James' World 2

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In the months before the birth of my first child just over a year ago, I often lay awake at night letting parenting anxieties swirl. Chief among these was a decision that now seems trivial but at the time seemed crucial: What should our baby sleep in?

The best option, according to the online sources I consulted, was the Snoo—a $1,695 “smart” bassinet that responds to a baby’s cries with soothing rocking motions. I could have taken this recommendation and moved on; instead, I dwelled. Buying the “world’s smartest and safest baby bed,” as the Snoo claims to be, did seem like the responsible choice. But generations of babies have slept fine without a Snoo, so surely we didn’t really need it. Then again, now that such a thing exists, shouldn’t I take advantage of it? But was spending that much money financially irresponsible, given my budget? And was it even really the best option out there, anyway? Could there be something even better?

Almost every potential baby purchase consumed me in this way. I studied reviews of strollers that sold for more than a grand and dragged my partner to a big-box store to sit in various nursery gliders, testing them for comfort and fit. Unsure of which pacifiers or swaddles to get, I added sample boxes to my registry so that my newborn could try a host of options, and I could assess which she liked best. Apparently, the modern baby is a product reviewer in her own right. Before this, I’d found little need to scour the internet for the world’s finest tweezers or the toaster to rule all toasters. But this time felt different. I was responsible for another person, and even a binkie felt painfully consequential.

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Tyler Comrie / The Atlantic

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A decade ago, smartphones would constantly ring in public; now, social norms dictate that the sound be off. Individuals, cultures and societies define when it is appropriate or necessary to put away digital devices.

‘It’s addictive,’ says a woman in her 40s. She occasionally deactivates her social media accounts and does a digital detox every summer. For her, logging off is ‘a mixture of liberation and abstinence’. A middle-aged man takes periodic breaks from ‘toxic’ news coverage and describes his computer as a ‘digression machine’: ‘You just lose it, it has such a strong logic of its own.’ A young woman ‘loves social media’ but needs pauses. She believes your ‘social antennas’ deteriorate: ‘You get worse at conversing and being present for those around you.’

Together with colleagues, I study why and how people take breaks from digital media. The statements above are summarised from interviews. It is difficult to pin down the frequency and nature of digital disconnection, but evidence of perceived overuse is everywhere. In surveys, a sizeable proportion of the population answers affirmatively to the question ‘Do you think you are spending too much time online?’ Self-help books and online sites flourish with tips for logging off. Mass media and academic articles discuss screen times, addictive behavior, and motives for disconnection.

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Leave it at home. Be free. Photo by Aeon

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Most of us have found ourselves staring down a life problem that makes us feel like we’re absolutely trapped. You ruminate and look for solutions, but the whole affair is mired in a feeling of constraint. Just thinking about the problem can cause a tight feeling in your chest, as though you’re being squeezed by giant rubber bands, or feelings of numbness or stomach upset.

When this happens, you may be dealing with an “anchor problem” or a “gravity problem.” This terminology comes from Dave Evans and Bill Burnett, co-authors of the book Designing Your Life and co-founders of the Stanford Life Design Lab, who form a useful framework for breaking out of that hellish loop.

Anchor problems tend to occur when we’ve turned an assumed answer into a question. Evans offered me this example: Now in his late 60s, he has found love again after his wife died several years ago, and he may wonder whether he wants to write a book about, as he put it, “two old people falling in love.” This kind of question restricts Evans’s options because it assumes that he has to turn his experience into a book. Instead, he might release that “anchor” — it has to be a book — and in doing so, open himself up to different solutions. “I might ask a question like, this experience has been so life-giving. What do you want to do with that story? A book is one outcome,” says Evans.

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Dear Therapist,

How do I talk about estrangement with my young children? Over the past year, my husband and I have gone through a horribly painful estrangement from his parents. We were once very close and our children enjoyed nice relationships with them. As far as we know, our children have only warm, happy memories with their grandparents.

