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Habits of Highly Miserable People

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Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#91

Post by placebo »

pagnol wrote: post #41
fwip wrote: post #35

Number 3, "Give yourself a negative identity," just sounds like "I don't like when people have mental health problems. Get over it already."

Are you practicing number 5? If so, great job!

not necessarily - he could just be invoking the "do not attribute to malice what can easily be explained by stupidity" rule

It's not always so easy to tell apart the things you have control over vs. the things you don't, but I think that all these rules can be summarized in one line, which is basically: If you're feeling sorry for yourself, you'd better find something more productive to do.

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#92

Post by u09v0uy09 »

solarkraft wrote: post #46
fwip wrote: post #35

Number 3, "Give yourself a negative identity," just sounds like "I don't like when people have mental health problems. Get over it already."

Not fully. The point (I think) is not letting oneself be consumed by a problem & constantly identifying to be about it. There are way more things to define you.

That's a handy LPT that is lost on people "consumed by a problem" already.

To borrow from Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

I take writings like this as rather tongue-in-cheek. I feel they dismiss reality: we easily define others as X because we lack information.

We'll label a person miserable or outcast, rather than be interested in their take, regardless. Because the way they approach discourse doesn't abide the popular meme.

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#93

Post by Fricken »

selestify wrote: post #79
Zelphyr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea behind the exercise, from a Stoicism standpoint, is to mentally expose yourself to the fear of being homeless (or whatever about the exercise creates anxiety for you). Eventually you desensitize yourself to that feeling and begin to realize it wouldn't be as bad as you think. This is also an aspect of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).

Umm... seeing how the homeless live, it really would be as bad as I think. Probably even worse, since I don't see all of it.

Most homeless people are suffering from a cocktail of problems with abuse, mental illness and drugs. If you woke one one morning to find yourself on the street with ragged clothes and empty pockets in a foreign city, but you still had your wits about you, you likely wouldn't be there for long.

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#95

Post by seszett »

narag wrote: post #65

I used to know the person that probably served as a model for this article. Not only does this method work to make yourself miserable, but also all the people around you. If you detect this behaviour, run like hell.

I did not think these things were so simple, but... yes, I used to know someone that could have served as a model for the article as well. Every single point seems to apply to this person.

This list can hurt some feelings, but it sure could help some people if it was more widely known.

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#97

Post by dwcnnnghm »

tomnipotent wrote: post #85
Tade0 wrote: post #37

> 5. Attribute bad intentions. Me and my SO have serendipitously discovered a great way to defuse arguments: it's the question "Are you accusing me of foulness?" (any sufficiently Victorian synonym works here) For some reason most people reflexively deny this in reply and realise that they've been attributing bad intentions groundlessly. Unfortunately this doesn't work on people who have a mindset which requires ther…

Reminds me of the Principle of charity [1] that "requires interpreting a speaker's statements in the most rational way possible and, in the case of any argument, considering its best, strongest possible interpretation" . I've found adopting this mindset to be one of the most important habits I've picked up, and eliminates so much drama. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

This is also the basis of the Steel Man Argument [0] [1], as opposed to Straw-manning. Instead of attacking (basically nitpicking) the easy missteps in your opponent's reasoning, find the best form of their argument, and then argue with this. It seems to me as the ideal way to both win over those on the other side and provide yourself with a solid ground. You present yourself as avoiding undermining their position (really listening and caring to understand where they are coming from) and present a better argument yourself.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man#Steelmanning

[1] https://lifehacker.com/utilize-the-steel-man-tactic-to-argue...

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#99

Post by dwcnnnghm »

Tade0 wrote: post #37

> 5. Attribute bad intentions. Me and my SO have serendipitously discovered a great way to defuse arguments: it's the question "Are you accusing me of foulness?" (any sufficiently Victorian synonym works here) For some reason most people reflexively deny this in reply and realise that they've been attributing bad intentions groundlessly. Unfortunately this doesn't work on people who have a mindset which requires ther…

This is great. Another wonderful piece of advice I had read somewhere for similar situations is:

"remember that an argument between you and your partner is you two against the issue rather than against one another"

I think it is a great way to refocus the conversation and work toward a solution.

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