stand. Some can set up a treadmill under the standing desk and walk while at work. Moving makes us healthier and happier.

9. Eat good food. Good food doesn't mean it has to be expensive, but you should eat healthy most of the time. A good meal makes you feel better instantly. Learn how to cook, use a variety of vegetables and engage in the adventure of preparing healthy, balanced meals (not overloaded with carbohydrates) for yourself and your loved ones. It may take some time to get it right, but you will improve and it will make you feel good. As you learn about foods, spices, and different ways of cooking, you will be more and more in control of your body, which will give you confidence and make you feel better.

10. Use your brain. Try to figure things our by yourself and make up your own mind about things. Have an opinion and share it. There are so many people trying to tell us what to think and what is right and wrong, that we sometime follow the loudest or the richest or the most persuasive. But we should always try to think things through on our own and see if we honestly agree with others before we join any bandwagon. Don't give others power over you by following them blindly.

11. Work hard. Do your best at your job to develop the skills to reach your full potential. Don't cut corners, but devote enough time and energy to learn your trade from the bottom up, inside-out. As your skills develop, acknowledgement in your profession will come your way.

12. Stay curious and keep learning. Life is all about change and adapting to change. As we grow older, we still have to keep adapting to new ways of doing things (e.g. new technologies), learn about new discoveries, new ways of teaching, new evidence about the past, etc. If you want to stay relevant and be part of the current discussions, you have to keep up, which includes being informed and nurturing your curiosity.

13. Do something different every week. Spice your life up with tiny, little changes that you make every week. Take a new way to work, try a new lunch place, go to a different park, find a new trail, eat some new foods, cook a new recipe, try a new skill, talk to someone you do not know etc., etc. This will keep your life a bit more exciting and there are so many awesome things out there, you may discover a whole range of new things that you like and would otherwise have never experienced.

14. Clean up and declutter. As we take care of your bodies, we should also take care of our living space. Declutter and minimize the things in your home. It will give you space to breathe and lets you focus on more important things.

15. Be part of a group. Join a group, it can be a spiritual, political or religious group, an exercise group, a group of volunteers helping at the local library or the senior citizen home, etc., etc. Find a group and a cause that your find worthwhile and donate your time and energy. You will make connections with like-minded people, build your social network, and feel better about yourself and the world.

16. Don't waste money. Don't waste money on things you don't really need. It makes no sense. Once money is spent, it is hard to earn it back.

17. Minimize watching TV. We have a short time here on earth, so don't waste it in front of the TV. We can make real contributions to the world, if we try and put our minds to it. In order to do that we do NOT have to be rich (like the Gates' family), but just determined like Malala.

18. Acknowledge beauty around you. Go outside and open your eyes. Contemplate nature and discover the beauty around you. It will make you feel part of the bigger picture and can make you feel grateful to be alive.

What is Waste?

Currently, we are producing much more waste than ever before: A study by the World Bank has shown that ten years ago there were 2.9 billion urban residents who generated about 0.64 kg of municipal solid waste per person per day (0.68 billion tons per year). This report estimates that today these amounts have increased to about 3 billion urban residents generating 1.2 kg per person per day (1.3 billion tons per year). By 2025 this will likely increase to 4.3 billion urban residents generating about 1.42 kg (3.1 pounds) per capita per day of municipal solid waste (2.2 billion tons per year). Just imagine those numbers: 1.42 kg (3.1 pounds) of solid waste per person per day! The prediction is if we don't change our consumption or recycling habits, solid waste production will exceed 11 million tons per day by the end of this century. Since the process of urbanization will continue now and in the near future, an increasing amount of waste will be produced that cannot be easily discarded. As the cities grow into megacities (most drastically in East Asia), new ways of dealing with the rising masses of garbage will have to be developed that will allow people to live in cities, without being stuck in their own waste.

In the U.S. alone, every individual produces on average of 4.38 pounds of waste per day, of which only one third is recycled or composted. The average American also discards 70 pounds of textiles per year, which means about 1.3 pounds per week! This doesn't only include clothes (whether used, outgrown or unused), but also any other kinds of fabrics like bed sheets, tablecloths, curtains, etc. Unfortunately, most of these textiles (85%) do not get recycled properly, but end up in the regular trash and then serve as part of landfills. How can we explain this huge amount of waste? What causes this attitude of purchasing and subsequent discarding? And what does it say about us as humans that we randomly buy and throw away things without much consideration for the effects on the global economy or our planet? Considering that many of us struggle financially, it is even more astounding that the amount of garbage we produce keeps rising steadily.

