Recent studies confirm an alarming reality: As a country, when it comes to dealing with personal problems, we use an external fix. Whether it's routine disruptions we face at work, the common crises at home, or our children trying to parse the maelstrom of media overload—the fact is that it's increasingly rare that Americans turn to internal or interpersonal resources to establish equilibrium. Instead, our first impulse is to seek out a quick and external source, which becomes both the cause of our problems, and the solution.