Henry Ford famously noted, Whether you think you can do it or not, you are usually right. His point was that beliefs, especially about our talents, performance, and even luck, can be self-fulfilling. Irrespective of whether they are right or wrong, they will become true by influencing objective success outcomes.
Ford was hardly alone. Along the same lines, decades of psychological research show that beliefs matter, often profoundly so. Perhaps the most influential work comes from Albert Banduras theory of self-efficacy, defined as peoples beliefs in their capability to organize and execute the actions required to manage prospective situations. Across hundreds of studies, higher self-efficacy has been linked to greater motivation, resilience, learning, and performance. People who believe they can improve are more likely to set challenging goals, invest effort, persist in the face of difficulty, and recover from failure.
Closely related ideas emerged from attribution theory and expectancy value models, which showed that individuals who attribute success to effort rather than fixed ability, and who believe their actions will make a difference, tend to perform better in school and at work. The most popular variant of these, at least in the world of HR and management, has been Carol Dwecks research on growth versus fixed mindsets, which popularized the idea that believing that abilities can be developed encourages learning-oriented behavior, greater perseverance, and better responses to feedback.
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Taken together, this body of research persuaded a large number of people of the importance of mindset, implying a counterintuitive causal chain whereby beliefs shape performancerather than the other way around. Specifically, the story goes, irrespective of how rational our thoughts are, they will likely shape attention, effort, emotional reactions, and behavior, which in turn impacts tangible results and outcomes.
A mental software update
Suitably, much of the self-help industry has run with this idea at full speed. Bookstores, podcasts, LinkedIn feeds, and corporate off-sites are now saturated with advice urging us to reframe, manifest, believe harder, and upgrade our mindset. According to this logic, success is largely a mental software update away. Change your thoughts, and the universe will follow!
This is where things start to get a little silly. Mindset does not suspend physics, probability, or competence. It still matters whether you can actually cross the road without getting hit by a bus. And even if you firmly believe you are Serena Williams on the tennis court, lacking the ability to play tennis means you may be the only person on earth who shares that belief. Confidence does not magically produce a serve, a backhand, or a Grand Slam title.
Motivational cosplay
At its most extreme, mindset culture drifts into motivational cosplay: people repeating affirmations in the mirror while ignoring the inconvenient details of skill, preparation, competition, and luck. Worse, it can quietly turn failure into a moral flaw. If you didnt succeed, you must not have believed enough, visualized hard enough, or optimized your morning routine sufficiently. Structural barriers, unequal opportunities, and plain bad luck are written out of the story.
The irony is that the science never claimed mindset was omnipotent. Beliefs help when they are tethered to reality. They amplify effort, persistence, and learning, but they cannot substitute for ability, practice, or opportunity. Positive thinking works best when paired with negative feedback, deliberate practice, and a sober assessment of constraints.
In short, mindset matters (a bit), but not in the magical way the self-help industry sells it. Thinking you can do something helps you try. It does not guarantee you will succeed. And no amount of positive thinking will turn wishful confidence into world-class talent.
Modest effects
Indeed, a closer look at the scientific evidence indicates that popular interpretations on the power of mindset and positive thinking have gone too far.
First, the effects of mindset are actually not that large. Meta-analyses show that growth mindset interventions produce small to moderate effects, particularly when compared with structural factors such as prior ability, socioeconomic status, quality of instruction, or access to opportunity. Put differently, believing you can improve is helpful, but it is no substitute for actually improving. Between thinking you are as good as Lionel Messi and being half as good as him, the latter is unequivocally preferableunless your goal is to impress people who dont understand soccer, in which case you can hope to deceive or fool them! Confidence without competence may feel empowering, but it rarely wins matches, promotions, or championships. (It does make for popular sitcom characters like Michael Scott or David Brent, though.)
Second, beliefs do not operate in a vacuum. Confidence helps most when it is paired with real skills, feedback, and environments that reward effort. The problem with overvaluing confidence or self-belief is that, roughly half the time, it is correlated with actual ability. When people are genuinely competent, their confidence is often earned, which is why Muhammad Ali could plausibly claim that it isnt bragging if you can back it up. In those cases, belief is less a psychological trick than a reasonably accurate signal of underlying skill.
The trouble starts when confidence drifts away from competence. Underconfidence, while uncomfortable, can be oddly functional: It pushes people to prepare more, seek feedback, and close gaps they suspect (or know) they have. Accurate confidence, by contrast, reflects self-awarenssa realistic calibration between what one can do and what the situation demands. Delusional confidence is different altogether. It may help people impress, persuade, or temporarily fool others, but this is usually a short-lived strategy unless everyone else is equally deluded. When confidence consistently outruns competence, the cost is eventually paid, either by the individual when reality catches up or by everyone else who has to deal with the consequences.
Third, an excessive focus on mindset risks slipping into a form of psychological moralizing, where success is credited to the right attitude and failure is blamed on the individuals thinking rather than on constraints, inequality, or bad luck. This becomes especially problematic when people are encouraged to believe not only that they live in a meritocracy, but also that their outcomes hinge primarily on how strongly they believe in themselves. In such a world, effort and optimism are not just virtues but moral obligations, and when success does not materialize, the only plausible culprit left is the self.
The result is a quiet but corrosive form of self-blame. If belief is supposed to be the main lever of success, then failing to succeed feels like a personal deficiency of character, motivation, or mental toughness. Structural barriers fade into the background, while disappointment is internalized as guilt. Ironically, this narrative can be demotivating, not empowering.
A better way
A more helpful alternative would be to focus less on upgrading peoples beliefs and more on developing their actual skills and competence. This remains valuable even when individuals start out with low confidence in their abilities, which may simply reflect an accurate awareness of the gap between their current and ideal selves. Closing that gap through practice, feedback, and learning does more for long-term performance and well-being than insisting people feel confident before they have much to be confident about.