Clever advertisements make us believe that it raises our social standing, if we get all those outfits, gadgets, games, or devices that are currently trending and give us more satisfaction with life and more confidence in ourselves. We often cannot ignore those never-ending, spectacular sales that give us much more than we actually need for a great price. So we may end up with four beach chairs instead of two, two umbrellas instead of one, 20 new plates instead of ten, etc., etc. Consumerism is so deeply ingrained in our culture, that it is almost inconceivable to abandon it. Shopping has become a type of social outing that is also used for bonding. While buying and shopping is part of every day life and most people don't think twice about a purchase, peer pressure and brand consciousness also plays its part. Refraining from buying anything on a shopping trip, may spoil the mood for everyone involved or look odd. In addition, shopping serves not only the material satisfaction of owning a certain good, but it also fulfills a deeper emotional void.

A recent study maintained that more than half of Americans say they have shopped and spent money in order to improve their mood, but not because they actually needed what they purchased. Emotional buying and thoughtless shopping lead to people accumulating a lot of things that in the end, will not use. For many, the act of buying itself has become a hobby. It is casually called "retail therapy" and refers to an emotional need to buy when we are depressed, anxious, sad, angry, in a bad mood or simply bored. Research suggests that retail therapy actually works, meaning that many people really experience positive emotional effects through shopping. The TV reality show with the same name depicts people having this obsession of constantly buying things (mostly clothes) and how it affects them and their lives. Many of them keep the purchased goods piled high in their wardrobes and/or stacked in numerous garbage bags, since they cannot fit them anywhere else. They don't even get to make use of them, because they obsessively buy new ones which makes the other (still new ones) obsolete. As a result of this uncontrollable drive, some individuals completely indebt themselves, deplete their funds, and have to declare bankruptcy. So in the end, even if retail therapy may work by improving their mood temporarily, it does not seem like a sound solution to a set of much deeper problems that such individuals face. In the end, this drive seems more closely related to social issues like forms of alienation from family, friends, and psychological issues related to self-confidence and self-acceptance.

One major side-effect of this mindless shopping is that people's homes get cluttered with all the stuff that is not being used. Entire basements and garages contain the results of this trend. Some better organized individuals manage to maintain a clutter-free home by getting rid of stuff regularly by donating or gifting it to less fortunate, while they still keep purchasing more and more things that they again don't really need. It is an infinite cycle of buying and discarding, which doesn't make sense, especially considering its drastic negative economic and environmental impact.

The trend of overbuying doesn't stop with imperishable good, but unfortunately also includes food items. Just like clothes and all other kinds of things, an enormous amount of food is wasted in the Western world every day. A study of 2013 showed that almost 50% of all food production ends up as waste every year. The reason is not only the tendency of people to purchase more than they need, inadequate storage facilities or too strict guidelines for food sales, but also Western consumer's demand for cosmetically perfect-looking food. The lack of appeal to consumers was responsible for more than 30% of all crops produced in the UK in 2013 to not even get harvested! The amount of food thrown away in the world per year ends up being worth around 1 trillion USD per year. This trend means that every 1 in 4 calories produced will be disposed of, instead of consumed. It also means that every year, consumers in industrialized countries waste almost as much food as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (222 million vs. 230 million tons). In the U.S. alone 30-40% of all food is wasted, equaling more than 20 pounds per person per month. Even for American school children studies have shown that about 1/3 of their packed lunch is not consumed, but discarded before it is even touched every day. 

One of the answers to these versions of mindless consumerism is freeganism. Freegans not only reject the economic system that produced this types of consumption, but rather than contributing to further waste production, they curtail garbage and pollution, reducing the over-all volume of the humongous waste stream. Freegans usually include groups of conscious residents of big cities who are very concerned about the social and ecological effects of our consumption economy. Amongst each other, they share valuable insights into the garbage disposal system on the local levels with their peers: e.g. information about who throws away the best (still good) sushi, most delicious bread, best vegetables, etc. But they also disagree with the individualism that our way of life has created and want to revive some aspects of communal living. Freegans generally regard their so-called "food dives" as social events in which they collect still good and healthy foods from garbage disposals and afterwards prepare meals from the salvaged items for the entire group. The joint meal that follows is equally a celebration of their all-inclusive community as it is a celebration of saving perfectly good food or other still useful manufactured items from being wasted. These items may include beverages, books, toiletries, magazines, comic books, newspapers, videos, kitchenware, appliances, music (CDs, cassettes, records, etc.), carpets, musical instruments, clothing, rollerblades, scooters, furniture, vitamins, electronics, animal care products, games, toys, bicycles, artwork, and many more things that are still okay to use and will not cause any health threats. Although digging through garbage is most likely not appealing to everyone, saving perfectly good items from being discarded every day seems like a very reasonable and rational thing to do. In the bigger picture of the planet's destruction through mindless garbage production and ecological threats, this way of life seems to make perfect sense. While freegans are usually politically awakened individuals who actively seek an alternate life-style, this way of optimizing discarded surplus does only reach a small portion of needy groups who cannot afford to feed themselves and their families at market prices. In order to make these foods available to a much bigger portion of disadvantaged individuals, a better organized system of food donations must be created that would help meet two ends: less wasted food and fewer families in need.

