BY BRIAN O’KEEFE

It had been nagging at me for days. I had to do it. I couldn’t wait any longer.  Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent had already passed and I was still dragging my feet.  I had to quit..but I was addicted.

I couldn’t stop…no matter what I did. I couldn’t stop the daily newsfeed streaming of my life, the likes, the comments, the posts, the pictures, and the shares.  An endless incoming and outgoing cacophonous ego swipe.  Enough is enough…even for MY ego.

Brian Williams pushed me over the edge.  Reaching a nauseatingly feverish almost giddy pitch, I was participating on social media ..forwarding, announcing or divulging Brian’s latest Katrina lie or some other IMPORTANT detail that I JUST HAD to share with 543 people, most of whom I havent seen or spoken to in years.

Forget dopamine.  My “LIKE”amine and Comment tally were my pleasure flume ride. Anything to warm or inflate the ego.  Its just ridiculous neediness, when you step back and look at yourself. A quick hit or toke on the phone app got my fix faster.  24/7.

I was so spontaneously knee-posting all the kooky details of what Brian said…and when …and not realizing that people I fondly remember as mentors and friends (and real friends and Facebook friends) …in my own career were senior managers at NBC in the centrifuge madness of “Lyin Brian” and were probably so stressed and hurt, somehow, personally…..that I felt I was contributing to their pain. (Sorry, dear Katie and Alex! )  ((and yes, that WAS one sentence!!))

This got me thinking about hitting pause….to say the least. Then came Bruce. Or one more dose of Brian.  Or was it BobbiKristina?  One or the other.   The Bruce Jenner car accident also turned my Facebook feed into a TMZ link.  But I needed to stop. And how.

I had thought about quitting Facebook altogether.   My sister Katie refuses to join.  Michael Joseph quits it often.  Its interesting: Mike and Katie also are the only two siblings who all their lives both escaped the fat/food addict gene in our family.  On a trip to Hawaii I honored a self-imposed ban with no peeking.  It lasted four days.  Ok, I lied: it lasted three days. Another long weekend I only peeked once, by accident.  Because with the phone app, I found that I had no control and would find my self checking my Notifications seconds after checking my notifications, almost unconsciously. Insanity.

But I know that will power alone can not take care of this. Then something happened. All lumped together it is what some might call a spiritual awakening…or even a “G-dshot”. A huge realization from a series of tragic events.

In fact …in one week last month…kind of almost at once….some terrible things happened to people I have loved or cared very much about…who were all a part of my metamorphosis as a writer and journalist and television producer.   In no particular order….their situations froze me into a status of thinking about what is most important in life and not how many comments or likes I got from my last Facebook post….which was becoming a distraction to say the least.

TANYA SIMON   A staggeringly beautiful young woman, inside and out, who grew up at CBS with me….and a little after me. Way back when, I sometimes worried that people wouldn’t see her for how smart she was and that she was more than “Bob Simon’s daughter”.  She certainly more than proved herself…and in a rather moving and stunningly beautiful coincidence, would produce her father’s very last piece on “60 Minutes” that would air six days after his death in a horrific car accident in New York City.  The CBS pain was palpable from so many dear friends.

BRUCE SPIEGEL  One of the great original editors at CBS News’ 48 Hours.  A filmmaker, honestly.  One of many who make 48 Hours hands down the most beautifully gorgeously produced non fiction broadcast on device watching…oh yeah, and on television. He suffered a stroke that week —and my impulse phone energy transferred itself via my heart…. to emailing and forwarding his progress reports, privately to others.  I love this man and his work.  He taught me how to be able to make fun of myself and how to overcome the misfortune of starting at the network level so young and inexperienced. To this day he can recount my field producing techniques to bring that bacon to his edit room….with some very funny stories.

MARY MURPHY  Another great filmmaker and the woman who assigned me, or as I recall, was my very first tape piece. Her husband Bob Minzesheimer the great USA Today Book Editor for many years, had emergency brain surgery.  He’s already home and recovering and I believe with Mary will now sink his book genius into a new book store.  A win for regional and community bookstores!!

DARRELL BARTON   One of the great cameraman in American television.  He entered an ICU after a bad reaction to surgery.  I hope he is awake by the time I publish this so someone can read it out loud to him.  Darrell , every summer, for many years, while we vacationed, he opened a Cameraman’s School Course out in Oklahoma where he lived and was based.  He should have taught a Producers Course and a Reporters Course as well. He actually kinda did.

His other specialty was training nervous, anxious, hyper neurotic near-hysterical baited breathing young producers. Hmmmmmm.  How would I know this?  I may have created the class!   I’d like to think I was Student Number 1 but Im sure there were others before me.  I hope so!!   He created a widely giggled about “Chihuahua Index” and would rate a certain producer’s nervous-nellyness on a shoot …by a certain quantity: the number of live chiuhuahuas placed on a scale!   You just to have to stop and imagine that to understand his Index.   I never wanted to hear what my rating was….In fairness to some of the nervous folks, a lot of 48’s shoots early on dealt with sensitive, deeply personal, fragile topics with police, patients, social workers and crack addicts jumping out of the bushes.  But we have Darrell to thank for keeping it beautiful and some of us sane.

These terrible and difficult situations for these friends and their loved ones remind all of us what really matters.  We leave this Earth exactly the way we came in: Naked and with nothing.  Likes, comments, notification and shares will all be left behind.

So, sometime today or tonight CALL a parent or an old colleague who taught you everything.  Or who you miss dearly.  Let them know they mattered.  Its far important than anything on Buzzfeed or Facebook.

Oh…and feel free to “Like” this post. Or at least Share it and pass it along.   … 🙂