FOUND THE PROBLEM Optimism and pessimism are not strategies. They are outlooks. It's purest egocentric sophistry to conclude that your regard of a problem will have any effect on its outcome. The way you feel about something will only affect your interaction with it, and the interactions of those you interact with. Your emotions have as much effect on the physics of the situation as the color of a car has on its wet-weather performance. However The way you regard a situation or problem has a definite impact on the way others regard you and if you haven't figured it out yet, lemme tell ya: a negative outlook is about the most divisive thing you can throw into a group dynamic. There's a reason all those African kids you always see are smiling - smiles are non-threatening. Smiles indicate you are open. Smiles are what we do to growling dogs to calm them down. The only thing you can affect are the dynamics of your interpersonal relationships. Pessimism corrodes them and retards their potential. Optimism is truly inspirational - you will find that a positive outlook and charisma are closely correlated. So it comes down to this: you and the rest of humanity are careening through a universe of physics, chemistry and probability together. If you do it with a smile on your face, the rest of the human race will try to help you. If you do it with a frown they avoid you. Depression is isolating in many ways - not the least of which it makes people not want to hang out with you. So take it from someone who spent the entirety of his teenaged years on the ragged edge of jumping off a cliff - fake it 'til you make it. THAT is rationality: recognizing that there aren't many things you can impact, but pessimism impacts them negatively.
I'm not just talking about regard, I'm talking about planning. I'm talking about damage control. Subjectively, those people I have seen as most optimistic tend to be ill-prepared for when things go to shit, or even don't go as planned. They suffer a worse loss, measurable in dollars or time, compared to those who are realistic or pessimistic. Maybe this is why I have always found motivational speakers of every creed so distasteful. Been faking it for a while now, on the edge of 'making it' I think. ( _refugee_ , P-Words on Pedestals) Cash Rules Everything Around Me, C.R.E.A.M. get the money, dolla dolla bill y'all. But faking sucks. I did an exercise to help identify personal values almost a year ago with my counselor. Number 1, above literally everything else on a big pyramid of 'things OB values' was truth. I'm faking it, because it gets things done, but it's still a lie. The big things that scare the shit out of me, make me existentially worried, none of those issues have suddenly resolved themselves. The wolves are still pacing just outside the firelight, waiting. Every school of thought I've read about that considers the things that I worry about basically says 'Find something else to fill your time' which I read as 'Put on a blindfold so you don't have to see the firing squad' except for some of the most nihilistic buddhist apocrypha, which says to cultivate the stillness of a corpse, comfortable in it's grave.Optimism is truly inspirational
- fake it 'til you make it.
OB, There are some things we cannot help. Whatever those big things that existentially worry you are, they may be permanently unresolvable and/or mechanisms of life and unavoidable. Personally, I have a set of feelings about certain situations that, no matter how much therapy I have been to, does not lift. I could talk for years and years about these feelings. I know what contributed to these feelings. I know that I may naturally also just be inclined towards these feelings, despite all the factors in childhood and adolescence that pushed me towards them. I cannot help it if my mind works in a certain way. I have never been able to stop caring about certain things and factors in my life and prioritizing them over others and even sometimes my health. Sometimes caring about these things destroys my happiness. I have talked to therapists about them for years, and years, and years, and by the end the last therapist was super impressed that I could analytically pin-point and understand all these many, many causes and factors that rolled up into the joyful bundle of "Why I Am This Way." I'm not in therapy right now. I'm not in therapy right now because I felt like I hit a point where it couldn't do much more for me. I had stopped all the problematic behaviors. This began to bother me a year or so ago when I felt the feelings raise their heads again. I was determined not to give in to the feelings. I didn't. But I still felt them. In a kind of beaten desperation I asked a very dear friend who I have known for a very long time and who I tell almost everything (and who is very smart besides), "Is this how it's going to be? Is the solution not 'cure the problem' but 'have healthy coping mechanisms for when it happens'?" And he said, "Yeah, ref...Basically, yeah." It is not encouraging. It makes my therapeutic 'victories' seem hollow in a way. But it is the only thing that I can hold on to in order to make sure that I am living well, or healthily. The only thing different between me and the girl with the bad condition at the therapist's every week who you can just tell something is wrong with, varying degrees of wrong, is that I have done work to learn healthy coping mechanisms. I have done work to not embrace my illness, which was a big battle for me because I felt without my illness I would surely become what I was afraid of. I would descend into failure. I felt that self-loathing saved me from becoming what I was afraid of and would truly hate; what I couldn't stand to be. I have realized that even though this is my body, and even though part of me feels, very strongly, "This is my body and it is my right to do as I wish with it and it is no one's right to moderate that or step in," that's not the way society works. I have basically acknowledged that some things I think I should be able to do without scrutiny or gawking I cannot because society mandates certain norms and the violation of those norms means the revocation of privileges, and I value those privileges more than the right to do what I want with my body. The wolves may never go away. They may fade; they may disappear for years or months; they may come back stronger than ever, or not, only in small feeble groupings. I hope this doesn't disappoint you or fill you with despair. But sometimes, the wolves don't go away, and all you can do is fight to keep them out of the firelight when they show up. kb will probably reassure us that each time, generally, it gets easier. Sometimes it doesn't though, and that's what I guess I prepare for with my defensive pessimism: I know trauma happens, the death of a loved one, loss of a job, break-up, divorce, buying a house, kids. So I keep the wolves back, and I hold my guard, and watch out for signs that things may get really bad. If you are grappling with wolves that have been there your entire life, they may not go away. If they have popped up in the past 3 years, maybe they will. You have the best insight into how much they impact you and how much you can control them. Don't expect them to go away. But never invite them in.
