Will Smith Medicine or Kevin Hart Therapy? Cover

Will Smith Medicine or Kevin Hart Therapy?

One time, Will Smith and Kevin Hart were on a talk show. The host did an experiment with the audience: Everyone had to write their worst fear on a card, and then Will and Kevin would help some people overcome it.

The first candidate was a woman named Galia. Galia was afraid of feet. “Any feet. My own, my friends’, any. I don’t want to look at them, see them, be touched by them…”

Will goes first. What advice does he have to offer? Will is a man of action, and so, instead of talking, he proceeds to take off his shoe. “This one’s easy. We’ll fix this right now!” he yells. “Galia! Come down here and confront your fear!” The audience bursts out in laughter, but Galia looks terrified.

Luckily, before Will can take off his sock, the host passes the baton to Kevin, who must have used his extra minute of prep time well, because what he tells Galia is one of the most profound pieces of advice I’ve ever heard:

“You can’t take steps in life without feet. Your fear is prohibiting you from progression. The minute you can look at feet and understand they are simply what moves you forward, you will put your fear behind you.”

Galia looks happy, the audience goes crazy, and even Will is impressed. With a keen eye, fellow guest Naomi Scott remarks: “Will’s advice was like medicine, and Kevin’s was like therapy!”

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Are You Free to Abstain? Cover

Are You Free to Abstain?

French scientist Pierre Fouquet was an early researcher of alcoholism. He broke the illness into three categories, two of which describe the circumstances of people we now describe as “alcoholics,” such as drinking in secret with the goal of blacking out.

The third, “alcoholitis,” is “the most common form of alcoholism in France, particularly among men,” Fouquet noted. The subject has a high tolerance and lacks serious psychological complications — they mainly drink beer and wine in social settings, just in too large quantities for it to be healthy.

“We drink to drink with others,” Fouquet said, but “the toxic effects of consumption are still felt.”

Our sneakiest addictions are those we don’t consider to be problems at all. If you drink with coworkers four nights a week and everyone has two beers, that seems like a perfectly normal thing to do.

The question — and this may be Fouquet’s greatest contribution to the world — is:

Do you have the freedom to abstain?

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9 Timeless Articles You’ll Read Many Times Over the Years Cover

9 Timeless Articles You’ll Read Many Times Over the Years

“Matter” is my theme for this year. As in: What matters?

So far, it has been fun to ask this question in my personal life. What are the things I really need? Who are the people I really want to be around? I’m decluttering and prioritizing the people I care about.

When it comes to my work, however, asking this question hasn’t been fun at all. It’s throwing me for a massive loop. All writers eventually hit this wall. In my case, I look back at seven years and some 2,000 pieces, and when I ask, “Which ones did I really care to write?” the answer is “Shockingly few.”

When you’ve written every day for so long, there’s always another idea, always another fluff piece you could write. Fortunately or not, I’m so bored of fluff pieces. I’d rather not repeat myself for 50 years. So, how can my problem be to your benefit?

Well, in my investigation of “Which writing matters?” I couldn’t help but dig up the articles that mattered most to me over the years. The following nine are beacons of light I keep coming back to again and again. I hope you too will find their timeless wisdom worth revisiting.

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Your Mind Is a Straightener for Reality Cover

Your Mind Is a Straightener for Reality

In a gallery in Birmingham, there’s a painting. When you stand still, it looks flat. If you move a bit to the side, however, the corridors will…shift.

It feels like you’re wandering the halls of an art gallery — inside a painting in an art gallery. It’s marvelous. Magical. And hella confusing.

YouTube video

The trick is, of course, that the painting is not flat at all. It’s made of three-dimensional, pyramid-shaped cones, sticking out from the canvas. It’s a sculpture disguised as a painting, and your mind struggles to tell the difference. From the right perspective, however, you can clearly see it.

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30 Lessons Learned in 30 Years of Life Cover

30 Lessons Learned in 30 Years of Life

Yesterday, I turned 30. When I was 18, I thought by 30, I’d have it made.

My 20s were a long, slow grind of realizing “made” does not exist. “Made” is past tense — but you’re never done! The only finish line is death, and, thankfully, most of us don’t see it until we’re almost there.

Instead of the binary made/not made distinction, I now see life as round-based. You win some, you lose some, and different rounds have different themes. There’s a carefree-childhood season, a teenager-trying-to-understand-society season, an exuberant-20-something season, and so on.

At 30 years old, I’ve only played a few seasons, but each round feels more interesting than the last. If that trend persists, I can’t imagine what one’s 60s or 90s must be like. By that time, you’ve seen so much — and yet, there’ll always be new things to see.

