Maria Konnikova

2 days ago | mariakonnikova.substack.com | Maria Konnikova

This weekend, my family convened from various parts of New England to celebrate my birthday, with my parents battling heroically to drive through six and a half hours of Good Friday traffic just to spend a day with us. It was wonderful and happy—but it did make me reflect on the oddity of celebrating someone for the one thing that they had zero control over, the ultimate example of sheer, dumb luck: the accident of birth.

1 week ago | mariakonnikova.substack.com | Maria Konnikova

I love eating alone. There’s something beautifully freeing about the lack of obligation to anything (or anyone), beyond the momentary experience. Food is one of the most grounding sensory pleasures we have—smell, sight, sound, touch, taste all there for the taking—and when I eat by myself, I can focus on every single element of the meal, without distraction. It’s one of the most Zen rituals I can imagine, where being present and in-the-moment pays dividends.

3 weeks ago | mariakonnikova.substack.com | Maria Konnikova

I hate April Fools’ Day. Always have. Why have a day when you spend the entire time worrying that someone is going to try to prank you—or triple-checking that the story or headline you just read is real? I’m all for jokes and pranks, but I like them to come about organically, not because some random calendar date says so. That said, the origin of the holiday is quite fascinating—and history, I do love.

1 month ago | mariakonnikova.substack.com | Maria Konnikova

March Madness it not something I’ve ever cared about. In fact, until two days ago, I had gone my entire life without ever filling out a bracket. That’s right. Not once. I probably couldn’t have even told you what team won the last few years. This year, that all changes: for the March Madness edition of the Risky Business podcast, Nate Silver and I are going head to head in bracket picks. The episode drops tonight, but I wanted to give you a little preview. The Leap is a reader-supported publication.

1 month ago | mariakonnikova.substack.com | Maria Konnikova

This week, I’m going to do something a little different. Olga Khazan, a wonderful journalist for The Atlantic—and a fellow Substacker—has just released her second book, ME, BUT BETTER. The book is so good. It’s insightful, thought-provoking, and very funny. And it’s about a topic I’ve spent many, many years researching and thinking about: personality. You know my thoughts on personality psychology are…idiosyncratic, to say the least, influenced as they are by my graduate advisor, Walter Mischel.