Poking through  13+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Six years since I wrote this and it’s only gotten worse. More time spent on social media, more time spent staring at a screen as the world goes by. But if people don’t reengage soon, the world they knew will no longer exist.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

I had just finished unloading my cart at Home Depot the other day when a woman pulled up with her two young sons; when I offered her my cart she shook her head and kept walking.

There was a time when she might have offered to take the cart, but those times seem a part of the past.

Instead, she kept walking, talked to her sons and answered her cell phone.

Is the world really shrinking or is it just a narrowing of interactions and less interest in what’s around us in real-time?

The more distracted we become, and the more emphasis we place on speed at the expense of depth, the less likely and able we are to care.

Everyone wants his parent’s, or friend’s, or partner’s undivided attention — even if many of us, especially children, are getting used to far less. Simone Weil wrote, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”

Each step “forward” has made it easier, just a little, to avoid the emotional work of being present, to convey information rather than humanity.

As usual, I am out of step.

I take back the carts, function beautifully sans cell/smartphone, pay attention to the humans in my orbit and love real-world interactions.

Digging in the dirt, conversation and reading (mostly cozy mystery fiction) are my favorite “time wasters;” no Facebook, Twitter or Candy Crush (my sister’s addiction).

I prefer to be connected to a few in the real world than connected to dozens (hundreds?) in the cyber world.

In short, I want to continue to pay attention and be present for whatever time I have left on this planet, whether decades or days.

Flickr image credit: Enzo Varriale

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

Over the past few days we’ve been discussing the importance of disconnecting, the destructive force of 24/7 work and what drives people to do it.

People who found companies do so because they have a vision; they recognize a need as well as a way to fill it.

The real work comes between recognition and fulfillment—sharing and evangelizing the vision, building a framework within which the vision can become reality and then sharing the reality with the world at large.

The middle step, the framework, is what differentiates short-term success from long-term.

The middle step requires a cultural vision that also needs to be shared and evangelized.

There is much truth in the analogy that startups are like children and, like parents, founders need to decide ahead of time the value system they want their child to absorb.

“People feel this constant need to be connected. There’s no priority structure. Everything is urgent. Everything is red flagged.” Nancy Rothbard, a Wharton management professor

As founder you have a far-reaching choice to make; far-reaching because it will affect your company for years to come and determine if your child is

1. respectful and values the people in and around it; or
2. a spoiled brat that sees the world only in terms of mememememememe.

Option Sanity™ is values-based.

Come visit Option Sanity for an easy-to-understand, simple-to-implement stock process; so easy a CEO can do it.

Warning.
Do not attempt to use Option Sanity™ without a strong commitment to business planning, financial controls, honesty, ethics, and “doing the right thing.”
Use only as directed.
Users of Option Sanity may experience sudden increases in team cohesion and worker satisfaction. In cases where team productivity, retention and company success is greater than typical, expect media interest and invitations as keynote speaker.

Flickr image credit: HikingArtist