Of all the things we struggle with, change is near the top of the list. Having looked closely at this for years, I’m convinced it isn’t change itself that troubles us so much as the uncertainty that accompanies it. We like to know what to expect, and when we don’t, we become uncomfortable. One of the major purposes of memory is to give us the feeling of constancy and stability in a world that is neither constant nor stable. Given how constantly we, our lives, and the world around us are changing, it makes little sense to insist on knowing what comes next, but there it is. It’s difficult for

Nobody likes a backseat driver barking directions and corrections. It’s annoying — and it steals the focus we need to drive safely. Most of us don’t realize we have an internal backseat driver demanding our attention a good deal of the time we’re awake. The Hidden Cost of Overthinking The backseat driver I’m referring to is your own mind, on overdrive. Just to be clear, overdrive — or overthinking — may be the state you often find yourself in, but it’s not your natural state. It’s a product of how we’ve been taught to use our minds, or more correctly, how we’ve been taught to misuse our minds. Why Overthinking

How We Toggle from Calm to Crazy I’m fascinated by how quickly we humans can toggle from calm to crazy — and back again. We’re calm one minute, and crazy the next. We can toggle back to calm as well, though it happens less often. Even though it can happen quickly, once we get our crazy on, we often struggle to allow ourselves to return to calm. Strangely, allowing is really all we have to do when we want to move from crazy back to calm. The difference between calm and crazy is much less than you might believe. The simplest way to say it is this: when we’re calm,

“I wish I felt well enough to enjoy this beautiful day.” — That was my first low-mood thought of the morning… ten minutes after a strong thunder shower swept the sky clear of anything but blue. The humidity was gone, the temperature was in the high seventies and there was a cool, fresh breeze. And here I was, somehow thinking my physical condition wasn’t up to the task of enjoying the day. The second after this thought crossed my mind, I saw it for what it was: low-mood thinking brought about by several acute sources of physical pain. There is an enormous advantage to understanding that low moods can only

In part one of this blog, I wrote about how when anger is your primary emotion (as it is for a lot of people) it cuts you off from the world, and from the best parts of yourself. I also talked about how anger can only arise from one source. The source is fear, and whether we call it by that name, or by any of its other name (anxiety, insecurity, etc) anger isn’t possible with a substrate of fear.

Something very familiar caught my attention in a public space the other day. I watched someone get very angry over what seemed like very little. The place where I saw this was crowded enough that I was able to watch this person over a period of time without drawing attention to myself.

Yesterday, I was listening to a speech by the author and New York Times columnist, David Brooks. He was talking about moving beyond the challenges we face in life when he said, “You can be broken. Or you can be broken open.” I loved what he was saying, but I have a slightly different take on it.

During the past years, and without really wanting to do so, I’ve developed a deep understanding of what it’s like to live with constant physical pain. This understanding has nothing to do with the science behind pain, it’s about the experience of living with pain as a constant companion. I decided a long time ago that it was in my own best interests to learn what I could from pain that might make my life, and perhaps the lives of others, a bit easier.

Does 2025 seem to you to contain more uncertainty than any year that came before? The general sentiment I hear expressed seems to confirm that many of us feel this way. But that sentiment ignores several incontrovertible truths.