Everyone comes equipped with a mind. No one comes with a manual.

Fortunately, your mind works all on its own, performing everyday marvels without requiring any intervention from you. Only when our minds betray us do we wish we’d had a chance to read the instructions. How do you stop your mind from torturing you with critical judgments or obsessive rumination? How do you face down unsolvable problems and impossible decisions? How do you get free from limiting beliefs when you don’t know what beliefs are limiting you in the first place?

If you learn the ways of the mind, you can thwart its bad habits and transcend its infuriating limitations. But this is just the beginning. You can also learn to perform astonishing acts of intelligence: perceiving patterns, solving mysteries, creating worlds that have never existed, becoming smarter all the time. A User’s Guide to the Mind is a series of freestanding articles that provide instructions and insights into the workings of your very own mind.