Cut From the Tennis Team When I was a freshman in high school, I tried out for the tennis team. I loved tennis, played regularly, and was a pretty decent player for my age. Unfortunately, the coach was a man who would probably have been more at home coaching the cross country team than the tennis team. Tryouts mostly consisted of distance running, which was not my strong suit. It’s… Read More »Is it for the Best?
This is a post about how to beat depression (and/or anxiety, addiction, and ADHD). But first, story time. [The following is drawn from the first chapter of Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent book, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants.] Vivek Ranadivé was perhaps the least likely person to lead a junior basketball team to the national championships. When he agreed to coach his 12-year-old daughter’s team, Redwood… Read More »Why I Run a Full-Court Press on Myself
Self-Hatred is Hard to Overcome About five years ago I was in a bad place emotionally. I didn’t love myself. In fact, a lot of the time, I hated myself. I was an addict. I was injured. I was depressed. And it was all my fault. Despite how much I was suffering, I didn’t feel compassion for myself. Instead, I judged and berated myself. I regretted the choices I had… Read More »How Do You Cultivate Self-Love?
Last week, I wrote about a new eating routine that I began in light of new information about something called the “glymphatic system.” I didn’t mention that, in addition to making my sleep more restful, making this one improvement triggered a number of other positive changes as well. Today, I want to use that experience to highlight a phenomenon I’ve come to call the cascade effect. The cascade effect is… Read More »The Self-Improvement Cascade Effect