When you live in your hometown you have this funny dynamic with the people who are your parents’ peers. On the one hand, you’re a fully formed adult and so are they, so to an extent you’re now peers. You might find yourself teaching their children or having them on a volunteer team with you. The previous boundaries get mixed up.

In this age of social media and digital technology, I’ve been having lots of conversations with my friends (via social media and digital technology) about vulnerability. Vulnerability, you should know, is also known as “sharing.” Before the internet “sharing” was something you taught your toddler and it involved trucks and blocks. Now it involves revealing scary and potentially embarrassing things about yourself with others whom you may or may not know.

If there’s one thing that really scares me about my generation it’s our reliance on medication. Or maybe reliance is the wrong word. Maybe I mean using it as a substitute or a panacea. The older I get the more I become aware of how dependent we have become on products, pills and creams.

An ELI Talk is a Jewish TED-style talk. I became enamored with the thought of giving a TED talk one day when my friend Scott Simon gave one and like all my ideas, started with a kernel of “hey I could do that.” Then I discovered ELI talks.

This past weekend at a shabbaton I was informed of my next book. My friends Nancy and Wendy let me know that it will be called “I Love You More Than a Suitcase” (see the podcast page for that thought) and it will be about the most powerful relationship tools I know.