This time of year, if you are fortunate enough to find yourself sitting lakeside in the late afternoon, you will notice that the angle of the sun has shifted just slightly from its midsummer positioning. The sun glances off the waves, creating a sparkle that reminds us that a changing of seasons is right around the corner.
As mid-August quickly approaches, we carry mixed emotions. We soak up the fleeting days of summer, try not to complain about the humidity or oppressive heat, knowing that we will blink and see frost on Carr Field. We simultaneously cling to summer and cannot wait for the energy our students will bring with them to campus in less than a month. We try to unplug while we can, and yet we cannot wait to see our class list, our new advisee assignments, and dorm rosters.
Just as we love living in northern New England for the changing of seasons, we love working in education because of the unpredictability of our work. We are never bored, never suffering from the mundane, never wondering when the monotony will stop. Each day is different, full of surprises, new problems to solve, students to help, conflicts to resolve, content to bring to life, and experiences to cultivate.
It turns out, when we ensure variety in our lives - both as adults and students - we invest in our well-being. THIS episode of Hidden Brain explores how we can make the world sparkle again. In it, guest Tali Sharot shares with host Shankar Vedantam her research into the benefits of seeing the world through fresh eyes.
Sharot notes, “So when you ask people, what is a good life? What do you see as a good life? Usually people will say, I want to feel joy, right? I don't want to feel sad. And they usually say, I want meaning in my life. And then there's a third thing that tends to be an element of a good life, which people don't usually think about so much, which is variety.”
She continues, “It turns out that variety is something that enhances people's psychological experiences. It gives you a rich psychological experience. And why is that helpful? And there's a few answers to this. One is that variety means that we will habituate less to things because it's changing all the time. We're doing one thing, we're doing the other thing, right? So variety actually counters the effects of habituation. But the other reason is if you have variety in your life, you work on different projects, you talk to different types of people, you are in different places, it always involves learning. And the thing about learning is learning means that there is a change. You cannot habituate to change by definition.”
Adages like, “variety is the spice of life”, have long been woven into our conversations with each other when we are challenged by shifts to routine. Brain science tells us that variety is not just spicy, but essential to our happiness. Proctor specializes in introducing newness - as scary as it may feel - into the lives of our students - new friends, new roommates, new classes, new teams, and new opportunities. Expansion of identity does not happen when we are comfortably in a routine, but when we embrace the change of seasons, the newness, the unknown that lies around the corner.
Just as the lakes around us seem to sparkle just a bit more this time of year, so, too, will our lives sparkle as we welcome the change that is upon us.
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