You make what feels like a reasonable to-do list for the day, but then you only get half of it done. You carefully calculate how early you need to wake up to make it out the door on time, but then you wind up running late anyway. You tell your guests dinner will be at 6:00, but the food isn’t ready until 7:30. In each of these cases, you’ve fallen… Read More »How to Overcome the Planning Fallacy
You’re driving toward an intersection and the light changes from green to yellow. You’re too far away to make it through before it turns red. What do you do? You slow to a stop, of course. Through your actions, you accept your fate. But do you mentally accept it? Or do you get upset that you missed the light? I hope you accept it because getting upset doesn’t help. It… Read More »Life’s Traffic Lights
I recently read an eye-opening book called Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke, MD. This book breaks down the new neuroscience of pleasure and pain, which is both surprising and practical. Here are the most important takeaways: The Treadmill to Hell You’ve probably heard of the “hedonic treadmill” – the fact that, when we pursue pleasure, the happiness it gives us is fleeting, and we’re left craving more:1 You eat a… Read More »Why Indulgence Makes You Less Happy
We spend so much of our lives other than where we are right now. We mentally teleport to the past, thinking of what we could have done differently, ruminating about our failures. We teleport to the future, imagining what we’ll say, what we’ll do, and how we’ll feel, even though such imaginings are usually inaccurate or pointless. All of this comes at the expense of being present. It prevents us… Read More »You are here; it is now.