These stories have stood the test of time, and continue to be some of the most-saved, read, and shared stories on Pocket. They're just as relevant today as the day they were published.
A course at Northwestern University teaches students about what makes a healthy relationship.
As our lifespans have increased, so too have our active years. Can that go on?
On wood-fired griddles, Maya home cooks keep ancient traditions alive with recipes even their neighbors wouldn’t recognize.
If you’re an ambitious, goal oriented person, it’s possible that one of your New Year’s resolutions was to read more books. Books are the gateway to imagination, to worlds we may not be able to access physically, but can emotionally.
Even when you think you know for sure, think again.
A leading neuroscientist who has spent decades studying creativity shares her research on where genius comes from, whether it is dependent on high IQ—and why it is so often accompanied by mental illness.
Today’s reality begs for a more comprehensive understanding of the relations between states and localities.
Happiness is not something you can simply work for and achieve.
Adam Leith Gollner on the sun-drenched island’s agrodolce flavors.
Erez Komarovsky built a bakery empire and changed how Israelis ate. Then he dropped out to tend his garden near the Lebanese border. He shared with us three challahs and his recipe for a life of constant change.
These two lessons are true for every person who wants a long, happy, and satisfying career. But it’s very hard to put that advice into practice. It took me the first six years of my career to figure that out. And I still have to remind myself that life is bigger than work.
Most self-help books are filled with useless fluff. Shave that off and actually learn something valuable.
If most of us, myself included, were completely honest about our balance between consumption and creation, we’d see that it’s pretty out of whack. We consume far more than we create when it should be the opposite. Every day our consumption diet includes any of the following
From myths to literature to giant squid, here’s how some of our favorite eerie creatures and legends got their start.
Happiness as an achievable goal is an illusion, but that doesn't mean happiness itself is not attainable.
Standing out among competitors is all about offering something they can’t.
An ex-convict on how to set your mind free.
Experiments in evolution are exploring what would happen if we rewound the tape of life.
A clinical psychologist suggests a three-pronged plan for tackling anxiety and approaching each day logically and positively.
A new breed of online retailer doesn’t make or even touch products, but they’ve got a few other tricks for turning nothing into money.
We live in a competence economy where success lies with those who solve problems that society needs an answer to.
New research suggests that competent employees are assigned more work—but they don't always like it.
Despite society’s obsession with perfection, many of us fall somewhere in the middle of the curve.
A high-carb diet, and the attendant high blood sugar, are associated with cognitive decline.
Contrary to popular belief, peace and quiet is all about the noise in your head.
Let us now celebrate one of our most bountiful outdoor resources: bad advice. And if you listen carefully and act right away, it’s absolutely free!
Mastering the Japanese buckwheat noodles is notoriously tricky; Francis Lam picks up tips from a former Hollywood movie producer who gave up the fast life for the slow knead.
Burgers and fries have nearly killed our ancestral microbiome.
Sometimes it’s important to go where the current takes you.
What the Bard can teach science about language and the limits of the human mind.
Prioritizing each part of your workload can help you and your employer see where you make the greatest contribution.
After thousands of years of failure, some scientists believe a breakthrough might finally be in sight.
Only in the digital realm of video games are people given the opportunity to act as they never would in daily life or as they would act every day in an ideal world ... and then try again if they don’t like the results.
Having a positive outlook is the most important predictor of resilience.
Emotions get the better of everyone, but there is a way to take back control.
How our minds push our bodies to defy expectations, beliefs, and even our own biology—in short, to make miracles.
When we feel overwhelmed with emotions, acting on pure impulse is the easy way out and can lead to bad decisions.
Want to know what domestic bliss looks like? A rundown cabin with no electricity on the edge of rain-soaked Alaskan wilderness.
There's what feels right and then there's what is right, and they aren't always the same.
New insights into mitochondria reveal how life expends energy.
When wakefulness is seen as the main event, no wonder so many have trouble sleeping. Can we rekindle the joy of slumber?
Ditch your old device but keep your data.
What a restless coffee drinker learned from going to circadian-rhythm rehab (a tent in the woods).
Doctors still don’t know what causes it, or how to stop it.
You have no excuses for first-day noodle legs—these seven easy moves will get your legs back in skiing shape from the comfort of your living room.