Needless to say, there is also evidence that positive beliefs can backfire when they become detached from reality. Inflated self-beliefs are linked to poor calibration, overconfidence, and reckless decision-making. In organizational settings, confidence without competence can be costly, especially when it crowds out learning, dissent, or accurate self-assessment.
In some cases, acknowledging that you are simply not very good at something is not an act of pessimism but of strategic realism. Persisting in a poorly matched role or career path on the basis of false hope can be actively harmful. Psychologists refer to this as false positive self-beliefs or miscalibrated optimism (which appear to be the norm), where individuals overestimate their likelihood of success and continue investing in goals that are unlikely to pay off. By contrast, recognizing limits early allows people to redirect their effort toward domains where their abilities, interests, and opportunities are better aligned.
There is also a social cost to miscalibration. If others realize you are less capable than you believe yourself to be, the reputational penalty is typically higher than if you had reached that conclusion first. Self-awareness signals judgment and maturity; obliviousness signals risk. In practice, what matters most is not how good you think you are, but how good others think you are, because it is other people who allocate opportunities, responsibilities, promotions, and trust.
Ironically, some of the best performers are those who initially underestimate themselves. Mild underconfidence can motivate preparation, learning, and skill acquisition, leading to steady improvement and positive surprises. Conversely, people who overestimate their abilities often stagnate, mistaking confidence for progress and reassurance for feedback. Over time, belief divorced from performance does not just fail to help; it actively prevents development.
The science, then, supports a more nuanced conclusion. Mindset matters, but it is not magic. Beliefs are best understood as enablers rather than engines of success. They help people make use of their abilities and opportunities, but they cannot substitute for them.
And yet, we tend to praise self-belief far more enthusiastically than self-knowledge. Confidence is celebrated as a virtue; realism is often mistaken for negativity. But from the perspective of everyone else, self-knowledge is usually the more valuable trait. Most of us have worked with at least one person who is spectacularly pleased with themselves, modestly competent at best, and blissfully unaware of the gap between the two. Their confidence may be admirable in the abstract, but it is considerably less charming when they are making decisions, leading teams, or presenting their vision.
If we evaluated the world from other peoples point of view, we would quickly realize that it is not in anyones interest for the unjustifiably confident to succeed because of those very flaws. When people advance on the strength of misplaced self-belief rather than demonstrated competence, the costs are externalized: Colleagues pick up the slack, organizations absorb the damage, and reality eventually intervenes, often expensively.
A healthier mindset, then, is not blind optimism but informed confidence: knowing what you can do, what you cannot yet do, and where your effort will actually pay off. In short, self-belief may feel good, but self-knowledge gets things done.
Reality rewards competence, not confidence. The only role of belief is to signal whether you know the difference.
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If youre a millennial and youre going through your midlife crisis, this post is for you.
So begins a viral TikTok video posted last month by comedian Mike Mancusi. Many millennials are now in their forties, with the youngest about to turn 30, putting the generation at the beginning of the unofficial age bracket when midlife crises traditionally hit.
But Mancusi argues that the millennial version is a singular experience.
For past generations, a midlife crisis followed a familiar blueprint: graduate college, climb the career ladder, get married, have kids, thensomewhere between roughly 40 and 60confront mortality and blow it all up for a red sports car or a younger trophy partner.
That is not the case for millennials, many of whom missed those milestones due to economic and social upheaval during their formative years. In fact, according to a 2024 study from mental health platform Thriving Center of Psychology, 81% of millennials polled said they couldnt afford to have a midlife crisis.
Can you imagine having a midlife crisis while owning your home, easily paying all your bills, and saving for retirement? one user commented on Mancusis post. Like what?
Mancusi suggests theres another reason at play.
Other generations’ midlife crisis has been built off of looking forward, he says in the clip. Ours has been built off of looking back.
Where midlife crises were once triggered by a sense of fading youth, millennials are reckoning with something else entirely. We look back and go, Wait a minute, I was told to do all these things. I did them, and still I’m not happy, Mancusi explains. And that is a way different crisis.
The stability that previous generations found stifling rarely exists in the same way today. The social contract between employees and employers has fractured. Millennials who followed the prescribed path and climbed the ladder are now realizing that the stability and success they were promised is largely a pipe dream.
A majority of U.S. workers (60%) dont have a quality job that provides basic financial well-being, safety, and autonomy, among other things, according to Gallup research. These days, 71% of millennial employees are not engaged or are actively disengaged at work, according to a separate Gallup report, and about 66% of millennials report moderate or high levels of burnout, according to a recent Aflac report.
The problem for millennials is we listened, one commenter wrote.
As another put it: Our crisis isnt mid-life, its existential.
Mancusis recommendation for anyone who fears a midlife or existential crisis coming on: You have to find something else to do, he says. I don’t know what you’re into, but you need to find that thing and build it into every single day, because that is what’s going to allow you to move forward in a way that you feel in control of and that you feel passionate about.
In other words, instead of a sports car, get a hobby.
The “New Tab” page in Chrome is the digital equivalent of a blank stare. A white void. Nothing, and plenty of it.
Why are we settling for this? Your browsers start page is the most valuable real estate on your computer. Its the first thing you see!
Instead of looking at an empty space, you could be looking at a command center. Here are five Chrome extensions that turn that boring start screen into something actually useful.
Momentum
If you want your browser to feel less like a software application and more like a high-end wellness retreat, Momentum is the gold standard.
Every day, it greets you with a stunning, high-res landscape photo and a simple question about your main focus for the day.
Its minimalism that works, keeping a single to-do list and your primary goal front and center so you don’t forget what you actually sat down to do.
Bonjourr
If Momentum feels a bit too inspirational, Bonjourr is the lightweight, open-source alternative built for speed and clean lines.
Its a minimalists dream, featuring transparency, clean fonts, and zero bloat. You can even tweak the CSS if you’re willing to dig into the code a bit, but most people will just appreciate that it loads almost instantly and looks beautiful while offering enough flexibility to use whatever niche search engine theyre currently experimenting with.
