*How should one handle pressure from a significant other to be more outgoing?

*What to do when you’re burned out from a role, and want to quit, but feel guilty about it?

*Is it possible to be open and authentic at work while also drawing …

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When it comes to decision-making, are you more of a “maximizer” or a “satisficer”?

And what do these terms mean, anyway?

And why does the answer matter so much, when it comes to leading a rewarding life…and making good decisions?

If you’d like to know the answers to these questions, today’s Kindred Letter is for you. It’s a sneak-peek excerpt from my friend David Epstein’s brand-new, out-today book, “INSIDE THE BOX: How Constraints Make Us Better”. In case you missed it, earlier this month I republished David’s article: Why you choke under pressure. I hope you enjoy!

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Here’s David:

“If I had to choose a single thinker whose work most influenced this book, it would be Herbert Simon.

Simon was trained as a political scientist, but a handful of disciplines claim him. He won the highest award in computer science (the Turing Award), and in psychology (Outstanding Lifetime Contributions), and in economics—the Nobel Prize. When a graduate student once asked Simon to explain his mastery of multiple fields, Simon replied that he was actually just fanatically exploring a single topic: how humans make decisions.

Simon showed that decision-making departs from what he had learned in economics courses because people are always faced with imperfect information about their options and equipped with limited ability to anticipate the consequences of their choices. Rather than “maximize,” or make the best choice from all available alternatives, Simon showed that humans must “satisfice”: consider a limited menu of options and choose one that is “good enough.”

Simon applied his findings in a practical sense to himself. He was, in his own words, an “incorrigible satisficer.” True maximizing is impossible anyway, and “searching for the best can only dissipate scarce cognitive resources,” Simon wrote. Here is his eldest daughter, Katherine, recalling his lifestyle:

“He wore one brand of socks, thus, after the first purchase, never having to select the color or style of what he put on his feet each day. He mostly wore plain white dress shirts or simple pale-colored sports shirts and very dark navy blue (almost black) trousers. From my earliest childhood, I remember hearing him remark that one needed only three sets of clothing: one on one’s body, one in the wash and one in the closet ready to wear. . . . His black beret (the only kind of hat he ever wore) was made at a particular haberdashery in Belgium. He owned only one beret at a time. When it began to look worn, he’d order the next, or, when he was abroad, he’d stop by the shop to buy a new one. The same with shoes. He wore black leather Oxfords in cold weather and sandals in the summer. He owned one pair of each that he wore until they wore out; then he’d get exactly the same kind to replace them.

My father also simplified his life in terms of his daily habits, thus eliminating the need to make little decisions about everything.”

Simon always had the same breakfast (bowl of oatmeal, half grapefruit, black coffee), and lived in the same house for forty-six years. He didn’t agonize over keeping his options open. When he had to make a decision, he considered a few alternatives, sometimes solicited advice, chose, and then remained open to lessons but not to dwelling on regret. “I was never aware that he changed his mind or re-thought options after deciding on something,” Katherine wrote. “Once made, his decision stuck.” Simon knew maximizing was unrealistic, and so he eagerly satisficed, saving anxiety and cognitive bandwidth anywhere he could. “The best is enemy of the good,” Simon wrote. One might be tempted to accuse him of a lack of ambition, if not for his trophy case.

Psychologists who followed up on Simon’s work have demonstrated the formidable wisdom of his life philosophy. Maximizing may be impossible, but that doesn’t stop us from trying. Not long after Simon passed away in 2001, a team of psychologists created a maximization scale, a survey to measure how much of a maximizer or satisficer one is. As it turned out, it is usually bad to be a maximizer.

Maximizers are less satisfied with their decisions and their lives, less optimistic, less happy, more prone to regret, and more likely to endlessly compare themselves to others. It’s not that relative satisficers have low standards; they can have high standards. It’s that they have standards at all other than “best imaginable,” so they create the possibility of satisfaction with their choices. Unsurprisingly, maximizers are more likely to feel overwhelmed by choice. In the abstract, more choice is always better. In practice, not necessarily.

The drive to maximize in a world of never-ending choice is the heart of a short story by one of my favorite writers, Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami. In it, a lonely young boy and girl meet on a street corner and intuitively realize that they are the “100% perfect” match for one another. It’s a miracle. They walk to a park bench, hold hands, and talk for hours. “As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts: Was it really all right for one’s dreams to come true so easily?” They decide on a test. If they really are perfect for one another, they can walk away and they’ll inevitably meet again. Then they can be absolutely sure that they’re the 100 percent perfect match, and will get married then and there. The boy walks off west, and the girl east. They really were perfect for each other, but, sadly, they never meet again.

