Put the Phone Down and Live

Listen. All of you. Every last generation that came after mine.

I don’t know what happened, but somewhere between the invention of the microwave

and whatever this TikTok situation is, things went very wrong.

You’re tired? You’re anxious? You’re “overstimulated”? Good. That’s called being

alive. When I was young, nobody asked how we felt. We were too busy

getting things done. You need an app to wake up, an app to sleep, an app to breathe,

and another app to tell you you’re breathing correctly. We had an alarm clock and fear.

You want “work–life balance.” We wanted work. Then life showed up whether we liked