The problem I'm getting as I get older I'm starting to overshoot and not care about anyone's opinions, turning into a grumpy old man who doesnt care any more. :)
It is what it is, as the old saying goes.
The art of not taking things personally
101–110 of 177 posts
Re: The art of not taking things personally
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean by "fragility?"
I meant it as a type of sensitivity. Like, someone reacting harshly to a slight or an insult. A lack of confidence is what I’m trying to communicate in the first sentence. They need other’s judgement to validate themselves.
I see, thanks for clarifying.
Re: The art of not taking things personally
#103As I get older, the less I identify as my current state and the more I identify with the person who transitions through states. My change in perspective has reduced my anxieties and anger significantly. "This too shall pass" and all that. The more of my self image is focused on superficial things, the more I will take things personally. What we are angry about tends to be a reflection of ourselves more than the curre…
I've had this experience myself. Actually, your description is so much kinder than mine that I think I will adopt it. What I have said up until now is that as I've gotten older, my emotional level has declined very substantially, especially in the last ten years. It's like the volume got turned down. Very few things bother me, and very few things excite me. I'd associated it until now with a sort of depersonalization…
I can relate. Everything is approaching a bland, grey state of "it just is".
Well, I do still talk down on and find myself frustrated by not progressing my career, but I think I am on a precipice of no longer caring. Reading HN too much is not good for my mental health though I suspect.
Re: The art of not taking things personally
#104Counterpoint: enlightenment is overrated and life is meant to be taken personally. In some senses, it is a bit cowardly to run away from the current moment we live in by stepping back and viewing the big picture too often. "Negative" emotions and experiences are valid parts of life. Anger, anxiety, fear etc are all part of being a human being and have evolved over billions of years to reach their current forms. We ma…
> no one is actually the Buddha I'm an atheist, but I've studied this, and I think this is a matter of major disagreement in the different schools. In the west, more contemporary (and often secular) teachers talk about how everyone is a potential Buddha. There are also close parallels with the more hippie, Christian schools that arose in the 1960s-1970s era (intentional communities) which also taught (quietly I might…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_mysticism
Historically, Christian mysticism has taught that for Christians the major emphasis of mysticism concerns a spiritual transformation of the egoic self, the following of a path designed to produce more fully realized human persons, "created in the Image and Likeness of God" and as such, living in harmonious communion with God, the Church, the rest of the world, and all creation, including oneself. For Christians, this human potential is realized most perfectly in Jesus, precisely because he is both God and human, and is manifested in others through their association with him, whether conscious, as in the case of Christian mystics, or unconscious, with regard to spiritual persons who follow other traditions, such as Gandhi. The Eastern Christian tradition speaks of this transformation in terms of theosis or divinization, perhaps best summed up by an ancient aphorism usually attributed to Athanasius of Alexandria: "God became human so that man might become god."[a]
Re: The art of not taking things personally
#105I think the world would be better if more people practiced the suggestions in this page. Many humans lack compassion. People on all sides of all issues behave due to similar fundamental reasons: fear, uncertainty, anxiety. If people looked past the superficial and helped comfort people who are unlike them in addition to those who are similar, we might be able to find solutions to more issues.
[deleted]
Re: The art of not taking things personally
#106I scanned the page for 'empathy' and there was not a single mention of it. 'Emotional generosity', the thing at the start of the article, doesn't count. I don't know where that language came from but it doesn't sound empathetic, it sounds transactional. I don't really care for what else the author has to say, having understood that
from article,
"10. Every Negative Emotion is Driven by an Unmet Need.
Here’s a link of commonly unmet universal needs at work:"
and a graphic with empathy at the top of the center column.
Trivial, but entertaining for me to notice this.
Re: The art of not taking things personally
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've had this experience myself. Actually, your description is so much kinder than mine that I think I will adopt it. What I have said up until now is that as I've gotten older, my emotional level has declined very substantially, especially in the last ten years. It's like the volume got turned down. Very few things bother me, and very few things excite me. I'd associated it until now with a sort of depersonalization…
Aristoteles wrote this is the goal IIRC. In buddhism they aim for something similar, neither being swayed by your desires nor fears, stay calm enables being able to act instead only reacting to external stimuli on autopilot. Nothing wrong with it IMSO.
I think the word for this is "equanimity" and it is certainly a desirable state.
But it should not be "grey" like the sibling comment indicates but full of joy, bliss and wonder.
I think experiencing equanimity is a sign of releasing the ego which is natural as we age and become less attached to our ideas of who we are and closer to the reality of our impending death
Re: The art of not taking things personally
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've had this experience myself. Actually, your description is so much kinder than mine that I think I will adopt it. What I have said up until now is that as I've gotten older, my emotional level has declined very substantially, especially in the last ten years. It's like the volume got turned down. Very few things bother me, and very few things excite me. I'd associated it until now with a sort of depersonalization…
> Very few things bother me, and very few things excite me. In my view, this is perfectly natural. Your emotions are tied to your expectations. As you grow older, you have seen more things, and better know what to expect. The first time you drop your ice cream cone on the ground as a child, you learn that a delicious treat can be destroyed so easily! When you drop your ice cream cone on the ground as an adult, it's l…
Some people, however [0] deliberately try to search out more noteworthy events to counter this temporal trend.
[0] this is not a reference to real persons, living or dead and any similarity to my wife is purely coincidental.
Re: The art of not taking things personally
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's important not to judge the world by its effect on your internal state. The world isn't party to your internal state, although you walk around with an illusion of transparency. People are doing things for their own reasons, not for yours. Sure, I agree. This isn't a contradiction with my post. > Referring to the Buddha in order to make emotional regulation seem like an unachievable perfection is not really a go…
> We can try to steer the elephant, and may have some success with that on occasion, but complete control is not possible. What I am saying, is that it's ok to let the elephant do what it wants sometimes, because ultimately it's going to do that a lot of the time anyway. That's not a sound argument though. E.g. the fact that you can't save every starving child in no way proves that you shouldn't try as hard as you ca…
This isn't related to the prior subject of the thread, but:
> E.g. the fact that you can't save every starving child in no way proves that you shouldn't try as hard as you can to save those that you can.
"Shouldn't" is doing a lot of work there. Why should anything be done? It's a question of morals.
So on the moral question of whether someone should try as hard as they can to save as many starving children as possible: I don't do that. I'm pretty certain 100% of people here including you don't either. Actually 100% of the world aside from perhaps the parents of said starving children plus a rounding error of extremely passionate and dedicated people will do so.
So I think that is pretty well established isn't it? You need not try as hard as you can to save starving children.
Better analogy might be that you can't prevent being in an automobile accident all the time, that doesn't make it okay to stop paying attention sometimes.
Re: The art of not taking things personally
#110My problem is taking things personally is what motivates me to do things, because of it I'm always stressed or anxious ,
the social points author mentioning is reasonable but for me its hard to separate things, which to take personally?, which not to take personally?, because the opposite party is commenting my o/p.
The authors mind is what i imagine a peaceful mind look like, ``` yeah i want to be like that someday?```, but its hard to avoid the triggers,
like if my manager arrange meeting with me for certain time, but always late for meeting, so i can imagine two things 1) he does not give enough important for the meeting with me (because on customer meeting he is on time) 2) he is lazy most of the time but on customer meetings he comes on time, so i have to imagine him being lazy
so by the article's point i have to choose 2nd point so i don't take it personally, but my mind knows I'm a subordinate and not as important as client, or he is comfortable with me
--------- above is how my mind try to reason to take it personally, :-) could someone suggest how to escape it?