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Habits of Highly Miserable People

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Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#181

Post by pokemongoaway »

kgwxd wrote: post #30
maerF0x0 wrote: post #6

>Exercise: Sit in a comfortable chair, close your eyes, and, for 15 minutes, meditate on all the things you could lose: your job, your house, your savings, and so forth. Then brood about living in a homeless shelter. really roughly this is what stoics do, yet somehow they come to the conclusion "actually, what was i fearing? Proceed with adventure"...

Those things never really scared me. Do they also meditate on being sick, in constant crippling pain and come to the same conclusion? I get a stomachache and recognize a bad personality change in myself. I dont imagine id be able to draw on the same mental skills while in that state for prolonged periods.

The buddhists do that and more. For example, recognizing the components of the body to such a degree that even when you see the most attractive person you may become entirely disgusted.

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#182

Post by drtillberg »

dwcnnnghm wrote: post #97
tomnipotent wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (r…

This is in fact the only way to maintain credibility with both sides when resolving an argument. Unfortunately judges who routinely follow this rule are uncommon.

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#183

Post by naasking »

kgwxd wrote: post #30
maerF0x0 wrote: post #6

>Exercise: Sit in a comfortable chair, close your eyes, and, for 15 minutes, meditate on all the things you could lose: your job, your house, your savings, and so forth. Then brood about living in a homeless shelter. really roughly this is what stoics do, yet somehow they come to the conclusion "actually, what was i fearing? Proceed with adventure"...

Those things never really scared me. Do they also meditate on being sick, in constant crippling pain and come to the same conclusion? I get a stomachache and recognize a bad personality change in myself. I dont imagine id be able to draw on the same mental skills while in that state for prolonged periods.

> Do they also meditate on being sick, in constant crippling pain and come to the same conclusion?

It's more that they reflect on how much worse things could be, in order to instill gratitude and appreciation for what you already have.

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#184

Post by RickS »

elipsey wrote: post #134

PULIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: author trolls the mentally ill in standard way, says they're doing it for attention. If you have serious psych diagnosis like BP etc., please avoid this content; your loved ones know you're trying and only a handfull of contrarians strike this pose. Get some exercise and a good night's sleep, and stay on your meds. I'm rooting for you. P.S. This trash should not be on HN. It has nothing to…

First, I agree with most of your argument. In persons for whom these traits arise from mental illness, this particular brand of sarcastic blaming of the holder of emotions is likely counterproductive.

With that said, if the overwhelming majority of readers were miserable not via irreparable mental illness, but from well-worn thought processes, and were capable of growth stemming from realizations about their behavior, might this be a productive exercise for more people than not?

While I agree that the format is not maximally nurturing, that's not the same thing as being devoid of value. To call it trash, and to imply that it exists primarily to troll the mentally ill, are arguments made in bad faith IMO.

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#185

Post by geowwy »

elipsey wrote: post #134

PULIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: author trolls the mentally ill in standard way, says they're doing it for attention. If you have serious psych diagnosis like BP etc., please avoid this content; your loved ones know you're trying and only a handfull of contrarians strike this pose. Get some exercise and a good night's sleep, and stay on your meds. I'm rooting for you. P.S. This trash should not be on HN. It has nothing to…

> author trolls the mentally ill in standard way, says they're doing it for attention.

Where does she say that?

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#186

Post by aidenn0 »

vkou wrote: post #121
Fricken wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, it's because I would figure out how to call someone I know to come and get me. You don't end up homeless when you have someone to call to come and get you. You end up homeless when you've burned through that bridge.

Roughly 3/4 of homeless are homeless for less than a year.

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#187

Post by wb36 »

"when your living conditions are stable, peaceful, and prosperous—no civil wars raging in your streets, no mass hunger, no epidemic disease, no vexation from poverty—making yourself miserable is a craft all its own, requiring imagination, vision, and ingenuity."

On the contrary, Tribe by sebastian junger has me fairly convinced me that the irony here is that people band together, find a sense of belonging and often psychological well being under strenuous circumstances more naturally than they do in peaceful, every man for himself and his or her own pursuit of happiness times.

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#188

Post by ppeetteerr »

Bakary wrote: post #86
ppeetteerr wrote: post #45

Love the list, hate the attitude

The attitude is what makes the list useful to those who might benefit from it.

You'll have to take my word that the list has the opposite effect of being helpful. It's rather off-putting to read despite being quite accurate.

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#189

Post by erikpukinskis »

rectang wrote: post #139
RIMR wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is a bit of a controversial opinion, but I always felt that society's reaction to sexual assault give victims a reason to feel even worse about their situation. Not to say that it isn't a severely traumatic thing to experience - it absolutely is. But, we regularly treat virginity as some sort of virtuous status - and then speak of rape victims who lost their virginity to their attacker as if they were str…

Moving on is crucial. However, what I find troubling about that formulation that it appears to deny the victim's experience. Can't we pause, acknowledge the negative, and then move on?

I think the key is to pay attention to where the victim is in their process and honor that.

That may mean not acknowledging the suffering, or it may mean not acknowledging that things will be ok.

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#190

Post by pbhjpbhj »

aidenn0 wrote: post #186
vkou wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's because I would figure out how to call someone I know to come and get me. You don't end up homeless when you have someone to call to come and get you. You end up homeless when you've burned through that bridge.

Roughly 3/4 of homeless are homeless for less than a year.

Because they die, or because they find a home, or ...?
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