David Epstein

And so I think that we need to be careful about that in a world of so many options.

The other, and this gets to that study I mentioned that I write about, the Harvard Study of Adult Development.

If I had to summarize that study in a sentence, taking from the study director, it's happiness is love.

Your relationships ultimately are the thing that provide lasting satisfaction.

Real world relationships where you have obligations to other people.

A dense network of reciprocal obligation where people have obligations to you, you have obligations to them is what provides long lasting meaning.

And I think that can be tough when we have so many goals and so many things to do.

We don't schedule that kind of stuff, even though it's as important.

So I think scheduling it is really, really important.

And I think the last one that I would leave that again is very salient to me now because of the things I've been writing is that monotasking is a superpower.

multitasking is not exactly possible like you can talk and walk at the same time but um things that involve cognitive engagement like switching between email and things you can't actually do it your brain has to drop some set of rules and activate another one and what's really kind of scary is that

we now know that the more times you switch a day, the higher your stress will be.

And there's even some evidence that it alters your immune function, right?

So let me, can I actually add onto this, the scariest research from the book, I thought?

From this woman, Gloria Mark, who found that we become accustomed, from all these notifications and everything, distractions all day, whether it's people, notifications, we become accustomed to a certain level of distraction.

And then if you say, now I'm gonna put my phone away and focus, you can't, you will self-interrupt with intrusive thoughts

At the cadence to which you've become accustomed.

Really?

Yes.

It's almost like waiting for it to happen.