Searching for Meaning on a Monday Morning
Searching for Meaning on a Monday Morning
Debuting a new feature and looking for a psychologically rich life.
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It’s actually past Monday morning here now, and I just got back from being Ubered home from the car mechanic. My brakes started grinding over the weekend, which I took as the sign that it was time to actually read the warning light that came up a few weeks ago. I’m sprinting to the finish on a couple of assignments, including a guest post for the National Eating Disorder Association, or NEDA, that’s due tomorrow. So… it’s the perfect day to debut a new feature on Almost Sated.
Monday mornings, I’m going to be posting a few links to what I’ve been reading and listening to from the past week, plus I’ll probably throw in a few musings from my Sunday (supposedly) spent not working. This was my first Sunday not work working (I still did the household and kiddo working), and it’s safe to say, I drove the kids a little crazy with my excess manic energy. It rained and I was afraid to drive my car, so I didn’t get in a mountain bike ride, which is usually how I burn off excess manic energy. Anyway… here are a few of my favorite reads of the week.
The Burning House of Vogue
I’m really enjoying living vicariously through
’s former life as a British fashion magazine editor. In her latest Things Worth Knowing, she talks about the just-announced exodus of British Vogue Editor Edward Enninful, though he’s not truly leaving. As a former journalist, I found her insider-y take of British Vogue’s recent turn into activist mag fascinating.And so here is what happened to British Vogue. Many stopped buying it. Instead it was given away at airports and hotels and sold cut price at many retailers outside London so numbers looked pretty steady. (This is not an unusual tactic, by the way.) But the whispers on the grapevine were that it had lost its way. It was joyless, too political and seemed to have forgot its role as a high end shopping magazine. Yet few, if any, would admit this publicly. And here is why: to admit to not liking Enninful’s Vogue was deemed as not liking his politics. And who wanted to be seen to not support everything he stood for- equality, greater diversity, more inclusivity.
While I never worked in magazines, I was a fan of them—of Vogue, Elle, InStyle, Vanity Fair. I read the interviews. I dreamed about being able to afford the fashion and got a little dopamine hit at the end of every grocery store trip when there was a new cover in the checkout stand. Most of it was aspirational. Now, not so much. Like newspapers, they lost their way in the digital age, trying to find a way to hold on to revenue and remain relevant in the face of so many other competing options.
Letter to Med Students Doing a Weight-Stigma Capstone
The more I learn about toxic diet culture, the more I realize one of the big culprits is the medical community, which continues to promote weight stigma.
’s post this week on Weight and Healthcare was a letter republished from fat liberation feminist Rachel Fox, who challenges med students to challenge the baked-in bias they're coming up against in their studies. She gives them four actionable steps for fighting the oppression of fat people.Let me be clear again: if you are committed to dismantling the systemic oppression of fat people in healthcare, there are things you can do. You have access fat activists don’t have. You are the ones who can write an exposé. You are the ones whose voices the media will take seriously.
Are you living a psychologically rich life?
Last week, I wrote about the proliferation of hustle culture and toxic productivity even though I think most of us recognize on some level that it’s not always serving us. I quoted Jodi Wellman from four thousand mondays, and she’s back this week, talking about what makes a good life. Spoiler alert: It’s not just about doing. The good life, according to Wellman, is a combination of the happy life, the meaningful life and the psychologically rich life.
The psychologically rich life is characterized by variety, novelty, and interest. We can have happy and meaningful lives but slip into autopilot week after week of the same routines. Spicing things up with a variety of curiosity-indulging and perspective-shifting experiences is just what the PhD’s ordered.
This type of rich life, she posits, brings interest and perspective but requires time and energy… basically, all the things that are in short supply when we’re mindlessly doing.
With that in mind, what are you doing to spice up this week? I’d love to hear about it, plus your thoughts on the new Monday format. Thanks, everyone!
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