It is OK to be satisfied. In a world of enormous choice, in fact, it is critical for well-being. As Simon pointed out, if we counted the cost in time and energy of evaluating options, we would see that satisficing actually is the maximizing strategy.

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OK, this is Susan writing again. I hope you appreciated this piece as much as I did, and am very curious to know:

*Do you tend to have trouble making decisions, or do you make them easily?

*Do you see yourself as more of a “maximizer” or “satisficer”?

*Can too much freedom indeed be paralyzing? When have you experienced this in your own life?

*What kinds of constraints (time, budget, rules) tend to spark your best thinking?

Please, leave a comment, and share!

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I’m really looking forward to seeing you tomorrow, for our May Candlelight Chat. It’ll be “just us” – meaning, no esteemed guest this time - just a chance for us to talk to each other, and ask the questions of each other that you might be wondering about.

Here’s what to expect:

*Candlelighting Ceremony, as always.

*Questio…

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Hello all,

It feels like it’s time for us to do another “Just Us” Candlelight Chat!

So: let’s do it. This Sunday, at 1 pm Eastern time. We’ll go for up to an hour, for as long as you have questions and discussion topics for me.

We’ll send out the log-in instructions tomorrow (Saturday) to all paid/scholarship members.

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This will be an “Ask Me (Almost) Anything.” As usual, we’re not going to get into politics. Other than that, if your question is too personal, I’ll just let you know. But you should really feel free to ask away.

Also as usual, you can feel free to participate actively, or to be a happy listener.

Please start asking questions and raising discussion topics, by commenting below! I’d love to know in advance what’s on your mind.

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Here’s one of the most famous insights from the famous Stanford neuroscientist, Robert Sapolsky. (I had the chance to hear Sapolsky speak last week, which reminded me how great he is, and that I should really share his work with you):

Zebras flee lions for a 30 second run, then go back to grazing. But humans can worry about imagined lions for 30 years.

And doing this has terrible impacts on our physical and psychological health. As Sapolsky explains: “If a lion is chasing you, and your blood pressure is 180 over 120, you’re not suffering from high blood pressure: you’re saving your life. On the other hand, if your blood pressure is 180 over 120 every time you’re stuck in traffic or you picked the slow line at the grocery store, you’re not saving your life: you’re suffering from stress-induced hypertension. And if you do that chronically enough, you’re going to damage your cardiovascular system. You’ll be more at risk for cardiovascular disease than if you smoke, than if you are overweight, than if you have elevated cholesterol levels.”

This “imagined lion” habit is stubborn because it feels as if you’re doing the responsible thing by worrying about lions. It feels as if vigilance equals care.

The answer is to teach your nervous system the difference between care and alarm.

Here are eight ways to do this:

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Oh, the phenomenon of choking under pressure.

It happened to me when I was a nine-year-old figure skater and fell twice during my first competition. It happened again when I was starting out as a public speaker - I used to feel as if my whole personality would freeze up onstage. And it sometimes happens now, as a 58-year-old tennis player, even though there are zero stakes to the matches I play.

Mostly, I’ve written this off as anxiety, an emotion that I’m quite familiar with.

But it turns out that there’s way more to choking than simple anxiety - and that understanding the mechanics of choking gives you the tools you need to stop doing it so much.

My friend David Epstein is the wildly thoughtful (now there are two words that may never have been strung together before, not even by AI, ha) author of the #1 New York Times best seller Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, and of the bestseller The Sports Gene. He also writes a fantastic Substack, Range Widely. And he has a new book, Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better, coming out soon!

Today, David is with us, to tell us what exactly happens in your brain when you choke under pressure - and how to make it stop. I found this information to be nothing short of revelatory, and if you, or a loved one, is an athlete, performer, or test-taker who chokes under pressure, I think you will too:

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Instead of starting your week with deadlines and stress, how about a lovely poem from Robert Frost, on the inevitability of loss and change:

Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

This poem seems, at first, to have a hopeless tone.

But I find, again and again, that accepting the inevitability of loss and change unlocks a richer, deeper form of happiness: a savoring of the present, and a willingness to find and embrace future gains.

