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Maybe you’re not trying

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Re: Maybe you’re not trying

#71

Post by gamerDude »

yousif_123123 wrote: post #58

I've always noticed that when I'm giving advice to someone or trying to help out, it always feels their problem is easier than whatever problem I have. As someone with some anxiety around things like calling some company to get something done or asking a random stranger for some help in a store, I would gladly do it if it was to help someone else (family member or friend). But when it's for me I find it harder. I won…

I imagine it has to do with vulnerability. When you are asking for something or sharing something, being turned down feels personal. When doing it for someone else, it's no big deal if they say no.

Re: Maybe you’re not trying

#72

Post by codingrightnow »

nicbou wrote: post #55

Great post! I find that this happens when I want to do something The Right Way, but don’t have a clear path, nor the energy to figure one out. For example I want a nice winter wardrobe, but first I have to figure out what I like, what is trendy, where to buy it, what will suit the weather. I am wholly unprepared for it. Suddenly it’s a whole ordeal, so I just wait. In another category - art - I had to learn to be oka…

Isn't there a website that picks your clothes out for you and you send back what you don't like? If you're not actively paying attention to fashion maybe outsource this one.

Re: Maybe you’re not trying

#73

Post by brabel »

lisper wrote: post #17

I think the "maybe you're not actually trying" framing is not very constructive. The author did try, making decisions and taking actions that seemed appropriate for her situation at the time. The problem was that because her attempts to solve the problem failed -- again and again and again -- she stopped trying. Which is a not-entirely-unreasonable thing to do. I would frame it more like: just because you have tried…

The other side of that is that sometimes you just can't win, no matter what. You may end up wasting your life trying and trying anyway. Recognizing when to stop trying is just as important, I think.

Re: Maybe you’re not trying

#74

Post by Dilettante_ »

yetihehe wrote: post #60
Dilettante_ wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No agency" doesn't mean "no consequences". If there's an asteroid flying towards earth, we may blow it up, instead of going "well it's not the poor rocks' fault it's gonna wipe out humanity, so we should just let it."

"No agency" for me means pretty much that. What does "no agency" mean for you?

Difficult to accurately give expression to "the absence of this particular illusion".

In the asteroid metaphor: It means that if you can very clearly see the asteroid coming towards you, instead of going "no, the asteroid is going to do the right thing", you make preparations knowing that there is no do-er inside the asteroid.

And after getting hit by it, you do not go "if only the asteroid had had more willpower it would not have hit us. The next time for sure I'll convince it!"

So by agency, in this context, I mean the ability to change the way reality is into what one thinks it ought to be. (But reality is only ever one way, disregarding quantum mechanical magic for a minute)

Re: Maybe you’re not trying

#75

Post by analog8374 »

Comprehensive agency is best achieved via meditation (specifically, "choiceless awareness"). In my experience.

It's basically a physical approach to applying agency rather than a rational one. Agency becomes a paint sprayer and you spray it everywhere. Your agency expands in all directions. It's pretty great.

Re: Maybe you’re not trying

#76

Post by sn »

nicbou wrote: post #55

Great post! I find that this happens when I want to do something The Right Way, but don’t have a clear path, nor the energy to figure one out. For example I want a nice winter wardrobe, but first I have to figure out what I like, what is trendy, where to buy it, what will suit the weather. I am wholly unprepared for it. Suddenly it’s a whole ordeal, so I just wait. In another category - art - I had to learn to be oka…

With clothes, make it cheap so if you make the wrong decision it's not a big deal.

Also recognize you're engaging in the sunk cost fallacy by keeping clothes you don't actually want, and you're making the world better by allowing it to go to an owner who would better appreciate it.

Some more concrete ideas:

1. thrift stores

2. clothes rentals

3. clothing swaps

4. Buy the cheap version of what you think you might like (if it exists) first before buying the expensive version

5. Don't make your entire wardrobe trendy clothes. Make most of it relatively classic / basic and limit "trendy" to a subset of items.

Re: Maybe you’re not trying

#77

Post by y-curious »

yousif_123123 wrote: post #58

I've always noticed that when I'm giving advice to someone or trying to help out, it always feels their problem is easier than whatever problem I have. As someone with some anxiety around things like calling some company to get something done or asking a random stranger for some help in a store, I would gladly do it if it was to help someone else (family member or friend). But when it's for me I find it harder. I won…

People in the ADHD community are outspoken about a tangential concept: cleaning. Cleaning your friends place is a fun, novel, non-emotional activity. Cleaning your own space is a mental slog, boring and often painful due to having to rid yourself of mementos.

In that case, my theory is that you get to shed your learned helplessness about how things look. I suspect it’s similar with giving advice.

Re: Maybe you’re not trying

#78

Post by xivzgrev »

she's a little hard on herself. She claimed the ideas her husband came up with were not particularly inventive and the same she'd come up with had she been helping a friend

Yet, when she told her friends, they did NOT suggest such actions. They too felt like there was nothing that could be done.

Rather I'd posit that the actions the husband did seemed obvious to the author in hindsight, and that not everyone would easily identify those kinds of actions. We are used to hearing narratives that people in other countries are relatively untouchable (eg scams), so there's already a kind of learned helplessness there.

Re: Maybe you’re not trying

#79

Post by ACCount37 »

yousif_123123 wrote: post #58

I've always noticed that when I'm giving advice to someone or trying to help out, it always feels their problem is easier than whatever problem I have. As someone with some anxiety around things like calling some company to get something done or asking a random stranger for some help in a store, I would gladly do it if it was to help someone else (family member or friend). But when it's for me I find it harder. I won…

When trying to examine someone else's problems, you can see the problem itself. But what you aren't seeing is a pile of all the little habits, beliefs, behaviors, impulses and assorted mind defects that prevented them from solving it in the first place.

It takes intimate familiarity to know all of those things about someone.

If you were in their shoes, the problem might genuinely be trivial, for you. Because you're not that person, and that problem isn't your own failure mode - you would instead fail at a different "trivial" problem and in an entirely different way.

Or maybe you are flawed in the same way, but don't know it yet. You never quite know. Humans aren't any good at that whole "self-awareness" thing.

Re: Maybe you’re not trying

#80

Post by lisper »

brabel wrote: post #73
lisper wrote: post #17

I think the "maybe you're not actually trying" framing is not very constructive. The author did try, making decisions and taking actions that seemed appropriate for her situation at the time. The problem was that because her attempts to solve the problem failed -- again and again and again -- she stopped trying. Which is a not-entirely-unreasonable thing to do. I would frame it more like: just because you have tried…

The other side of that is that sometimes you just can't win, no matter what. You may end up wasting your life trying and trying anyway. Recognizing when to stop trying is just as important, I think.

That is an excellent point. Recognizing and accepting things you can't control is a critical life skill. But either way, "Maybe you're not trying" is not a helpful framing.
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