I gave a book on men and how men experience the world to my girlfriend at the time, maybe five or ten years ago. After reading it, she asked me, “Do men have emotions?” Apparently she thought men didn’t have emotions. In fact, she clarified, “I thought men just did things.” I’m glad she asked if she didn’t know. I was surprised she didn’t. For context, she had graduated a[…] Keep reading →

Frankly, I don’t see many signs of hope for us to handle the environment. Walking around my neighborhood, I’d say maybe 20 percent of people are wearing masks. Bars and restaurants are packing people within six feet of each other. Headlines about Texas, Florida, and Arizona show people’s cavalier attitudes leading to opinion over nature. Still, here are a few signs of hope. Ozone: humanity banded together to ban CFCs.[…] Keep reading →

In physics, if your theory predicts one thing but nature does another, we know nature is right and we change our theory. In economics, if nature doesn’t fit theory, they stick with the theory and try to describe how nature is wrong. Sadly, economists don’t lose their jobs when their theories don’t work and they keep trying to push them, despite not creating the results they want. On the contrary,[…] Keep reading →

I posted the next part of one of my favorite posts, following yesterday’s, Introversion is not the opposite of extroversion. I call it part 3 there because I had to break part 1 into two parts to meet length requirements. Enjoy! If you believe you have to be either introverted or extroverted—as I did—this series of posts may revolutionize your life.

I’ve meant to post one of my favorite posts, Introversion is not the opposite of extroversion, part 1, to my column at Psychology Today. At last I did. I love the post and what it brings people. I posted it here in 2013, the better part of a decade ago. If you haven’t read it, I recommend it at Psychology Today or on this blog. I’ll post part 2 there[…] Keep reading →

I found a better way to characterize daily habits and sidchas. I used to think of them like brushing my teeth. I don’t remember the last time I went to bed without brushing. That characterization made my sidchas easier for me, but not others. They still think of daily habits as hard, rigid, burdensome. They suggest I take a break: “Josh, really, what would happen if you took a break[…] Keep reading →

Yesterday’s post Update on automatic thoughts people connect with straight white men culminated with a couple questions I found intriguing: Imagine if your entire life, every time you said you suffered, people said, “actually that’s an example of you causing others to suffer.” How would that affect your life? and: Imagine every time you said you worked hard at something, people said, “actually that’s an example of how easy your[…] Keep reading →

Last month I asked “What automatic thoughts come to you when you think of straight white men?“. I also explored the topic with Psychology Today‘s Editor-at-Large, Hara Estroff Marano, in an audio recording for a piece there, White Men and Preconceived Notions. Some updates. . . First, context. However obvious, I’ll still say that the following is a personal account with all the biases of someone just talking to the[…] Keep reading →

Psychology Today’s Editor at Large, Hara Estroff Marano, and I continue our conversations on challenging topics. Today we continue with white men and preconceived notions of us. We were talking about topics before hitting record, I started to describe the pattern that comes up a few minutes into this recording, she lit up in the way someone who has thought about something and has something to say about it does,[…] Keep reading →