Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

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Smashter
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by Smashter »

ThisDinosaur wrote:
Mon May 21, 2018 8:35 am
If they hate me but they grow up safe and awesome, then I win.
I don't have kids, but speaking as one of three adult siblings who has felt a lot of hate towards their mother for some awful parenting decisions she made, I would be very careful about having this attitude. Of course, context is everything, but me and my siblings grew up safe and are "awesome" at least in terms of having college degrees and good jobs and stable relationships, yet we all have pretty icy relationships with our mom.

Whenever my mom complains to me that my brother doesn't speak with her, she says "what did I do so wrong, you all were happy, you got everything you wanted, I don't get it!"

Now, I highly doubt you are an emotionally abusive narcissist so this isn't an apples to apples comparison. It just sent up a big red flag when I read that part about your kids hating you, because I could imagine my mother thinking something similar and now very much regretting it.

ThisDinosaur
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by ThisDinosaur »

@Smashter
Order of preference would be:
Love+Awesome>> Hate+Awesome >> Love+Lame >> Hate+Lame

Sounds like you fall into the second group from the left. Subjectively, I've seen this pattern. Immature parents cause some fraction of their kids to rise to the occasion, becoming very responsible but "damaged" adults. I think this contributes to the birth order effect, since first born children will have less mature and less organized parents then their younger siblings on average. The first born ends up having more household responsibility (at the extreme, having to earn income to support the family) than the other siblings.

suomalainen
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by suomalainen »

@smashter, I feel for you re: the emotionally abusive narcissistic parent. Been there, done that. I think putting abuse aside, @thisdinosaur's point is more along the lines of strictness vs leniency or depriving vs spoiling or "being a parent" vs "being a friend". I too am aiming for love + awesome, but given the amount of pushback I'm getting from my first teen, it's going to be a bumpy ride. Trying to navigate that fine line of giving them what they need (independence within boundaries) without turning it into a "control" issue is extremely taxing. Free range parenting does give you a little bit of time/space, but not as much as you might think once they're teenagers. It's more the emotional/psychological challenge of a (stupid) kid finding his independence (stupidly) than the "pay attention to me" challenge of younger kids. The former has ZERO current benefits to me while the latter was tremendously rewarding in the moment.
ThisDinosaur wrote:
Mon May 21, 2018 8:35 am
My wife is also my biggest obstacle to FI. When we are fighting over money, I just say "I have to do what I think is right, just like you do." And what is right for me is putting the future financial security of the family before consumer discretionary spending. There is a possibility that this attitude will break my marriage. That would suck. But the alternative is me caving into her and becoming bitter and broke. So I'm willing to bend it until it breaks. Its not always easy, and I still cave in sometimes. Because I like getting laid and I hate living with passive aggressive anger.
Yes, the compromising is very hard. Your last sentence is the truest thing ever written on the interwebs about heterosexual relationships.

suomalainen
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ERE Easy Mode

Post by suomalainen »

My oldest son apparently needed some new church pants, given the old child-growing-like-a-weed thing. Sure, fine, let's go to the store. We all pack in the minivan and drive to kohls. Kid gets some pants, I get a swimsuit, I make the kid put back the $30 tie and pick out a $7 tie. Technically, I could have probably patched up my old swimsuit, but it is in a pretty sorry state, so I only feel a little bit guilty (let's put aside for the moment why I feel guilty spending my own fucking money).

Then we go off to Dick's because the kids apparently "need" new bicycle helmets. "What's wrong with the ones they have?" I ask. "They're five years old and all scuffed up and they don't fit and who knows if they're still good." Wife says. "Something's wrong with the styrofoam?" I ask. "Well the plastic cover is all chipped." I let it drop. At the store, I'm getting irritated and start hyperventilating thinking about the perfectly fine styrofoam helmets sitting in the garage. I think I had a stroke in the store. This is why I prefer not to know where the money goes. I'd prefer to just know that it goes to things that are "needed" without having to focus on the fact that definitions of "need" can vary widely.

