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We Make Our Big Life Decisions at 29, 39, and So On
New York Magazine: The years before beginning a brand-new decade — ages 29, 39, and so on — tend to be spent in self-reflection, according to a new paper published online today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. These are the prime What am I doing with my life? years, in other words, which prompts many people to behave in ways that suggest “an ongoing or failed search for meaning,” the authors write. Their data suggests that these are the ages when people are more likely to either train harder for a marathon or run one for the first time; they’re also the ages when more people tend to cheat on their marriages or take their own lives.
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Extreme Wealth Is Bad for Everyone—Especially the Wealthy
New Republic: When I was fourteen I met a man with a talent for restoring a sense of fairness to a society with vast and growing inequalities in wealth. His name was Jack Kenney and he’d created a tennis camp, called Tamarack, in the mountains of northern New Hampshire. The kids who went to the Tamarack Tennis Camp mostly came from well-to-do East Coast families, but the camp itself didn’t feel like a rich person’s place: it wasn’t unusual for the local health inspectors to warn the camp about its conditions, or for the mother of some Boston Brahmin dropping her child off, and seeing where he would sleep and eat for the next month, to burst into tears.
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12 Ways to Stop Wasting Money and Take Control of Your Stuff
Time: In my work as a consumer psychologist and author, I’ve read countless studies about consumer behavior, and I’ve conducted plenty of research on my own, interviewing hundreds of shoppers about how, when, and why they shop. Here’s what I’ve learned about how to avoid piling up too much stuff and how to stop making unnecessary, excessive, and ultimately unsatisfying purchases.
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Walk This Way: Acting Happy Can Make It So
The Wall Street Journal: Happy people walk differently than others, and scientists are finding that putting on a happy walk may give your mood a boost. Research shows people’s mood affects how they walk. When people are happy, they tend to walk faster and more upright, swing their arms and move up and down more, and sway less side to side than sad or depressed people. A recent study found that deliberately walking like a happy person can lift one’s spirits. And adopting the gait of a depressed person can bring on sadness.
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Common Core Reading: The Struggle Over Struggle
NPR: Every set of academic standards has a soul. Yes, a soul. It's made of varied stuff: part research, part practice, part conviction of its authors. To find the soul, follow the words that turn up again and again in the winding backwaters and byways of the standards themselves. A search of the Common Core English Language Arts Standards turns up one remarkable word 105 times. It is "complex" (or "complexity"). Here's an early appearance: "Rather than focusing solely on the skills of reading and writing, the ELA/literacy standards highlight the growing complexity of the texts students must read to be ready for the demands of college, career, and life." Read the whole story: NPR
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Feeling — Not Being — Wealthy Drives Opposition to Wealth Redistribution
People’s views on income inequality and wealth distribution may have little to do with how much money they have in the bank and a lot to do with how wealthy they feel in comparison to
