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Ask HN: How to not bring emotion from work back home?

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Re: Ask HN: How to not bring emotion from work back home?

#121

Post by cientifico »

koliber wrote: post #111
cientifico wrote: post #99

Workout, meditation, distraction, talking with people didn't work for me. They were ways to silent the emotions and postpone the problem. What worked for me was a lot of self reflexion. Understanding way I was angry in the first place. I found out that happiness is just the way of approaching things. That the world is just a projection on your head. An interpretation of the five senses + state (learned experience mos…

I really like your explanation. Incidentally, what you describe in paragraphs 2+ is what I understand "meditation" to be. You mentioned that meditation did not work for you. Can you explain what you take "meditation" to mean? It may help me and others what meditation is and what it strives to achieve.

Really good point. Thanks.

As you pointed out, the understanding of the word "meditation" is not shared by all the people.

To prevent some kind of bias from applying to the person, and knowing that on average, these ideas are going to bring fears like "I don't want to be a monk", "I don't want to be weird", I prefer to separate the concepts far away from the word from the beginning, even before the thought of association appears in the mind.

For that, and without knowing the audience, I prefer to go to the concept first and forget about the word or start and endless discussion about what the word really means that most times bring us far away from the initial topic.

You probably saw the same with feminism. It is easier to talk about the concepts behind, without referring to it, than start a discussion about what feminism really is. Right?

Do you think this makes sense?

Re: Ask HN: How to not bring emotion from work back home?

#122

Post by smoyer »

I would argue that the best course of action (in general) is to not use your emotions at work. Software development as an engineering discipline is best done in a dispassionate state. I can logically defend the decisions that I've made (and learned from the wrong ones).

Since you've been working for many years, practice this exercise when you start feeling angry - think of a time in the past where you were also angry and think of the outcome of that episode. You'll find that the emotion really doesn't help the situation and have to assume that it won't help the current situation either.

I'm not saying that you should be a Borg at work - it's good to feel emotions. But you're going overboard and eventually it will harm you (or already has).

Re: Ask HN: How to not bring emotion from work back home?

#123

Post by ghthor »

cientifico wrote: post #99

Workout, meditation, distraction, talking with people didn't work for me. They were ways to silent the emotions and postpone the problem. What worked for me was a lot of self reflexion. Understanding way I was angry in the first place. I found out that happiness is just the way of approaching things. That the world is just a projection on your head. An interpretation of the five senses + state (learned experience mos…

Meditation is broad on possible styles. Mindfulness being on of the simplest practices to explain and practice. We're all experiencing mindfulness all the time, we just haven't become aware of it yet, or we judge ourselves to harshly, "That was to simple, I can't be doing it right."

What you describe is a analytical type of meditation where you step back from the stimulus of a thought and accept that it happened and caused you to feel a certain way and if it reflects reality or not. This is a wonderful meditation practice that you can use to make good change in your brain. You are more mindful then you give yourself credit! :)

Re: Ask HN: How to not bring emotion from work back home?

#124

Post by brad0 »

Mate, you need to deal with your emotion. You should become more aware of your feelings and what's causing them.

On top of that ask yourself what problems do you have in your life that you aren't solving?

Being angry is a symptom of your worldview not reflecting reality. What situations are causing you to feel that anger?

Last but not least, go see a good therapist. They're paid to understand your problems and help you get better mentally.

Re: Ask HN: How to not bring emotion from work back home?

#125

Post by mental_ »

RUG3Y wrote: post #18
dizzystar wrote: post #13

If you have a terrible job, no amount of therapy, exercising, and drinking will help you here. You need to find a new job, plain and simple. If it's your 10th job and you are feeling like this still, you have to figure out if it is bad luck (it does happen) or if it's something with you. Either way, it is sort of you, since you managed to keep finding and stepping into jobs you are unhappy at. Certainly, a hint or tw…

I agree with this. If you're a reasonably balanced person (meaning, the problem isn't just you) and your job makes you feel like garbage, you should try to find something else. I know it's not that easy -- I've been in the same situation. I've finally moved on and I'm in a _great_ place. I had no idea that life could be this good.

How long have you been in this job?

Re: Ask HN: How to not bring emotion from work back home?

#126

Post by daniel_iversen »

cientifico wrote: post #99

Workout, meditation, distraction, talking with people didn't work for me. They were ways to silent the emotions and postpone the problem. What worked for me was a lot of self reflexion. Understanding way I was angry in the first place. I found out that happiness is just the way of approaching things. That the world is just a projection on your head. An interpretation of the five senses + state (learned experience mos…

Makes sense. I think what you are describing here seems to me like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and that probably indeed will help your symptom (and then maybe over time the new ways of seeing things may become easier or more permanent - or you could/should consider changing jobs?)

Re: Ask HN: How to not bring emotion from work back home?

#127

Post by distances »

tomekowal wrote: post #91
jypepin wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this resonates a lot. I recently moved and now I have the space for a desk at home which allows me to play video games again, which I loved doing at a kid (starcraft, etc) and had to stop doing due to space for 4-5 years. Now that I picked up video games again, I feel better and it's the best way for me to get my mind off work!

I feel like StarCraft and RTSes in general work really well in this scenario, because they occupy every brain cell available. Concentrating really hard on something non work related totally resets the brain.

And as a downside, I need to stop playing well before going to sleep. Trying to sleep right after a multi-hour game session is a surefire way for me to lie awake in bed for a couple of hours.

Re: Ask HN: How to not bring emotion from work back home?

#129

Post by edwinyzh »

koliber wrote: post #111
cientifico wrote: post #99

Workout, meditation, distraction, talking with people didn't work for me. They were ways to silent the emotions and postpone the problem. What worked for me was a lot of self reflexion. Understanding way I was angry in the first place. I found out that happiness is just the way of approaching things. That the world is just a projection on your head. An interpretation of the five senses + state (learned experience mos…

I really like your explanation. Incidentally, what you describe in paragraphs 2+ is what I understand "meditation" to be. You mentioned that meditation did not work for you. Can you explain what you take "meditation" to mean? It may help me and others what meditation is and what it strives to achieve.

Precisely, it's Vipassanā (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipassan%C4%81), the original wisdom developed by the Buddha.

Re: Ask HN: How to not bring emotion from work back home?

#130

Post by mping »

koliber wrote: post #111
cientifico wrote: post #99

Workout, meditation, distraction, talking with people didn't work for me. They were ways to silent the emotions and postpone the problem. What worked for me was a lot of self reflexion. Understanding way I was angry in the first place. I found out that happiness is just the way of approaching things. That the world is just a projection on your head. An interpretation of the five senses + state (learned experience mos…

I really like your explanation. Incidentally, what you describe in paragraphs 2+ is what I understand "meditation" to be. You mentioned that meditation did not work for you. Can you explain what you take "meditation" to mean? It may help me and others what meditation is and what it strives to achieve.

There are alot of meditation techniques and meditation practices. Most of them revolve around the idea of using the thinking mind, the analytical process, to gain insight about something.

If you do orthodox meditation, you should know there are levels called "dhyanas" or "samadhis" that roughly correspond to your concentration level. The higher the concentration level, the easier it is to see whats going on (like the levels of a building, higher = more range), so you gain a better insight.

This information is not much shared in meditation circles, so people waste their time and lives not knowing they should really request a teacher to show them how to increase their samadhi power and continue to make progress.

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