June 05, 2018

Constructive Distraction

A concept to live by, from Walter Mischel, the creator of the Marshmallow Test:

His secret seems to come straight from the marshmallow test: distraction. “It’s to keep living in a way one wants to live and work; to distract constructively; to distract in ways that are in themselves satisfying; to do things that are intrinsically gratifying,” he says. “Melancholy is not one of my emotions. Quite seriously, I don’t do melancholy. It’s a miserable way to be.”

From Pamela Druckerman in the New York Times