in warding off pain. Pride that jolts you out of malaise when you are about to be passed. Pride that holds you accountable to the promises you made. Pride that says I’m better than this, and I ain’t going out like this.

because the real experts aren’t in power.

It happens on a daily basis. You’ll be doing one thing, your concentration will be on that one thing, and then, suddenly, a different thing will capture your attention. Especially if this other thing requires less energy to complete, the temptation will arise to drop the first thing and jump to the second. Unfortunately, as is frequently true with temptation, giving in will leave you deprived long-term.

Why? Well, for starters, you will erode your ability to focus for any serious amount of time, a skill necessary to appropriately meet any sufficiently difficult task. More importantly, giving in actively encourages a forever racing mind that prevents you from being able to derive pleasure through attention – no current moment will ever prove good enough, the grass will always be greener.

A simple solution exists in what I’m going to make up right now and call “Active Observation.” Make a quick note of that other thing and return to the task at hand. Simply observing the thought, as mediation beseeches, is often not nearly enough for all but the elite meditators since that thought, especially a pressing one you fear forgetting, will continue remerging. The act of taking a note cauterizes this cycle. Research flights to Mexico. Buy a pineapple. Register for bowling league. Maybe the thought will indeed reappear, but now you can honestly tell yourself, “I know I’ll handle that later.”

(more…)

Think of a young Eddie Van Halen practicing guitar six, seven, eight hours a day. Think of how hard it is for you to remain focused on a single task for, what, 30 minutes? So really let that EVH practice quantity sink in. Then consider that even after becoming the greatest guitar player in the world, Eddie didn’t relax. He would get off tour and seamlessly transition into ever more practice – with no time off. Nonetheless, he made mistakes while playing. Certainly during live shows when you only get one take, but EVH also missed notes on studio records where infinite retries are permitted.

Now think of yourself going into a hard conversation, how you want it to go perfectly. And then remember that hard conversations permit no real practice. Maybe you internally rehearse what you’ll say, but that’s about it – nothing close to the thousands of practice runs Eddie gets. Then further appreciate that hard conversations are hard, in part, because they are so unique. Like, it’s not every day you console someone who lost a loved one, or have to tell a partner you aren’t happy, or bring up the fact that you strongly disagree with a leader’s actions. So in addition to nonexistent practice, you are also without live experience to draw upon. In a sense, you are being thrown on stage with a vague idea of how the guitar works and expecting yourself to play Eruption. 

Don’t be absurd. Lower your expectations. A lot. When you replay the conversation and long to have said something different, remember that you aren’t Eddie, that you couldn’t have practiced, that your total reps in such conversations are staggeringly small, and that even if none of that is true, that you are, indeed, Eddie Van Halen, errors would still find you.

if you didn’t have a problem to solve?

Well, for one thing, you would be bored. And given the undesirability of such a state, perhaps the tenor with which we discuss problems should be changed to one of appreciation (for the purpose problems provide) as opposed to wishing the problem would instantly resolve.

The above connotation shift is not a suggestion for intractable problems, for problems that may well never have a solution. In these unfortunate scenarios, there are no longer steps to take, books to read, experiments to run – there is just suffering.

But is your problem actually unsolvable? A temptation exists to label a problem in this fashion to excuse oneself of responsibility. Then again, if one can’t walk away from the problem, the whole suffering thing should dissuade the act of submitting to temptation too easily. Still, a simple test should usually suffice: can a stranger informed of your problem instantly derive actions worth trying? If so, you are far from exhausting possibilities, so dig in and embrace the purpose. If not, well, ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

just not too much.

This is how one can honestly claim, “I don’t like games in dating,” while also being turned off by the far-too-direct suitor who doesn’t “play games.”

Finding the perfect line where one shows enough “want” without coming across as “wanting” is the stuff of magic.

Some guesses as to why such a line exists:

1. For all but the most narcissistic, it’s natural to doubt oneself. Hence, it is nice to hear compliments. However, too many compliments are a bit suspicious: Doesn’t this other person know how flawed I am? Is he/she just lying?
2. There are perks to being a big fish in a small pond. So, it’s common for pleasure to be derived from liking another person slightly less than he/she likes you. There is power in this discrepancy. A too-large gap, though, indicates something in the perception of a shared reality is off and you may be settling for a très tiny fish.
3. We want what we can’t have.
4. Endless attention can be exhausting and downright uncomfortable. Plus, ceaseless unreciprocated attention shows a certain lack of awareness in the suitor, which is an unquestionably unattractive trait.

insofar as it tricks people into thinking they are getting better at talking about that which they’ve buried, that which they think, that which they feel, that which is true.

Of course, being able to speak honestly is a truly vital skill and cannot be placed in the bin of Stuff I Accept I’m Bad At if one hopes to live anything close to his best possible life.

But make no mistake, candor with a stranger (i.e., therapist) is not such a vital skill. It’s something, sure, and there are benefits that may be cultivated in the process. But the same fears of judgment and rejection that usually prevent “speaking one’s mind” are significantly reduced in interactions with strangers. Thus, you aren’t actually getting better at speaking well with people you know, just at speaking well when nothing’s really on the line.

So whenever you think I’m totally spent, I can’t do any more, you are almost certainly incorrect.

much of the inequality discussion is based on a “fixed pie” view of the world: the rich get richer by taking from the poor. It’s zero-sum, and the rich are winning. It should be no mystery then why someone, especially a vulnerable someone, would view immigrants with skepticism: there is a “fixed pie,” and the more people going for a piece means my piece will get smaller – or disappear entirely.