This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
There are moments in any journey when things can feel interminable.
You show up to work every day, do the same job, meet the same people at home.
You wash the dishes, clean the bedroom, do the laundry.
On weekends, you watch the same tv shows, go for the same walks, talk to the same relatives.
One day starts to look like the next.
Weeks blur into each other.
And then you start to wonder, what am I really doing?
Where am I headed?
Am I making any progress at all?
We have different names for this phenomenon.
Writers say they are blocked.
Office workers talk about being in a rut.
People of a certain age call it a midlife crisis.
But they are all different ways of saying I'm stuck.
Today, we begin our perennially popular annual series U 2.0.
In past years, we have explored ideas about how to communicate better or build stronger relationships.
In the coming weeks, we will explore a variety of new ideas to help you thrive.
This week on hidden new research into the science of feeling stuck and powerful insights into how to get unstuck.