Gotta Look Up
Episode 1
Hello. Hello. Hello!
Welcome to the Gotta Look Up (G.L.U.) Podcast.
We’ve all seen it.
People walking down the street, addicted to their phones, and oblivious to the world around them.
People are out to eat, looking down at their devices and thumbing away at the keyboard, not being present and engaging with the other people at their table. This might even include our own dinner tables at home!
People playing video games for hours, or worse yet, wearing a virtual reality headset living their lives in a metaverse, but not in the real world.
People text each other while sitting at the same table, or even in the same house.
We are great at communicating with these devices, but we no longer converse! Human interaction is becoming digitized. Limited human touch and interaction is not good for us as a species and these devices distract us from our core, animal instincts.
My goal is to use Gotta Look Up and this podcast as a medium to help people recognize their screen usage, find other activities and interests to reduce their screen time and get their family, friends, and kids off screens to engage face-to-face and pursue other interests.
Many of us now live in these devices, and we are encouraged to stay in them by the technology companies that leverage our device usage and data. We all need to recognize that these devices are tools to be managed and controlled by us, not the other way around.
What inspired this Gotta Look Up movement? The idea hit me years ago while I was walking down the street and I got rudely bumped into by someone. This person was so engaged with his device, that he was not looking where he was going nor paying attention to the people and the world around him.
After he bumped into me, said NOTHING, and continued his zombie walk down the street, I stopped, turned, and said, “Hey, you Gotta’ Look Up!” And Gotta Look Up was born.
The Gotta Look Up movement was founded on a mission that mobile devices and screens need to be used as educational and productivity tools, not as life portals that we constantly stare at, scroll through, and get lost in. And I’m as guilty of it as anyone.
I am guilty of being among the first generation of parents to raise kids while using screens as babysitters.
We had a video system in the car to keep the kids entertained.
We allowed our kids to play video games and use the computer for entertainment to make our lives easier.
I failed my children by not balancing their time on these devices with other activities like riding bikes, hiking, sports, music lessons, or just generally playing outside and using their imaginations.
My kids are among the first generation to grow up with smartphones, video games and other screens as a pervasive part of the culture. And we don’t have to look far to see the downside of what we’ve enabled.
Suicide rates for young people have grown dramatically since 2007, about the same time as smartphones became more ubiquitous. This could be coincidence, or causation, or something in the middle. Either way, we must face this problem as a society and do more to protect our young people from getting caught in the quicksand of devices.
So, what does Gotta Look Up mean?
It means first being conscious of, and then having control over, the amount of time you spend on your phone, computer, or other screens.
It means paying attention to the world around you, and the people around you, rather than scrolling through your device while you walk down the street, or worse yet, while you are driving.
Gotta Look Up encourages everyone to look up from their device and see what they’ve been missing. The love of your life may have just walked past you while you were swiping left or right on a dating app.
Take your kids to the park.
Take your kids to the beach.
Stop texting people who you could actually call and talk with (since that is what a phone’s original purpose was!), or better yet, meet them somewhere in person over a coffee or a bite to eat.
What happens when you look up?
You engage the world around you.
You see what you’ve been missing!
You see birds and trees, blue sky and clouds, the moon, the stars.
You live in a real world where you manage the devices, not the other way around.
And you can look up even higher, at a spiritual level, to engage with your Creator or the Universe.
Our mission is to get people to look up from their screens, engage the world around them, and better themselves. This mission is achieved by:
1. Acknowledging how much time you spend in front of a screen.
2. Determining ways to reduce your Screen Time and replace that time with Personal Interactions.
3. Engaging in Purposeful and Productive Screen Time.
a. Educational activities
b. Family bonding activities
c. Personal improvement activities
d. Starting and Managing a business
4. Matching the amount of screen time with time spent in nature, time focused on health, or time with family.
Gotta Look Up is based on four pillars:
1. Gotta Look Up: Look up from your screens. See what you’ve been missing.
2. Gotta Look Around: Find opportunities to engage in joyful activities; connect you’re your fellow humans; and connect with nature.
3. Gotta Look Ahead: What does the future hold? How can you prepare for it through education; financial planning; personal health; and evolving with purpose?
4. Gotta Look Higher and Deeper: Improve your spiritual relationships with your Creator; yourself; Nature; and the Universe.
As part of this new way of thinking and approach to life, I am not going to create a bunch of content that requires you to spend hours looking at a screen!
That would go against the G.L.U. mission and defeat the purpose of reducing your screen time.
I’m going to encourage you to LIVE in nature, not devices!
I am going to challenge you to focus back on your life, your family, your friends, getting back to what is most important, and truly living…not scrolling through other people’s lives.
You might be asking, “Who are you?”
Who am I?
Just a regular guy who has lived a little. Maybe not as much as others. Maybe not as dangerously as others. Maybe not as successful as others.
I am a man who has dealt with bullying as a child; and dealt with the loss of pets, family members, and friends. I’ve dealt with success and failure. Dealt with loneliness and rejection. But I’ve also experienced great happiness and joy!
Like everyone, I have had happy days and sad days. I’ve had the great fortune to travel to many states and many countries. Does this make me better than anyone else? No. Just unique, as we are all unique and live unique lives.
We are given different innate talents and skills. How we choose to use them in this world is how we build a life. I am now choosing to unwrap some of the gifts given to me by my Creator and share them with the world. I’m not sure how the world will react, but I’m going to share them anyway because to take them to the grave would be a disservice to me, to my family, to the world, and to my God.
Maybe I’ll reach tens, maybe I’ll reach hundreds, or maybe even more. Or maybe, I’ll just reach that one person who needed to hear my message on that day.
Besides focusing on reducing screen time, I will use this forum to share my thoughts and musings on the world; my experiences and stories; and my research into topics that I hope will help my listeners manage their devices and screen time purposefully and turn their focus back to what is most important like family; friends; purpose; and truly living.
I will do my best to stay above politics and focus on messages of love, kindness, peace, faith, hope, forgiveness, health, and being a citizen of good. I believe there is more that unites us than divides us if we choose to look for it, if we are open-minded, and if we seek to have intellectually honest conversations rather than yell over the top of each other. These are the things I will focus on as part of Gotta Look Up.
Each week I will focus on a topic that hopefully inspires. And, in the interest of learning about our collective past and how it can direct our future, I will bring quotes and observations from historical figures or well-known persons that apply to the topic. In addition, I will throw in what I call a “Tom-ism” from time to time. What is a “Tom-ism?” Stuff I’ve come up with in various situations that I hope you will either find humorous, profound, or thought-provoking.
Will this podcast end up being the infamous “tree that falls in the forest and doesn’t make a sound because no one heard it?” I certainly hope not, but we’ll see. I hope you will continue with me on this journey and see where we can go.
Until next week, I’ll leave you with the following quotes and a Tom-ism:
Benjamin Disraeli was a former Prime Minister of Great Britain. He said, “Life is too short to be small.” I agree. I have been playing too small for too long and life is too short, which is why I am starting this movement.
From Mother Teresa, “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.” I hope I’ve tossed a rock in your pond today.
Amelia Earhart once said, “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” I have finally decided to act on this. We will see how tenacious I get with each coming week.
And for your first Tom-ism:
“Your front door is a better portal to the world than your smartphone.”
LET’S GO! GOTTA LOOK UP!