Back at home, my irritation boils over because the bikes don't really fit in the garage since the kids' crap is everywhere and I fly into a rage, throwing shit out of the garage or into the back of the garage to make room in the front for the bikes. It really doesn't matter what you do to keep your house in order (metaphorically or literally) when you have 3 or 4 other people actively working to undermine you at every turn.

It's a good thing I'm playing on easy mode*.

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHIVQFOT0Vk

Fish
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by Fish »

Speaking of kids clothes and bike helmets, we get ours at thrift stores. We live in an affluent area and the discards are fantastic. It feels so satisfying scooping up a nearly-new version of the exact item you need, at a 75% discount, while knowing that you are closing the loop on someone else's trash, and having a great time finding it (treasure hunting!). It fits very nicely into a web of goals.

That being said, it takes time to develop the habit but we're now at the point where DW checks the local Goodwill(s) on her own initiative before going to a standard retail store or placing an order on Amazon.com. However... step 1 is to read Marie Kondo, otherwise you will end up with a house full of other people's former trash.

Jason

Re: ERE Easy Mode

Post by Jason »

suomalainen wrote:
Mon May 28, 2018 5:58 pm

Then we go off to Dick's because the kids apparently "need" new bicycle helmets.
Just noting irony.

suomalainen
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by suomalainen »

@fish I dunno. Didn't you once write about leaving the purchasing decisions to your wife even though you could do it "better"? Something about it's convenient for you and it keeps the peace? Same goes over here. My story wasn't intended to be a crybaby bitch session, although now that I read it again that's exactly how it comes off. My story was really meant to be an illustration that there are frustrations along the way and that having a family is hard, especially if you're trying to ERE, but you can rage and pout and all that shit for a few minutes and then let it go and move on. What enables that is that money isn't really a problem for us. Notwithstanding relying solely on my income, it's from a solid career and I have a lot of backup options should I need them. And I have insurance should I become disabled or die. And if we absolutely had to, we could survive on existing savings.

I guess where I'm coming out is that I've arrived at the answer I sought when I started journaling again last August. I asked
But what if I could just choose to be satisfied? Could it possibly be that easy?
And it turns out it is. In the WSP thread there's a discussion about stress being the biggest health killer and emotional instability being a major cause of inefficiency and @stahlmann makes a hilarious joke about the latter one. But I think those two things are related. What about emotional instability causing stress causing emotional instability? I've done years of therapy for the emotional instability and am on pretty good ground there. So what if I just stopped stressing? I don't have a money problem. Why do I keep thinking about money? It's stupid.

Fish
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by Fish »

Now that you point it out, I realize my response wasn’t helpful. Sorry about that. What I do to cope is to tell myself that there is no early retirement for me until my youngest turns 18, at the earliest. That certainly decreases the utility of additional money and I don’t stress out when it gets spent inefficiently. ERE is more for the purposes of improving quality of life (with the constraint of being employed) and not for the attainment of ER. Maybe we can convince ourselves that we’ve already hit our empty-nest “number” and all the day-to-day spending atrocities that occur until our future day of liberation are just noise.

suomalainen
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by suomalainen »

Agreed. Certainly with the addition of @blacksonofgray's deliberately coasting to FI idea, I have hit or will hit my empty-nest number. The remaining 9 years* will further pad the SWR and/or increase the luxuriousness / price tag of retirement.

I'm re-learning to be more chill with the kids. It has been a very difficult transition from kid to teen with the oldest, even with him being quite easy. But the stress has been very challenging.

I think I might need to spend more thought on @Augustus' push for me to consider time off work. Reclaiming some personal time from work while maintaining the current comfortable level with the family could do some good. I just have to grow a pair of balls to broach the 80% conversation with my boss without worrying (as I do) that it would appear "unprofessional" or "not serious" or "not dedicated". I don't know why I care. I have no interest in a management position (the only way to climb) and I'm too good at my current position to be at risk of being fired. The worst they can do is laugh and say "no".

