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The slow pace of evolution left us with brains out of sync with modern realities.

For example, ancient survival scripts make us perceive threats to our reputation as life or death challenges.

Such anachronistic reactions produce unnecessary anxiety, conflict and stress.

Becoming aware of Stone Age survival scripts can stop them from making your modern life unhappy.

I was at Baghdad International Airport, March 2007. The call came as I waited in the departure lounge to fly back to DC from my last trip to Iraq as an intelligence officer. The caller, a friend who was close to the man the President had just nominated to be my new boss, said, "The news isn't great, Eric. He's just finished a project with CIA, who told him your bureaucratic meddling severely damaged the agency." As the words sank in, my gut knotted, my heart pounded, and my breath came shallow and fast. I don't remember how the call ended, just that I felt that the bottom had just fallen out of my life.

The days that followed were interspersed with crippling anxiety and a sense of otherworldly detachment, a condition my therapist called depersonalization/derealization disorder. And no wonder. A career-oriented workaholic, I'd just learned my life of government service was probably over, because once a reputation is tarnished, it's nearly impossible to repair. Indeed, one of the first things my new boss did upon taking office was to demote me and encourage me to resign. Which I did, feeling embarrassed, humiliated, depressed, and anxious.

My dominant feeling during that period was fear: Fear that my life was essentially over. Looking back on it all now, I realize my life was not over, but my brain kept screaming that the colossal hit to my reputation and status meant that it most certainly was.

Why my brain lied to me

Evolutionary psychologists such as Tooby and Cosmides [1,2] argue that, due to the slow pace of evolution relative to the advance of........

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