(This is really what my book, BITTERSWEET, was all about. And I’m considering these themes all over again now, as my husband Ken and I find ourselves months away from an “empty nest”. Right now I feel pretty calm and optimistic about this change - I’ll let you know what it’s actually like, in September!)

This is not to say that life doesn’t throw us catastrophic losses whose arrival we must mourn. But life does reconstitute itself, continually, in new forms; and the challenge is to open ourselves to these new forms - even when we don’t welcome them.

*
You know I always love to hear from you:

• What in your life feels “golden” (and perhaps fleeting) right now — and are you savoring it fully, while it’s still here?

• What “new form” might life be asking you to welcome, even if you didn’t choose it?

• What has “not stayed” in your life—and what did its passing teach you?

Please do share!

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Dear all,

Recently, I was invited to give the keynote address at The Slowdown Summit - a conference for introverts, neurodivergent people, and reflective thinkers. It will be held at the Columbus Museum of Art, in Columbus, Ohio, on Monday, April 27.

The conference organizers describe the Slowdown Summit, which you can learn more about here, as “part retreat, part professional development, and part creative recharge. You’ll find immersive sessions, quiet corners, shared meals, and real conversations - all within a setting designed to be intentional and energizing.”

WE’RE ALSO GOING TO HAVE A SEPARATE MEET-UP AT THE SUMMIT, JUST FOR READERS OF THE QUIET LIFE. It will be either during or just after the conference.

Also - Quiet Life readers receive a 50% DISCOUNT to the conference: just enter “Quietlife” when you sign up.

If you do sign up for the Summit (which you can do here), please do comment below to let us know, so we’ll know how many of you to expect at our Quiet Life Meetup!

I am so excited at the chance to meet you in person.

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Are you a moral perfectionist?

Which is to say:

Do you feel acute shame if you think you did something wrong?

Do you have a tendency to feel guilty, even when you really aren’t?

Do you feel uncomfortable when occasionally you have a selfish or mean-spirited thought?

Do you feel unsure when it’s “right” to “put yourself first”?

If this sounds like you, today’s Kindred Letter is for you.

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If not - or if you were there, and would like to watch it again - this video replay is for you! It’s avai…

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Like everyone else, these days I spend too much time doom-scrolling on my phone, and too little time reading actual books.

But I’ve been inspired by our teenaged sons - who are suddenly putting down their phones and reading long books about history and politics — to change my ways, and to get back to my first love: reading.

I’m guessing that you might feel the same way. So, in case it inspires you, I thought I’d share these favorite books from my home library, plus some suggestions for disconnecting from your phone, and reading more.

*
First, some fave books:

Sacred Therapy: Jewish Spiritual Teachings on Emotional Healing and Inner Wholeness, by Estelle Frankel: This book is so full of wisdom and insight. I pulled down my copy just now and it’s filled with underlines and margin notes. Frankel draws on tales and teachings from the Bible, the Talmud, Kabbalah, and Hasidic tradition to offer insights on healing broken hearts, and living life as a sacred narrative.

The Power of Myth, by Joseph Campbell: I discovered Campbell’s work during that great transitional period of my life (in my early 30s, when I left the wrong career and the wrong relationship, and set sail into the unknown) and it has been a mainstay ever since. This book (as with most of Campbell’s work) is an exploration of how the world’s myths — ancient and modern — reveal the shared patterns of the human experience. Drawn from a series of conversations with journalist Bill Moyers, it shows how stories from diverse cultures illuminate universal themes such as the hero’s journey, the search for meaning, the tension between individual destiny and social roles, and the encounter with the sacred.

Gone: A Girl, A Violin, a Life Unstrung, by Min Kym: This is one of the most extraordinary memoirs I’ve ever read. World-class violinist Min Kym recounts the bond she formed at seventeen with a Stradivarius violin that became, for her, something like a lover, a child, a twin. These were not just fanciful metaphors: Min happily lived in a tiny apartment so she could pour all her financial resources into maintaining her instrument. But when her violin was stolen one day, her world collapsed. She stopped playing for years, fell into a deep depression. Eventually, though, she began to emerge — full of insights on loss and rebirth — and she wrote this magisterial book. When I first read the manuscript — which was sent to me by our shared editor — I stayed up all night to finish reading. I think you will, too.

And, here are a few suggestions of how to disconnect from your phone and read more:

*As with all habits you want to encourage, make them easy and inviting. Turn reading into a beloved ritual, with a “clean and well-lighted place”: your favorite armchair, a cozy lamp, a special reading snack or cup of coffee.