Presentboard
Maybe you dont want a pretty picture; maybe you want data.
Presentboard is a hidden gem that treats your New Tab page like a literal dashboard, using a grid-based system where you can drop widgets for Google Calendar events, latest emails, stock tickers, and custom RSS feeds.
Its for the person who wants to see their entire digital life at a glance before they even type a single URL. You can resize and move boxes around until the layout is exactly how your brain likes it, turning your browser into a functional workstation rather than just a window to the web.
Dashy
For those who have 14 apps open just to manage their life, Dashy acts as a “mega-dashboard” that lets you pin functioning widgets directly to your start page.
Were talking full integrations where you can check your calendar, scroll a Reddit feed, and manage Todoist tasks without ever leaving the New Tab screen.
It even allows for custom profiles, so you can toggle between a “Work Mode” filled with Slack widgets and a “Weekend Mode” dominated by Spotify and news feeds. Its the closest you can get to turning Chrome into its own operating system.
This is for serious dashboard connoisseurs: The free version offers basic widgets and integration with popular websites, while the $5-per-month paid version offers unlimited widget access, a side panel, custom website embeds, and more.
Tabliss
If youre tired of extensions locking the best features behind a monthly subscription, Tabliss is the open-source hero you need.
Its completely free, respects your privacy, and offers a massive library of backgrounds from Unsplash and Giphy.
This one sits comfortably between beauty and simplicity, offering unique widgets like a “Work Hours” countdown or live sports scores. Its highly modular and even includes a binary clock for the truly dedicated geeks who find reading time normally to be far too easy.
Its 9:30 p.m. Snack time. A sacred fourth meal, when I pull out my handwash-only kobachi and drop in a small handful of Blue Diamond Smokehouse almonds. Ive been eating them for more years than I care to admit, appreciating the mix of natural (high protein and fiber) almonds with a splash of addictive processing (mmm, hickory smoke flavor and maltodextrin) to keep them feeling dangerous.
Its the perfect portion of the perfect snack in the perfect bowl. Almost.
[Image: Blue Diamond]
The problem with Blue Diamond Smokehouse isnt the product. Its the packaging. Specifically, the Ziploc-esque “resealable zipper stops working, like clockwork, when Im about halfway through the bag. The plastic zip itself seems to hold too strongly, so that inevitably, theres a point when I open the bag, and the heat-sealed weld gives out. The zip stays zipped, but now its attached to only one side of the bag. ONE SIDE!!! A bag that now gapes open, possibly in shock from my own ineptitude in opening and closing a snack.
I know its not my fault. Its the damn dysfunctional bag. But like dropping a cheap glass, Im left with an unnecessary burden of guilt. Was it something I did, Blue Diamond?? I can change! Ill do better next time! (I never do.) WHY DOES NOTHING EVER GO RIGHT IN MY LIFE????!?? WHY DO I DRIVE ALL SOURCES OF MONOUNSATURATED FATS AWAY??!??!
From there on out, Im left with this domestic conundrum: Shove the almonds into another bag (feels wasteful, and the powder is gonna stick to everything)or curse . . . curl the bag up the best I can . . . and wedge it between two canned goods to keep it from springing open. Inevitably, I choose the latter. But more air gets in over the coming weeks. The smoky almonds grow stale.
This sounds dramatic. I am being dramatic! But also, cmon: 3 gallons of water go into each nut. That means my 25-ounce pack represents 2,100 gallons of water. And Blue Diamond cant even take the time to make sure that so much investment isnt leaking all over my pantry.
Resealable packs suck
To be fair, Blue Diamond is far from the only culprit when it comes to poorly built zips. Since the late 1980s, resealable bags have taken over supermarket shelves for products including nuts, pre-shredded cheese, and frozen nuggets. Into the 1990s, these technologies were largely perfected to replace boxed goods with soft packaging in pyramidic forms, creating bags with a wide bottom and thin top that stood up and stood out on the shelf.
Despite decades of manufacturing innovations, resealable packs can still be stupidly hard to cut open without hitting the zip. Bits of food can clog the seals. And, more and more, Im noticing how one side of the zip can inevitably fail, as with Blue Diamond, leaving the pack less than airtight.
But when they work, its the best UX that the American supermarket has to offer (dont get me started on self-checkout!), inevitably helping to keep food fresh and reduce food waste. As much as 40% of Americas food is thrown away each year. And resealable packs help reduce this numberall without introducing more packaging (looking at you, Ziploc!) to solve the problem.
So consider this an open call for Blue Diamond, and all those making suss resealable products, to rethink their packaging. We must have the technology to actually seal bags shut . . . again . . . and again.
Across Appalachia, rust-colored water seeps from abandoned coal mines, staining rocks orange and coating stream beds with metals. These acidic discharges, known as acid mine drainage, are among the regions most persistent environmental problems. They disrupt aquatic life, corrode pipes, and can contaminate drinking water for decades.
However, hidden in that orange drainage are valuable metals known as rare earth elements that are vital for many technologies the U.S. relies on, including smartphones, wind turbines, and military jets. In fact, studies have found that the concentrations of rare earths in acid mine waste can be comparable to the amount in ores mined to extract rare earths.
Scientists estimate that more than 13,700 miles of U.S. streams, predominantly in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, are contaminated with acid mine discharge.
A closer look at acid mine drainage from abandoned mines in Pennsylvania from the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission
We and our colleagues at West Virginia University have been working on ways to turn the acid waste in those bright orange creeks into a reliable domestic source for rare earths while also cleaning the water.
Experiments show extraction can work. If states can also sort out who owns that mine waste, the environmental cost of mining might help power a clean energy future.
Rare earths face a supply chain risk
Rare earth elements are a group of 17 metals, also classified as critical minerals, that are considered vital to the nations economy or security.
Despite their name, rare earth elements are not all that rare. They occur in many places around the planet, but in small quantities mixed with other minerals, which makes them costly and complex to separate and refine.
