Being nice to people. You come out of interactions feeling better, and you often get more out of people by being nice.
I learned this from my dad. The hardest part is to be nice to absolute assholes, but I’ve seen it does improve relations when you have to work alongside them.
Yes, I’m pissed that I have to mod my behaviour to be extra-nice to these dicks. Yes, I do enjoy that they coordinate better with me after I’ve nicely indicated where the last joint effort could have been better with that coordination.
It’s all about how we be professional knowledge workers work and coordinate like adults and express disappointment and a wish for improvement, I guess.
Think in softer language. Things you “should” do, or things that are “duties” might not give you the internal reward you deserve for accomplishing them, and almost certainly cause more mental suffering than you deserve. You can still recognize good (or at least better) decisions and goals, but using softer language makes it easier to give yourself grace for not having the strength to try, the recognition of effort when you try but fail, and the appreciation when you actually succeed.
Honestly, I think that helps me more than anything else my therapist ever suggested. Though maybe not as much as the prescription I received from my provider. My worst days are when I forget to apply that.
Simply choose to care or not. It works best when you dont trust your own feelings anyway due to living with loads of mental illness, fuck 'em and substitute them with your ones of your choosing. Dishes and laundry is important now. Horny is not. Etc.
After I come home from work, I want to be a solid lump of nothing. Instead to trick myself when I have tasks I need to do, I keep my work clothes on (including shoes) and it helps trick my brain that the tasks are just a continuation of my work day.
An extension of this is getting dressed normally to work from home. It also means that when you’ve finished for the day, you can get changed and feel switched off from work.
Amphetamines
When I can’t find something in the house after searching for a few minutes, I make a conscious decision to give up and take another approach - go buy the missing tool again, use a different material, whatever. The point is to decide it doesn’t matter where the thing is. Most of the time I immediately look right at whatever I was looking for - as in within a few seconds. Family members are used to hearing me say out loud, “I’m just gonna go to Tru-Value and get another - Oh, here it is!” It works that fast and is very reliable.
My theory about this is that part of my brain knows where the item is all along, but enjoys the treasure hunt and won’t let the information come to the conscious level. But once I sincerely decide to give up the search - it has to be a genuine decision, there’s no faking it - that part of my brain knows the game is over and reveals where the thing is. But who knows, I’m no psychologist.
This happens to me too. I usually have to say ‘where the fuck are my glasses?’ and then I find them immediately.
I always assumed it was because the world is really quantum and it doesn’t know to show you the item until you tell it to.
Maybe we are living in a simulation and it doesn’t show the item until you speak it.
There was this CGP Grey episode “You are two” from some time ago which is a great watch, and I truly love the idea of your brain just messing with you.
If you notice something needs to be done and the task takes less than five minutes, just do it.
Yes, but it’s easy to get side tracked following this.
Hah, yeah. Still better than the alternative - doing nothing
When I think of something that happened during the day that was cringeworthy I tell myself, “You are so stupid!!”
When I catch myself doing that I now stop and say to myself, “No you’re not.”
Oddly, this derails the shame spiral and allows me to stay positive.
smile, show up and act like you belong. even if you don’t people will assume you do. if you want to join in, all you need to do is find the right person to ask.
i joined my first professional band that way. looked up [specific genre] bands in my area, found a few, looked up which one was the best, called up the director, showed up to practice, auditioned in and was their new [let’s pretend i play upright bass. i actually do, but last time i played one a tuning peg flew across the damn room. i also suck at it. so i was not playing upright bass with them] specialist. favorite band i ever played with.
it’s one of those “walk in and give a firm handshake and you’ll get a job” bullshit advice things. I had good timing, they were looking for someone who specialized in what i do (they had a specialist who moved away a year prior and they were noticing the difference) but they were the only ones i’ve played with that did all the frills and trills.
You know, you can tell people you play the triangle without sounding like you’re bragging
Wood. Block.
