Reddit Advice on Coping with Salaryman Work

[chenda]

Ahah sorry! I am not very smart

Ah I probably have a strange sense of humour

[ertyu]

I'm on the side of navel-gazing in the doing vs navel-gazing debate.

It's obvious that problems in meatspace are solved by actions in meatspace. To solve a meatspace problem, you need to do something about it. This much is given.

Now. (1)Some people, with a certain subset of problems, will take the action, solve the problem, and be done with it. Cool, and power to them.(*)

(*) Different people might be able to "just take the action" with respect to different kinds of problems. Furthermore, the same person might be able to "just take the action" in one instance and not in another instance.

The question is, though, if you have a person who isn't taking the action and solving the problem, well, why aren't they?? In some cases, (2) it's lack of information, like Jacob pointed out above: to invest, you need to know investing is a thing and it generates income. The solution in this case is, obviously, to inform yourself - or to inform others. Get the information people need out there.

Alright, assume you have gotten the information out there. Now even more people have solved their meatspace problem.

But not all. People know they need to save and invest, or to eat less and move more, or to change their job, or whatever, but they haven't resolved their problem yet. How come?

Imo, two reasons:

(3) Structural issues. People exist in a system/a society, come from a certain background, had or didn't have certain kinds of cultural and social capital, etc. These issues are real, and they are experienced differently by different people. Overcoming them takes different amount of skill and effort depending on (1), (2), and (4).

(4) Psychological shit that people drag around which stops them from taking action on (1)-(3) for one reason or another. Minimizing this or telling people to get over it also wouldn't lead anywhere. If you don't have your psychological ducks in a row, none of the action in (1)-(3) will happen.

This psychological shit might be mild and easy to get over, such as when one realizes one had misguided beliefs etc.

It could be that the psychological shit is "middle-mild" and easily tractable with the tools of something like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy ("OK, predict how much exercising will suck on a scale of 1 to 10. OK, prediction is 8. Now do exercise X for Y minutes. After completion, repeat assessment: how much did it in fact suck? Oh, it did not suck as bad. Alright. Let's do the same thing for saying hi to a stranger at the bus stop. Oh, that also didn't suck 9, only 6?" After a bunch of these experiments, one hopefully sees that it generally isn't so bad and the experience generalizes)

Or it could be that we're talking full-on (c)PTSD.

In other words, some psychological shit is easier to put down than others. One's ability to put down the "harder" psychological shit is often dependent on (1) to (3): e.g. I've managed to get over some of my crap, but would I have been able to do that without the time to study and learn how to be my own therapist? Would I have been able to sort it out faster if I had access to affordable therapy? -- and would I have been able to do it at all if, say, I had ADHD or dyslexia so acquiring the knowledge wasn't as easy, or if I were a parent to three children and responsible for feeding and clothing them on a minimum wage job? Etc.

This was all a loooong way to say, it's almost never as simple as many make it out to be. Yes, one could have not chosen to have children -- but what if one didn't have a choice? What if one chose under one set of circumstances and then the circumstances changed, would they toss the kids out on the street? Etc. Furthermore, how much of a hindrance anything in (1)-(4) is is never objective. (1) to (4) are always interrelated and apply differently to different people. "One-sentence" answers do indeed make one feel very smart in the moment as one pronounces on an issue but they rarely actually solve anything.

[jacob]

The "just do it"-advice reminds me of a meme (also found on reddit) that describes how much one learns from theory (two books at the bottom of a stack), practice (four books stacked on top of the two theory books), and mistakes (8 green books on top of the practice books).

A snarky reinterpretation is that with only two books of theory, one needs four books of practice, and with only four books of practice based on even less theory, one will make eight books of mistakes . Actually, I think this holds in general in that people will have different approaches to their learning process. The parallels how there are "strategic people", who put a lot of thought into the situation up front so they already know how to deal with the various potential outcomes despite limited tactical ability---a lot of problems are simply prevented before they happen; while "tactical people" put relatively less thought into understanding the situation but in turn are better at improvising as problems appear.

To compare and contrast, in my stack of books, there would be 10 books of theory with 3 books of practice on top followed by 1 book of mistakes. It's just another way of approaching things.

Another way of framing it is to say that "theory is but the abstracted lessons of practice" and "practice is but the abstracted lessons of mistakes". As such theory makes it possible to learn from other people's practice, which in turn derive from other people's mistakes.

