What Drives Us: Exploring the Hidden Forces of the Mind

How to Live is a weekly newsletter that delves into the unseen forces shaping our thoughts and actions. Blending psychology, philosophy, art, and personal experience, author Amanda Stern distills complex ideas into compelling narratives that confront life’s hardest questions. Join over 13,000 readers for sharp insights, revelatory ideas, and darkly funny reflections—all to make life a little less lonely and profoundly more human.

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The Entire Library

The Politics of Being Alone: The Systemic Bias Against Singles.

When One is the Loneliest Number

Amanda Stern

How to Learn Anything, Really

Richard Feynman’s Timeless Strategy

Amanda Stern

The Hidden Language of Healing: 10 Things Every Great Therapist Knows

A primer on what's left unsaid

Amanda Stern

The Masterclass is back (10 spots only)

Amanda Stern

MARCH TL;DR

Pieces too long? Read this monthly summary!

Amanda Stern

The Vigilant Heart: Hypervigilance and Emotional Exhaustion

What neuroscience and attachment theory teach us about the exhausting vigilance that keeps love at bay

Amanda Stern

The Necessary Unknown: The Voynich Manuscript, Winnicott's Third Space, and Why We Need What We Cannot Understand

The cognitive pull of the unsolvable

Amanda Stern

Everything Cracks: 5 Psychologists On Their Own Suffering

There is no normal life that's free of pain

Amanda Stern

Necessary Questions: Seven Inquiries That Reveal the Hidden Self

What you avoid asking might be what you need to know most.

Amanda Stern

A Private Walking Tour Through Malta in 84 Photos.

Follow me and meet God. No, really.

Amanda Stern

The Beautiful Trap: How Limerence Warps Perception and Fuels Obsession

The intrusive and inescapable high that isn't love, at all.

Amanda Stern

February TL;DR

Pieces too long? Read this monthly summary!

Amanda Stern

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