I’m a Behavioral Scientist. Here’s How I Pull Myself Out of a Funk

GENTLY –

Oct. 2022 – This capacity for inward reflection, as remarkable as it is, causes an unending amount of grief, anxiety, and sadness. It’s really too bad that the adaptive story in our long tale of natural selection couldn’t have made us more blissfully aware, rather than the other way around. But evolution doesn’t care about our feelings. It cares about the survival of our genes. And self-focused anxiety is a damn good motivator to keep a species alive.

Sorry for the melancholy start. It’s not all doom and gloom. We — and by “we” I mean our ancestors of long ago — have sort of figured a way out of this evolutionary trap. And we’ve been doing it for thousands of years, probably longer. Since time immemorial, our ancestors learned how to quiet the ego and put a lid on that endless mental chatter of me, myself, and I. The result being the different wisdom traditions, myths, philosophies, and religions — all of which sought to teach one thing above all: It’s not all about you; and if you make it so, you’ll lead a miserable life.