The Bird That Forgot to Worry

There is a species of sparrow called the white-throated sparrow — small, brown, easily overlooked. Ornithologist Margaret Morse Nice spent seven years in Columbus, Ohio, beginning in 1927, crouched in backyards and along river banks, cataloguing the lives of these birds. She watched them lose nests to storms and begin building again the next morning. No catastrophizing. No paralysis. Just the next necessary thing.…