There's a photo of me in my early twenties that I keep coming back to. I'm smiling, but it's the kind of smile you put on when you're trying to look like you've got it together.
There's a phenomenon astronauts often describe called the Overview Effect. It's that radical shift in perspective you get when you see Earth from space.
Take a quick scan of any room you're in and count the wrists. Most people don't wear a watch anymore.
There's a pattern almost everyone has noticed in older relatives or colleagues. Someone who used to be "easy" gets, over the course of their fifties and sixties, quietly less accommodating.
Most of us, when we imagine old age, picture the regrets as moral failures. The affair.
Most of what gets written about soulmates is about feelings. The butterflies. The chemistry.
I've written about a lot of uncomfortable psychology topics over the years, but this one took me the longest to put into words, because the people who live it are the least likely to ever admit they do.
A friend once said something I haven't been able to shake: "The happiest people I know in their sixties didn't get happier because they figured life out.
Picture a dinner with six people at the table. Three talkers, three listeners. By the end of the night, the loudest person has been asked twice if they're…
People differ in how they give and receive affection. Attachment research describes broad patterns, but behavior alone cannot reveal a person's childhood or capacity for intimacy.
There's a particular kind of loneliness that has nothing to do with being alone.
You didn't lose your friends. You trained them. There's a particular kind of loneliness that kind people know very well.
