The news seems to get crazier and people are getting more polarized. How is a person supposed to find solace and meaning in life? Perhaps the best way is to learn to appreciate the small things.  https://neurosciencenews.com/meaning-life-small-things-21063/   Transcript: you're listening to psych with mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:06 guest go to www.cyclicmike.com follow the show on twitter at psych with 0:13 mike or like the facebook page at psych with mike now here's psych with mike 0:19 [Music] welcome into the psych with mike library this is dr michael mahon and i'm here 0:25 with mr brett newcomb hello it's really hot and it's well there are 0:31 issues of concern around something called climate change and drought climate change is a pigment of your 0:37 imagination that's what some people say with sweat rolling down their face yeah 0:44 yeah and no water in the pipe yeah and i guess uh uh we should clarify or or at least set 0:50 the the the frame of reference it's the end of july 0:55 in st louis missouri and it is it's just oppressively oppressively hot i heard 1:02 you supposed to get to 104 today 104 today i that i heard on the radio this 1:08 morning that there was a uh 1:13 that the the the mercury reached 115 in oklahoma yesterday wow 1:19 yeah so my sound quality just changed did you turn something down i i manipulated 1:25 something because it was really loud in my in my it's just only mattering if you can be heard 1:31 we'll see everybody can be heard one one hopes you know uh i think that 1:37 um you would live longer if you could reduce your 1:43 level of anxiety and one way to do that would be to learn how to appreciate small things like oh well i'm not this 1:50 is amazing i'm not anxious i'm perfectionistic 1:56 is there a difference i'm not sure they are yeah yeah so i i sent you this article on uh 2:03 from neuroscience news yes not psychology today or bride magazine 2:09 well you're reaching more a field for your your intellectual acumen we've had 2:15 articles from neuroscience before i know but i just was recognizing today that you but 2:21 my reluctance to do that is because then you say oh she's got all these 2:26 words and things in it that you can't win yeah yeah that's true i should just change the rules for the conversation i 2:32 should just learn to appreciate that yeah as long as you're not anxious about it yeah yeah you appreciate the small things that 2:39 uh enjoy the moment set in the moment meditate and you but 2:45 the reason that i wanted to uh so this is an article about enjoying 2:50 the moment what's it what's the title of the article searching for meaning try appreciating the small things right 2:57 yeah and my philosophy is that there are no new 3:02 things that everything's a rebranding of something that somebody did before i 3:08 mean obviously maybe if you discuss that's actually been said before yeah nothing new under the sun exactly i read 3:14 that years ago and you talk about this all the time that that people come up with new theories or come up with words 3:20 they just rebrand old theories yeah and put them back in the mixer come out with something else i remember when 3:29 back in 2008 2009 2010 when we were still at webster and 3:36 the concept of mindfulness was huge in the zeitgeist of the psychological 3:43 community and all of our students would come in and talk about oh i'm going to be a mindfulness counselor 3:49 that's what i'm and and i would say what do you use the word zeitgeist yeah when i was young it was uh the term was 3:56 velchong world view mm-hmm yeah 4:01 same stuff yeah same point so they're going to be mindful co