EUGENE, Oregon – “Any action that inhibits is not love. Love is only love when it liberates,” said the author, motivational speaker and professor known as “Dr. Love” Leo Buscaglia when describing how “the holidays should be” during a 1998 lecture in Eugene before his passing. Buscaglia’s book “Seven Stories of Christmas Love” has been reissued for this holiday season. At the same time, families facing Thanksgiving stress may note it has something to do with “too many gadgets,” say experts.
Being here now is the key to a happy Thanksgiving
Leo Buscaglia role as a professor in the Department of Special Education at the University of Southern California included his ground-breaking work in the area of “LOVE.”
Buscaglia went on to write 13 books that deal with the experience of love, while also creating and teaching one of the first university courses devoted to love.
“Leo touched my heart and the hearts of millions because he was always here now. I will never forget his lecture in Eugene when he scolded the audience for not getting their priorities right,” says retired Professor Julia Ferrari.
For example, Ferrari points to quotes about how to survive the holidays from Buscaglia.
“Today is the time for doing, for going places, for giving happiness, for accomplishing the things we’ve relegated to the land of ‘some day, when the time is right.’ We don’t need to think of each day as potentially our last. This would be as frantically nonproductive as putting things off, but by the same token, we must resist with determination that dull complacency which lulls us into the belief that we always have tomorrow,” writes Buscaglia.
In turn, Ferrari notes that Buscaglia died of a heart attack on June 12, 1998. “This was just six months after he lectured about the importance of being here now during the holiday season.”
“It’s not enough to have lived,” wrote Buscaglia before his death. “We should be determined to live for something. May I suggest that it be creating joy for others, sharing what we have for the betterment of person kind, bringing hope to the lost and love to the lonely.”
High technology can ruin a family gathering
Technology writer and researcher Nicholas Carr’s new book, “The Shallows,” warns that the Internet “is rewiring our brains and short-circuiting our ability to think.”
“I’m certainly not suggesting that we take a Luddite view of technology and think it’s all bad. But I do think that the assumption that the more media, the more messaging, the more social networking you can bring in will lead to happier people,” writes Carr who echoes a growing number of leading social science experts across the country – including those at Princeton and Harvard – who feel technology can be addictive and harmful to human socialization.
Thus, at Thanksgiving when families are posed to enjoy each other’s company, they may be “too wired” to remember what it means to be a human being who listens, talks and remembers with family and friends, says Ferrari who also lectures on the dangers of too much technology and “gadgets in our lives.”
“What’s interesting about Buscaglia’s and Carr’s view on life is that technology was supposed to make our lives easier so we can enjoy our families more. Yet, we will see young people with smart phones at the Thanksgiving table who are too preoccupied to really listen to grandma’s stories. You will see people glued to their gadgets while missing Thanksgiving. It’s a pity, but the price we’re paying by being wired to the teeth,” explains Ferrari.
While this professor things a certain amount of family stress is inevitable during Thanksgiving and the holidays, “it’s how a family handles and copes with stress that is important. If the family is not talking, and loving each other than problems can develop.”
“What the kids really want, what family members really want is simply to be noticed. The kids don’t want more gadgets, they want your time. The question is: you going to give your time, your love?”
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