How We Got to Be So Self-Absorbed: The Long Story

I think it follows that you also take away the ability to honestly reflect upon and comprehend one's own behavior. For this reason I've come to the belief that the trend to encourage people to "never regret" limits self-growth and even limits empathy[1].

Maybe it's the latent Catholic in me, but regret and shame are very primitive and _necessary_ emotions. Yes, they're often abused by society and individuals to harm others. But to recognize that doesn't require that they should be denied or suppressed. Empathy and sympathy can be manipulated to harm people, too; that doesn't mean people should instead become hardened sociopaths. The only difference here is that empathy (especially when received) is pleasurable, while regret and shame are painful. But to believe that distinction makes one legitimate and constructive and the other illegitimate and destructive is fundamentally hedonistic and narcissistic. These emotions are largely environmental inputs (directly or indirectly, immediate and latent) that we need to learn to affirmatively assimilate to better understand ourselves and the world around us. Denying, suppressing, or categorically desensitizing oneself to these emotions is not assimilation; quite the opposite.

[1] For example, by obscuring one's own hypocrisy--living by a rule that says never judge oneself is much easier than living by a rule that says never judge someone else. So it exacerbates an asymmetry between understanding one's own secret motivations and understanding someone else's secret motivations.

I say this as someone who was depressed about who I was, affected a lot of (positive, by most standards) change in myself over several years, but didn't catch my self-esteem up for several more. The initial painful spark to improve yourself can be good and is I think underrated today, but nurturing it can hurt you even as it makes you strong.

In a sense, it's already all bought and paid for, as with most "news" outlets, and the same is true for HN, albeit with a specialization for technology.

E.g. one exercise conducted on the very first day - so that no one really new who anyone else was - involved 5 minutes of wandering around the room in silence, approaching another and looking at them for approx 5 secs. You then had to say one of two things: "I trust you." or "I don't trust you."

There was only one person who I labeled as untrustworthy. I vividly remember his image and that he looked like the stereotype of a used car salesman. However by the end of the seminar I found him to be a smart, witty, sensitive and caring individual. The exact opposite of my initial evaluation.

I knew that one shouldn't "judge a book by its cover" ever since I was little but that experience and others like them in those seminars really set me back on my heels. I still recall it when I have an initial adverse reaction to someone new.

Unfortunately after finishing the 2nd seminar the whole Amway/pyramid-scheme aspect of it kicked in and completely turned me off and I cut ties altogether. However I still think that I might be a little worse off for not having gone through that.