* I remember when #3 was born. In addition to enjoying the little one (I love babies/young kids), I felt "fuck, the clock is reset". Yin/yang, etc.

black_son_of_gray
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by black_son_of_gray »

@Suomalainen Not sure if it is already on your radar, but are you familiar with "This is water"? Some resonant themes to your last couple posts.

suomalainen
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by suomalainen »

@blacksonofgray yes, found a transcript of that a number of years ago and it was a favorite for a bit - read it many times, but hadn't read it in a while. Both brilliant and terrible - he mentions the mind being a terrible master and he mentions suicide a couple of times...and that's how he went out, I think for that reason. I often think about his store example when I'm interacting with workers "less fortunate" than me. I'm always super nice to cashiers and waiters/waitresses knowing that they will typically deal with any number of crabby assholes during a shift, so I shouldn't be one of them. I had been thinking about how ideas can take on a life of their own and shift from useful servant to terrible master, so a poignant reminder as I strive to reframe my existence so this does not continue to loom as large:
the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

Fish
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by Fish »

@Augustus - The Finn's 2017 spending summary has 11 categories over $4,000. Top 3 categories only comprise 31% of total spending. There's no simple fix to ERE. It would require a complete transformation. Incremental progress is possible, but it's no fun when you're fighting your environment every step of the way.

suomalainen
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by suomalainen »

@augustus I saw that in your journal and was tempted to write something, but didn't want to tease/taunt you...but since you brought it up...Welcome to the club! :lol: (laughing with you not at you) (Ok, maybe a little of both). And to @fish's point, the normal American family big-ticket items don't exist for me - it's rather death by a thousand cuts. I think you once asked me where it all goes, and the answer is I don't know, because it ain't me*! And based on my bicycle helmet reaction, it's a good thing I don't! It's one thing to vaguely know that money is being wasted, but it's another thing to be forced to watch a particular set of 20s doused in gasoline and set on fire. We could make changes if we wanted to, but we don't, and I don't have the energy to have the fight the "Try it this way" "You always think your way is better, but my way is just fine; I'm the one who's with them all day; and anyway we can afford it" fight. I'd cut and paste our last text fight (it was about food), but you'd all find it both mildly psychotic and seriously boring.

In fairness, my wife does make concessions from her point of view; it's just that our starting points are so far apart that her sacrifice isn't appreciated in the way it is offered, adding tension. Example: She likes bags, and her desires could be worse - she could want 60, she could want hermes. My point of view: why do you "need" more than one? And so a tense compromise at 30 shitty bags is arrived at.

* I will own up to my alcohol, ski ticket, home improvement, etc. purchases, but how our day-to-day expenses equal $72,000/year I'll never know.

jacob
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by jacob »

suomalainen wrote:
Thu May 31, 2018 2:28 pm
In fairness, my wife does make concessions from her point of view; it's just that our starting points are so far apart that her sacrifice isn't appreciated in the way it is offered, adding tension. Example: She likes bags, and her desires could be worse - she could want 60, she could want hermes. My point of view: why do you "need" more than one? And so a tense compromise at 30 shitty bags is arrived at.
I/we went through such a phase 10 years ago with DW but mostly arguing about minimalism. Interestingly, we've never argued about money per se. But we argued about stuff all the time. How much stuff to own. How said stuff was acquired (consumerism, see below). It's fundamentally a Wheaton level convergence where you move somewhat and she moves somewhat and eventually you both reach a compromise between your differences or at least a way of resolving your differences when they pop up. I think we stopped arguing about minimalism ("Damnit, just how many handmixers or soup ladles do we need to have in our kitchen or in that drawer at any one point in time?!") about five years ago. DW later told me that she seriously wondered during the early years whether it was possible for us to stay [living] together given how much of a gap there was between our standards.(*)

Another thing we used to argue about was about consumerism or how the stuff was acquired. She used to be a standard consumer and I used to be a staunch anti-consumer. Those arguments tended to between her driving (ugh) to WMT and buying a cheap (ugh) plastic (ugh) crap (ugh) solution ... before giving me a chance (and two weeks^H^H^H^H^Hmonths) to figure out a free/"buy used" DIY fix so I could save the planet from the likes of her :?

(*) I think I've damaged her somewhat along the consumerism dimension. She's told me she's reluctant to spend money on anything now. Indeed, I think I spend money more freely [on stuff] than she does ... even as she still spends more money than I do. If that makes sense?