The main difference in preference is likely due to whether one's most developed form of intelligence is experiential or analytical. In particular, one size doesn't fit all. There's a famous experiment in which two groups had to make a ceramic pot (I believe). The first group was told to carefully make one pot in the allotted time. The second was told just to make as many pots as possible. Result: The second group made the best pot.
As such the "just try it"-advice may be the best generic advice.

[Ego]

I'm on the side of navel-gazing in the doing vs navel-gazing debate.

My criticism of the heavy use of navel-gazing theory here on the forum is that:

1. it acts as a distraction from action and
2. that excessive use is backward from how humans actually learn and do things

It is a coping mechanism. Much like the consumerism you pointed out in the OP.

you can literally see the consumerism happen as a coping strategy, deepening and deepening the trap

Deepening the trap.

Chomsky et al have an OpEd today on AI that is interesting and related.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/08/opin ... pt-ai.html

The human mind is not, like ChatGPT and its ilk, a lumbering statistical engine for pattern matching, gorging on hundreds of terabytes of data and extrapolating the most likely conversational response or most probable answer to a scientific question. On the contrary, the human mind is a surprisingly efficient and even elegant system that operates with small amounts of information; it seeks not to infer brute correlations among data points but to create explanations.

For instance, a young child acquiring a language is developing — unconsciously, automatically and speedily from minuscule data — a grammar, a stupendously sophisticated system of logical principles and parameters. This grammar can be understood as an expression of the innate, genetically installed “operating system” that endows humans with the capacity to generate complex sentences and long trains of thought. When linguists seek to develop a theory for why a given language works as it does (“Why are these — but not those — sentences considered grammatical?”), they are building consciously and laboriously an explicit version of the grammar that the child builds instinctively and with minimal exposure to information. The child’s operating system is completely different from that of a machine learning program.

Human beings become human beings in small, iterative actions. We are constantly adapting to the world as we encounter it. Theory can be helpful in explaining the world as it is, but there is a temptation to do what Chomsky is suggesting AI does. Rather than fitting into the world as we encounter it, trying to fit the world and ourselves into the theory because it is statistically correct.

Human-style thought is based on possible explanations and error correction, a process that gradually limits what possibilities can be rationally considered.

As you point out above, people are different. They must correct for their uniqueness. Error correction takes trail and error. Doing.

Navel-gazing is a distraction from error correction.

...and that, for me, is enough of a distraction for one day.

[kawaivf1]

I tend to have the issue when I try to take an analytical approach to a problem I freeze up, and never end the research phase. It can be frustrating, because I get the most results using an experiential approach, but personally hate making mistakes. Luckily after making a mistake it is possible not to repeat it.

I like your stack of books (theory, practice, and mistakes). I think I probably focus too much on practice, and not enough on theory, or mistakes. Probably due to college. I disliked immensely studying theory as a finance major.

[7Wannabe5]

Of course, the one line common sense take on the negative of preferring "doing" would be "Measure twice, cut once." There is no creative construction that doesn't also entail creative destruction. So, for instance, if you consider the original Wheaton Scale for Permaculture, at Level 0 the action you are taking is blasting the dandelions in your lawn with weed-killer, whereas at Level 6 you are growing dandelions as edibles and exchanging the best tasting seeds.

[7Wannabe5]

Result: The second group made the best pot.

The second group likely also "wasted" the most clay. Results were measured over time rather than resources in that experiment.

[jacob]

Of course, the one line common sense take on the negative of preferring "doing" would be "Measure twice, cut once."

And the expanded versions read: think thrice, measure twice, cut once. Alternatively, measure thrice, check twice, cut once.

The second group likely also "wasted" the most clay. Results were measured over time rather than resources in that experiment.

Good point. Whereas the first group "wasted" the most brain cycles.

However, I think the disagreement here can easily be explained by MBTI with everybody arguing for "my size fits all".
@Ego is arguing the Se position: Lets just deal with what's in front of us.
@ertuy is arguing the Fi position: How one feels about it matters more than you think (figuratively and literally)
The rest of the thread is dominated by Ni and Ti positions, where the first step is to think deeply before doing anything.

