We live in a town with three beaches. There are two parks less than 10 minutes' walk from home where neighbourhood children gather to play. However, what my children want to do after school is pick up a screen — any screen — and stare at it for hours. They are not alone. Today's children spend an average of four and a half hours a day looking at screens, split between watching television and using the Internet.

In the past few years, an increasing number of people and organisations have begun coming up with plans to counter this trend. A couple of years ago, film-maker David Bond realised that his children, then aged five and three, were attached to screens to the point where he was able to say "chocolate" into his three-year-old son's ear without getting a response. He realised that something needed to change, and, being a London media type, appointed himself "marketing director for Nature". He documented his journey as he set about treating nature as a brand to be marketed to young people. The result was Project Wild Thing, a film which charts the birth of the Wild Network a group of organisations with the common goal of getting children out into nature.

"Just five more minutes outdoors can make a difference," David Bond says. "There is a lot of really interesting evidence which seems to be suggesting that if children are inspired up to the age of seven, then being outdoors will be a habit for life." His own children have got into the habit of playing outside now: "We just send them out into the garden and tell them not to come back in for a while."

Summer is upon us. There is an amazing world out there, and it needs our children as much as they need it. Let us get them out and let them play.

There is something to be said for being a generalist, even if you are a specialist. Knowing a little about a lot of things that interest you can add to the richness of a whole, well-lived life.

Society pushes us to specialize, to become experts. This requires commitment to a particular occupation, branch of study or research. The drawback to being specialists is we often come to know more and more about less and less. There is a great deal of pressure to master one's field. You may pursue training, degrees, or increasing levels of responsibility at work. Then you discover the pressure of having to keep up.

Some people seem willing to work around the clock in their narrow specialty. But such commitment can also weaken a sense of freedom. These specialists could work at the office until ten each night, then look back and realize they would have loved to have gone home and enjoyed the sweetness of their family and friends, or traveled to exciting places, meeting interesting people. Mastering one thing to the exclusion (排除) of others can hold back your true spirit.

Generalists, on the other hand, know a lot about a wide range of subjects and view the whole with all its connections. They are people of ability, talent, and enthusiasm who can bring their broad perspective (视角) into specific fields of expertise (专长). The doctor who is also a poet and philosopher is a superior doctor, one who can give so much more to his patients than just good medical skills.

Things are connected. Let your expertise in one field fuel your passions in all related areas. Some of your interests may not appear to be connected but, once you explore their depths, you discover that they are. My editor Toni, who is also a writer, has edited several history books. She has decided to study Chinese history. Fascinated by the structural beauty of the Forbidden City as a painter, she is equally interested to learn more about Chinese philosophy. "I don't know where it will lead, but I'm excited I'm on this pursuit."

These expansions into new worlds help us by giving us new perspectives. We begin to see the interconnectedness of one thing to another in all aspects of our life, of ourselves and the universe. Develop broad, general knowledge and experience. The universe is all yours to explore and enjoy.

    One of the executives gathered at the Aspen Institute for a day-long leadership workshop using the works of Shakespeare was discussing the role of Brutus in the death of Julius Caesar. “Brutus was not an honorable man,” he said. “He was a traitor（叛徒）. And he murdered someone in cold blood.” The agreement was that Brutus had acted with cruelty when other options were available to him. He made a bad decision, they said—at least as it was presented by Shakespeare—to take the lead in murdering Julius Caesar. And though one of the executives acknowledged that Brutus had the good of the republic in mind, Caesar was nevertheless his superior. “You have to endeavor,” the executives said, “our policy is to obey the chain of command.”

    During the last few years, business executives and book writers looking for a new way to advise corporate America have been exploiting Shakespeare's wisdom for profitable ends. None more so than husband and wife team Kenneth and Carol Adelman, well-known advisers to the White House, who started up a training company called “Movers and Shakespeares”. They are amateur Shakespeare scholars and Shakespeare lovers, and they have combined their passion and their high level contacts into a management training business. They conduct between 30 and 40 workshops annually, focusing on half a dozen different plays, mostly for corporations, but also for government agencies.

    The workshops all take the same form, focusing on a single play as a kind of case study, and using individual scenes as specific lessons. In Julius Caesar , sly provocation（狡诈的挑唆） of Brutus to take up arms against the what was a basis for a discussion of methods of team building and grass roots organism.

Although neither of the Adelmans is academically trained in literature, the programmes, contain plenty of Shakespeare tradition and background. Their workshop on Henry V, for example, includes a helpful explanation of Henry's winning strategy at the Battle of Agincourt. But they do come to the text with a few biases (偏向): their reading of Henry V minimizes his misuse of power. Instead, they emphasize the story of the youth who seizes opportunity and becomes a masterful leader. And at the workshop on Caesar, Mr. Adelmans had little good to say about Brutus, saying “the noblest Roman of them all” couldn't make his mind up about things.

    Many of the participants pointed to very specific elements in the play that they felt related Caesar's pride, which led to his murder, and Brutus's mistakes in leading the  after the murder, they said, raise vital questions for anyone serving as a business when and how do you resist the boss?