China controls about 70% of global rare earth production and nearly all refining capacity. This near monopoly gives the Chinese government the power to influence prices, export policies, and access to rare earth elements. China has used that power in trade disputes as recently as 2025.
The United States, which currently imports about 80% of the rare earth elements it uses, sees Chinas control over these critical minerals as a risk and has made locating domestic sources a national priority.
Although the U.S. Geological Survey has been mapping potential locations for extracting rare earth elements, getting from exploration to production takes years. Thats why unconventional sources, like extracting rare earth elements from acid mine waste, are drawing interest.
Turning a mine waste problem into a solution
Acid mine drainage forms when sulfide minerals, such as pyrite, are exposed to air during mining. This creates sulfuric acid, which then dissolves heavy metals such as copper, lead, and mercury from the surrounding rock. The metals end up in groundwater and creeks, where iron in the mix gives the water an orange color.
Expensive treatment systems can neutralize the acid, with the dissolved metals settling into an orange sludge in treatment ponds.
For decades, that sludge was treated as hazardous waste and hauled to landfills. But scientists at West Virginia University and the National Energy Technology Laboratory have found that it contains concentrations of rare earth elements comparable to those found in mined ores. These elements are also easier to extract from acid mine waste because the acidic water has already released them from the surrounding rock.
Experiments have shown how the metals can be extracted: Researchers collected sludge, separated out rare earth elements using water-safe chemistry, and then returned the cleaner water to nearby streams.
It is like mining without digging, turning something harmful into a useful resource. If scaled up, this process could lower cleanup costs, create local jobs, and strengthen Americas supply of materials needed for renewable energy and high-tech manufacturing.
But theres a problem: Who owns the recovered minerals?
The ownership question
Traditional mining law covers minerals underground, not those extracted from water naturally running off abandoned mine sites.
Nonprofit watershed groups that treat mine waste to clean up the water often receive public funding meant solely for environmental cleanup. If these groups start selling recovered rare earth elements, they could generate revenue for more stream cleanup projects, but they might also risk violating grant terms or nonprofit rules.
To better understand the policy challenges, we surveyed mine water treatment operators across Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The majority of treatment systems were under landowner agreements in which the operators had no permanent property rights. Most operators said ownership uncertainty was one of the biggest barriers to investment in the recovery of rare earth elements, projects that can cost millions of dollars.
Not surprisingly, water treatent operators who owned the land where treatment was taking place were much more likely to be interested in rare earth element extraction.
West Virginia took steps in 2022 to boost rare earth recovery, innovation, and cleanup of acid mine drainage. A new law gives ownership of recovered rare earth elements to whoever extracts them. So far, the law has not been applied to large-scale projects.
Across the border, Pennsylvanias Environmental Good Samaritan Act protects volunteers who treat mine water from liability but says nothing about ownership.
This difference matters. Clear rules like West Virginias provide greater certainty, while the lack of guidance in Pennsylvania can leave companies and nonprofits hesitant about undertaking expensive recovery projects. Among the treatment operators we surveyed, interest in rare earth element extraction was twice as high in West Virginia than in Pennsylvania.
The economics of waste to value
Recovering rare earth elements from mine water wont replace conventional mining. The quantities available at drainage sites are far smaller than those produced by large mines, even though the concentration can be just as high, and the technology to extract them from mine waste is still developing.
Still, the use of mine waste offers a promising way to supplement the supply of rare earth elements with a domestic source and help offset environmental costs while cleaning up polluted streams.
Early studies suggest that recovering rare earth elements using technologies being developed today could be profitable, particularly when the projects also recover additional critical materials, such as cobalt and manganese, which are used in industrial processes and batteries. Extraction methods are improving, too, making the process safer, cleaner, and cheaper.
Government incentives, research funding, and public-private partnerships could speed this progress, much as subsidies support fossil fuel extraction and have helped solar and wind power scale up in providing electricity.
Treating acid mine drainage and extracting its valuable rare earth elements offers a way to transform pollution into prosperity. Creating policies that clarify ownership, investing in research, and supporting responsible recovery could ensure that Appalachian communities benefit from this new chapter, one in which cleanup and clean energy advance together.
Hélne Nguemgaing is an assistant clinical professor of critical resources and sustainability analytics at the University of Maryland.
Alan Collins is a professor of natural resource economics at West Virginia University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Below, Jay Belsky shares five key insights from his new book, The Nature of Nurture: Rethinking Why and How Childhood Adversity Shapes Development.
Belsky is emeritus professor of human development at the University of California, Davis.
Whats the big idea?
Seen through an evolutionary lens, early adversity can shape development in adaptive ways. And because children differ in their sensitivity to their environments, early experiences may matter a lot for some and much less for others.
Listen to the audio version of this Book Biteread by Belsky himselfin the Next Big Idea app.
1. A radically transformed understanding of development
It is beyond dispute that the Hubble Telescope, launched in 1990 (to say nothing of the James Webb Space Telescope launched 11 years later), radically transformed our understanding of the universe. To virtually everyone involved in the life sciences, Charles Darwins theory of adaptation by natural selection in the mid-19th century and William Hamiltons insights on kin selection and inclusive fitness in the mid-20th century have functioned much like these recent telescopic wonders in understanding life on planet Earth.
This is true not simply with respect to human nature, as long highlighted by many evolutionary-minded scholars, but specifically with respect to why, how, and for whom early-life conditions shape, or fail to shape, child, adolescent, and even adult development.
2. Childhood adversity looks different when cast in evolutionary perspective
What stimulated the radical shift in my thinking some three decades ago was the realization that the prevailing, mainstream view of development I cut my teeth on reflected an idealized, romanticized view of the human condition: Good experiences foster well-being, whereas bad things lead to disorder, dysregulation, and dysfunction.
