December 2025: Look Again
đ Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There by Tali Sharot and Cass R. Sunstein
You cannot know for certain what is good or bad for you, your family, or your community through your institutions, based on limited experiences. This is partly because of the rules that govern the function and architecture of your brain. The algorithms of your mind can make it difficult to notice the marvels and demons around you when environments, norms, and behaviors are fixed and unvaried.
How, then, can you know what is best for your life and for society, which needs to be changed, and what could be celebrated?
âThe brain is designed to stop noticing what it already knows.â
âWhatâs this book aboutâ
Look Again explores how our brains stop noticing whatâs familiarâpeople, pleasures, routinesâand how that automatic process (called habituation) can dull joy, motivation, and awareness. The authors, a neuroscientist and a behavioral economist, explain how this adaptation helps us survive but can also make us disengage from what once mattered.
They show how small acts of âdishabituationââchanging routines, taking breaks, introducing novelty, or reflecting with fresh perspectiveâcan reawaken our sense of wonder, strengthen relationships, and improve decision-making.
The book blends neuroscience, psychology, and everyday examples to help readers see the ordinary with new eyes, reigniting appreciation, curiosity, and creativity.
âWe canât stop the brain from adapting,
but we can interrupt it.â
đŹ Summary:
Have you ever noticed that what is exciting on Monday tends to become boring on Friday? Even passionate relationships, stimulating jobs, and breathtaking works of art lose their sparkle after a while. As easy as it is to stop noticing what is most wonderful in our lives, itâs also possible to stop noticing what is terrible. People get used to dirty air. They become unconcerned by their own misconduct, blind to inequality, and are more liable to believe misinformation than ever before.
Now, neuroscience professor Tali Sharot and Harvard law professor (and presidential advisor) Cass R. Sunstein investigate why we stop noticing both the great and not-so-great things around us and how to âdishabituateâ at the office, in the bedroom, at the store, on social media, and in the voting booth.
This groundbreaking and âsensational guide to a more psychological rich lifeâ (Angela Duckworth, New York Times bestselling author), based on decades of research, illuminates how we can reignite the sparks of joy, innovate, and recognize where improvements urgently need to be made. The key to this disruptionâto seeing, feeling, and noticing againâis change. By temporarily changing your environment, changing the rules, changing the people you interact withâor even just stepping back and imagining changeâyou regain sensitivity, allowing you to identify more clearly the bad and more deeply appreciate the good.
âIf everything feels ordinary, itâs not the world that changedâitâs your brain.â
đ Book Club Meeting Details
Join us for an engaging discussion on:
đ Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There by Tali Sharot and Cass R. Sunstein
đ Date: Thursday, December 4, 2025
đ Time: 12:00-12:45 PM EDT
đ Live, Virtual Event
Iâm eager to discuss with our Book Club how our brains tune out repetition to save energy, even when that means missing joy.
âSociety progresses because some people refuse to habituate to injustice.â
The same mechanism that dulls personal joy also numbs us to social issues
âuntil someone insists on seeing again.
