This Month's Mission

What I Know for Sure
The whole idea of connection fascinates me. No doubt, we're all more digitally and fiber-optically linked than ever before, but we're apparently losing our real connections.

I've seen it coming for a while—haven't you? You can't get through dinner or walk down the street without someone pulling out a cell phone. I often wonder, "Who in the world is everybody talking to?"

As hard as I've tried not to fall prey to cellular mania (I still don't carry a phone around), I have succumbed to the life-changing advantages of the BlackBerry. I'm not a "crackberrian" yet, but I could use some withdrawal therapy. I first noticed this when someone snapped the picture above with his cell phone and showed it to me in living color: My friends Gayle and Andre and I were sitting in a store in Rome waiting for Gayle's daughter, Kirby, to try on a pair of jeans. We weren't talking to one another—we were all on our BlackBerries. "Oh no, I've become one of those people," I thought. Those people who are in a conversation with you, but, as you're obviously not holding their interest, take the call from the phone that's ringing Beethoven's Fifth at 78 rpm and continue to talk to whoever's on the other end. Those people who are sitting in a restaurant and checking voicemail every 15 minutes. Those people who are not in the moment but always looking to see, "What's next? What else should I be doing?"

Notice the next time you're giving your friend, mate, child or coworker less than your full self. I'll bet it happens more often than you're aware. With to-do lists a mile long and constant deadlines, it's no surprise that most of us feel cut off not only from our partners and loved ones, but also from ourselves. Our lives are busier, faster—and we're moving further away from our center.

I know for sure that the way to feel connected in all relationships is to stay attuned to the Source, which I believe is the energy that vibrates through all life. You can never stray too far from what is really meaningful before losing connection with yourself and everybody else. And when you've lost that, neither AT&T nor the best Verizon hookup can bring it back.

Meditate. Breathe consciously. Listen. Pay attention. Treasure every moment. Make the connection.