It is not a crazy idea to conceptualize some conspiracy theorists as people who (1) have a high need for cognition (brain wheels are always turning), and (2) direct that at developing wrong/misguided/motivated frameworks for the world.
Have kids. Your main problem then is to feed them, keep them clothed, keep them relatively happy, and educate them (all surprisingly non-trivial problems with lots of learning along the way, especially the last two). Pursue career goals as much as possible, but conditional on having acceptable solutions to kid problems mentioned. Simplifies things, and provides a good option in case of failure on work problems (“Work today sucked, but at least I’ve got these great kids!”). Constraints can be good!
I know this paper well (and the larger point being made in the paper; I have seen Dr. Gal present on it in seminars). I think the point he is trying to make is that what we really need for understanding of human behavior is good psychological theory of how humans operate. In many cases (loss aversion being one of them, per Dr. Gal), behavioral economics describes the data, but does not provide a deeper analysis of why the data are the way they are (that is, why the humans being studied acted as they did). Of course not true of all behavioral economics, but some of it.
Antidepressants really do help. Especially for getting out of the lowest lows. Then, when you are out of the lowest lows, the other things (like talk therapy) have a chance to be effective.
This is ridiculous. Rejection sucks, and it will likely slow you down a little bit for some time. That’s okay, and it is okay to feel bad. Over time, however, you will get over it and become better because of it. But if you are slowed down you aren’t doing anything wrong, you are human.
I am a social scientist studying human behavior, and this is a huge problem in the field. Myself and my statistician friends who analyze the literature have basically concluded that most extremely "novel" and "surprising" findings in the literature aren't even worth trying to replicate (remember, replications cost money to run, so before you start you have to make some judgment about the likelihood of success.) This is especially true of the "sexiest" sub-topics in the field, like social priming and embodied cognition. If you want to learn more about this, the place to look is Andrew Gelman's blog: http://andrewgelman.com/