If you think you’re getting me back in zippy pants, you have another thing coming, good sir — The pandemic ain’t over, but it’s getting there. We have vaccines, and though it fees like we’re rolling them out at the speed at which our grandmothers used to speak to grocery store cashiers, we can all see the sliver of light at the end of the syringe. A year…

On why we feel the need to be productive in the first place — For the last day or two, I’ve been thinking about this excellent Vox essay by Beatrice Forman titled, “The soothing, slightly sinister world of productivity hacks,” partly because while it’s nominally about the new generation of air-quote, Influencers (some of whom are not legally old enough to drink), who are…

It’s the most important thing to do after a big life event — like, say, a global pandemic — Exactly one year ago, my friend Greg Epstein told me about an intriguing mental strategy. Greg is the Humanist Chaplain at MIT and Harvard; he helps students figure out how they’ll define a meaningful life. Not a small task in the best of times, but especially hard to do when…

A thought exercise that started with a mushroom growing out of a bathtub — At least once a day, every day, for over two decades, I’ve pictured a mushroom sprouting out of the grout in the corner of a bathtub in the Florida Keys. It sits right between the bottles of shampoo and conditioner. “Not just mold, but an actual mushroom,” was how my…

An alternative theory of why so many Americans are quitting their jobs — Economists are always seeking a rational answer, backed by data and numbers. That’s no bad thing. But with all the articles looking for the data-driven reason behind America’s great labor shortage, I think the answer might be obvious. If you ask me (NB: not an economist), the reason why Americans…