________________ And if that makes you ask, "Well what's the point?" I would rather fight my demons than let them ride me. I would rather beat them down as much as I can so that I succeed in what I love. For you, working in the medical field. For me, writing poetry. You must be healthy to do good in this world and to keep doing good. It is not that I would rather fade away than burn out - it is that I believe there is still so much to learn before I could even be considered a flame that could do either. __ And I'm sorry if I am reading too much into your situation and injecting myself in it. It's just - much of what you say and seem to feel feels very, very familiar. __
And to think, I was going to be quiet on Hubski this week. Haaaaa.The wolves are still pacing just outside the firelight, waiting. Every school of thought I've read about that considers the things that I worry about basically says 'Find something else to fill your time' which I read as 'Put on a blindfold so you don't have to see the firing squad'
Hit the nail on the head. If I stop being critical of myself I will descend into a comfortable path to suicide. I've talked about it before, the 'adequate' spouse, 'adequate' house, 'adequate' kids, 'adequate' addictions, 'adequate' insanity and an 'adequate' suicide. Xanax my way right into driving off a cliff.
RE: Wolves I don't want to just 'not let them in,' I want to chase after them with a sharpened stick and a bunch of other angry monkeys and wear their bloody pelts. I want them so dead that the next generations of monkeys talk about wolves the way we talk about dragons, or unicorns, or other mythical creatures. And I appreciate other peoples stories and perspectives, so don't apologize for sharing what you are comfortable sharing.I felt that self-loathing saved me from becoming what I was afraid of and would truly hate; what I couldn't stand to be.
But see, that's not true. I know it's hard to reconcile, but you can both not hate yourself, and at the same time, see room for improvement and work towards it. Hate doesn't have to be your bloody whip. Take a few weeks to wrap your head around that if you need to. I'm pretty sure I did. I'm not about positive affirmations. I tried out a shrink who was and after like 2 meetings I was out of there, because sorry, telling myself I'm great over and over again isn't going to do anything positive for me. That being said - I had to do a lot of consciously learning how to treat myself with kindness. I'm still not great, and I still expect more out of myself than I would any of my family or lovers or friends. However, it's really important to learn to cut yourself a break. I tried to take time and be patient with myself. I tried to trust that even if one day I failed, I was making slow and steady progress forward. It was hard because I had to trust in myself and also in intangibles, essentially. That drives me crazy. I want to quantify, measure, and prove. I want to know. I had to learn to let that need go. (I still have to learn it. LOTS of the time.) Out of curiosity, would you describe yourself as an impatient person? I think impatient people may be worse at this sort of thing. They know what they want and they want it NOW! Many big important life goals require so many, many small steps, and years of work, stuff that can't be achieved if you're burning yourself out on 100% all the time. mk reminds me. I also had to learn how to do things gradually. See, if I rush all into something, I tend to - you know - go crazy and extremist and all-or-nothing about it and it's not sustainable. So I have to take some things slow. I don't know, probably not really that helpful, tbh. Hey, look, you, chase after them. Kill them. I don't know what your wolves are. If you can do it I encourage you to do so. I find exercise works wonders for helping one's attitude, slightly uncaging the rat of the mind, and at the same time counts as an accomplishment that one cannot really tear down as "insufficient."