Another, different way of not to get caught up in the spiral of consumption and production of waste is to become self-sufficient. A few months ago, I noticed a blog by an impressive young woman who refuses to produce any waste at all. As a student of environmental studies in NYC, she realized one day at lunch that a broad range of individuals produced a lot of unnecessary waste, even though they packed their own meals. As reaction to the thousands of snack bags and plastic forks, aluminium wrap that she saw being used, she decided to go garbage free. She refused to produce any garbage at all by cooking at home, buying in bulk, bringing her own containers to the stores, and by manufacturing all the toiletries that she needs every day herself (creams, make-up, tooth paste, shampoo, etc.). Since all her organic waste gets composted, her clothes are bought and sold at second hand-stores, and she rides her bicycle to get around, and she manages to live a "zero-waste" kind of life. By becoming self-sufficient or autarkic, she can completely avoid the economy that engages in the endless cycle of consuming and discarding goods. Heads-off to this young lady, who can lives on zero waste! 

As this year's Earth Day that just passed a few days ago, all the media information made us aware of the ecological state of affairs of our planet. It has become clear that if we do not change our consumption habits drastically in the near future, our planet is in real trouble. It is frightening to think about the enormous amounts of foods and manufactured goods that are being wasted in the Western world every day. We have to do everything we can to possibly to save our planet, which includes little things like bringing your own bags to the grocery store, recycling your paper, bottles, batteries, plastic, abstaining from buying water in plastic bottles, and reducing our waste as much as possible. But it also includes more drastic measures like breaking our cycles of buying things that we do not need, and addressing the underlying social causes for such behavior patterns. It includes teaching our children to develop a more responsible attitude towards ourselves as humans and our planet. In addition, we much also seed for national and global measures to help better distribute the surplus to the people in need. Ideally these solutions will be also linked to the need for foods and manufactured goods in other parts of the world.

What is Safety?

In a world where police officers shoot people they have prejudices against, where individuals get assassinated because they express their opinions openly, where pilots crash planes on purpose, and where people get arrested for allowing their children to walk home from school unsupervised, issues of safety are a top priority. While the degree of actual threat varies greatly depending on neighborhood, social class, ethnic identity, racial appearance, economic background, sexual preference, and gender, we are all united in the high concern for our own safety and that of our family and friends. As best we can, we try to regulate our environment by controlling the social world that we engage in. The general rule for this is: The more expensive the neighborhood and the home property prices, the lower the crime rate and the better the school district. Although this helps asserting a feeling of increased security, there is no guarantee that a higher-end neighborhood will actually prevent you from any kind of harm. You can never completely control your environment and have to live with the fact that in the end, something could happen (and it does), even in the most expensive neighborhoods. Despite any efforts, you still may encounter random school shootings, abductions or any other random acts of violent aggression.

Constant concerns for the physical safety of children turn parenting into a special challenge. While helping on the National Incidence Study of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART 2) as a research assistant more than a decade ago, I learned that 1,315,600 children went missing in the U.S. during the period from 1997-1999. The enormous number can partially be explained by the fact that it also included children that voluntarily ran away from home and those that were missing for more than an hour due to misunderstandings between child and caretaker, but reappeared. Last year's number for missing children, whose absence had been reported to the authorities, amounted to 466,949, which means close to half a million! So far this year, Amber Alert helped recover 758 missing children. These numbers demonstrate that the perceived threat to our kids' physical safety is real and has to be taken very seriously.

