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‘If you are protecting yourself the whole time…’

A few excerpts today.

From The Atlantic…

https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2021/11/how-to-prioritize-joy-lorigottlieb-arthurbrooks-happiness-2021/620787/

‘Psychotherapist and Atlantic contributing writer Lori Gottlieb demystifies one of the vital components of a happy life: enjoyment. Gottlieb believes that we not only find it challenging to make time for day-to-day enjoyment, but also struggle to identify what it should feel like.’

There’s a part where older people in their 80s who are happy are described as having had rough times in their younger years. Gottlieb says, ‘I think that the reason that they’ve been through so much is because they engaged in life. So the people who want to protect themselves from pain or discomfort are the people who never really engage in life because they’re so busy protecting themselves to make sure that they’re not going to experience anything that feels bad, right? And so then they never put themselves out there. They never take any risks.

‘And when you take risks, sometimes, you know, there’s going to be pain involved. And sometimes there’s going to be great joy involved. But if you are protecting yourself the whole time you didn’t really live; you’re not fully alive. And so maybe you think you protected yourself, but you end up feeling very unsatisfied, very kind of empty and lonely.’

‘I think it needs to be specific, not just “have fun.” It’s getting in touch with how you have fun. A lot of people don’t even know how they have fun anymore. As adults, they grow up. They forget what fun looks like, because they’re so busy with all of their responsibilities and then all of the things they think they need to be doing. And they don’t realize, first of all, how they’re spending their time.’

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‘Boring life’

Today I read a few things by Anna LeMind who made this website about self-improvement and things related to that. It’s fun browsing the article titles and seeing what people think about as what’s going on with them, and how the authors of the site address those things. Not scientific or anything, it seems, but here are some things I found curious.

‘What our materialistic society doesn’t want us to remember,’ writes LeMind, ‘is that genuine happiness is in simple pleasures*. It doesn’t matter how many stars your hotel has or how expensive your outfits are if your life is unfulfilling and dull… The need to own stuff is based on our natural tendency to compare ourselves with others. We don’t want to be worse and less accomplished than those around us, and society skillfully uses our insecurities to encourage us to make unnecessary expenses.’ Says who, exactly? 

Qualms and other things

Ex-journalist’s qualms with the fact-stating of opinions aside, I rather liked some of the things I found on this post. For example, I do believe that people get overinvested in what other people think. Narcissists, looking at all of youuuuu.

Elsewhere on LeMind’s blog, the same author writes, ‘We often throw a monkey wrench into our own progress in life.’ Do we, now? ‘We create obstacles and frames in our own minds. Sometimes it happens as a result of social conditioning or a lack of self-belief, but the rigidity of our thinking can also be to blame. I’m talking about people who perceive life in extremes; as if there are only black and white sides to everything. They will usually have a very fixed mindset about work, success, relationships, and life in general… [but] when you never re-evaluate your views and refuse to learn from your mistakes, you don’t evolve.’ Needs citation here. 

What’s true for you isn’t true for all

Sure, I know plenty of people who just follow the treadmills without questioning anything are kind of like, ‘Huh?’ when I ask them why they don’t design the life they want. I mean, I get it. It’s hard. It’s hard to look inside and see what’s there and suddenly have to do something about it if it’s not right. I mean, there was this girl once who said, when I told her I make SELF the workshop online, ‘I don’t want to ask myself those hard questions because I’m just going to get stressed!’ So, there it is. The way I moved away from workshop-making began with that reaction. Who cares if she doesn’t want to improve herself or her life? Not me. That was 2014.

Here’s what happened next.

Hint: Lá lá lá…

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