How to Organize Recurring Pain

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In times when things feel very chaotic or we come face to face with the fact that we don't have any control, I think at those moments it's really helpful for us to find the humility. For most people when they're reminded of their mortality, it leads them to get quite anxious. But what you're relaying is kind of the opposite experience where you're thinking about your own mortality, but it almost brings you more gratitude or more appreciation for what is currently in front of you. That's how I've been thinking about pain recently and I'm curious to see if you have a reaction to that.

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To increase our chances of success (in whatever domain and using definition of success), should we focus on boosting our strengths or shoring up our weaknesses? Are we harsher in our critiques of ourselves than in our critiques of others? What should an ideal inner monologue be like? What are some useful taxonomies of pain? Are there times when irrational, magical, emotionally-driven, and/or delusional types of thinking are useful?

Anna Paley is insatiably curious about how best to live our lives. She is a behavioral scientist and marketing professor at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. She received her PhD from New York University, Stern School of Business in 2017. You can reach her at a.paley@tilburguniversity.edu.

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