ICYMI

• Ukraine surprised everybody with a new offensive into Russian territory and it’s working.

• Kamala is surging in the polls, especially in key battleground states.

One Commentary Bullet

• The University of North Carolina opened a new school dedicated to “helping students learn how to disagree well in an environment of free expression” — which is fantastic but begs the question: what are the other schools doing exactly? (source, WSJ)

Articles

• If you want to be a better leader, ask better questions.

• On The Death of the Magazine

• Why climbing mountains reveals a longing for God

• Neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff on the benefits of second-level thinking in decision-making

• How pregnancy transforms the brain to prepare it for parenthood

• Our friends over at The Gospel Coalition released an article unpacking various forms of untruth, and how Christians can thrive in a world of lies.

Paywalled

• “These days, children want to look like tweens, tweens want to look like teen-agers, teen-agers want to look like grown women, and grown women—dreaming of porelessness, wearing white socks and penny loafers and hair bows—evidently want to look like ten-year-old girls.” One of many quotables from Jia Tollentino’s article in The New Yorker

• Jessica Grose reports on how AI use from students is disrupting the educational process and stunting kids’ critical thinking skills. (NYT)

• An All-Time GoodFind: George Packer’s 2021 Four America’s article remains the most enlightening framework for grasping the underlying narratives that fuel our political polarization. (The Atlantic)

Data

• God, Happiness & Money (source)

  • In terms of its effect on happiness,

    • Seeing your neighbor is worth $60,000

    • Having a friend you see regularly is worth $100,000

    • Being married is worth $100,000

  • Attending a religious service once a week has the same effect on happiness as moving from the bottom to the top quartile of the income distribution. (source)

  • GDP does not buy national happiness. Rates of depression increased 50% between 1990-2017, with the highest increases in regions with the highest income. (from this WSJ article)

• Job Quitting

  • Nearly half (46%) of working professionals say they are considering quitting their jobs this year, according to a recent study from Microsoft and LinkedIn.

  • People quit for all kinds of reasons: The most cited reason in a 2022 McKinsey study was feeling uncared for by managers and tense relationships with colleagues. Other top motivators were: poor compensation, lack of career advancement, and unmeaningful work.

  • Is it worth it? About 80% of those who quit their jobs during the Great Resignation regretted their decision, according to a Paychex study.

• Botox (all taken from this article)

  • In 2023, almost forty-four thousand people aged 19 or under(!) got Botox or filler from plastic surgeons.

  • The number of men getting Botox-type injectables from plastic surgeons doubled between 2020 and 2023, to more than half a million.

  • The total number of Botox and filler procedures performed annually by plastic surgeons is nearly sixteen million, having doubled since 2020.

• There’s No Crying in Baseball

  • Men who cry at work are perceived as more emotional and less competent than women who cry at work. When men cried in response to feedback, the feedback provider rated them as a lower performer, less likely to get promoted, and less capable than women who cried. (source)

  • Women cry more than men (see here), but this difference is not innate, with no such disparities appearing among infants and small children (see here).

  • Crying is good for you. Researchers have established that crying releases oxytocin and endogenous opioids, also known as endorphins. These feel-good chemicals help ease both physical and emotional pain. (source)

One Last Thing

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