Yes, the placebo effect is all in your mind. And it’s real.
As smartphones are now integrated into every hour, if not minute, of many people's daily lives, their use is becoming intrusive.
Face-to-face interactions and positive relationships have long been seen as beneficial, but the digital world of social media may be having the opposite effect.
There are two very different interpretations of our dwindling grip strength.
Most of us believe that success happens all at once. Real life is different.
In a new model of living, residents will have their own “microunits” built around a shared living space for cooking, eating and hanging out.
Size has something to do with it, but it is more about why the land is being preserved.
Cheap and effective, CBT became the dominant form of therapy, consigning Freud to psychology’s dingy basement. But new studies have cast doubt on its supremacy – and shown dramatic results for psychoanalysis. Is it time to get back on the couch?
While regular practice might include mindless repetitions, deliberate practice requires focused attention and is conducted with the specific goal of improving performance.
A noisy debate about the world's fastest and most popular motorsport.
Among Filipino hunter-gatherers, storytelling is valued more than any other skill, and the best storytellers have the most children.
What we can learn from the eating and living habits of the world’s longest-lived people.
One of the most dense and culturally diverse places in the United States is the small island at the center of New York City. Here’s some history on the many neighborhoods, districts, and locations that make up Manhattan.
What the psychedelic drug ayahuasca showed me about my life.
Don’t discount the power of a schedule.
Methods to make even simple, ever-day choices easy to tackle.
It’s the testosterone, don’t you know.
The more you enjoy your work, the more energy you’ll have to enjoy life. The opposite is also true.
The sleep-wake limbo may have been a boon to our ancestors' survival.
At the start of the winter semester, I introduced my students to the routine: before each class, they’d silence their phones, get a pouch from the box, and lock their phones in.
From dog-eared classics to under-the-radar picks, this is our list of 15 books that will awaken the adolescent Outsider.
Thicker ink, fewer smudges, and more strained hands: an Object Lesson.
For most of the history of our species, in most parts of the world, bathing has been a collective act. It might be time to resurrect this ancient and deeply human art.
“To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love.”
As we transition through life, we experience traumas, reshuffle priorities, and loose relationships. But this all allows us to reach our true potential.
Go beyond learning from your mistakes.
Sometimes the common methods aren’t right for you and yield frustration, not productivity. Luckily, there are other approaches you can try.
Whether working relentlessly on a project or trying to balance life in and out of the office, sometimes we have to stop to keep going.
Pitching a tent, healing a wound, and finding your way are about the most important things you can learn how to do. They're also the easiest.
Being yourself starts with knowing yourself.
Research suggests that patience and body language are not the traits to look for in a good listener.
“And it is so simple… You will instantly find how to live.”
How much do you really need to say to put a sentence together?
How to ask better questions.
“When we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy.”
The despair from comparing ourselves with others is the original fake news. We need to develop a new relationship with our thoughts.
“The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today… The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.”
The 2008 financial crisis taught me about the illusion of control, and how to give it up.
How “engagement” made the web a less engaging place.
Will you pay more for those shoes before 7 p.m.? Would the price tag be different if you lived in the suburbs? Standard prices and simple discounts are giving way to far more exotic strategies, designed to extract every last dollar from the consumer.
It can be easy to underestimate how much work is required to accomplish big goals while at the same time equating small goals with climbing Mount Everest. Here’s a trick, focus on habits instead.
Studies show that concentrating for too long on one task makes us less productive. Turns out, our brains need to wander a bit throughout the day.
Most of the country understands that when it comes to government, you pay for what you get.
Of course I want my daughters to be kind—but that doesn’t mean they can’t stand up for themselves.
How to fine-tune the internal monologue that scores every aspect of our lives, from leadership to love.
It’s a paradox: Shouldn’t the most accomplished be well equipped to make choices that maximize life satisfaction?
Part of it depends on whether they believe personality is fixed or constantly changing.
Why Fotini Markopoulou traded quantum gravity for industrial design.
Knowing your deal-breakers can help you know the right relationship when you see it.
Success is continuously improving who you are, how you live, how you serve, and how you relate. And that takes work.
As our writer cheered on his three-year-old at the Strider Cup in Texas—a merciless race replete with tears, anxiety, and elation—he had one question: Is intense competition good for the tiniest of competitors?
