Secret to Happiness

Oct 28, 2025

At the end of my show in Princeton, NJ last Friday, I took questions from the audience. The final question was from a Princeton undergraduate, who asked how to deal with the stress she and her fellow students are feeling in our current dystopia.

I shared some advice that my grandfather gave me.

Max Osterman, born in Latvia in 1890, was six months old when his family moved to Brooklyn.

In many ways his life was the embodiment of the American dream. He put himself through law school, became a sales executive for a company on Long Island, and, with his wife, Hannah, raised my mom and her sister on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Max was a man of few words, but these are the ones he lived by:

“Every day, take a walk, read a book, make a friend.”

The Book of Hope

At my show, I also recommended a wonderful book by Dr. Jane Goodall, The Book of Hope. She offers some solid, rational reasons to be hopeful. And for a quick infusion of hope, check out the interview I did with Dr. Goodall last May here.

…and two American heroes

From CBS News:

Two Illinois National Guard members told CBS News they would refuse to obey federal orders to deploy in Chicago as part of President Trump’s controversial immigration enforcement mission—a rare act of open defiance from within the military ranks.

“It’s disheartening to be forced to go against your community members and your neighbors,” said Staff Sgt. Demi Palecek, a Latina guardswoman and state legislative candidate from Illinois’s 13th District. “It feels illegal. This is not what we signed up to do.”

Both Palecek and Capt. Dylan Blaha, who is running for Congress in the same district, described growing unease among Guard members after the White House federalized 500 troops – including members of the Illinois and Texas National Guard – to secure federal immigration facilities and personnel in the Chicago area.

“I signed up to defend the American people and protect the Constitution,” Blaha said. “When we have somebody in power who’s actively dismantling our rights—free speech, due process, freedom of the press—it’s really hard to be a soldier right now.”