Putting on evolutionary lenses made me realize that because childhood adversityin the form, for example, of threat and deprivationwas not uncommon over the course of human history, the ways children develop in response to it likely evolved and reflect adaptation rather than problematic functioning, as so long presumed. Critically, adaptations evolve because they increase, directly or indirectly, the chances of an individual reproducing, that is, passing on genes to future generations, the ultimate goal of all living things.
Thirty years after first coming to view life on Earth through an evolutionary-developmental, or evo-devo, perspective, I find it astonishing that the discoveries this perspective led to remain extremely underappreciatedby developmental scholars, clinicians, parents, and policymakers alike. While genetics has been how nature has been conceptualized for decades in nature and nurture thinking and research, evolution itself has been more or less ignored, especially with regard to the effects of early life on later development.
3. Early-life adversity accelerates development
Early-life adversity should accelerate development, resulting in earlier pubertal maturation than would otherwise be expected. Because adversity can result not just in compromised functioning, but early death, accelerating sexual maturity, I theorized that adversity would have increased the chances of our ancestors successfully passing on genesdespite the fact that early puberty carries health and longevity risks. The perhaps sad truth is that evolution privileges reproduction more than health, wealth, and happiness, though these can serve as means to that end under some conditions.
4. Children differ in their susceptibility to environmental effects
The future is, and always has been, uncertain, making it somewhat unpredictable. This means that developing in a manner consistent with the nurture a child experiences, whether adverse or supportive, could undermine the passing on of genes if and when the future environment proves substantially different from the one the child was prepared for. This realization led me to predict that children would vary in their developmental plasticity, that is, susceptibility to environmental influenceswhat I labeled the differential-susceptibility hypothesis. Whereas some would be strongly shaped by their early-life conditionsfor better and for worseas those emphasizing nurture have long argued, others would be far less so, as those emphasizing genetic nature have long asserted.
By implication, then, those most vulnerable or susceptible to the negative effects of adversity would, at the same time, prove most susceptible to the beneficial effects of support and nurturance. Conversely, those who prove resilient in the face of adversity, so as not to succumb to its pernicious effects, would also prove less susceptible to the developmental benefits of support and nurturance.
Clearly, then, the benefits and costs of being more or less developmentally plastic depend on the quality of the development context to which the child is exposed early in life. Being resilient is a benefit, for example, in the face of adversity, but a cost in the face of support and nurturance.
5. Implications of evo-devo thinking
One implication of evolutionary thinking aligns with mainstream developmental thought: If we dont like the effects of adversity on development, given prevailing values, we can intervene to reduce these anticipated risks, and probably the earlier, the better. At the same time, we need to appreciate the second implication that even the most successful such efforts will fail to benefit, or benefit modestly, many childrenbecause they are less developmentally plastic. Factors that shape susceptibility to environmental influences include genetics, early temperament, and physiology.
The Nature of Nurture challenges long-standing ways of thinking about human development, the role of the environment, as well as genetics, while advancing a 21st-century way of thinking about why and how early life conditions doand do notshape later life by underscoring evolution and thus natural selection, adaptation, and reproduction.
Enjoy our full library of Book Bitesread by the authors!in the Next Big Idea app.
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
As Americans increasingly report feeling overwhelmed by daily life, many are using self-care to cope. Conversations and social media feeds are saturated with the language of me time, burnout, boundaries, and nervous system regulation.
To meet this demand, the wellness industry has grown into a multitrillion-dollar global market. Myriad providers offer products, services, and lifestyle prescriptions that promise calm, balance, and restoration.
Paradoxically, though, even as interest in self-care continues to grow, Americans mental health is getting worse.
I am a professor of public health who studies health behaviors and the gap between intentions and outcomes. I became interested in this self-care paradox recently, after I suffered from a concussion. I was prescribed two months of strictly screen-free cognitive restno television, email, Zooming, social media, streaming, or texting.
The benefits were almost immediate, and they surprised me. I slept better, had a longer attention span, and had a newfound sense of mental quiet. These effects reflected a well-established principle in neuroscience: When cognitive and emotional stimuli decrease, the brains regulatory systems can recover from overload and chronic stress.
Obviously, most people cant go 100% screen-free for days, much less months, but the underlying principle offers a powerful lesson for practicing effective self-care.
A nation under strain
Americans self-rated mental health is now at the lowest point since Gallup started tracking this issue in 2001. National surveys consistently detect high levels of stress and emotional strain.
Roughly one-third of U.S. adults report feeling overwhelmed most days. Sleep disruption, anxiety, poor concentration, and emotional exhaustion are widespread, particularly among young adults and women.
Chronic disease patterns mirror this strain. When daily stress becomes chronic, it can trigger biological changes that increase the risk of long-term conditions like heart disease and diabetes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 6 in 10 U.S. adults live with at least one chronic condition, and 4 in 10 live with multiple chronic conditions.
Stress triggers physiological responses that can lead to a range of symptoms.
How people try to cope
Many Americans say they actively practice self-care in everyday life. For example, they describe taking mental health days, protecting personal time, setting boundaries around work, and prioritizing rest and leisure.
The problem lies in how they use that leisure time.
Over the past 22 years, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics American Time Use Survey has consistently found that watching television is the most popular leisure activity for U.S. adults. Americans spend far more time watching TV than exercising, spending time with friends or practicing reflection through activities like yoga. Other common self-care activities include watching movies and gaming.
Modern leisure time increasingly includes smartphone use. Surveys suggest that mobile phones have become the dominant screen for many Americans, with adults spending several hours per day on their phones.
For many adults, checking social media or watching short videos has become a default relaxation behavior layered on top of traditional screen use. This practice is often referred to as second screening.
Although many people turn to screen-based activities to wind down, these activities may have the opposite effect biologically.
Why modern screen use feels different
Pre-internet forms of leisure often involved activities such as watching scheduled television programs, listening to radio broadcasts, or reading books and magazines. For all of these pastimes, the content followed a predictable sequence with natural stopping points.