*Again, as with all habits you want to encourage, start small: fifteen minutes a day is fine, and so is ten minutes. So is five. Any amount of minutes is better than zero minutes!

As always, I’d love to hear from you:

*I’d be curious to know which one(s) of these books, if any, appeal to you.

*And, would you please share some favorite reads of your own?

*Do you think that our boys’ recently rekindled interest in book-reading is part of a wider trend, or a quirk of our family? I suspect the former, but am curious about your experiences.

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Last week, I reposted this simple statement: “One of the most peaceful habits you can build is letting people do whatever they want…. and simply adjusting your distance.” - @

Many of you resonated with it; some of you asked for concrete tips on how to peacefully adjust your distance, especially from the difficult people in your life.

I’m going to give you ten concrete suggestions, in a minute.

But first, think of a difficult person in your life. Then think how much energy you spend trying to get this person to see things your way. You might wish for them to treat you better, or to exercise more, or to see the political world from your point of view. You might express these wishes out loud, only for them to fall on deaf or angry ears.

Or you might keep these wishes to yourself, expressing them over and over in the seemingly safe chamber of your own mind. And when these wishes (of course) don’t come true (i.e., when the difficult person doesn’t change) you might feel a sense of failure.

But here’s a different approach:

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Dear all,

I’m really looking forward to seeing you tomorrow, for our next Candlelight Chat.

We’re going to talk about longing vs. craving; whether you should pursue acceptance or change; bittersweet music; and more. This one’s for you if your life feels stagnant, or if you’re trying to build better habits, or if you want to make changes, without turning your life upside down.

We’re very honored to host special guest Eric Zimmer, host of the critically acclaimed podcast, “The One You Feed”, and author of the upcoming new book — How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes For a More Meaningful Life, an excerpt of which we’ll publish soon.

As I mentioned the other day, Eric is intense, caring, and very insightful, and you can feel these things the minute you start talking to him. You’ll see what I mean, when you meet him.

As usual, we’ll also invite you to ask your questions of Eric. You’ll be able to talk to him either via the written chat, or by “raising your hand” and coming online to chat with him.

Also as usual, please have a candle handy, but don’t light it yet. We’ll do that together.

And, please bring a journal, iPad, sketchbook, or whatever works best for you.

And finally, don’t worry if you can’t make it live. We’ll send out a video recording to paid and scholarship subscribers next week.

Here are your log-in instructions:

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When I did my book tour for BITTERSWEET: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, my father and brother had recently passed away from COVID, and I didn’t want to do in-person events. Instead, I agreed to be a guest on approximately a gazillion podcasts (“gazillion” = at least 130, probably more). It was an exciting though exhausting experience, and most of it I remember in a blur.

But one thing I do recall clearly is the feeling I got from being a guest on Eric Zimmer’s critically acclaimed podcast, “The One You Feed”. Eric has an extremely singular and wonderful quality: he’s intense, caring, and very insightful, and you can feel these things the minute you start talking to him. You’ll see what I mean, when you meet him. The image that’s coming to my mind, as I type these words, is of a beautifully polished stone you pick up at the water’s edge, one that sits warm and smooth in your palm. You know that the stone got that way from having been tossed around the ocean waves for years (as has Eric - he’ll share his difficult life story) and that makes it all the lovelier.

Anyway, that’s why I’m so happy to announce that Eric will be our guest for this Sunday’s Candlelight Chat (1 pm ET, on Zoom). We’ll be discussing his much-anticipated new book, How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes For a More Meaningful Life, an excerpt of which we’ll also publish soon.

If your life feels stagnant — or too big to fix all at once…

If you’re trying to build better habits…

If you want to make changes, without turning your life upside down…

This Sunday’s Candlelight Chat is for you.

We’re also going to talk about sad music (here’s Eric’s version of a Bittersweet playlist); longing vs. craving; whether you should pursue acceptance or change; sad music, and more.

To participate, you must be a paid or scholarship member of The Quiet Life. Members can participate either live (we’ll send log-in instructions this Saturday), or by watching the video replay, which we’ll send later.

As usual, we’ll also invite you to ask your questions of Eric. You’ll be able to talk to him either via the written chat, or by “raising your hand” and coming online to chat with him.

I really hope you join us!

