Maya Shankar

I certainly have felt this way so many times, like you, Jason.

I love having my hands firmly on the steering wheel.

I like being in control.

I like knowing how the story ends.

In fact, one of my favorite research studies shows that we are more stressed when we're told we have a 50% chance of getting an electric shock than when we're told we have a 100% chance of getting an electric shock.

And it sounds wild.

Why would we prefer to have a negative bad thing happen with certainty rather than grapple with any ambiguity?

But

I so resonate with this finding and it makes so much sense to me that this would be the case.

And I think in many ways, my goal with the other side of change was to help people reclaim whatever control still remained in their circumstances, because.

Like, I'm a normal person, right?

I'm not like a Buddhist.

I wish I had more of a Buddhist philosophy, but I have not been able to detach myself from my world and have that kind of enlightenment that I would so aspire to have.

And so I do want control still.

And my goal with...

with this book was to give people a guide.

In fact, I call it a change survival kit where they know what questions to ask, what thought experiments run, what science-based techniques to use so that they can engage in the relevant mental reframes to see and think differently about their changes.

Because when everything is swirling around us, it is actually quite comforting to feel like there are still some things that lie within our control.

OK, well, the first thing I want to remind people of is that many of us fall prey to what's called the end of history illusion, which says that we fully agree we've changed considerably in the past.

But if we were to ask ourselves, well, how much do we expect to change in the future?