“Future love does not exist. Love is a present activity only. The man who does not manifest love in the present has not love.”
Who you spend your time with is a matter of life and death.
“Bravery is always more intelligent than fear, since it is built on the foundation of what one knows about oneself: the knowledge of one’s strength and capacity, of one’s passion.”
Patrick Sharkey, author of Uneasy Peace, talks to CityLab about how the drop in crime has transformed American cities.
I wasn’t always a good learner. I thought learning was all about the hours you put in. Then I discovered something that changed my life.
Philosophers and scientists have been at war for decades over the question of what makes human beings more than complex robots.
The Greek color experience was made of movement and shimmer. Can we ever glimpse what they saw when gazing out to sea?
The company sells a somewhat uneasy combination of capitalist ambition and cooperative warmth.
From Medieval sword-fighters to Broca’s brains, or why the hand may hold the key to the link between creativity and mental illness.
We’re talkin’ bout sex (hormones), baby.
As America has turned away from searching for extraterrestrial intelligence, China has built the world’s largest radio dish for precisely that purpose.
For a team to produce all it is capable of, everyone must get along and work well together.
How restaurants use their menus to influence what you're having for dinner.
Think maps of bicycle lanes are too complicated? This guy’s fixed it.
Why the central problem in neuroscience is mirrored in physics.
"Metabolism" has been twisted and spun to the point where what many of us think about it is not entirely correct, if at all. Let’s straighten some of that out.
Work has ruled our lives for centuries, and it does so today more than ever. But a new generation of thinkers insists there is an alternative.
Feelings of pleasure and pain become the bedrock of all our preferences and knowledge — and form our identity.
The cryptocurrency’s current price is completely unreal. Then again, so is money.
Evolution doomed us to have vital organs fail. For years, experts failed us, too.
Silence can be far more than just awkward, it generates energy and provokes creativity.
We asked participants in a big diet study about being on a low-fat or low-carb diet. Their responses surprised us.
Falsehoods almost always beat out the truth on Twitter, penetrating further, faster, and deeper into the social network than accurate information.
The idea that immersing yourself in forests and nature has a healing effect is far more than just folk wisdom.
The purpose of memory might not be to record everything.
Once the niche elixir of powerlifting bros, gulping down a Muscle Milk or three is now part of a “healthy, active lifestyle” — whatever that means.
Exploring the concentric circles of human connection through the lens of our ideal and real selves.
A silent, powered-off phone can still distract the most dependent users.
Diets can be overwhelming, but one small change can do a lot.
Even though it feels like they are just within reach.
The metaphor designer isn’t trying to make something beautiful. She wants to change your view on things. Here’s how.
Choosing a routine is easy. Sticking to it, less so. Here's a few tips to get you started.
Occupy your off-season with the successes, failures, and bemusements of fellow adventurers.
In a world that converses only in English, we’ll talk of only banal things. That’s why I want my children to be bilingual.
It’s hard to organize a busy life so that it has enough room for deep friendships, but there are a few strategies that may help.
Everyone's mind is different and we all display a few traits that could fall under the definition of one or more mental disorder. But they're what make us unique not what slow us down.
One in every 68 Americans are born with autism spectrum disorder, but there could be generations of people who were never diagnosed.
Lessons of physical prosperity in a despotic regime.
Delicate and impossible to replicate, su filindeu (or the “threads of God”) is a pasta made of hundreds of tiny strands by a single woman in a hillside town in Sardinia. She’ll make it for you too—if you’re willing to walk 20 miles overnight.
Diet culture is just another way of dealing with the fear of death.
Sure, the wilderness is beautiful. But it can also frighten you out of your mind.
An eight-step plan for rebooting your career and finding a job that you love.
“We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come… We live everything as it comes, without warning.”
A step-by-step guide to True, False, and Random.
Literature’s evolution has reflected and spurred the growing complexity of society.
Get back to basics.
In the remote archipelago of Lofoten, Arctic cod have been dried on oceanfront racks since the age of the Vikings. This is the unlikely story of how the humble fish became king of Norway.
There is no one right answer to the omnipresent question of the basic budget, but here’s a few bits of wisdom for any financial planner.
Don’t major in minor matters.
The growing role of grandparents in raising children is right in line with human biology.
