much that it wears a rut in their thinking. And like a rut in the road, it can be hard to avoid. Fortunately, we now know how these ruts get made and how to steer the mind out of them.

Now forty years old, Hank is underachieving at work, not because he lacks talent—he has talent coming out his ears, as his boss said—but because he “just can’t get his act together,” to quote his exasperated wife. Hank is more exasperated than anyone, which only fuels his incessant self-recrimination. He’s tried antidepressants, which did nothing

easy chair in his living room, feet on the floor, fingers digging into the arms of his chair, staring out the window at a sunny afternoon. Of course he does see what’s actually outside—an elm tree in the foreground, the street beyond—but he can’t really take in the view. All he sees is danger and more metaphorical rocks to get past. This horrible

Fixed in place by the torrent of his negative thoughts, Hank sits in the

Beyond the sources of biologically based ADHD, there are a lot of people who act as if they have ADHD but on close inspection turn out not to have the diagnosable condition. These are the people who have ADHD-like symptoms caused by the conditions of modern life. Their “ADHD” is a response to the massive increase in stimuli that now bombard our

Our truncated sense of time leads to all manner of fights, failures, job losses, disappointed friends, and failed romances, but at the same time to an uncanny ability to work brilliantly under extreme pressure, as well as to be wonderfully, infuriatingly oblivious to the time pressures that stress most people to the max.

we have a pronounced intolerance of boredom; boredom is our kryptonite. The second that we experience boredom—which you might think of as a lack of stimulation—we reflexively, instantaneously, automatically and without conscious thought seek stimulation. We don’t care what it is, we just have to address the mental emergency—the brain pain—that

People with ADHD are lovers in the sense that they tend to have unbridled optimism. We never met a deal we didn’t like, an opportunity we didn’t want to pursue, a chance we didn’t want to take. We get carried away. We see limitless possibilities where others see just the limits. The lover has trouble holding back, and not holding back is a major

Having ADHD doesn’t mean you’re crazy, so admittedly “lunatic” may be too strong a word. But risk taking and irrational thinking go hand in hand with ADHD behavior. We like irrational.