“The biggest deficit that we have in our society and in the world right now is an empathy deficit.” – Barack Obama “Arguing against empathy is like arguing against kittens.” – Paul Bloom Empathy has become something close to a sacred value in modern culture. In therapy, politics, education—everywhere—we’re told to be more empathetic. And on one level, this makes perfect sense. A world without empathy would be cold, indifferent, and brutal. But can empathy be a problem? It sure can. Paul Bloom...

We like to think of ourselves as rational creatures. We imagine our minds as truth-seeking instruments—mini scientists carefully weighing evidence, updating beliefs, and following facts wherever they lead. This is how we experience our thinking from the inside: measured, reasonable, and fair. But this is largely an illusion. From an evolutionary perspective, the human mind did not evolve to discover truth. It evolved to help us survive and reproduce. Truth was useful only insofar as it...

In a recent post (" You Can’t Stop Thoughts… But You Can Stop Thinking") I outlined four steps to stoping rumination: Spot the hand-off:...