Love is pretty much the greatest thing ever. People who don't understand evolution think sex is the most important thing ever -- but without love, our species wouldn't exist. It doesn't matter how many women you can knock up if no one loves or cares for anyone and all the babies die.

As such, we evolved to be acutely sensitive to loneliness (and other negative emotions, like jealousy). And we evolved to love love. 

Sometimes, spaces look playful... but you can't actually play in them. image: reddit​

Don't get me wrong. I love ball pits as much as the next guy. I spent pretty much every afternoon of my childhood at Chuck E. Cheese (and, unlike kids today, I actually got to run around and play by myself while the parents drank pitchers of beer). I'm all about play, and I'm stoked that so many Silicon Valley startups want ball pits.

But here's the thing: many designers and office managers think their job is complete once they've got that ball pit installed.

Creating a playful office space requires more than that.

"Hey! You want to try and see the meteor shower this weekend?"

​Umm, no. But I'll try to see it. Or, maybe, I'll even try seeing it. 

Being driven by a desire to win means that when you achieve your goal, you’ll feel joy. Being driven by a fear of failure means when you succeed, you’ll feel relief.

Whether training for your high school swim team or trying to make it to the pros, you've probably experienced a plateau. All athletes do! There are tons of physical reasons -- and one very mental reason -- why this happens. 

You're entitled to your own opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts. Which is why I'm taking the time to point out some of the reasons that words are not violence -- and that there is truth to the old rhyme, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names will never hurt me."

"It is a happy talent to know how to play," Ralph Waldo Emerson once said. 

He was exactly right. According to my master's research, playfulness isn't a trait -- it's a skill. But due to the ubiquity of technology (read: passive entertainment) and high-achieving childhoods, many young adults have yet to develop their leisure skills. 

The fact that they're making less money and are more likely to have debt than ever doesn't help.

I was recently asked what I, as a feminist, thought of the web comic, "You should've asked." My answer is that there was a lot I liked, and a little I didn't. My favorite takeaway is that men aren't perfect and have a lot to learn -- but neither are women, and so do they! 

In other words, people are flawed. We can all do better. 

The Happy Talent has gotten a lot of heat, lately, from Social Justice Warriors who are pissed about my post, Advice for Asian Men, Black Women, and Other People "No One" Wants to Date.

Dozens of people from the "tolerant" left have made it their mission to refute my points... by calling me ugly. 

It should go without saying that these are not the kinds of people I would ever date. Because I don't want to date a man who's politically correct. I want to date a man who is empirically​ correct. 

Let's take a break from talking about playfulness and leisure skill development for a second to discuss something serious. 

See that girl with the laurel leaves in her hair? That's me, on graduation day, getting ready to walk across the stage and receive my Classical Diploma from Phillips Exeter Academy.

(Okay -- FINE. They're not laurel leaves. They're the kind of leaves that grow on the side of Langdell Hall, because no one told me you had to ORDER your crown before graduation. I mean... it's not like I had to order my diploma!)

My Classical Diploma means that I took four years of Latin and a year of ancient Greek. It means I know things. Like why it's so ridiculous that half my friends spell ridiculous with an -e.