Another danger that we think about quite some time, and that unfortunately becomes real all too often, is gun violence. Many of the incidences could be easily prevented with stricter gun laws. This would alleviate us from the worry about angry criminals roaming the streets waiting to kill someone (or like in our neighborhood recently a suicidal, armed veteran who roamed the area close to the local elementary school). The change in legislation would make guns less accessible and prevent many of the violent incidences that occur in a heated moment when there is easy access to a gun. Often times fatalities happen unintentionally, because of simple avoidable mistakes like storing guns inappropriately and not keeping ammunition separate from firearms. Remember the unfortunate incident last year when a 9-year old girl shot her shooting instructor with a machine gun in Arizona? Or the more recent incident from last December when a 2-year old boy unintentionally shot his mother in a Walmart store with a loaded gun that his mother carried around in her purse while shipping? Unfortunately, there are many more horrific, unforgettable incidences, like school shootings, drive by shootings and lethal hostage crisis that further highlight the danger of accessibility of firearms.

Even if we act responsibly and are successful in raising our kids to become upright and respectful citizens, we cannot control our environment and guarantee that we or our children are safe. No wonder that as a result, parents often become overprotective of their children. The constant fear that something could happen to them while playing outside, keeps parents worried non-stop. In other countries that have a much lower crime rate and where guns are far more regulated than in the U.S. (like Scandinavian countries or Germany), children of all ages have a lot more freedoms and parents worry much less. Kids there are encouraged and taught how to use public transport alone, how to ride their bikes to friends' houses (even if that may be a few miles away) and how to walk to a shop unaccompanied. Nobody in these cultural environments finds this dangerous, irresponsible or unadvisable. In fact, studies have confirmed that it helps kids to learn how to become responsible, independent, and find their place in society. The current generation of children in the U.S. not only does not have a life similar to those children, but they also don't have a life similar to that of their own parents who enjoyed many of the same freedoms that kids in other countries still have. Due to the understanding of safety in the U.S., kids have a very structured life where they go from one supervised activity to the next and barely have any unstructured time. While this method assures us that they are accounted for, it also deprives them of acquiring many skills learned by free play they will need as adults. We have yet to see, what kind of effect this will have once this generation enters the workforce.

But today's threats on personal safety do not come from violence alone, but also from the foods that we consume. Often times we don't check carefully which foods go in our mouth and may not be aware that we stuff ourselves with harmful ingredients. Lots of foods are genetically modified, enriched (with chemicals) or processed in ways that are dangerous to our bodies. While many of us check the labels and try to protect ourselves from as many harmful substances as possible, often times information about certain ingredients becomes confusing, and as consumers we don't really know what is safe and what not. In those moments, the thought in my head is often, 'If official/authorities allow foods to contain these ingredients, then they cannot be so bad, right? After all, they are the experts and they wouldn't want to people to get sick.' But should we really trust this inner voice? In some other nations food labeling and identifying harmful foods undergoes much stricter guidelines than in the U.S.. I remember in a Danish supermarket that Heinz ketchup had a big neon sticker across the label indicating that the product contained high fructose corn syrup and that the local authorities highly discouraged the consumption of this product, because this ingredient was harmful. The point is, consumer self-education to a certain point has to be expected, but it should also be in the interest of the authorities here in the U.S. to create awareness and educate. They should alert us about potentially dangerous foods and prevent these foods to enter the market while instead directing consumers to cleaner and healthier choices. If no attention is raised about harmful ingredients, serious health hazard remain disguised.

Another threat that has become very real for many families is that more and more kids grow up with dangerous, sometimes fatal food allergies. I got to know a family with a child haunted by severe peanut allergy. For the kids it could be fatal just by coming in contact with peanuts or food containing them and by coming in contact with something that had touched peanuts or foods containing them. For this particular family it meant that the mother accompanied the child everywhere to supervise the surroundings and make sure that it was safe, at least until school age. Once the child started Kindergarten, the mother still came to school to observe the child's lunch and eliminate potential threats. Since a drastically increasing number of children suffer from allergies, more and more parents have to send separate snack packages for their child to those birthday parties that they attend, pass on eating and drinking instructions to the supervising parents before playdates, and have to trust that they will remember this significant information. All these considerations lead to constant worries on behalf of the parents, something that earlier generations of parents did not have to do.

What does this all mean? That we as individuals, consumers, and parents should remember our right to the pursuit of happiness which clearly includes issues of safety. We should demand more protection against threats from guns and harmful foods that could be eliminated with the right kind of legislation. For officials and authorities it should be a clear priority to protect the rights of the people to personal safety and not place economic gains of big corporations before the needs of individuals. With stricter gun laws and higher health standards in place, we may even be able to revive some of the lost freedoms for our children and us.