ETA: Indeed, to the Ni and Ti oriented people, the introspection is not considered a waste as much as its part of an enjoyable and almost fluent process. What would be considered a waste from the INT perspective would be making and having to deal with a mistake. And vice versa. It's the same fundamental reason for the ES vs IN arguments with the former arguing that "nobody can predict the future, so lets just react to things as they happen" with the latter protesting that they can indeed predict the future well enough to avoid having to react when it happens.

[7Wannabe5]

@jacob:

True enough . I tend to picture this dichotomy quite vividly as an occasion where I am literally standing in a garden wringing my hands while a more-decisive-action-oriented other is wielding a chain saw. I am quite self-aware about the fact that I too often date/mate humans with high level of Se to make up for my lack of it (dead last position in ENTP stack.)

OTOH, I think XNTPs are more inclined towards frequent Bayesian update than INTJ*, because primary or secondary Ne informs us that there is always more information/perspective to be gathered. Going out and gathering more information about the lay of the land (scouting) and putting it together in different combinations (being inventive) is what ENTPs do; so it only looks like eNTP me is not "doing" anything to those who don't think reading through huge stack of highly varied reading material is something you "do." In the case of a still-nerdy but more extroverted ENTP like my youngest sister, "doing" looks more like Monday- Japanese class, Tuesday- Band Practice, Wednesday- Yoga class, Thursday- Grrrlz Nite Out, Friday- Road Trip, etc. etc. etc.

*Why semi-ERE makes more sense to us. Full FI is over-planning.

[Jean]

I don't know. I like theorizing a lot for thing that are likely to take time, but then, for thing that can be repeated quickly, i like to retry as quickly i possible and let my body to the theorizing. (which leads to conflicts whit dgf, because she does the opposite)

[guitarplayer]

One is still stuck in a box of choosing between roles, which may be more or less favorable depending on the organization’s lifecycle.

I think ultimately Rao gives a positive twist to his pseudo theorising in the form of becoming, what he calls, 'slightly evil'. If I remember it right, he mentions somewhere in the book the Finite and Infinite games of Carse and I would be pretty sure he draws from it.

It feels to me that being slightly evil is in fact the only option for a responsible life. Responsible, in the sense of responding to the world around us. This is as opposed to blindly following a vision, like the clueless do, or blindly gaming a system, like the losers do. Yet only slightly evil so that we don't fall victim of doom and gloom.

Makes me think of Gandalf.

David Chapman also expands on it here.

[Ego]

However, I think the disagreement here can easily be explained by MBTI with everybody arguing for "my size fits all".
@Ego is arguing the Se position:....

I enjoy your sense of humor.

[grundomatic]

I would also add that if several career changes have failed, maybe it's time to look to alternatives to working.

It's why I'm here. I've even started dropping hints IRL, because if I can save even one friend any number of years working (when they don't want to), it's worth it.

[ertyu]

My criticism of the heavy use of navel-gazing theory here on the forum is that:

1. it acts as a distraction from action and
2. that excessive use is backward from how humans actually learn and do things

It is a coping mechanism. Much like the consumerism you pointed out in the OP.

Deepening the trap.

Fair enough. So, we have a person who should be taking action, and this person keeps avoiding taking action and keeps finding various distractions and coping mechanisms instead of solving their problem.

.... now why tf would they be doing that ???

Why does this person insist on avoiding action when action will clearly solve their problem?? What is between them and taking action?

You're going to have as many answers as there are people. Think about it this way: if someone isn't taking action, they have a problem-before-the-meatspace-problem. They need to solve problem A before they can solve problem B.

The solution to problem A is personal because problem A is personal. Usually, it's some combo of external circumstances(1), psychological junk(2), and extra psychological junk caused by unskillful prior interaction between (1) and (2).

I can absolutely certainly tell you what will NOT work, though:

1. Pretending problem A isn't there
2. Trying to criticize or hate oneself out of problem A, or otherwise try to tell oneself one shouldn't have problem A or one is somehow inferior for having problem A
3. Forcing action on problem B while A is still active -- this comes at the expense of inner tension disproportionate to the nature of the problem; taking action on B will be way way harder than it needs to be because some brain-funk (or "shadow" or whatever you want to call it) is fighting you every step of the way -- the end result is, the action on B doesn't stick, the person "sabotages themselves" or some other such -- with bonus points that they now end up criticizing themselves for having failed at B-solving -- talk about deepening the damn trap.

