America's priorities see a shift

Until three weeks ago, Lindsay Bern was a die-hard dieter. No fast food. No second helpings.

Now, the 25-year-old Los Angeles teacher says life is too short to suffer again through the celery sticks she used to graze on. "If it could all end tomorrow, why am I obsessing over something so shallow?" Bern wonders. She had fudge for breakfast recently. Dinner one night was Popeye's thighs and drumsticks dipped in ranch dressing.

Since the horrific events of Sept. 11, a lot of Americans are reassessing their priorities. Some are huddling close with family and friends. Others are seeking solace at church, synagogue or yoga class. But with the country on the verge of war and fear of bioterrorism mounting, many are wondering what's the point of being good anymore.

The abstemious are drinking alone — and before noon. Homebodies are dancing all night. Calorie counters are hitting the Doritos.

After watching the World Trade Center towers collapse on television, Robert Wheeler, a Seattle psychotherapist and Red Cross volunteer, jumped in his Honda Accord and drove for four days straight to assist strangers in a city he had never before visited. A week later, Wheeler, who had quit smoking the month before, started lighting up again. "I know that quitting is important," says Wheeler, 36. "But it's a matter of priorities right now."

Alli Steinberg, a 28-year-old actress and waitress in New York, used to go out about twice a week. But since Sept. 11, she has been hitting bars and restaurants every night. "I'm literally living each day like it is my last," Steinberg says. She also volunteered to hand out food from a tugboat to rescue workers at ground zero. There she told a few firefighters about her long-distance e-mail flirtation with a Chicago man she had met only once and balked at visiting. On her last day of volunteer work, as her boat started pulling away from shore, she says her firefighter friends were screaming, "Go to Chicago." She just got her plane ticket.

Maiya Shaw isn't normally a big shopper. But last Sunday she and a friend rented a car and drove an hour from New York City to the Woodbury Common Factory Outlets, a mecca for bargain-hunters seeking clothes from the likes of Donna Karan and Gucci. The two women shopped for five hours, with Shaw buying some clothes she can wear to work and a bright-red leather jacket.

"I've donated money to the Red Cross, tried to volunteer, bought groceries and given them to rescue workers — I figured I can boost the economy, too," says Shaw, a 27-year-old who works for an architectural firm on Wall Street in lower Manhattan.