However, despite this, we've been together for almost 15 years now :shock: (one of my criteria for selecting a life-partner was the ability to have rational arguments about our disagreements and "fight well" w/o resentment fallout). Today I see her as having come a long way from her starting point. I love it when she's helping other people get beyond the point where she once was. This is now benefiting the rest of her family/friends as well. Conversely, she (and her family) likes to inform me---as much as possible---how much I've mellowed out over the years :P

To bring it around to the subject matter at heart here ... basically, I don't harass her about her collection of handbags---which isn't really a collection as much as the detritus of a handbag-acquistion process---anymore. I've accepted that buying handbags is some kind of "thing" and what apparently matters is the process of buying new ones ... not so much what one ends up with. She's accepted that handbags that are not currently in use get stored in the back of the closet or in a rubbermaid container where I can pretend to ignore them. I've accepted that there's more psychic value in keeping that container around than in optimizing the cashflow by selling them on ebay or optimizing the volume-load by simply burning them in a great bonfire :twisted: It kinda works out.

Also, in terms of income ... we've shared all earned and taxable income since we got married (this has hurt me more than her) but we've kept savings and personal spending separate. So if she wants to buy a personal $50 handbag it comes out of her savings. If I want to buy a personal $100 HAM radio, it comes out of mine. When I sell it again for $90, those $90 go back into my savings. As such, she spends more than me, but I churn more than her. If only I could get her onto eBay instead of Payless shoe store et al.... but maybe that'll come some day.

Jason

Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by Jason »

black_son_of_gray wrote:
Tue May 29, 2018 9:19 pm
@Suomalainen Not sure if it is already on your radar, but are you familiar with "This is water"? Some resonant themes to your last couple posts.
I'm walking through a national retail pharmacy parking lot yesterday and I hear a roar of an engine and a SUV passes me a bit too close for my personal pedestrian comfort zone. The car pulls into a space and I starting walking towards it loaded for bear. I can see a middle aged woman in the car and the (and I paraphrase) "Go back to sexual pleasing park animals you washed up bleeping bleep because there is nothing you can buy in this fucking pharmacy that will ever make you remotely attractive to anything human" comment is formulating and about to be spewed in a very public manner.

But then I start thinking. The sound the car made when it passed me is not consistent with its make and age. A 15 year old Cherokee should not sound like a race car revving at the beginning of the Indy 500. So its a POS that's being repaired with spare parts and blow jobs and the sound itself may have exacerbated the idea that she almost ran me over. As I get closer, she sees me coming and she puts her head down. Perhaps her defiance may have been turning to shame. Maybe she hates driving a car that is so obviously a POS and is one one of those people who does not have $400 and is not a poster on this site working on quitting her job where she gets her ass grabbed all day by an obese middle manager at the ABC Pencil Pushing company. And then I think maybe she doesn't just need shampoo but has to go to the pharmacy to pick up her medication because her douchebag ex-boyfriend gave her the Herp or she's bi-polar or diabetic or just fucked the fucked up.

I stop in front of the car and she brings her head up and we make eye contact but I keep my mouth closed as a similar type of circumstance is no doubt waiting for me around the corner.

suomalainen
Posts: 976
Joined: Sat Oct 18, 2014 12:49 pm

Master/servant and other thoughts

Post by suomalainen »

Along the lines of the "terrible master" thoughts in David Foster Wallace's "This is Water" speech mentioned above, it just seems like humans can sometimes create ideas that then become more real to them than even they themselves. The master creates a servant that is at first pleasing to the master, then useful, then captivating, then conquering, and finally subjugating - the master stuck in a prison of his own making.