I'm going to make a very simple yet very classic example. You have a basement-dwelling, overweight loser with a rare beard and an attachment to internet forums that tell him all women are X etcetera. "Women only fuck chads." Well, OK: if women only fuck chads and you want a woman, make a plan, hit the gym, get some skills, get a job. It's work, but it's not rocket science.

Yet your basement dweller seems to much prefer his basement and his complaining. And I tell you what -- regardless of the fact that hitting the gym and getting a job and trying it out with a couple of girls (and failing--and learning from it) will solve his problem, he's not getting anywhere before he faces his fear that it'll turn out that gym or no gym, he's still inferior and undesirable and bad in bed. And before he faces the fear that in an actual relationship, you're vulnerable and people can hurt you.

If he does attempt to connect with women before he faces these fears, he will come at it unattractive and with a chip on his shoulder. Whatever female doesn't smell it on him from a block away and run, he'll manage to alienate because he's still too scared of actually being in a relationship. He'll explode that relationship somehow, usually by trying to control too much so his fears never get triggered, and his partner will go, yeah the hell with that.

He may think he has a meatspace problem B: no girfriend; but he has a problem-before-the-problem that, unless he solves it, he'll get literally nowhere when it comes to having a satisfying connection with another human.

[Frita]

It feels to me that being slightly evil is in fact the only option for a responsible life. Responsible, in the sense of responding to the world around us. This is as opposed to blindly following a vision, like the clueless do, or blindly gaming a system, like the losers do. Yet only slightly evil so that we don't fall victim of doom and gloom.

Isn’t being slightly evil just choosing the sociopath role? It seems that slightly clueless and slightly loser would be possibilities as well. The sociopath-clueless-loser triad reminds me of the Karpman Drama Triangle with victimizer-rescuer-victim. Both are dysfunctional.

One thing that I have realized is that part of being responsible for myself is choosing people/systems/organizations who can be responsible for themselves.

[Ego]

Why does this person insist on avoiding action when action will clearly solve their problem?? What is between them and taking action?

At risk of beating a dead horse I will give it a shot because I believe you are genuinely asking.

They need to 1) learn how to stop being the person who is incapable of change and 2) find ways to become the person who can change.

Easy to say. Harder to do. Burying them under a pile of theory compounds the problem and often provides them excuses why they cannot change. Baby steps forward.

I will borrow this quote from @kane above to make the point in the most American way possible.

You need to know your aim in order to shoot.

When learning to shoot from a good instructor, aiming is useless. https://youtu.be/li0rGtXh23I

First you learn the basic safety and handling rules. Then you get familiar with the gun. Then you go to a range and point the unloaded gun downrange to practice handling, stance and posture. Then you learn to pull the trigger of the unloaded gun. After lots of dry-firing you eventually load the gun, point it downrange without aiming and shoot in the general direction of the target to get a feel for recoil. Repeat that for a while. Once you've got that all together, then you can start learning how to aim.

For the guy from the reddit thread who hates his job, the pain of going to the same miserable job, year after year, has to be _worse_ than the fear he experiences at the idea of changing jobs. There are two ways to attack this problem. 1) Make the job more miserable (not recommended) or 2) make the idea of changing jobs less terrifying.

First he makes a resume for jobs he really doesn't care about. Then he applies for a few. Then he gets an initial interview with one of these jobs he doesn't want and practices interviewing. Then he gets a second interview and maybe gets to practice negotiating. Only then when the fear of the unknown has subsided does he take aim and begins submitting resumes for jobs he actually wants.

For basement guy, the pain of staying in the basement has to be greater than the fear of leaving. Increase the pain or decrease the fear? As you say, the trouble with increasing the pain is that he will probably increase his own pain tolerance in response (maladaptation).

So, how does he decrease the fear and reverse the maladaptation? Baby steps.

Talking with someone who he knows has his best interest at heart may be a good first step. A friend who would be a good sounding board for his ideas. Someone who he would feel comfortable admitting his weaknesses to. Someone he respects who would give him good advice and perhaps even help him. This is the ancient form of CBT.

If he doesn't have that person in his life, then maybe the first step is to begin cultivating relationships with people who have the potential to become that kind of friend.

I am fortunate to have many people in my life who play that role in various ways. I will write a story in my journal of how I recently cultivated one of those relationships.

