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Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity?

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201–210 of 213 posts

Re: Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity?

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I had to devise most of this myself as I've had a physical & mental, disability that was getting worse and worse with no cure or useful treatment. I'm writing things up at the moment, basically an explanation of how muscular imbalances lead to brain and nerve dysfunction causing (possibly explaining, depression, anxiety and a whole lot of other things) and what to do about it. I should be able to share in a…

If you're gonna post it here I'll just keep tabs on your profile since I don't use Twitter. Looking forward to the post!

Sure thing. I think I should be able to post it here by the beginning of Dec.

Re: Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity?

#202
by channeling my energy into something totally different for example hydroponics. It takes a lot of time to setup and gives fruitful results in the end. Works wonderful as a distraction. If you want to start your own hydroponic garden check this out https://howhydroponics.com/how-to-grow-hydroponic-basil/

Re: Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity?

#205
post #49

Have you ever read the book "How to win Friends and Influence People?" It really helped me become a more positive, likable person. Something about viewing the world through everyone else's eyes and appreciating the good points in everyone. It's weird because it's common sense stuff, but it was a game changer for me. Now I'm friends with the grocery store clerk, the home depot guy, my neighbors, coworkers etc. I try t…

I read that book and as I recall, it makes the point that you need to have the intention and motivation to make it work, or else it won't matter. Whereas for me, the reasons I am always considering negative stuff (I just find it important to think in worst-case scenarios for various reasons), completely outweigh any desire I have to be more friendly and likeable. This has made my marriage difficult at times, and I've…

You might want to look into the book Nonviolent Communication.

Re: Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity?

#206
post #205
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read that book and as I recall, it makes the point that you need to have the intention and motivation to make it work, or else it won't matter. Whereas for me, the reasons I am always considering negative stuff (I just find it important to think in worst-case scenarios for various reasons), completely outweigh any desire I have to be more friendly and likeable. This has made my marriage difficult at times, and I've…

You might want to look into the book Nonviolent Communication .

That looks like a how-to book, not a why book.

Re: Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity?

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are obvious signs: the lack of politeness, urgency of expressing themselves first, not giving you space to talk, tone, and also the adequacy of the issue at hand. When people go mad for small secondary issues you know. Or when there could be 100 different topics to discuss, some good, some bad, but only the bad gets mentioned.

I can accept a lot of different tones. I have my problems with secondary theaters as well, but that is to be expected. Different people care for different topics. And while civility is a tool to prevent topics getting personal, I believe it needs to be balanced with directness in a discussion, which can be perceived as rough. I believe a lot of this comes when people contrast online and offline discussion. In the (cl…

I didn't meant it as a snowflake argument. I love criticism, I'm an overachiever, you can never give me enough challenges. But some people are not bringing anything valuable, it's just diverted negative emotions that will grind you. If the situation is tough, I accept tough critics, if the situation is normal then i want friendly or smart. The rest is toxic uncalled for noise.

Re: Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity?

#208
I think pessimism is a professional deformation of programmers. We have to be pessimists in order to build good software. We have to think of the edge cases and everything that might go wrong with the implementation. And this pessimism spills over to personal life.

I'm not sure of the best way to fix this, as I'm working on it myself, but one of the things that helped is realizing that negative thinking comes from a voice in my head that interprets everything in a negative way. Just noticing and registering that negative voice has helped me be more positive.

Re: Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity?

#209

This is gonna come out really childish, but here goes: You know those games where you select the phrases you want your character to say, and certain phrases lead you to different scenarios ? Games like Detroit become human. All those choices form a tree where each choice is a branching point. What I've found in RL is that negative actions generally lead to smaller paths in the "choice tree", which is generally no fun…

There's no need to qualify your comment. The way you described decision making is clear and evocative. In fact, you helped me visualize how I either prune or increase the amount of my possible futures based on the emotional valence from which my decisions stem.

Thanks for those words nefitty!

I'm glad I was of use.

Re: Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity?

#210
Why do you feel like you "need to get [your negativity] out?" What's the connection between thinking these thoughts, like evaluating worst case scenarios, and blogging them or saying them to your spouse?

Does it bother you that other people may be content with things that you see flaws or risks in? Are they wrong? Do you need to make sure they are informed of the same problems for you to be at peace?

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