--- ## Highlights If you had a cancer in your body, wouldn’t you want to know where it is, what it is, and how exactly to treat it? Why don’t you treat every other problem in your life with the same clarity? ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/e3d466bd-1d52-4284-a9f4-07c93c94cf3e)) there is a primordial calculator in your brain (the medial prefrontal cortex) that monitors signals to figure out your position in society. It recognizes how others behave around you, and it infers your social standing. Then, based on where you think you are in the hierarchy, you change your perceptions, values, emotions, and actions. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/c9f97fff-2eaf-4b45-a158-9d6a04256e01)) there’s a hypothesis that depression is so common today because mass media makes you compare yourself to the best of billions of other people. On this unprecedented world stage, you’re not particularly good at anything ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/d1e25c05-26be-4c98-a686-28a7679ac54f)) through feedback loops, you can become stuck in a low social position ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/0804d236-28e5-498f-8f38-9a472bb6ec80)) believe that you are worth helping. You have a vital mission in this world, you are important in this world to others, and you are morally obligated to take care of yourself. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/325146bc-e379-4f9e-a680-c2b17facd7e5))