A series of examples from my anxiety*:

1) During the winter, the wife gets SAD and me too probably and to help deal with that, I started purchasing season ski tickets so the kids and I would have something fun to do outside while the wife gets some sanity time alone. Great, right? Except, now I HAVE to go skiing every Saturday. It becomes no longer something I want to do, it's something I should do.
2) I feel like going for a bike ride or playing disc golf or going to a concert or some such thing. I go do that thing and I enjoy it. Later, I feel bad that I haven't done it again in too long and I feel like I should go do that thing again. But I don't want to. And yet the should gnaws at me.
3) I want to shorten my working time and be freer to enjoy life. I analyze my budget and my income trying to minimize and maximize, respectively. I run up against practical, immovable obstacles keeping me from my vision. Rather than accepting what is, I feel like I should be doing the thing that I can't practically do.

The ideas no longer bring me pleasure but jiujitsu their way into having me serve, and perpetuate, them regardless of their now-negative impact on me. Memetic evolution at work.

* Maybe this is a type of OCD or something.

***

A somewhat related quote from a very long piece that was interesting-ish (emphasis mine):
The whining octopus is a reminder of why pure, elated happiness is never a reasonable goal. The times you feel pure happiness are temporary, drug-induced delusions—like the honeymoon phase of a new relationship or new job or the high following a long-awaited success. Those moments are the perfect golf shots of a mediocre golfer’s outing—they’re awesome, and you should enjoy the shit out of them—but they’re not the new normal, and they never will be.

A better goal is contentment: the satisfying feeling that you’re currently taking the best crack you can at a good life path; that what you’re working on might prove to be a piece of an eventual puzzle you can feel really proud of. Chasing happiness is an amateur move. Feeling contentment in those times when your choices and your circumstances have combined to pull it off, and knowing you have all that you could ever ask for, is for the wise.

People talk about being present in the moment, but there’s also the broader concept of macro-presence: feeling broadly present in your own life. If you’re on a career dot that, when you’re being really honest with yourself, feels right, you get to stop thinking and stop planning for a while and just dig in. You’ll come back to the big picture later—for now, you can put the macro picture aside, put your head down, and dedicate all of your energy to the present. For a while, you can just live.
I like that - taking a break from the idea obsession (e.g., "thinking and planning") and just walking the path that has been planned and noticing the unexpected wildflowers along the path that you never noticed before because you were too busy optimizing - looking back analyzing the steps you've taken or looking forward planning the steps that came next. Optimization without true purpose.

***

In sort-of other news, I went to an Imagine Dragons concert with the family (for free no less! How ERE of me!). It had been maybe a decade since I last went to a big concert (U2 in ~2008). I really enjoyed it. I sort of knew that one or more of the band members were mormons, so I was a little surprised by the lead singer's taking a moment between several songs to say stuff like "this is a safe space for everyone", "we want everyone to be free to be who they are", "don't let anyone put you in a box", "let's break the stigma attached to words like depression, anxiety and therapy - I was depressed and going to therapy was the best decision I've ever made in my life", etc.

It was amazing watching him walk through the crowd and have people wanting to touch him like he was Jesus. They'd touch his outstretched hand and then turn to their friend with a giant smile and a look of amazement or ecstasy on their face. Mostly women, of course, but from young to old, the reaction was the same. I thought about the loftiness of his words and the community-like atmosphere of the shared quasi-religious experience and the "almost magical" reaction to the man himself. Very inspiring, in a way. But it's a performance. The lights get turned off. Everything gets packed up and moved and set up in the next place. Rinse and repeat. That part of it bears zero interest for me, but I get why the industry is a draw. The ability to create, to be an "artist" and to get paid for it! I wonder if there are ways I can incorporate that kind of thing into my life so that I also get a sense of the lofty or the infinite or the magical, even while toiling under the requirement to tear down the stage, move it and put it all back up again the next day.

I came home from the concert and looked up the band, found this which is apparently about the lead singer's grappling with being mormon while also not hating gays (I guess you have to hate gays to be a real christian?). As a recovering christian, I am very, very interested in seeing it. When I was church-going, I also felt very conflicted over the church's stance toward gays. It was ultimately one of the things that stuck in my craw that I just couldn't live with any more. Props to him as it seems like he is trying to make change from the inside while I just abandoned an institution that had what I saw as a sinful and disqualifying attitude towards other of "god's children".

