Advice for Those Who Are a Mystery to Themselves

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

Welcome to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, featuring our newest advice column, “Dear James,” from James Parker.

Are you something of a mystery to yourself?

Do you suffer from existential panic, spiritual fatigue, libidinal tangles, and compulsive idiocy? Are your moods beyond your control? Is every straw, for you, the last straw? Do you suspect, from time to time, that the world around you might be an enormous hallucination? Do you forget people’s names and then worry about it terribly? Do you weep at bad movies but find yourself unaccountably numb in the face of genuine sadness? Is stress wrecking your complexion, your joints, your digestive system? Do you experience a surge of pristine chaotic energy at precisely the moment that you should be falling asleep? Are you doing much too much of this, and not nearly enough of that?

If so, “Dear James” might be for you.

Below are the latest editions, which tackle issues as varied as post-graduation anxiety and an addiction to wellness podcasts.

If you’re looking for advice, drop a note to dearjames@theatlantic.com. Sign up here to receive this column weekly.

The Reading List

I See Every Tiny Problem as a Social Injustice

I’m totally exhausted with myself.

By James Parker

I Hate My Post-College Life

I’m utterly lost.

By James Parker

Cold Showers Are Free

So is meditation. And push-ups. And breathing.

By James Parker

Here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic:

The elite college students who can’t read books Remember that DNA you gave 23andMe? The rise of the right-wing tattletale

The Week Ahead

Saturday Night, a comedy film about the 90 minutes of preparation before the October 1975 debut of Saturday Night Live (in theaters everywhere Friday) Season 4 of Abbott Elementary, a sitcom about a group of Philadelphia public-school teachers (streaming Wednesday on Hulu) Our Evenings, a novel by Alan Hollinghurst about the son of a Burmese man and a British dressmaker who gets a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school (out Tuesday)

Essay

Illustration by The Atlantic

Revenge of the Office

By Rose Horowitch

Last month, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced that the company’s more than 350,000 corporate employees must return to the office five days a week come January. In a memo, Jassy explained that he wants teams to be “joined at the hip” as they try to out-innovate other companies.

His employees don’t seem happy about it. The Amazon announcement was met with white-collar America’s version of a protest—a petition, angry LinkedIn posts, tense debates on Slack—and experts predict that some top talent will leave for companies with more flexible policies. Since May 2023, Amazon has allowed corporate employees to work from home two days a week by default. But to Jassy, 15 months of hybrid work only demonstrated the superiority of full-time in-office collaboration.

Read the full article.

Advice for Those Who Are a Mystery to Themselves

unread news