71–80 of 141 posts
Is this why some antidepressants work, they can break the cycle ?
Something I wish my parents had told me when I was growing up: You, the thing listening to this advice, is just a small part of a greater whole, much of which you (the thing listening to this advice) are not consciously aware of. This is because you were built by your genes to be good mainly at one thing: reproducing. That's all your genes care about. They don't care about your happiness or achievements or having a f…
I actually go the completely opposite way, and I'm the happiest person I know. I own everything, everything that happens to me, everything that goes wrong around me, I take my share of responsibility in it. Analyze what I can do to improve it, and do it. When I think like what you mentioned I tend to lose control of my emotions, I feel angrier, I feel sadder. When I own what happens to me, I feel peace. I know almost…
Something I wish my parents had told me when I was growing up: You, the thing listening to this advice, is just a small part of a greater whole, much of which you (the thing listening to this advice) are not consciously aware of. This is because you were built by your genes to be good mainly at one thing: reproducing. That's all your genes care about. They don't care about your happiness or achievements or having a f…
It's nice if that works for you but for me it totally doesn't. I have once also tried to teach myself to think that way, but in the end figured out I'd just be lying to myself by trying to come up with an alternate formulation of a problem which makes it sounds less of a problem but in reality doesn't help as it does not find a solution.
For example me being depressed is just me, no way around it. Physically speaking it's probably the non-depressed version but with some altered chemical levels causing the brain areas where it originates to be more actuated than the rest. But it's still the same body, still the same mind, just an altered state. I found embracing that and reflecting on it works better than the 'it's being done to me' thought because the latter, to me, implies there's a cause to be found and to be cured. I'm an engineer, after all. Finding the cause of depression I wasted years of thinking on already, let alone curing it. It doesn't work. So better deal with it. Which is basically what Stoicism teaches us, btw.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually go the completely opposite way, and I'm the happiest person I know. I own everything, everything that happens to me, everything that goes wrong around me, I take my share of responsibility in it. Analyze what I can do to improve it, and do it. When I think like what you mentioned I tend to lose control of my emotions, I feel angrier, I feel sadder. When I own what happens to me, I feel peace. I know almost…
> I own everything, everything that happens to me Really? Everything that happens to you? What if you were mugged? I think you can (and should) take responsibility for what you do (or don't do), but I don't think you can (or should) take responsibility for what you feel because you don't have control over that.
Walking down a dark alley, alone, at night and not having a sense of situational awareness. I was nearly mugged because of that, and now have a much greater sense of situational awareness.
I know, I know, blaming the victim is bad, but sometimes clearly assessing what led you to be in a certain type of situation can help you avoid those types of situations in the future.
Alan Watts said it better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emHAoQGoQic worrying about worrying about worrying
Are there any existing recordings of Alan Watts that don't contain a distracting background track? If what he has to say is actually useful, there is no need for the cheap trick.
Also (good starter collection): https://www.discogs.com/Alan-Watts-Out-Of-Your-Mind/release/...
(There seems to be a small industry of YouTubers taking snippets of Watts and adding music and images to make short inspiring videos. To be fair, most of them don't do the background music thing.)
This article is going to make you feel bad about "feeling bad about feeling bad"...don't go there. You've been warned.
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Why is it annoying? Who told you that you need to feel bad?
By having those sorts of thoughts, you are privileging that aspect of them over any other sort of accomplishments they might have. They have less opportunity to present themselves in the way they would like to. Imagine if everyone around you in your workplace would think about how you're dressed instead of what you're actually trying to talk to them about.
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Looking at a young woman and the first thing that clicks on my head its asking and answering "is she attractive?" in a matter of milliseconds; its annoying as hell... why can't my first through be something more interesting? or at least why can't it be nothing at all so it doesn't interrupt my thinking? but I have come to realize that this is a more of a hormonal reflex than what we usually consider "a thought"; an a…
Why is it annoying? Who told you that you need to feel bad?
Because it affects his concentration? He already expressed that in his post
" or at least why can't it be nothing at all so it doesn't interrupt my thinking"