Article Overviews

These articles investigate a central tension of modern psychology: effort still matters deeply to our sense of meaning, yet effort has become diffuse, continuous, and hard to turn off. Together, they ask not just how we work, but what we expect work and effort to give us — and why those expectations so often go unmet.

• How Life Became an Endless, Terrible Competition — Daniel Markovits, The Atlantic

• The Effort Paradox — The Atlantic

• What Is Creativity Without Sweat and Tears? — Sy Boles, Harvard Gazette

• Weeknight Dinner’s Never Easy — The Atlantic

• You Too Can Never Ever Relax — Harvard Gazette

• Uncertainty as Opportunity — The Atlantic

• The Real Meaning of Freedom at Work — The Wall Street Journal (Oldie but Goodie)

These articles explore how people understand who they are in relation to time, generation, progress, and the lives they imagined for themselves.

• Subjective Age: How Old You Feel Matters — The Atlantic

• Is Gen X Actually the Greatest Generation? — T: The New York Times Style Magazine

These articles explore how modern pressures are experienced psychologically — and how people try to manage, interpret, or soften them.

• Know Yourself, Socrates — The Atlantic

• Crossing the Line Between Good and Bad Anxiety — Harvard Gazette

• How to Manage Stress During an Apocalypse — Harvard Gazette

• How to Take Yourself Less Seriously — Harvard Gazette

• How to Care Less About What Others Think — Vogue

• Stop “Should-ing” on Yourself — Stephanie Fairyington, Oprah Daily (Oldie but Goodie)

• Why Cleaning Can Help Ease Depression — The New York Times Well (Oldie but Goodie)

• A List of Reasons Why Our Brains Love Lists — The New Yorker (Oldie but Goodie)

Here are a few inspiring articles about topics that interest me — highlighting the antidote to anxious culture with creativity, nature, and presence.

• Magic: The Real Work — The New Yorker

• Forest Therapy Trails — National Geographic

• Nurtured by Nature — American Psychological Association (Oldie but Goodie)

• What Mary Oliver’s Critics Don’t Understand — The New Yorker (Oldie but Goodie)