And also this tweet
I lived a life of guilt and restraint since I was a child. I have broken those chains and have found healthy grounds. A place where I know who I am. Where I make choices that help me to feel free and alive. Choises that will help me be the artist and being that I was meant to be.
I have a new mancrush. :ugeek:

***

Finally, an interesting article about regrets posted this morning that reminded me of the "work" I'm doing in this journal and in my life:
Feeling stuck is fine, but you should treat that like you would treat a hot feeling,” he advises. “If you can’t change your job, or change some of the circumstances of your job, you can do the psychological work, either through therapy or with yourself trying to reframe it.
Rather than wallow in that despair, however, he has chipped away at satisfying the wanderlust that feeds it. He and his wife plan one adventurous trip per year, the only rule being that the destination is someplace they’ve never been. On weekends, too, they check out new neighborhoods in New York, but all the while Davidai focuses on his scholarly work and retains his steady job.
Compare to:
suomalainen wrote:
Tue Aug 08, 2017 12:14 pm
I zoom from "I want to try this" to "I want to try that" and instead of making room for this or that in a small corner of my life, I blow it out of proportion. This or that becomes "I should have built my life around this or that." Like, I get a sense that there's something missing in my current life, and instead of just making room for that on a go-forward basis, I look backward at my life ruefully that I haven't made room for this most important thing that I clearly didn't previously find all that important as I didn't do anything with it then.
suomalainen wrote:
Mon Feb 12, 2018 10:39 pm
It's not like I would want to hobby or meditate or walk in the woods 40 hours a week once I quit working and once the kids leave. Embrace that these things are part of a "web of pleasant distractions" that will only form single strands of said web, whether I'm working or not, whether I have kids at home or not. No one strand deserves the spotlight. You want to do X? Make room for 30 minutes of it during the week. If it sticks, great! Expand the time slot. If it falls by the wayside, great! Time slot is open to try something new.
suomalainen wrote:
Sat Feb 24, 2018 11:17 pm
- I felt angsty about meaning - "What does it mean? What does it mean?". I would try to find meaning in everything from a look to a chance meeting to missed opportunities from years ago, etc.
...
I needed a major shift of mindset.

Jason

Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by Jason »

I'm a Christian and I don't hate gays any more than I hate most people. What I do hate is when people tell me that because I am ethically opposed to something that they do that I am being hateful or fearful or that I am threatened.

Anyways, as usual, love the postcards from the black hole that you call your life. I would never give you advice because its obviously as fruitless as a Seventh Day Adventist compound, but recently I read the entire serenity prayer. I didn't realize that the one I learned to recite while standing around in a circle holding hands with crackheads was just the abbreviated version. The full version has a line that says "So I may be REASONABLY happy in this life." I thought that was interesting. Maybe something to think about while you're skiing with your kids.

suomalainen
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Book Review: Barking Up the Wrong Tree, Eric Barker

Post by suomalainen »

I'm lazy when it comes to book reviews, but this was one that was recommended by @dragline almost a year ago and I finally got around to reading it. So, a few thoughts and quotes that connected with me:

In chapter 3, some interesting ideas about re-framing so that the only thing that changes about a situation is how you view it. Say you’re frustrated about your life and you think about all the other great things you could be doing (ski bum, biking, traveling the world, vanlifing, etc). If you focus on that story, you will be miserable comparing your actual life to that. Instead, let go of the story that doesn’t exist and focus on your actual story. If there are things you don’t enjoy about your current story, decide whether to keep or quit certain parts. Whatever you keep, re-frame. If it’s a hard thing, re-frame it as a game - break it down to simpler goals, give yourself rewards, etc. The important part of it will be how you change your story.

Page 99 - “ Research shows that when we choose to quit pursuing unattainable goals, we are happier, less stressed, and get sick less often.”

Page 179 - “Why is confidence so powerful? It gives us a feeling of control. [quoting Marshall Goldsmith:] People who believe they can succeed see opportunities, where others see threats. They are not afraid of uncertainty or ambiguity, they embrace it. They take more risks and achieve greater returns. Given the choice, they bet on themselves. Successful people have a high ‘internal locus of control.’ In other words, they do not feel like victims of fate.”