Todays digital media environment looks very different. People routinely engage with multiple screens at once, respond to frequent notifications, and switch rapidly between several streams of content. These environments continuously require users to split their attention, engage their emotions, and make decisions.
This type of mental multitasking draws on the same neural systems people are often attempting to rest with leisure. The result is a far more fragmented and cognitively demanding environment than in the past.
Americans now spend approximately six to seven hours per day on screens across multiple devices. Splitting attention between more than one screen at a time, such as using the phone while watching television, is common. This juggling exposes peoples brains to multiple streams of sensory and emotional input simultaneously.
Survey data also suggests that Americans may check their phones roughly 200 times per day. In doing so, they repeatedly pull their attention back to screens during routine moments.
Modern digital platforms are designed to maximize engagement. Algorithms tend to prioritize emotionally arousing content, particularly anger, anxiety, ad outrage. These feelings drive clicks, sharing, and time spent on platforms. Research has shown that this design is associated with higher stress, distraction, and cognitive load.
When “rest” doesnt restore
Against the backdrop of daily hassles and competing demands, it can feel like relief to flip on the TV. Practices such as streaming or so-called bed-rottingspending extended periods in bed while scrollingoften are framed as a form of radical rest or self-care.
Other common coping behaviors include leaving the television on as background noise, scrolling between tasks throughout the day, or using phones during meals and conversations. These strategies can feel restful because they temporarily reduce external demands and decision-making.
However, pairing rest with screen use may undermine the very restoration that people are seeking. Digital media stimulate attention, emotion, and sensory processing. Even while people are sitting or lying still, being on-screen can keep their nervous systems in a heightened state of arousal. It may look like downtime, but it doesnt create the biological conditions for restoration.
How to wind down
Evidence suggests that mental relief comes not from adding new coping strategies, but from reducing the number of demands placed on the brain.
Here are some evidence-based strategies that support genuine restoration:
Reduce digital multitasking, such as using your phone while watching television. This lowers stress and cognitive strain.
Limit task-switching and interruptions. This improves focus and reduces cognitive fatigue.
Spend time in low-stimulation environments, including quiet spaces and outdoor settings. This supports mood and emotional well-being.
Unwind with analog or low-novelty activities, such as reading print materials, journaling, gentle movement, or device-free walking. These pastimes allow mental engagement without overload.
The goal is to intentionally reduce mental load, not to abandon all digital devices.
To improve well-being in our overstimulated society, its important to understand the difference between feeling as though you are unwinding and actually allowing your brain and body to recover. In my view, fewer screens, fewer inputs, fewer emotional demands, and more protected time for genuine cognitive rest are important components of an effective wellness strategy.
Robin Pickering is a professor and chair of public health at Gonzaga University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Make Denmark angry. Make Norway angry. Make NATOs leaders angry.
President Donald Trumps relentless and escalating drive to acquire Greenland from Denmark, whose governmentalong with that of Greenlandemphatically rejects the idea, has unnerved, offended, and outraged leaders of countries considered allies for decades.
Its the latest, and perhaps most significant, eruption of an attitude of disdain towards allies that has become a hallmark of the second Trump administration, which has espoused an America First approach to the world.
Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have all said a lot of things about longtime allies that have caused frustration and outright friction among the leaders of those countries. The latest discord over Greenland could affect the functioning and even existence of NATO, the post-World War II alliance of Western nations that won the Cold War and led the globe, as a recent Wall Street Journal story put it.
As a former diplomat, Im aware that how the U.S. treats its allies has been a crucial question in every presidency, since George Washington became the countrys first chief executive. On his way out of that job, Washington said something that Trump, Vance, and their fellow America First advocates would probably embrace.
Above: Ambassador Don Heflin recaps 250 years of American alliances, with their benefits and challenges.
In whats known as his Farewell Address, Washington warned Americans against entangling alliances. Washington wanted America to treat all nations fairly, and warned against both permanent friendships and permanent enemies.
The irony is that Washington would never have become president without the assistance of the not-yet-United-States first ally, France.
In 1778, after two years of brilliant diplomacy by Benjamin Franklin, the not-yet-United States and the Kingdom of France signed a treaty of alliance as the American Colonies struggled to win their war for independence from Britain.
France sent soldiers, money, and ships to the American revolutionaries. Within three years, after a major intervention by the French fleet, the Battle of Yorktown in 1781 effectively ended the war, and America was independent.
Isolationism, then war
American political leaders largely heeded Washingtons warning against alliances throughout the 1800s. The Atlantic Ocean shielded the young nation from Europes problems and many conflicts; Americas closest neighbors had smaller populations and less military might.
Aside from the War of 1812, in which the U.S. fought the British, America largely found itself protected from the outside worlds problems.
That began to change when Europe descended into the brutality of World War I.
Initially, American politicians avoided involvement. What would today be called an isolationist movement was strong; its supporters felt that the European war was being waged for the benefit of big business.
But it was hard for the U.S. to maintain neutrality. German submarines sank ships crossing the Atlantic carrying American passengers. The economies of some of Americas biggest trading partners were in shreds; the democracies of Britain, France, and other European countries were at risk.
A Boston newspaper headline in 1915 blares the news of a British ocean liner sunk by a German torpedo. [Image: Serial and Government Publications Division, Library of Congress (002.00.00)]
President Woodrow Wilson led the U.S. into the war in 1917 as an ally of the Western European nations. When he asked Congress for a declaration of war, Wilson asserted the value of like-minded allies: A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership f democratic nations.
Immediately after the war, the Alliesled by the U.S., France, and Britainstayed together to craft the peace agreements, feed the war-ravaged parts of Europe and intervene in Russia after the Communist Revolution there.
Prosperity came along with the peace, helping the U.S. quickly develop into a global economic power.
However, within a few years, American politicians returned to traditional isolationism in political and military matters and continued this attitude well into the 1930s. The worldwide Great Depression that began in 1929 was blamed on vulnerabilities in the global economy, and there was a strong sentiment among Americans that the U.S. should fix its internal problems rather than assist Europe with its problems.
