Dr. David DeSteno

Like, you know, we're a culture that wants the life hack.

Give me the life hack so that I can study more.

Give me the life hack so that I can save money or lose weight.

Rituals are like sophisticated packages of life hacks.

Where a life hack is like playing a single note on a piano, a ritual is like a symphony.

So let me give you an example that kind of picks up on what you're saying.

So one of the things that cuts across everybody's lives, unfortunately, is that we have to, we will grieve at some point.

We will lose somebody and we will have the pain.

And so I was interested in looking at mourning rituals, right?

And what is one thing that almost all religions do when somebody passes?

You eulogize this person and it seems normal.

But when you think about it, it's kind of strange because if I just lost a job that I loved or if my wife just decided she was going to leave me.

I wouldn't want to think about daily how wonderful this person was or this job was because it would increase the pain.

But with...

someone passing, it does the opposite.

So George Bonanno, who's one of the nation's leading bereavement researchers at Columbia, he says one of the biggest predictors of who can move through grief successfully, and by that I mean it doesn't get too intense or it doesn't go on too long that it becomes paralyzing, is who can consolidate positive memories of the deceased person.

The better you are able at doing that,

the more you'll move through grief successfully.

And then you're talking about superstitions.

You know, if you look at the Jewish morning ritual of Shiva, and I won't say this is a superstition, but there are elements to it that some people think are strange.