There’s a certain type of person who can turn down a request without leaving a trace, and once you notice how they do it, it stops looking like a personality trait and starts looking like a set of little habits.…
Today we are going to explore a series of different ways to cultivate mindfulness. This is a particularly helpful practice when the mind is busy, when we find it difficult to be present, when we are excited about something, or…
As real life gives us fewer places to meet, dating apps are filling the void and then quietly changing the way we experience attraction, rejection, and ourselves. The real victory isn’t mastering the swipe; it’s finding someone worth logging out…
No matter the season, spending time in nature happily coincides with one of my favorite mindfulness practices: outdoor meditationor careful walking. Focusing attention while our body remains still poses a problem for many of us, from the easily excited to…
Daniel took the 7:42 train every morning, the same route he had taken for six years. That morning, for reasons he couldn’t quite explain, he’d left his phone charging on the kitchen counter and grabbed instead a paperback book he’d…
Some sentences carry two messages at once. There is a literal message that can sound caring, flattering, or just conversational. Underneath is a quieter message: a comparison, assumption, or judgment about how someone should live, look, or feel. This does…
Some people listen to a fairy tale and remember the plot. Others note how the narrator decided what he thought was important. The second kind of attention is easy to mistake for intuition. Often it’s something more mundane: the habit…
Some people lighten up a room within minutes of entering it. They are not necessarily the funniest, most confident, or most charismatic individuals. What they do is smaller. They remove tiny bits of friction before anyone asks. “Instant like” should…
People who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s often recall long afternoons with nowhere to go, household items that were repaired three times, and plans that had to work without a stream of confirmations. I want to turn these…
Some of the most thoughtful things a person can say don’t sound very impressive at first glance. “I don’t know.” “I need to think about it.” “Maybe you’re right.” None of these lines dominate the conversation. They create space within…