Psychologists have long debated how flexible someone’s “true” self is.
In a world full of ambiguity, we see what we want to see.
What a growing body of research reveals about the biology of human happiness—and how to navigate the (temporary) slump in middle age.
As the number of veterans with both physical and psychological injuries balloons, this squad of 11 wounded warriors wards off PTSD by playing a little ball.
When it’s time to step in, avoid the stumbling blocks with these strategies.
Once a year, millions of women leave their homes around Kerala to give a sweet offering of rice for their goddess, Attukal Amma.
The history of science has been distorted by a longstanding conviction that correct theories about nature are always the most elegant ones.
A new study examines how expertise changes the brain.
Use the momentum built in productive meetings to generate action and real results afterwards.
Musical training can have a dramatic impact on your brain’s structure, enhancing your memory, spatial reasoning, and language skills.
How the null hypothesis keeps the hairy hominid alive.
For Frank Russell, reinterpreting his schizophrenia as shamanism helped his symptoms.
Because some people never outgrow being bullies.
Whether it’s our country or our football team, we need to belong.
I have something important to tell you. Something really important. I’m talking about life-changing, paradigm-shifting, plane-of-reality-transcending, poop-your-pants-and-call-your-mother important. But I don’t feel like writing it down right now.
Long after research contradicts common medical practices, patients continue to demand them and physicians continue to deliver. The result is an epidemic of unnecessary and unhelpful treatments.
“Just how charitable are you supposed to be when criticizing the views of an opponent?”
There’s always a dirtier side to a luxurious lifestyle and they get more predictable the more you see.
The goal of Life is simple: It is to Level Up as much as possible.
The power of practicing well beyond mastery.
Adam Sachs eats around town with hometown hero Daniel Boulud in the gutsy gastronomic capital.
Those who imagine that life in the past was simpler, slower, and better are wrong.
Despite the popularity of local food, the average farmer is not thriving.
Taking lessons from the rise and fall of divinity in online games.
How did the most beloved street snack from one small Mexican village become the regional phenomenon they are today?
Alexandra Elbakyan is plundering the academic publishing establishment.
What makes a person magnetic and why we should be wary.
Decades before Prohibition, the unlicensed saloons of Pittsburgh flouted state liquor laws, fomented social movements, and started a national trend.
And should colonists on Mars be allowed to eat each other?
I sent out the call the week before my wedding: Anyone who has been married for 10+ years and is still happy in their relationship, what lessons would you pass down to others if you could?
The world-beating British sandwich industry is worth £8bn a year. It transformed the way we eat lunch, then did the same for breakfast – and now it’s coming for dinner.
Your credit score—the three-digit number that creditors use to evaluate the risk when they lend you money—helps determine which loans or interest rates you qualify for and how much you’ll pay.
In the current fast-paced and technology driven world, a good night’s sleep is more important than ever.
Our columnist literally wrote the book on peak performance, but he had to reconsider everything after an unexpected battle with mental illness.
Financial rules of thumb take a lot of the guesswork out of money issues, but one size may not fit all.
On a seafood pilgrimage to south Florida, Jamie Feldmar catches wind of drug-runners, false-bottom crab boats, and a tale so bizarre it could only be true. Maybe.
“Love words, agonize over sentences. And pay attention to the world.”
It seems like everything in the grocery store is labeled "super." We dove into which foods are actually proven, by science, to be good for you and which ones are all hype.
There if more to be achieved in your free time than just making it to work for the next shift.
We’ve been taught for years that as long as you hit the gym you can hit the buffet line and still lose weight. But there’s plenty of science out there to prove this statement false.
Essential reading material for any self-starter.
Lessons for the best ravioli, tortellini, and everything else you fold out of pasta dough.
An investigation into a surprisingly divisive question.
Faced with an overwhelming, opaque, and largely unregulated industry, people crowdsource tips and educate themselves about skin products.
David Hume, the Buddha, and a search for the Eastern roots of the Western Enlightenment.
Sure, it’s old fashioned. But it's also nutritional rocket fuel, and athletes are making it taste great. Here’s how.
Practical wisdom that is easily applicable to modern day life.
Striving for excellence is not in itself bad, but don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Katrina Onstad has a crazy idea: Why not take off a couple of days every week and relax? Don’t cram them with frantic shopping, desperate playdates or crafty work emails – and certainly don’t make them exactly the same as the other five.
