Member-only story
Check Your Energy at the Door
Pair with Can’t Smile Without You by Barry Manilow
You are in a four-hour meeting in a cramped conference room with no windows with your boss, Ms. Longe-Tork, who is the one who can promote you, so you better stay sharp and then Kevin who sits next to her starts yawning, and resistance is futile.
A bare-chested, purple harem pants wearing, super limber yoga instructor called Sven flashes you a smile in the mirror while he adjusts your hips in downward dog and you cannot help but smile back and wonder why you haven’t noticed him before even though your bones are about to pop out their sockets.
Your finger accidentally slips on the remote, and you switch onto Fox News and within thirty seconds you run around the house checking all the locks and then pen a letter to the homeowners’ association to suggest the formation of a militia to meet weekly in Mrs. Wollensky’s backyard shed so you can protect yourself against those leftwing radicals that are sure to park their Priuses in your driveway and attack you with kale and kombucha.
It is as if your thinking mind has been taken over by zombies, and you are no longer in control of your physical or emotional responses. And it turns out that there is an explanation for this. It is called mirror neurons. These are neurons that not only fire when…
