I'm similar, but make sure you're addicted to being useful, and not addicted to being needed - the latter can come about by being useful enough. Sometimes it comes from a feeling of wanting control, but opens the door wide open to abusive relationships (both ways).
I'm addicted to being useful
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Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#112Help is the sunny side of control.
Interesting quote and certainly can apply to some people, but this behavior could also be considered as "acts of service" type of "love language". You can take any endearing and genuinely good behavior and make a toxic version out of it.
Helping people is 100% my love language.
My SIL queues up household tasks when I come over. "Hey I got this new thermostat, can you help me put it on?" kinda stuff that she could do herself but she knows that's what makes me feel fulfilled.
Point being: GP - calm down bud. ;-)
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#113>> But despite all that, I’m still having a blast This is proves its mostly over for the high income industry. There are no good paying jobs where you are having a blast. Otherwise there is a lot of those who want to do that job which drives wages waay down. High paying jobs are tough/stressful/not fun. Which was the case with software before.
Bullshit. There are some dysfunctional exceptions, but higher pay usually correlates with more freedom, more responsibility and access to more resources. You may get frustrated in Big Tech, because nowadays, people like to have no bounds in their expectations, but try changing your big tech job for a job in the oil or insurance industry with half the pay, and you'll see that most of the time, you not getting a blast out of your 600k job is mostly your fault.
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#114I fight for the Users
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
I frame it not as turning a dial down, but as switching channel from practical problem-solver to emotional problem-solver. Often when someone wants to talk about a situation involving difficult feelings, they're actually trying to process those feelings: to understand where the feelings are coming from, to be validated, and to be able to take a broader perspective. You can help by being curious about what they're say…
> they're actually trying to process those feelings: to understand where the feelings are coming from, to be validated, and to be able to take a broader perspective. If you’re speaking to a rational person with good intentions and good self-management this can help a lot. If the other person doesn’t have good emotional regulation and is prone to catastrophizing, exaggeration, or excessive self-victimization then vali…
> then validating and reinforcing their emotions isn’t always helpful
I think you might misintrepet what "validating someone's emotions" is/should do. It's not "You're absolutely right for feeling completely sad and broken down because the cafe wasn't open", but more "That must be such a horrible feeling, to feel so sad and broken down", without saying "yes/no" to if you think it's "justified or not".
The point is that the person is feeling what they're feeling, that's what the validation and acceptance comes in, not about what they're feeling those feelings about.
In the end, you can validate someone's feelings without validating what they're feeling those about, by just saying "that sucks".
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Buddy, this is the second comment in here where you want us to blame some unknown Other for our problems. That is a dead end. And gray hair doesn’t confer wisdom, as Thoreau said. Signed, some guy in his 50s.
Sorry, my bad, fourth comment.
Hey, it isn’t always the case - but sometimes you really are being sabotaged, and not recognizing the possibility just screws you more.
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#117I find it kinda amazing how these vaporware equivalent nullprose keep on hitting the front page.
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#118I feel the same way. I retired last summer, but that only means that I found a place that needs me, where I can work part time without worrying too much about money. I remember, decades ago, reading an article about some African politician visiting the UK. He was given a tour, which included some of the social housing. The UK bragging about how they took care of their people. He saw people sitting around with with th…
I'm skeptical of this perspective as most social housing in the UK and the USA have stiff REQUIREMENTS that housing residents be either either employed OR be showing proof of interviewing OR enroll in a job placement program (which requires active training participation). If you fail these, you are generally kicked out of these social housing programs.
Maybe there are some exceptions here and there, but it's generally unusual to have social housing without strict policies and monitored policies on job placements. This policy exists as social housing is highly limited and the administrators wants people to get jobs so that they move out (and into a better shelter they can now afford).
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#119>> But despite all that, I’m still having a blast This is proves its mostly over for the high income industry. There are no good paying jobs where you are having a blast. Otherwise there is a lot of those who want to do that job which drives wages waay down. High paying jobs are tough/stressful/not fun. Which was the case with software before.
What if I'm having a blast doing the tasks no one wants to do that are in the backlog.
Maybe you're incredibly lucky? But I wouldn't count on that luck lasting.
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#120> I don’t mind the ways in which my job is dysfunctional, because it matches the ways in which I myself am dysfunctional As a fellow traveller, I offer one caution: learn to turn this down in personal relationships as it can be counterproductive. It took decades for my wife to finally get through and explain not every problem she voices is something that needs a solution. Some times people just want to be heard. It b…
Yeah one thing that came out of couple therapy with my ex-wife is exactly this.
After I started explicitly asking if she wanted “problem solving” or “listening” things improved significantly.
Ultimately things did not work out for other reasons, but I have been able to successfully apply this in a new long-term relationship.