Alliance counters fascism
As both Hitler and Japan began to attack their neighbors in the late 1930s, it became clear to President Franklin Roosevelt and other American military and political leaders that the U.S. would get caught up in World War II. If nothing else, airplanes had erased Americas ability to hide behind the Atlantic Ocean.
Though public opinion was divided, the U.S. began sending arms and other assistance to Britain and quietly began military planning with London. This was despite the fact that the U.S. was formally neutral, as the Roosevelt administration was pushing the limits of what a neutral nation can do for friendly nations without becoming a warring party.
In January of 1941, Roosevelt gave his annual State of the Union speech to Congress. He appeared to prepare the country for possibleboth on behalf of allies abroad and for the preservation of American democracy:
The future and the safety of our country and of our democracy are overwhelmingly involved in events far beyond our borders. Armed defense of democratic existence is now being gallantly waged in four continents. If that defense fails, all the population and all the resources of Europe, and Asia, and Africa and Australasia will be dominated by conquerors. In times like these it is immatureand incidentally, untruefor anybody to brag that an unprepared America, single-handed, and with one hand tied behind its back, can hold off the whole world.
When the Japanese attacked Hawaii in 1941 and Hitler declared war on the U.S., America quickly entered World War II in an alliance with Britain, the Free French and others.
Throughout the war, the Allies worked together on matters large and small. They defeated Germany in three and half years and Japan in less than four.
As World War II ended, the wartime alliance produced two longer-term partnerships built on the understanding that working together had produced a powerful and effective counter to fascism.
Postwar alliances
The first of these alliances is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO. The original members were the U.S., Canada, Britain, France, and others of the wartime Allies. There are now 32 members, including Poland, Hungary, and Turkey.
The aims of NATO were to keep peace in Europe and contain the growing Communist threat from the Soviet Union. NATOs supporters feel that, given that wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and in the Ukraine today are the only major conflicts in Europe in 80 years, the alliance has met its goals well. And NATO troops went to Afghanistan along with the U.S. military after 9/11.
The other institution created by the wartime Allies is the United Nations.
The U.N. is many thingsa humanitarian aid organization, a forum for countries to raise their issues and a source of international law.
However, it is also an alliance. The U.N. Security Council on several occasions authorized the use of force by members, such as in the first Gulf War against Iraq. And it has the power to send peacekeeping troops to conflict areas under the U.N. flag.
Other U.S. allies with treaties or designations by Congress include Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Israel, three South American countries, and six in the Middle East.
Many of the same countries also created institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization of American States, and the European Union. The U.S. belongs to all of these except the European Union. During my 35-year diplomatic career, I worked with all of these institutions, particularly in efforts to stabilize Africa. They keep the peace and support development efforts with loans and grants.
Admirers of this postwar liberal international order point to the limited number of major armed conflicts during the past 80 years, the globalized economy and international cooperation on important matters such as disease control and fighting terrorism.
Detractors point to this systems inability to stop some very deadly conflicts, such as Vietnam or Ukraine, and the large populations that havent done well under globalization as evidence of its flaws.
The world would look dramatically different without the Allies victories in the two World Wars, the stable worldwide economic system, and NATO and the U.N. keeping the world relatively peaceful.
But the value of allies to Americans, even when they benefit from alliances, appears to have shifted between George Washingtons attitudeavoid themand that o Franklin D. Rooseveltgo all in . . . eventually.
This is an updated version of an article originally published on February 20, 2025.
Donald Heflin is an executive director of the Edward R. Murrow Center and Senior Fellow of Diplomatic Practice at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Starting a new job is exhilarating and exhausting. Exhilarating, because youre trying new things, meeting new people, and picking up new skills. Exhausting, because all of those activities tax your brain, so that by the end of the day, you just want a nap.
Over time, though, some of the things youre doing become routine. You know the general tasks that drive your workday, and you can solve most of the problems that come up on most days. Once that happens, you go from being exhausted to being bored. Ultimately, your brain craves a middle-ground in which your world is generally predictable, but there are enough novel situations that you have to pay attention, think a bit, and learn some new things.
So, if you feel like youre running in place at work, then you have to take responsibility for learning new things. You have to decide what you ought to learn and how to learn it. Here are three approaches that can motivate you to get out of your rut.
1. Plan your next move
Where do you want to be in five years? Have you got an answer to that question? You might have a sense of the next role or two youd like to take. If not, chat with more senior colleagues to get a sense of how your career might progress. You might even think about working with a career coach to get some ideas.
Then, take a hard look at your current skills. How do they match up with what is required to take on the next role? You should focus both on the skills you dont have that are a big part of a new role, but also on leveling up some of your existing skills where you may need even greater proficiency when you move up.
It is a natural first step to pick up a book on one of these topics. That is a good start, because it gives you a lay of the land of what needs to be learned to gain competence in an area. But, active practice is an important part of skill development. Seek opportunities that will teach you and also enable you to practice those skills. That might involve taking a class in which you work to hone your new abilities. There are also an increasing number of online platforms that use structured lessons incorporating AI that enable you to try new things and get personalized feedback.
2. Try new things
You may not be so sure what you want to do next. Even if you have a clue, that doesnt mean you have to direct your study just at skills that will get you to the next rung of the ladder.
Learning itself is invigorating. When you take up a new topic, it often lets you notice things you havent seen before. Even picking up a new hobby can change the way you engage with the world. I have written a lot about how I took up the saxophone in my mid-thirties. Not only did it lead to some new skills and the chance to play in some bands, but it also gave me unexpected insights into education and leadership.
After all, you never know where your next great idea might come from. The more you know, the more likely you will be to see a professional situation in a way that is different from how those around you view it.
3. Consider a deep dive or a pivot
A lot of the work-related training people do is cursory. You read a book (or perhaps two). You take a seminar (or two) online or at a local university. Those classes open up some new vistas and can often jolt you out of the rut that drives your daily routine.