Page 195-196 - “Compassion for yourself when you fail means you don’t need to be a delusional jerk to succeed and you don’t have to feel incompetent to improve. You get off the yo-yo experience of absurd expectations and beating yourself up when you don’t meet them. You stop lying to yourself that you’re so awesome. Instead, you focus on forgiving yourself when you’re not...Research suggests that self-compassion is strongly related to psychological wellbeing, including increased happiness, optimism, personal initiative, and connectedness, as well as decreased anxiety, depression, neurotic perfectionism, and rumination.”

Page 235 - “American Culture has increasingly emphasized high expectations and following your dreams – things that feel good when you are young. However, the average mature adult has realized that their dreams might not be fulfilled, and less happiness is the inevitable result. Mature adults in previous eras might not have expected so much, but expectations are now so high they can’t be met.”

Pages 237-238 - “Here’s the problem: we love having choices. We hate making choices. Having choices means having possibilities. Making choices means losing possibilities. And having so many choices increases the chance of regret. When work is always a choice, everything is a trade-off. More time working means less time with your friends, spouse, or kids. And if you choose wrong, it’s your fault, making choices even more stressful. We work harder but feel worse because everything is being judged, constantly.”

Pages 238-239 - “But when we feel such intense pressure to succeed both at work and at home, when there are always choices and it feels like it’s our fault, we become desperate for a solution. Some of us set aside a facet of our lives so that other categories can thrive. Laura Nash and Howard Stevenson, the authors of Just Enough, and HBS Professor Clay Christensen call the strategy “sequencing“. The attitude being: First I’ll work a job I hate and make a lot of money and then I’ll have a family and then I’ll do what I want and be happy.… As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “We are always getting ready to live, but never living.“

Page 240 - “Barry Schwartz says we have to become “choosers” instead of “pickers”. A picker selects from the options available, leading us into false dichotomies created by the options we see in front of us. But a chooser “is thoughtful enough to conclude that perhaps none of the available alternatives are satisfactory, and that if he or she wants the right alternative, he or she may have to create it.”

Pages 241-242 - “In Just Enough the authors refer to it as a “collapsing strategy“– collapsing everything into one barometer of whether or not our life is on track. Most find it easy to focus just on money and say “make the number go up”. Convenient, simple... and dead wrong. As we saw, the insanely successful people the authors spoke to often felt they were missing out in another area of life, like their relationships. When we try to collapse everything into one metric we inevitably get frustrated. The researchers realized multiple yardsticks for life were necessary...It can be intimidating to have to determine, right now, what balance of these [suggested yardsticks] will provide what you need for the rest your life. You don’t need to go that far. What made you feel fulfilled at age 10 isn’t true at 20 and won’t be true at 80. Things will change and that’s OK. Specifics will shift, but your values probably won’t move nearly as much.”

Page 242 - “ Barry Schwartz says that what we often fail to realize is [that] constraints are welcome. They make decisions easier. They make life simpler. They make it “not your fault”. So they make us happier. We believe these constraints are ultimately worth the trade-off. Limitless freedom is alternately paralyzing and overwhelming.”

****

Also, a couple of other items that have stuck with me from the last couple years:

Can’t Stop Ruminating About the Past? Here's What to Do Instead
Do you know the literal meaning of rumination?

I was curious when I looked up the definition for the first time: “To chew the cud, as a ruminant.” I was put off when I looked up the meaning of ruminant: “Any even-toed, hoofed mammal … and including, besides domestic cattle, bison, buffalo, deer, antelopes, giraffes, camels, and chevrotains.” And I was horrified when I searched up cud: “The portion of food that a ruminant returns from the first stomach to the mouth to chew a second time.”

That’s when I decided never to ruminate again! Needless to say, I struggled initially, but the visual image it conjured was powerful enough* to keep me from playing the past over and over again in my mind.

*[Suo-editor's note: More graphic to me than a ruminant chewing cud (which is how it's designed) is the scriptural image of a dog turning to its own vomit.]

It was a continuous struggle nonetheless. I felt I was forever on guard, in perpetual fight-or-flight mode, trying to run away from my own past. It tired me out, but it also made me wonder whether denying past experiences was the best way forward. Why would we have this capacity if it didn’t hold at least some survival value?