[7Wannabe5]

He'll explode that relationship somehow, usually by trying to control too much so his fears never get triggered, and his partner will go, yeah the hell with that.

He may think he has a meatspace problem B: no girfriend; but he has a problem-before-the-problem that, unless he solves it, he'll get literally nowhere when it comes to having a satisfying connection with another human.

You really should consider a second career as a counselor. What you are writing about here I usually think of as Type 1 and Type 2 failures of the Adult Masculine quadrant. Boundaries are either too weak and retreating and/or too forward and rigid, but not where they "should" be which is in alignment with self-aware self-care and empathy for the preferences (as opposed to sympathy for the feelings) of others. The way any of us rise from weak, anxious and resentful towards strong and vulnerable in our juvenile feminine quadrant is by engaging in self-care, re-mothering ourselves. The Type 2 rigidity and possibility of displaying what-might-look-like-sociopathic behavior occurs when we (or others) are over authoritative in relationship to juvenile feminine quadrant weakness. Obvious example being when little boys are told that crying is not acceptable behavior and also why coaching a team of strong females has to be as much art as science . OTOH, the authoritative manner is appropriate when engaging with our own out-of-control juvenile masculine quadrant.

Therefore, I think that you and Ego should form a Level Yellow (Level of Conscious Integration) Counseling/Coaching service, where you kind of do Bad Cop/Good Cop on your basement dwelling, overweight, rare-bearded clients. (Hard turn back to original topic) When I was in corporate employment, one of my best experiences was when I was co-manager with two other women who naturally were inclined to play Hard Azz Mom and Caring Patient Mom in co-operation with my Fun Mom style. Hard Azz Mom/Manager would say "He's always late for morning shift. Let's just fire his azz.", Caring Patient Mom/Manager would say "I think he deserves another chance. Let me train/counsel him again.", and Fun Mom/Manager would say "I am just going to arbitrarily change his schedule so that he only has evening shifts. Then, if he wants to quit, so be it." -because this is the kind of policy that allows Fun Mom to stay more stress-free and jolly.

[7Wannabe5]

So, how does he decrease the fear and reverse the maladaptation? Baby steps.

I apologize for type-casting you as tough coach type in my above post. You showed your empathetic counselor side in this post.

One thing a trained therapist can do better than a kind friend is better help you untangle your deep web of fears and fantasies. For instance, there were some very practical (gotta go to the gym/ write the first draft resume) reasons I didn't leave my dysfunctional first marriage, but continued to bitch for several years. But there were also some more complex reasons that weren't even entirely apparent to me until after I got out. For instance, I realized that my own poor relationship with my bi-polar/rager mother made me overly fear that my kids would hate me if I divorced their father. IOW, I was unable to differentiate myself from the role of "mother" to the extent that would enable me to clearly see that my relationship with my own kids was very different and much more functional than my relationship with my own mother.

[Ego]

You showed your empathetic counselor side in this post.

Geeze, you sure know how to hurt a guy.

[theanimal]

This discussion reminds me of the Feynman quote that goes:

“There's a big difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.”

Mechanics, woodworking, hunting, sports, pretty much anything is not learned wholly in a book. A book can help guide the pursuit, but the action is where most of the learning happens for the vast majority of people. It would appear to me that telling someone who is afraid of elevators that they actually have more mental issues that prevent them from going on elevators and need to be addressed first is a lot more harmful and complex than going through the practice of helping them get on an elevator. A la the practice of cognitive behavioral therapy as @Ego mentioned.

My current roommate serves as the perfect anti-model for me as to what happens when someone focuses on too much theory. He is more or less the basement dweller described above. Our house is filled with 3 massive floor to ceiling (16 ft) bookshelves, filled with books. All his. He loves talking about ideas, but also loves complaining about how everything is stacked against him. At work, at the grocery store. The reality is he can't do anything and is very much without skills, leaving him at the whims of the world. Last month his car wouldn't start, there were no mechanics available for a few weeks and his work which he very much depends on is 1 hour away. I helped him diagnose what was going wrong in his car then changed his starter for him. He was next to me the whole time and was wondering how I started learning this stuff. "I should pick up some books on how a car works." No, no, no! Like the basement dweller, he doesn't need to spend any more time analyzing his current predicament but rather needs to learn something, do something, anything that will give him confidence and offer a path forward and something to work towards. Confidence builds from there.