How to Build a Life
A column about pointing yourself toward happiness
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Jan Buchczik Nothing Drains You Like Mixed Emotions
Feeling conflicted can be even more distressing than feeling bad. Here’s how to manage it.
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Jan Buchczik How We Learned to Be Lonely
In the early days of the pandemic, many of us got used to solitude. It’s a habit we need to break.
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Jan Buchczik How to Make the Most of Bad Gifts
Presents are generally terrible, but they can still bring you joy.
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Jan Buchczik Breakups Always Hurt, but You Can Shorten the Suffering
Three steps to get over your ex
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Jan Buchczik Does Overindulgence Make You Happy?
Why we binge as a way of celebrating.
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Jan Buchczik Meetings Are Miserable
One of the most straightforward paths to happiness at work is to fight against the scourge of time-consuming, unproductive meetings at every opportunity.
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Getty / The Atlantic A New Formula for Happiness
The happiness we seek can require investing earlier than we think—and may help us align our expectations and reality at the end of life.
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Jan Buchczik Marriage Is a Team Sport
Approach disagreements with your partner not as a “me,” but as a “we.”
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Getty / The Atlantic The Right Choices in Parenting
When parents avoid the complexities of independent decision making, they may fail to understand where analysis remains crucial.
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Jan Buchczik How to Love People Who Love Conspiracies
Fighting over the facts is unlikely to convince anyone.
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Jan Buchczik How to Make Life More Transcendent
Even if you’re not religious
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Jan Buchczik Envy, the Happiness Killer
Eradicating this ugly emotion entirely would be impossible, but we can stop fueling it with our behavior.
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Getty / The Atlantic The Complexities of Human Love
Tech may not be responsible for all the woes of modern love and human connection—but it may reflect our innate desire to find simple solutions to complex problems.
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Jan Buchczik If You Want Success, Pursue Happiness
Many people chase achievement, assuming it will lead to well-being. They should reverse that order of operations.
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Getty / The Atlantic When Virtues Become Vices
When addictive behaviors override our desires, it may be a sign to investigate the gap between what we crave and what’s really good for us.
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Jan Buchczik Why We Do Things We Know We’ll Regret
Our instincts often steer us to love things and use people. We need to do the opposite.
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Jan Buchczik Technology Can Make Your Relationships Shallower
But it’s all in how you use it.
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How To Season 3: When Expectations Don’t Meet Reality
The building blocks for realigning expectations and reality in happiness
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Jan Buchczik Don’t Objectify Yourself
Thinking of yourself as an observer is better for your happiness than obsessing over being observed.
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Jan Buchczik 11 Ancient Solutions for Modern Malaise
The Roman philosopher Seneca’s essay “On a Happy Life” is full of lessons that are as pertinent today as they were two millennia ago.
