41–50 of 77 posts
Perhaps we should be thinking more long-term than we are... ;)
This is something I tried very hard to teach my kids, basically that everyone gets to choose how they are going to feel about something, and understanding what set of conditions lead up to the choice you made can help you understand yourself and the world around you. The typical kid complaint is that someone 'makes fun' of something that they are passionate about and that makes them feel 'bad' (ashamed, angry, annoye…
Emotions do seem to have a life of their own. They seem like the results of deep and unknown mechanisms that I unfortunately have no control on. The best I can do is know myself better and manage that. For example, stress is an issue, and the only way I seem to be able to decrease my stress is to avoid stressful situations (for example avoiding too much work/responsibilities), instead of being able to deal with them. This means limitations with work load/pressure or certain social situations, where I get exhausted quickly.
That said, I've never studied buddhism or meditation. Could these help me control those deep inner workings?
I want to share something that really impacted me in a big way, related to this notions being discussed here. It was something I saw in a museum in New York state, about 1 hour north of New York City - I cant remember the name of the museum or the artist or the piece. It was, literally, a matrix, where every point was a day in your life. The shocking thing about it was that you could see it in its entirety pretty wel…
This reminds me of "Think and Grow Rich" - Best book ever written. I cant even remember how many times I have read it. If I could I would purchase a million copies and give them away for free. It's that good.
Now, I'm a father. My son has an easy life. No real responsibilities. But he has his moments of wanting to express his profound unhappiness with what the day holds for him. So I ask him "Do you want to have a good day, or a bad day?" He tells me he wants to have a good day. I tell him that we have things to do and it may not be what he thinks he wants, but he can choose if he wants to be happy. This works surprising well on a four year old. He is almost seven now and I rarely have to remind him of this choice anymore.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm starting to realize that those who do what they love find more success than those who do what they "need" to do in the long term. I'm fairly sure that the children would also rather have parents who are having fun and are happy than those that are sad and bored but bring in an extra $20,000 a year. I don't have children though, so I can't really empathize on a deep level, I'm just going by intuition.
It's a fair point, but you need to consider the fact that the extra $20,000 a year could mean the difference between a big college loan and a smaller one (or no loan at all!), and the size of your college loan, which will in time become college debt, can have a profound psychological effect on what you want to do with your life. I'm not sure I'd be confident in a start-up as opposed to a stable job if I had $20,000 m…
I was able to pay it all off in about three years after getting out by just sticking with the college lifestyle while I worked.
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Not spend the next 34% of your life working on something you don't love, for one. Even in our current technological state, a life of toil on things you don't love is the default state of a human being.
Or you could learn how to love the things you are already working on. That option is easily overlooked.
In grade 5, I realized that life was meaningless and I might as well stop caring and just enjoy myself. So I started a long process of emotional change. The easiest thing to get rid of was my empathy, which I got rid of in grade 6. I can still feel sad or happy for others, but it's by choice. I can easily stop myself from emulating their emotions, and in fact I don't anymore by default. Then there was the huge stress that came up whenever I had to get into a social situation. That took a much longer time to remove. For years I would tell myself "who cares what other people think of me?", and try to get myself to do something which would put me into a social situation, but it had very slow results. It wasn't until secondary 4 that I had (mostly) gotten rid of my shyness. And interestingly enough, the first thing to go was the emotion, and then the physical reaction. At some point in secondary 4, someone insulting me would not make me feel a thing, but it would make my eyes a bit waterry, and it would make me gulp.
Though I am now mostly not emotionally affected by bad situations, I have not been able to get rid of the effects of emotion that come from physical things, like pain or being tired. Being tired just zaps the joy out of me. Perhaps you can learn to withstand pain by trying to replace it by better emotions (for example, by cracking jokes), though I haven't experimented with that.
Some good books that go into depth on this insight: Antonio Damasio's "The Feeling of What Happens, Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness", and Jonathan Haidt's "The Happiness Hypothesis". In a nutshell Damsio gives a framework for what consciousness is, and Haidt gives some insight on how to hack your consciousness to do better at life. (I'm unsure if Damasio is actually considered related to positive psychology ... but it is great background.)
Another resource is to research Viktor Frankl. His story and writings put most any common day issues into stark perspective.
For one thing, it's naive. Any attempt to assert that "X is entirely my fault" is naive. How can you eliminate the impact of your circumstances? For instance, you're here in 2012, working in San Francisco - one of the most exciting times/places ever.
For another, it's happiness-centric, which is boring. I basically don't trust anyone who says that the point of their life is "happiness." Frankly, the idea creeps me out. Sure, happiness is nice. So are transcendance, admiration, comfort, contentment. I also like nostalgia, gloom, longing, ... Life is not some simple game where you can just declare yourself the winner.
Finally, it's positivity-centric. One of my least favorite things about the ethos of the bay area is its inability to bluntly deal with negative feelings/ideas. Everything's always supposed to be getting better all the time - feeling better, running faster, etc. It's boring and unrealistic.
I worry about what will happen to someone who has this sort of mindset when they are older - when the illusion that they are in control of their happiness begins to fade - what happens when calamity strikes.
The universe is very old and you are a tiny speck in it. Concentrating on yourself in this way is like a dog chasing its own tail.
PS - God, and it's so arrogant. I hate this type of "I've figured it out! Eureka!" post/sentiment/essay. It's like a Buddhist claiming that they've been enlightened. It just smacks of self-aggrandizement and insecurity. Blech.