If your response to this question is no, you are lying, according to Ian Leslie, author of Born Liars. If you are part of the human race, the honest answer is yes. We don’t have to teach children to lie. Indeed, they must be taught the opposite—to tell the truth. Remember the mythical story about George Washington cutting down the cherry tree? When questioned by his father, he famously replied, “I cannot tell a lie.” Still, children figure out how to lie as early as age two. The lying behavior continues into adulthood. Researchers also tell us that the average American tells 11 lies a week. Leslie’s book points out a contradiction in our thinking about lying: “On the one

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts,” wrote William Shakespeare in As You Like It. (I hasten to add that women also get to play many parts. But I digress.) In this speech, Shakespeare described seven stages of life, which I have condensed to three: Be, Do, and Have. Charles Darwin Got Stuck Reading Charles Darwin’s final notes on what gives meaning to life triggered my thinking on life stages. In his senior years, Darwin lamented that his current achievements did not rival those of his youth. He also complained that he had lost interest in pursuits that

If only for reasons of mental health hygiene, consider blocking the static and noise of attention-grabbing events and reflect on some truly awesome developments. For example, giving attention to the developing theories in quantum physics will challenge your understanding of how the world works. Quantum Teleportation of Data I would be the first person to admit I struggle to grasp even the most basic principles of quantum physics. The best description I’ve read is this: Classical physics is the force governing an extremely predictable world, where an apple set on a table stays there until something causes it to move again. In the quantum world, not only can the apple end up on Mars, but, hypothetically, it could exist both

Events in life often force me to return to the wisdom of Epictetus, who said, “Demand not that things happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do, and you will go on well.” He points out that the source of much unhappiness is our desire to have reality conform to our wishes. I seem to need to learn this lesson repeatedly. At my own peril, I often wish for outcomes that have no basis in reality. In doing so, I ignore Epictetus, an early second-century Greek philosopher associated with Stoicism. Perhaps I dismiss him because it is hard to believe his notion could be valid in our complex 21st century. Too Hard to Give Up Hoping

When you talk out loud to yourself, are you engaging in a healthy mental exercise? Or do you worry that the practice means you are one French fry short of a Happy Meal? The dividing line between normal and crazy may depend on whether you are “erratic or muttering” or if you hear responses from imaginary persons. In extreme cases, self-talk may indicate a mental problem, like schizophrenia. Are You a Self-Talker? For most of us, talking aloud to ourselves, referred to as “self-talk,” is normal at any age and quite common—even healthy. How many people self-talk? I couldn’t find a precise number, but I expect the percentage would go up if we counted the people who say an occasional

If you’ve seen the cult movie The Fight Club, you know the story dramatizes a man with two personalities, one of which is hidden from him. An older movie, The Three Faces of Eve, also centered on a person with multiple personalities. The first Eve was a dutiful housewife, the second Eve was a fun-loving, high-spending playgirl, and the third personality, Jane, explained the first two. A popular dark-comedy television series, United States of Tara, featured a woman with dissociative identity disorder. Her distinct personalities kept life quite interesting for her children and husband. Do Normal People Have Multiple Selves? These shows highlight psychologically disturbed people whose conflicting selves may or may not communicate with each other. But what about