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The Dangers of Having Too Little To Do
The Nature Of Work
Work, by definition, requires continuous effort, as completing anything of value, like attaining a college degree, building a business or writing a book, is a slow and steady process which spans months or years.
The unpleasant aspects of work provide us with a sort of satisfaction and happiness, and not having any challenge can strangely feel uncomfortable and hollow.
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When Doing Nothing Becomes Difficult
The mind seems terrified of the states of calm and relaxation as if work was a distraction to not let the mind come close to the worries and the existential queries. It saddles us with guilt and shame on the life we have lived, and the things that never materialized.
Doing nothing, it seems, becomes harder than doing any work that fills our time and keeps our mind engaged.
We Have To Keep Engaging Our Minds
Our work has a little known value: protecting us from a sense of despair and agony, and keeping us from doing the most difficult task: Doing Nothing.
The mind has to be kept engaged by providing it with mild challenges, one after the other, to keep it from falling into an abyss doom and terror.
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Talking horizontally and encouraging honesty
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Sigmund Freud discovered that there is a remarkable difference between what people will tell you when they are sitting up and looking at you in the eye, and what they will say to you when they ...
When we feel discouraged to speak
We perhaps don't realise that seeing another person's face can discourage us from speaking the truth. We may hold back and edit our presentation in the light of their reactions.
With Sigmund Freud's example in mind, we should find our own forms of horizontal conversation. After dinner, we might suggest that we all go and lie down somewhere and become newly conscious of voices and nuances when we don't have to look at others' expressions.
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Mental Wellness
Being psychologically well does not mean being super excited, happy or exuberant at all times.
We are seldom aware of the stability of our ‘pendulum’ of thoughts and feeli...
The Window Of Tolerance
In psychological terms, our minds have a certain bandwidth within which we can tolerate discomfort, a certain speed range in which we can drive with ease, taking care of the challenges and problems. This is known as the window of tolerance.
If we cross the upward barrier in this speed range, we feel terrified, guilty or shameful. If we are below the bottom threshold of this window, we feel lonely, bored, alienated and numb. Remaining within the Window Of Tolerance is our daily challenge as we zig-zag between various emotions and try to keep ourselves sane by self-regulating the mind to remain in the ‘harmonious’ window, while not being stagnant.
Piloting Our Mind
If we continuously feel a lot of distress and draining, we should recover ourselves by moderation in eating and drinking, meditation, reading, exercising, and ample rest.
We need to be aware of the direction and trajectory of our moods, emotions and feelings, and make use of introspection and self-observation to get us out of possible pitfalls, avoiding a ‘crash landing’ at a later stage if we do not pay attention.
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Your inner critic
We almost all have a character inside our minds that tends to visit us late at night when we're very tired, telling us terrible things in order to destroy our self-confidence and self-c...
Every story has two sides
You could tell everything as a tragedy, or you could tell an equally valid and far kinder story. You could say that you made some serious errors, as every human will, and you paid the price for them. Nevertheless, you tried to be good and loved a few people properly. Despite everything, your heart is in the right place.
The difference between hope and despair depends on the way of telling conflicting stories from the same facts.
Your inner critic was always an outer critic
... who has been internalized. You're speaking to yourself as someone else once talked to you or made you feel.
You should acknowledge your failures and be happy to make amends. But you also have to stand back from this critic and question what they are doing in your mind. They don't have a right to walk as they wish through the rooms of your mind.
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