The Week on the PAHM: 17 October 2026

The Week on the PAHM is a Saturday series: five headlines from the week, each placed on the map. This one is two days late; the week is the same. The book's claim is simple: of the nine positions on the Present Attention and Happiness Matrix, only one, Present + Neutral, is in contact with what is actually happening. The other eight are thoughts about it, and the book calls them poisonous, because each one costs something in the present, whether it feels good or bad. News is where a great deal of attention goes every week, and nearly all of it goes to those eight. So this is not a summary of the week. It asks one question of each story: where did it put everyone's attention, and what did that cost?

The short version

• More than half of American workers say they fantasise about quitting, and nine in ten plan to stay
• Nearly half are "job hugging": staying put for the security, and a third say it is lowering their satisfaction
• US prices rose 3.7 percent over the year to September, less than the 3.9 percent households told the New York Fed they expected last week
• A Hungarian study links four or five hours a day of passive scrolling to weaker memory and attention scores, and to the fear of missing out
• The Milwaukee Brewers reached their first World Series in 44 years, from behind, one game at a time

Which of these does your mind visit most? See your mind score - free.

1. Dreaming of quitting, planning to stay

A survey released on Monday by the Employee Benefit Research Institute found that 60 percent of American workers are satisfied with their job, 90 percent plan to stay with their employer for two more years, and 55 percent fantasise about quitting (WorldatWork news bytes, 16 October). The same survey found 59 percent often or always do not care about their job.

On the map: Future + Likes (anticipation): a resignation that is never going to be handed in, visited most days, and the day it is visited from gets a little smaller. The book treats this as the pleasant kind of leaving: the fantasy feels like relief, and it is attention on a future that is not going to be acted on. The post on I will be happy when covers the same shape with a different condition in the blank.

2. Job hugging

On Tuesday Monster reported that 48 percent of American workers are "job hugging", staying in a role mainly for pay, benefits and security, and that 31 percent say doing so lowers their satisfaction, up from 27 percent a year ago (same source as above). The main reasons given were pay and benefits, job security, and a lack of appealing alternatives.

On the map: Future + Dislikes (worry): staying because of what might happen if you left, which keeps the leaving and the fear of it both running at once. In the book's account this is the mirror of the first story. One group lives in the pleasant future, the other in the unpleasant one, and neither is in the job they are actually sitting in. The post on why you feel overwhelmed is about what happens when the two run at once.

3. The inflation that arrived

On Wednesday the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that consumer prices rose 3.7 percent over the twelve months to September, and 0.6 percent in the month (BLS, 14 October). Last week's edition carried the New York Fed survey in which households expected 3.9 percent over the coming year.

On the map: Present + Neutral (presence): a number arriving. It costs nothing to read; the cost was paid last week, in Future + Dislikes (worry), by everyone who spent an evening on the 3.9. The number that arrived was smaller than the number that was feared, and the fear was paid for in full anyway. That is the book's account of worry in one line: the price is charged whether or not the thing happens. Prices still rose, and the practical decisions are real; the post on stress for no reason is about the part that is not.

4. Four hours of scrolling

Researchers at Semmelweis University in Budapest reported that students who spent four or five hours a day or more on their phones mostly consuming content scored worse than expected for their age on memory and attention tests, reported poorer sleep, and showed higher fear of missing out; the authors say these are associations, not proven causes (ScienceDaily, 12 October).

On the map: Present + Likes (holding), four hours of it: the next pleasant thing, reached for before the last one has ended, and the present it was reached for from, missed. The map makes no claim about the brain, and this is research for context, not proof of anything here. But the shape is the one the book describes for pleasant positions: the pull is real, it does not feel like a cost while it is happening, and the fear of missing out is the future row arriving to keep the thumb moving. The post on why feeling good is the blind spot is about why nobody trains for this one.

5. Forty-four years, one game at a time

The Milwaukee Brewers beat the two-time champion Los Angeles Dodgers 6-4 on Thursday, after trailing, to complete a four-game sweep and reach their first World Series since 1982 (Morning Star sport in brief, 16 October).

On the map: Present + Neutral (presence): the next pitch, for four games, with 44 years of Past + Likes and Past + Dislikes on every seat in the stadium and none of it on the field. The drought is a thought; it lives in the past row and belongs to the people watching. The team that came from behind did it the only way anyone can, which is one play at a time. That is the practice in how to stay calm: calm is returned to, pitch by pitch, not held for a season.

One practice for the week

What this does not do

This post uses the Present Attention and Happiness Matrix, the author's own model from The Return of Attention. It describes experience, not a diagnosis. How the matrix works.

It does not judge the news or the people in it. The stories are theirs; the map only says where they put attention.

It is not advice. Jobs, prices and phones all need practical decisions, and the map does not make them for you. If worry about money or work has become constant, or comes with low mood that has lasted two weeks or more, please talk to a doctor or a crisis line.

Common questions

What is the Week on the PAHM? A Saturday post that takes five headlines from the week and places each on the Present Attention and Happiness Matrix: when the story put attention, and how it felt about it, and what that cost.

Why look at the news this way? Because news is where attention goes for most of the day, and most of it sits in the past or the future. In the book's account those are the poisonous positions, and seeing that is the first step it asks for.

Where do the headlines come from? From the week's reporting, linked in each item. The summary is ours; the reporting belongs to the sources.