Most seasons last longer than a year, and there’s plenty to talk about with respect to the important, defining decade from 20 to 30 alone, but today, I’d like to do something different: I want to share one thing I’ve learned from each year I’ve been alive.

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The 3 Behaviors of Emotionally Immature People Cover

The 3 Behaviors of Emotionally Immature People

When someone you emotionally depend on lets you down, how do you respond? According to The School of Life, this question is at the heart of what it means to be emotionally mature.

Beyond physical growth, managing their mental states is what separates adults from children — and the most difficult mental states to manage are the ones we’re in when others have hurt our feelings. Failing to handle our emotions in such situations won’t just cost us our peace of mind; in a worst-case scenario, it could mean the loss of a relationship with someone we love.

The School of Life suggests three characteristic behaviors exhibited by those we might call “emotionally immature.” They mark the opposite of a healthy response to a loved one disappointing us. If you learn to recognize them in yourself and others, you can avoid them — and thus cultivate the emotional maturity you need to live a calm, happy, meaningful life.

Here are the three default behaviors of emotionally immature people.

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Whatever Your Biggest Problem Is, You’re Already Working On It Cover

Whatever Your Biggest Problem Is, You’re Already Working On It

In Germany, we have a saying: “A good plan is half the rent.” Similarly, awareness of the problem is half the solution.

If I casually drop “2 + 2 = ?” here, your mind will instantly jump to the number 4. It’s a problem you’ve solved a million times, and yet, your brain can’t resist the satisfaction of filling in the blank once more.

If I made the problem more complicated, your mind might not hand you the solution on a silver platter, but it would latch on to it just the same. That’s because your brain is a problem-solving machine, both figuratively and literally.

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The Complete, 17-Reason Checklist for Why You’re Unhappy Right Now Cover

The Complete, 17-Reason Checklist for Why You’re Unhappy Right Now

You’re smart. Unfortunately, smart people sometimes exhibit thought patterns that prevent them from being happy.

While it takes time to change these patterns at large, each one is reflected in only a few “miseries of the day.” Those, you can shake off immediately.

You can’t go from unhappy to perfect bliss in a day. You can, however, check what bothers you right now and try to eliminate it. That’s how you uproot negative beliefs.

Here’s the complete, 17-reason checklist for why you might be bummed out today — and how to fix each one.

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The Japanese Art of Kintsugi: How to Practice Self-Improvement Without Judging Yourself Cover

The Japanese Art of Kintsugi: How to Practice Self-Improvement Without Judging Yourself

I still remember the commercials: “Clearasil Ultra Face Wash — and in three days, they’re gone!” “They” are the pimples, of course.

Each ad played out the same way: A teenage boy hides from his crush because he has acne. His friend reminds him of the party in three days. “You can’t go with that face!” The boy uses Clearasil, shows up, and gets to kiss the girl.

As someone who suffered three long years of intense acne in high school, those ads hit me right in the feels — first with hope, then with misery. After I tried the product and it didn’t work, Clearasil continued to erode my self-worth in 30-second increments by reaffirming a false belief I held about myself: As long as I have acne, girls won’t be interested in me, so there’s no point in even trying.

Every year, millions of teenagers share this experience, and it reveals a pattern deeply ingrained in Western culture: Find a flaw, worry about it, try a quick fix, and if it doesn’t work, go back to worrying. Repeat this cycle until some magic pill works or you find an even bigger inadequacy. While this may lead to some improvement, in the long run, it inevitably leads to self-loathing.

You wouldn’t think a pimple commercial reveals so much about a nation’s culture, but if you watch a few Japanese skincare ads for reference, you’ll see — because unlike Clearasil, they do clear things up.

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Managing Your Desires Will Make You Happier Cover

Managing Your Desires Will Make You Happier

When you want something, you can choose to work on one of two objectives:

  1. Getting the thing.
  2. No longer wanting it.

Most of the time, goal number two is not just much easier to achieve, it is also the right thing to do.

Many of the outcomes we initially think we want end up being attached to actions we, in hindsight, don’t want to have taken. They’re desires risen from our ego, with no clear reasoning of why it matters we attain them, and so, often, it doesn’t.

I have wanted a Ferrari since I was five. If I close my eyes, I can see the posters in my childhood bedroom right now. It’s one of my oldest desires and, therefore, a strong one. I still don’t have a good reason. It’s just a cool car. It’ll make for a good example.

Here are 3 ideas on how you can work on wanting something less.

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