Love of the Week

The greatest gift you can give someone is not three words, "I love you." It's two: "I'm happy."

Try it on your kids and watch them melt. On your mom or dad. The relief on their faces might kill you. Or try it on your partner, and brace for the surprise. Because we are so good at serving them our pain cake. We so rarely pass them the icing.

Happiness finds us every day, if even for a minute or two – that first sip of coffee, c'mon! – and yet we don't often mention that to the people who live for our heart's delight. We simply…forget.

"I'm happy."

Imagine just saying that.

This very week, I had the happiest hour of my life. Yes, I did. Out of the blue.

It happened when I was coloring with my grandkids in Maine. I was sitting in one of those little tiny kid chairs, the sun was pouring through the window above us, and I clicked on Dolly for their edification, only to discover they already knew every word of her songs, thanks to their excellent parents.

Jolene came on. We belted it out together.

You may pause here to sob if you need to. I could have. Nothing prepares you for moments such as these.

"I'm happy," I told them. My granddaughter looked up into my face and smiled. "I am too!" she reported.

"I'm happy," I shouted over to her parents on the couch nearby. "That's great, Mom," my son shouted back. "We're happy for you!" said his wife.

Please. I can barely keep writing this.

I have had pain in my life. Who has not?

But happiness keeps coming around again. I want to acknowledge that, and celebrate it, and dwell in it.

But most of all, I want to give it away to the people who want it for me more than I even want it for myself. And I can with two words. You can too.

Hate of the Week

A reader writes: "Could you please relabel your 'Hate of the Week' segment? For real. Someone in your position of influence and professional status should not be so publicly advocating for 'Hate' in any manner for such trivial things. Actual atrocious war crimes and governments actually killing millions of their own citizens, sure. Convicted criminals of serious heinous violent crimes against society, sure. Management musings about friendship issues and challenges, NO!!"

Sir, I take your point! In all honesty, every week I struggle to come up with something I "hate" that is not really a hate, because if I were to be entirely real, I would be writing this week about the worst, most-heartbreaking, most agonizing story that’s unfolding in front of our eyes at the moment. (Yes, I am referring to the Lindsay Clancy trial.)

So look, I’m glad to drop the "Hate" portion of this missive. The question is, what to replace it with. I will take suggestions, but I am leaning toward a section called "READ/WATCH/LISTEN" with a suggestion from the caverns of my brain.

Dear readers: Would you love (or even like) that?

Hmm of the Week

After weeks of wild anticipation, my daughter Sophia and I leapt into our third-row seats at the Lucille Lortel Theatre this week for Cat Cohen's new show, Broad Strokes. Yes, she is profane. Yes, she is delulu – by her own admission. But my God, she is hysterically funny and brilliant, every line a work of genius. (The show runs through September 25, if you can still get a seat.)

The framing device for Cat's show is actually a very serious story, about a stroke – hers – which happened when she was 30. But in that telling, she also ends up opining on, well, let me say it, every single value in The Values Bridge. Control over your life (Agency!), love and sex (Belovedness!), ambition and success (Achievement!), and on and on.

But more than anything, the show is about Voice, the value of authentic self-expression, and to be even more precise, it is about our perpetual inner debate about how much of ourselves we want to show the world. Cat describes her lifelong desire not to be "a normal girl," only to have her near-death experience make her realize being a normal girl might not be so bad after all.

I love this fabulous framing of Voice as a sliding scale of how regular we want to appear to the world! I am going to steal it for my class! And for you too. And so I leave you with a question to ponder, this being the "HMM" section, after all. When you imagine others seeing you, how much of you do you really want them to see?

As with all values, the choice is yours. All I would add is, when the happiest you shows up, make sure you tell someone.

Is AI Coming for Your Job? An Economist Gives It to Me Straight

This week we're hitting pause on the values deep-dive series for something urgent: the state of work today. After I casually dropped the phrase "job hugging" on a recent appearance at the Today Show — which is the trend of people gripping their jobs because they're scared of what's coming — the reaction was, essentially, an internet meltdown. So I brought in Chief Labor Economist Sania Khan, formerly of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and then an AI company, to separate the panic from the data.

Tune in Here!

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