However, after struggling with alcoholism, anxiety, and depression for many years, my husband disclosed to me abuse that took place in his home when he was a young child. His parents have refused to listen, have said his memories are false and have been completely unable to maintain basic decency when my husband has attempted to speak with them. I feel strongly that it is not safe for my children to have a relationship with them moving forward.

I come from a long line of generational trauma myself. My mother died 11 years ago and my father has Alzheimer’s. If there was any possibility of making it work with my husband’s parents, we would. We have attempted family therapy with them, but each time, the therapists have said it would be more harmful than not for my husband to attend because his parents refuse to listen.

Our older son has asked about them only two or three times in the past year. I do not want to keep secrets from our children, but I also don’t want to overburden them with grown-up issues. How do we navigate this as our children grow and have more questions for us?

Jennifer
Los Angeles, California

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Bianca Bagnarelli

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During my peak teen mall rat phase, Barnes & Noble was a haven. Sometimes I’d buy a book, but mostly I’d walk each aisle until I reached the notebooks. My favorite were leather-bound, roped shut with a cord. Some were etched with spiral designs; others had gold-edged pages. They all cost $20 or more — more than, at the time, I wanted to spend. But I always looked.

When I actually did buy one, there was nothing more alluring than that first crack of the spine, choosing the perfect pen to press to the lined page. I’d write a poem, or a few diary entries, then close the book.

After that? It would stay 90 percent empty forever. In a few months, I’d see another new, beautiful book, full of promise, and the cycle would repeat.

I’ve gotten no better at filling out notebooks over the years; I still have stacks of sad, half-used ones spread across my apartment and childhood home. But I know I’m not alone — the internet is full of people who find themselves unable to finish a goddamn notebook.

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Photo by Getty Images/iStockphoto

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Building the nation’s first bullet train, which would connect Los Angeles and San Francisco, was always going to be a formidable technical challenge, pushing through the steep mountains and treacherous seismic faults of Southern California with a series of long tunnels and towering viaducts.

But the design for the nation’s most ambitious infrastructure project was never based on the easiest or most direct route. Instead, the train’s path out of Los Angeles was diverted across a second mountain range to the rapidly growing suburbs of the Mojave Desert — a route whose most salient advantage appeared to be that it ran through the district of a powerful Los Angeles county supervisor.

The dogleg through the desert was only one of several times over the years when the project fell victim to political forces that have added billions of dollars in costs and called into question whether the project can ever be finished.

Now, as the nation embarks on a historic, $1 trillion infrastructure building spree, the tortured effort to build the country’s first high-speed rail system is a case study in how ambitious public works projects can become perilously encumbered by political compromise, unrealistic cost estimates, flawed engineering and a determination to persist on projects that have become, like the crippled financial institutions of 2008, too big to fail.

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When people strive for self-improvement, a common mistake is to shoot too high. We make promises to be healthier, more mindful, more patient. But such lofty goals often go unmet. They’re just too vague, or too hard to track. (There’s a reason why 80 percent of New Year’s Resolutions are cast aside by February.) Even when a goal is more concrete (“I want to run a half marathon”; “I want to yell less”) it’s difficult to stay the course, especially when you have kids because time is tight, progress requires consistency, and it feels unnatural to break tasks into very small chunks.

A different approach? Start smaller — much smaller — and instead strive to develop micro habits. Micro habits are simple daily actions that are easy to implement into your established routine and only require a few minutes of your time (if that). Drinking a cup of water in the morning before your coffee so you stay hydrated. Performing a minute of breathing exercises to help manage anger. Reading just one paragraph of a book that seems daunting.

While they sound insignificant, micro habits are much more achievable than traditional goals and resolutions — and often contain aspects of them broken down into smaller chunks. And, because stacking up small victories creates a snowball effect that encourages you to undertake more, and more ambitious, changes, micro habits may be more likely to lead to lasting change.

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