GROWTH
ISN’T MAGIC,
JUST
ACT I ON—
SHOW UP,
TRY ,
BEG I N
AGA I N .
I
panic button—by giving the mind a non- threatening anchor.
Positive thinking, for people like me, feels like a scam. It’s the emotional equivalent of those “Live, Laugh, Love” signs sold at Michaels— bright, hollow, and condescending. But Susan, who’d survived two husbands and a hip replacement, had a different take: “You don’t have to love the radishes. Just water the damn radishes.”
You don’t need to believe in growth to benefit from it. You just have to do something small, over and over, and let your brain catch up. To me, cynicism naturally feels good. It’s the emotional equivalent of wearing noise-canceling headphones in a world full of TikTok soundbites about living your truth. Snarking on toxic optimism? Valid. Rolling your eyes at corporate wellness seminars titled Embrace Your Inner Light? A civic duty.
Turns out, she was onto something.
A 2023 study in Behavioral Neuroscience found that repetitive, low-stakes tasks (like weeding) reduce activity in the amygdala—the brain’s
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