But, if you really want to transform yourself, you need a much deeper dive in either a topic you’re familiar with, or perhaps you want to switch to something completely different. That is where a degree program can be a huge benefit. Most universities have realized that master’s programs are an important part of peoples career paths. An increasing number of those programs are tailored to working professionals who can retain their jobs while doing the program. In some fields (like computer science, data science, and AI), these programs are also structured to enable a large number of people to take these programs so that the cost is low.
One advantage to a master’s program is that you often get to know a cohort of fellow students who are pursuing the same degree. That enables you to meet new people with similar goals (and often at a similar point in their careers). These individuals can often give you insight into how you can think differently about your own career. Not only do you leave a degree program with a greatly enhanced bag of tools, you also have a fresh perspective that can drive the next decade of your career.
When crypto first gained prominence more than 15 years ago, one of the big selling points of the currency was its lack of ties to any specific government. Unlike fiat currency, cryptocurrency offered the possibility of a purely mathematical currency that was unrelated to politics, governance, or taxes.
While crypto is still touted as an alternative to fiat currency, such as the U.S. dollar, the real world of politics, governance, and taxes has found a way to intrude on the use of this alternative currency in America. Specifically, the IRS requires U.S. taxpayers to report crypto earnings on their taxes. Because in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except the death of idealistic perfection and taxes.
And since the IRS is involved, the process of reporting your crypto assets on your tax return can include the kind of tear-your-hair-out complexity that makes you want to forgo money altogether and return to the barter system. Thats why we spoke to personal finance expert Robert Farrington about how to handle tax filing when you have crypto assets.
Heres what we learned.
How you received your crypto matters
There are several ways you can find yourself the proud owner of cryptocurrency:
You might receive crypto as a payment for goods or services
You might mine it yourself
You might purchase it as an investment
Depending on how the crypto came into your possession can affect how you report it on your taxes, and Farrington explains that this can make your taxes complex as a result.
Crypto as income
If you accept crypto as a payment for goods or services, the currency is considered part of your income. In that case, you treat the income as business income regardless of the currency. You need to report it as the USD value at the time you received it, Farrington says.
For example, lets say you received 0.25 Bitcoin on August 31, 2025, as payment for your businesss services. Bitcoin was worth $108,236.71 USD on that day, which means youll need to report your 0.25 Bitcoin income as $27,059.18, even if you did not immediately convert the cryptocurrency into USD.
When or if you convert the crypto to USD, you’ll have a secondary transaction that may have a capital gain or loss associated with it, Farrington explains. (More on that below.)
Its also important to note that mining your own crypto is also treated as income, which could either be considered business income or hobby income. If it’s mined as part of a business, you can also potentially deduct related business expenses, like computer hardware, software, or utility costs, Farrington says.
Crypto as investment
Investing in crypto has become much more mainstream in recent years, and the tax rules governing cryptocurrency investments are largely the same as the rules for other investments.
In particular, like other types of investments, short-term and long-term capital gains rules apply to cryptocurrency gains and losses. For any cryptocurrency youve held for less than one year, short-term capital gains or loss rules apply, while any crypto youve held for longer than a year will fall under long-term capital gains or loss rules.
Where things get a little confusing is how you experience capital gains or losses with crypto: by converting your crypto into USD.
When you convert the crypto to fiat currency, like USD, you’ll typically pay capital gains taxes on it, Farrington says. Thats because you will usually convert the crypto at a higher currency exchange rate than you purchased it for.
For example, lets say you invested in a crypto asset worth $20,000 USD and held it for three years, during which time it increased in value to $28,000 USD. When you convert the asset into USD, you would have a long-term capital gain of $8,000.
Dont forget to account for crypto shopping
Another confusing aspect of reporting crypto on your taxes is the fact that you can have a capital gain or loss when you pay for goods or services via cryptocurrency.
Heres how it works: In any transaction where you use your cryptocurrency to make a payment, there will likely be a difference between the amount the crypto was worth when you received it and its current fair market value (FMV).
If the FMV has gone up, thats a capital gain, which means youll have to pay the capital gains tax. If the FMV has gone down, thats a capital loss, which you may be able to use to offset future gains or income.
The IRS is getting more aggressive
As with any new technology, cryptocurrency operated in a kind of lawless Wild West environment before legislation, regulations, and tax law got a chance to catch up with the new state of affairs. With the new reporting requirements for the 2026 tax filing season, the IRS is now catching up toand getting more aggressivewith crypto.
This year, for the 2025 tax year, centralized exchanges will be required to file form 1099-DA with the IRS to report digital asset sales, Farrington says. Theoretically, the government has always required taxpayers to report their digital asset sales on their taxes in previous years, but without the requirement that crypto exchanges file these 1099-DA forms, the IRS was more reliant on self-reporting.
This is why Farrington says it’s essential that you ensure your crypto transactions are accurately reported on your tax return, or it could trigger an audit. Meticulous crypto bookkeeping is a must, and Farrington suggests taking the time to ensure that your transactions are accurately categorized on the exchange so there are no incorrect 1099s filed.
For example, if you transfer tokens between exchanges, you may want to go in and make certain its categorized as a transfer so that the exchange doesn’t mistakenly report it as a gain, Farrington recommends. A little bit of extra prepaation, documentation, and double-checking can give your tax season some important peace of mind.
Virtual currency, real taxes
Cryptocurrency may not feature portraits of Washington, Lincoln, Hamilton, or Jackson, but that doesnt keep Uncle Sams sticky fingers out of your virtual wallet. American taxpayers have to report their crypto income, investments, gains, and transactions on their tax returns. And for the first time in 2026, crypto exchanges are now required to file 1099-DA forms to report digital asset sales.
Keeping good records of your crypto assets will help you tame the tax filing beastbut Farrington stresses that If you’re not familiar with these concepts to begin with, you should definitely seek advice from a tax professional.