I found my answer in science. I learned that the tendency to go over the past wasn’t a bad thing after all. The key was in how we reflected on what was already a fait accompli. I had been unaware of this distinction. And in my ignorance, I had been throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Where Does Your Past Take You?
According to research by Matt Killingsworth, human beings spend almost half their wakeful hours thinking about something other than what they’re doing. This includes contemplating on what happened in the past, regardless of whether it was positive or negative. When you find yourself somewhere other than in the present moment, don’t rush to knock yourself out of your brain’s natural default mode. Instead, ask yourself whether you made the journey to a pleasant memory, or to one that continues to haunt you?

The Benefits of Story
When your mind has wandered to negative events, and is replaying them ad nauseum, it helps to know that it’s trying to make sense of the past so it can finally put it aside. Except of course, it’s struggling. That’s where you can help by grabbing a pen and pulling out your journal. Research shows that writing helps us piece together disjointed emotional events into a narrative that helps with resolution and meaning making. It also helps us learn from our mistakes, enhance our understanding and advance our growth and resilience.

Savor the Peak Moments from Your Past—the Right Way
Sometimes the mind does wander to the sweetness of the past, although given the natural negativity bias, it’s a less frequent occurrence. Hence the importance of hanging onto it when it does appear, and reviving it when it doesn’t. Take your time to savor what went well. Relive the conversations, the awe-struck moments, the playful times that brought you alive. But beware of writing them down! It appears that examining them in detail removes their aura of mystery and makes them less emotionally intense. It takes away from their “peakness”—which, according to psychologist Daniel Kahnemann, is a key factor in forming the story of our lives. In his book The Time Paradox, psychologist Philip Zimbardo states that the ideal time perspective is one of the past positive, the present hedonistic, and the future. And that’s a great ratio for happiness.

But meaning lies in making sense of adverse events, and building coherence between our past, present and future. The past negative has much to teach us—but only if we write it down!
***

I copied this down but can't find the specific page, but it's somewhere from homairakabir.com. It's been really helpful perspective when I find myself falling back onto my sheep/follower/deferential tendencies due to my authoritarian upbringing. It's framed as a way to analyze whether you should pay any attention to criticism that comes your way:
When you do take action, there’s always the possibility that you’re criticized or rejected for your views or your actions. Instead of closing down in shame, consider where is the criticism coming from Is it from 1. someone who cares, or from 2. someone who’s attacking or rejecting you to feel better about themselves? (dismiss #2)

If it’s from someone who cares, are their values and vision for your life aligned 1. with your own, or 2. to their own vision of how you should live your life? (dismiss #2)

If your visions is aligned, 1. are their concerns justified, or 2. are they based on their own beliefs that may be misguided or exaggerated in some way? (dismiss #2)

If their concerns are justified, what plan will you put in place and what action will you take right now so you live a life that’s both true to yourself and wise within the larger perspective.
****

Deliberate mindfulness. Force quitting zombie processes. Stop thinking and stop planning - for a while you can just live. Quit pursuing unattainable goals. Reframe when you feel stuck. Stop ruminating.

All of these dots are essentially synonyms arrived at via different pathways, but they are slowly coming together to form a picture with sufficient power to cut through the haze of my anxiety. Letting go feels like killing yourself - no, not yourself, but killing the vulnerable little boy inside you that's "trying to make sense of the past." It's terrifying, but it's time.

theanimal
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by theanimal »

Great post. Thanks for sharing. I just requested Barking Up.. from my library, looking forward to digging in further.

Seems like it touches on what has been a consistent topic of conversation on here this year. That attaining FI or anything else for that matter isn't where life begins. I find this something worth being reminded of, so that I live now and hopefully avoid what Emerson talks about.

Smashter
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by Smashter »

Dang, as a fellow ruminator, that part hit home. There are so many good nuggets in the whole post. I second theanimal -- thanks!

The one part I wonder about is where it's advised that you should only write down negative experiences. I find that writing down positive things (like in a gratitude journal) can be very helpful.

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