“Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.”

Set the timer (5-30 min), take 20 seconds of prep if you like, start talking. Jot your thoughts onto the sticky-note board.

similar topics

• Ego depletion: willpower may work like a limited fuel tank, so after resisting temptation all day, evening finds us at our weakest. Could this be why most diets break at night?
• The dizziness of freedom: Kierkegaard described anxiety as the vertigo brought on by the endless possibilities opening up in front of us. Why does the freedom to choose frighten us instead of putting us at ease?
• Bowlby's attachment theory: does our very first relationship in infancy set the template for our adult love lives?
• The Stockdale paradox: the prisoners of war who survived were the ones who accepted the most brutal facts of their situation while never letting go of the faith that they would get out. Hope and realism look like opposites, so why is holding both at once the key to survival?
• Context-dependent memory: in the famous diver experiment, words learned underwater were recalled better underwater. Are environmental cues the key to memory?