The Ivy Lee Method of prioritizing your to-do list seems deceptively simple. It’s also been working for more than a century.
Instead of a committee deciding which ideas are worth pursuing, what companies need is a deliberate process that operates with speed and urgency.
Trauma and hardships are too often a part of life. Here's how to persevere.
Science says lasting relationships come down to—you guessed it—kindness and generosity.
Roughly 5 percent of the population has such a problem with chronic procrastination that it seriously affects their lives.
The Great Bambino’s treatment came at a major turning point in medicine.
Rainer Maria Rilke on how great sadnesses transform us and bring us closer to ourselves.
“All love stories are frustration stories… To fall in love is to be reminded of a frustration that you didn’t know you had.”
You can’t beat the beauty of running on mountain trails, but I still sometimes long for the freedom and shared chaos of urban runs.
Why prestige is the enemy of passion, or how to master the balance of setting boundaries and making friends.
Although income inequality is a constant reality, it has been consistently increasing in the United States for the past half century.
A conversation with Nikole Hannah-Jones about race, education, and hypocrisy.
In 1985, Neil Postman observed an America imprisoned by its own need for amusement. He was, it turns out, extremely prescient.
The surprising performance and physics of the fish kick.
It was always about the long term.
How to become an “antischolar” in a culture that treats knowledge as “an ornament that allows us to rise in the pecking order.”
The quality and variety of food in the U.S. has never been better. The business seems to be struggling. What’s really going on?
When she needed dental work recently, Terry O’Brien, age 76, didn’t worry too much about the cost, at least initially. After all, she was paying $36 a month for an individual dental insurance plan, with up to $1,000 in coverage. But her problems far exceeded that cap.
You might not be a virtuoso, but you have remarkable musical abilities. You just don't know about them yet.
Assuming that all business is competition is limited thinking rooted in the false belief that supply is always limited.
Somewhere on its path to global ubiquity, pesto became a catchall name for any random herby sauce thrown in a blender. Now Ligurians want it back.
Ketamine’s remarkable effect bolsters a new theory of mental illness.
Conflicting with your superiors may not be a daily occurrence, but there are times when it’s necessary. Here’s some tips on how to go about it.
Improving how you live, how you serve, and how you relate.
You decide what you believe. Do you believe that you can, or can’t live the life you want?
It's impossible to become a perfect thinker, but with practice you can avoid some common mistakes.
It may not be as simple as just saying “don’t worry about it,” but stress is a byproduct of overthinking.
Inside Walmart’s curious, possibly ingenious effort to get customers to build up their savings accounts.
The best leaders practice a form of leadership that is less about creating followers and more about creating other leaders.
Outsiders plying thru-hikers with sodas and chicken wings might appall purists, but trail magic is here to stay—and that’s a very good thing.
Working backwards and breaking free from the norm exposes new and unique opportunities you probably haven’t considered.
A quick nap before the caffeine kicks in can give you an extra bit of energy that might just be what you need to get through the rest of your day.
Step into the private kitchens of Basque country's sociedades gastronómicas, where everything revolves around food.
Without having the basics in order, you’ll never achieve your full potential.
Some concern is beneficial but obsessing is often futile.
You might know about Tesla vs. Edison. In cities, it was Edison vs. Westinghouse.
Its faith-based 12-step program dominates treatment in the United States. But researchers have debunked central tenets of AA doctrine and found dozens of other treatments more effective.
A preoccupation with safety has stripped childhood of independence, risk taking, and discovery—without making it safer. A new kind of playground points to a better solution.
The science and philosophy of looking down from a high place.
The captivating horror of category violation.
Forget fat, it’s carbs that might stick it to your ticker.
Wisdom on love, success, and living well.
One writer sacrificed (not even close to) everything to get to the top of the leaderboard.
Children today are cossetted and pressured in equal measure. Without the freedom to play, they will never grow up.
The idea of empathy for all ignores the limits of human psychology.
How influencers transformed eating from an activity into an aesthetic.
Assuming that you should be worried about them in the first place.
Big Data has transformed everything from sports to politics to education. It could transform mental-health treatment, too—if only psychologists would stop ignoring it.
“Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”