For my sons, those experiences proved incredibly valuable. Both of them learned to value their athletic experiences not so much for the awards they won or accolades they received but for what participating in those events did for them on the inside. In comparing their childhood experiences to my long-distance running, I realized that many of my own fondest running memories did not come from the buckles or plaques I received but rather from the internal gratification I enjoyed in completing something really difficult.
In particular, I have a fascination with one-hit wonders, songwriters who at some point inexplicably produced a morsel of unequivocal genius, a sonic masterpiece, like a portal into an unknown universe... three to five timeless minutes that hover with esoteric intelligence as if heaven itself reached down and caressed a human voice... a song that brushes close enough to the divine to leave us believing in a force greater than our flesh and bones.
But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. It was bracing language for an 8-year-old. Not only was I unclean, but even my best attempt at goodness was filthy.
For my colleagues and me, whose task it is to improve population health, we architect specific health interventions because doing so gives us a measurement advantage. Through good intervention design, we (or the intervention's facilitators) can track attendance, program completion, vital signs, functional capacity, clinical labs, and downstream health utilization. Yet, despite our best design efforts, we still chronically face a fundamental challenge: program adherence.
The following by John Steinbeck supports a well-lived life. "Greatness lies in the one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory." Steinbeck is encouraging us to risk fully participating in life, with both defeat and victory being inevitable. It means living life on life's terms, doing what we can to minimize being defeated by either defeat or victory. Let's look more closely at what it means to be defeated by defeat.
In the interview, Tweedy dropped a line that's been echoing in my head, "Do not postpone happiness." This is so deceptively simple yet psychologically sharp, and it rings true to how I try to live my life. Most of us don't mean to delay joy. We tell ourselves we're being responsible: After this deadline...after the kids are older...After I lose the weight...After I finally feel less anxious...then I'll really live.
Metaphors are linked to how we experience the world around us, according to seminal work by researchers George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. In English, we "move forward" with our lives and don't "retreat into" the past. We speak about people who are "cold as ice" and "heavy" matters we need to resolve. Some of these metaphorical expressions are more than just, well, expressions-they are actually based on our sensory experiences. This mind-body link is called "embodied cognition."
In The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us, Harvard philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein argues that human flourishing rests on two distinct 'cornerstones of our humanness': connectedness and the longing to matter. Connectedness—what we often call belonging—is 'the feeling that there are particular others who are prepared to pay us special attention, whether we deserve it or not.' It is unconditional, relational, and necessary. But it is not sufficient.
The simple feeling of being is the fundamental basis of every momentary perception. What's happening right now is the only starting point there could ever be. The simple feeling of being is without border or boundary. The simple feeling of being is inescapable. It is not something that needs to be created or generated or sustained or practiced. It is what is here already.
I took a psychiatry class years ago, and during lectures my professor used to say, " We all have a diagnosis." We used to laugh at that. It sounded provocative. But what if he wasn't joking? What if diagnosis is not something "they" have, but something that exists on a spectrum we all live on? When we started our practice at a psychiatric facility, I saw an unsettling scene in the hallway.
Humans are wired for growth. Self-determination theory shows that well-being depends on three core needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Interestingly, meeting external markers of success does not guarantee these needs are met internally. You can have stability without autonomy, comfort without meaning, or connection without authenticity.
Unlike humans, most animals experience a fight-or-flight response when faced with a stressor but immediately return to their resting state when the danger abates. In contrast, humans spend significant amounts of time replaying what happened, assessing the choices they made, and worrying about future threats and challenges.
You've undoubtedly heard it somewhere, sometime before: that you are unique, that you're here in this life for a purpose, and that your goal is to live a life that truly reflects who you are. It sounds good and feels right on a good day, but it is clearly easier said than done. But like a lot of things in life, the doing starts with knowing what creates the stopping-what keeps you from being you.
For Plato, psyche meant something like what we'd now call mind -understood as a complex system requiring governance. The psyche had distinct parts: a reasoning part that deliberates, a spirited part that feels emotion and courage, and an appetitive part that desires. Each part has its own function and its own form of excellence. And crucially, these parts need to be governed-integrated under what Plato called constitutional self-rule.
While goals can create structure in your life, give you something to strive for, and even inspire you, reaching the goal itself is a result of what you do to get there. The actions you take are the process-how you're actually filling the time that is your life. Sometimes, if you're lucky, what you do is fulfilling; it brings out the best in you-your talents, interests, and skills.
Some of the most meaningful forms of growth an individual can experience happen beneath their conscious awareness. Typically, it registers first as discomfort, ambiguity, or even a sense of regression. When growth is happening at a person's core level, they're likely to underestimate it or misinterpret it entirely. As a psychologist, I often see individuals who assume they're "stuck" precisely when some of the most important internal shifts are underway. This is because the mind rarely announces these changes with clarity.
Many of the people I work with as a burnout coach tell themselves a golden-cage story. On paper, their jobs and lives might look good. And yet, they are exhausted, dissatisfied, and quietly desperate for more time, energy, and freedom. They long for a different rhythm of life - but feel financially trapped. The story they tell themselves goes like this: It would be reckless, even irresponsible, to leave this job.
Every day you get closer to your death. This is the phrase that shook me to my core when my high school teacher, Mr. Murphy, presented it in Religious Knowledge class. I was 14 years old. I immediately objected, calling it depressive in an attempt to protect my classmates-or perhaps myself. He looked straight at me and said, "It is simply the truth. Take it as you wish."
There were perhaps 30 people - mostly elderly, along with a few young families and some teenagers. What struck me was not devotion, but density: a quiet, shared weight of lived suffering. Not dramatic or loud - just present. Many faces seemed marked by difficulty. I had entered seeking calm. Instead, I encountered vulnerability. Then I looked up at the crucifix - Christ suffering on the cross - not as doctrine, but as an image.
If you ever felt your motivation drain away under a micromanaging boss, he gave you the language for what was happening to you. If you ever sensed that grades and gold stars were somehow diminishing the very learning they were supposed to enhance, he explained why. And in doing so, he helped liberate psychology from one of its most limiting assumptions. The Black Box of Behaviorism For much of the 20th century, the dominant paradigm in psychological research, behaviorism, treated humans as input-output machines.
Have you ever experienced an encounter with an image in the sky or thought that the lyrics to your favourite song related to your personal life? These are examples of having moments that are either unsettling, poetic, or just plain strange. Such experiences are known as apophenia, expressions of our innate tendency to find patterns and attribute meaning to things that are random.