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All my life, I’ve felt deeply, instinctively, unsafe in groups. I don’t mean groups like my family, who are my most beloved people on earth. I just mean group life in general.

For a long time, I wondered how this could be - especially since humans are famously social animals, evolved to live in tribes.

But the older I get, the more I suspect that this instinctive wariness has something to do with the strange way we now talk about individualism — as if it were something selfish or suspect.

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“I think the Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) trait is so misunderstood. It’s one of those IF YOU KNOW YOU KNOW traits. If you’re in the approximately 15% to 20% of people who is an HSP, you certainly don’t need me to tell you that you are HSP. You live it every damn second of your life! But if you’re far, far away from that trait, it might be hard for you to comprehend what the inner experience of an HSP is like.”

These words come from my friend Scott Barry Kaufman, the great cognitive scientist and author who has spent many years studying creativity, human potential, and transcendence. SBK is a frequent guest essayist and Candlelight Chat guest at The Quiet Life - and you can follow his own Substack too, here. He’s also an HSP.

Today SBK’s back with us, writing on:

*Why HSP’s can have shaky self-esteem (or, what SBK calls “self-belief”) — and how to strengthen it;

*Why you can have strong self-belief in Situation A and find that it eludes you in Situation B;

*Whether it’s healthy to say “Haters gonna hate”;

and much more.

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Yesterday, a fellow author asked me to share my favorite writers on the subject of Melancholy, so of course I passed on my favorite C.S. Lewis passage, the one I spotlighted in BITTERSWEET:

“The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited [emphasis added].”

My colleague loved it as much as I do, and I was especially happy when he exclaimed over its breathtaking final sentence.

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And then I realized that we’re not supposed to write sentences like that anymore - because writing in rhythms of three, as Lewis does in that sentence, is now considered to sound too much like AI.

Except, of course, that AI was trained on our best writers — like Lewis. So of course it echoes those writers’ rhythms.

So where does that leave us writers now? Should we abjure such rhythms, for fear of sounding like a machine?

Just to ask this question is painful, given that Lewis wrote not like a machine but like an angel.

This question is obviously not just for writers, but for anyone who cares about art, excellence, and expression. It’s also a question for students, who have to worry about the appearance that their papers were written by AI.

And I think the answer is equally obvious:

We shouldn’t cede an inch of ground to these new norms.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t use AI to help us research, ideate, and so on. I do.

But we shouldn’t give up our favorite forms of expression to it. If we love em-dashes (another supposed sign of AI writing), we should keep using them. And if we like the rhythm of threes, we should use it still. (If you’re a student, add a P.S. letting your teacher know that you really like em-dashes and want to keep using them.)

This is partly a matter of principle. But it’s also because we don’t have anything to worry about, at least not yet. The real reason to read, write, and engage in any form of self-expression and communication, is for one human consciousness to truly explain itself — bare itself — to another.

No one but C.S. Lewis could have written those words — because they came from his particular consciousness, his particular life experiences, his particular spiritual longing.

And yes, I just used an em-dash, and a rhythm of three, in that final sentence.

*
*I’d love to know how AI is affecting your creative life, your work life, and beyond.

*I’m also curious whether you’ve had the experience of starting to read a very moving, goosebump-inducing story on social media, only to realize that it was likely written by an AI. In those cases, do you keep reading, or do you lose interest?

*And anything else you’d like to share!

You’re also invited to share this post with anyone you’d like!

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This will be familiar to all of us:

We exclaim over a delicious meal, rave about a new movie. “Incredible!” we say to our person, who merely shrugs: “It was OK.”

Have you ever felt deflated because someone didn’t share your enthusiasm?

Or pressured to amplify your reaction, to match someone else’s intensity?

These moments, which often happen in passing — so quickly that we barely notice them — have consequences for our marriages, friendships, and workplaces. Sometimes they’re just a matter of taste: you really loved the movie, and I thought it was meh.

But here’s what else may be going on - and what to do about it.

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If not - or if you were there, and would like to watch it again - this video replay is for you! It’s a…

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Some questions to discuss (and I’ll offer my own thoughts, in the comments):

• Do you love this poem as much as I do,

and:

• Is there anything sacred about this scene to you? If so, what? Is it the man himself? Or the man’s attention to his moment-by-moment experience? Or is it something else?

• What ordinary rituals in your own life do you treasure?

• What small moments in your own life feel more meaningful than they probably appear to random passers-by?

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