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.”
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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!
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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.
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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.