That’s really cool actually
I learned the same general thing through doing theatre. I reframe the interview so it’s not an interview at all - I already work there and it’s my first day back from some kind of sabbatical. I’m really looking forward to seeing the old group again. We get along great and our manager is awesome. Can’t wait! So when I walk in I’m in that character and feel genuinely glad to be there and happy to see everybody. Cultural fit kicks in right away. I feel like I belong there and so do they. Works great.
performing arts folk are special
Do only as much as I feel like. Don’t feel like making dinner, but i’m ok just setting out the ingredients. OK, now I’m fine with just chopping vegetables. Now I’m fine just making the sauce. It only works if you genuinely allow yourself to stop at any point. If I have to stop after the sauce, everything goes into the fridge and I finish making the meal tomorrow.
I kinda do this. I am not much for cooking but like this is how I get through a lot of daily things. I generally will have I have to do at least one thing or one thing in each of several categories but I keep it very achievable. If I spend most of the day in bed so be it but I will spend some of it doing some things that need doing.
“never leave a room empty-handed” if you are leaving a room look around for something that doesn’t below to that room take it with you and just move it somewhere close where it’s supposed to be, eventually it’s going to find it’s place.
And if you can’t see anything that should leave the room, you know you’re doing pretty well!
ABC - Always Be Carrying
I learned this while working at a restaurant.
I do the same, its so nice not needing to worry as much with cleaning.
bonus: makes the people who live there think they have a poltergeist.
I actually started doing that 4 years ago. Not as consistently as i should, but it really helped me get out of my depression hole. I kept uttering the phrase: if you see something, do something. I found it pretty amusing, and it worked (and still does) bit for bit.
Works with teaching kids to clean litterboxes, too! If you smell something, do something.
Especially if the reason you smell something is that you did something.
I’ve always had a very active sense of humor, and am usually able to find something funny about virtually anything.
I’m not suggesting going around giggling inappropriately at whatever happens to be in front of you like the Joaquin Phoenix Joker, but I know being able to find something that amuses me about even the darkest, most difficult stuff in life has been of immense help to me personally.
Plane crashed in front of OP,
Op:
I’m pretty sure I told my first poor-taste September 11, 2001 joke no later than September 12, 2001. (It was in the company of someone with a similar graveyard-humor streak to mine, with whom I was huddling down and freaking out and who appreciated the joke in the spirit in which it was offered.)
1 day later: too soon?
Absolute mad lad, but also, hilarious. Good work!
I react to stress with laughter. volunteered for a study where you read stuff or did puzzles and they had you wear headphones and sent annoying screeching sounds randomly through. could not stop laughing.
If you’re autistic, look between the eyes while talking.
This is actually a fairly well known acting technique. Avoiding direct eye contact helps suppress your own natural reaction to saying uncomfortable things the real you wouldn’t say.
Yeah. In this context, it’s a masking technique.
Better to look at one of their ears. Left or right, it doesn’t matter.
Really freaks them out.
Why would that freak someone out?
Because humans are pretty good at recognizing where you’re looking. If you’re staring intently at someone’s ear while you’re talking to them, it will look to them like you’re seeing something behind them. The fact that you’re not looking away will cause them to be concerned about what it is.
Huh, neat. I’ll try that next time to mess with my brother lol
Yeah. I learned about it from my father in law.
I’m not autistic, but I do this in some situations. Otherwise, directly in the eyes.
Why not switch between the eyes?
?
Better, there’s an entire book of them. “Dialectical Behavioral Therapy” (DBT) calls them “skills”, but they could just as easily be called psychological cheat codes or lifehacks.
Maybe it’s just me but none of the download links seem to actually work. They just redirect to a new page with:
We now support Amazon gift cards, credit and debit cards, crypto, Alipay, and WeChat.
Same for Open In Viewer, No Redirect, etc.
Scroll down to the “slow downloads” section, pick a mirror, wait through the timer (if there is one) and it will give a direct link. (PDF in this case).
I would recommend doing a “save as” on that link or use a download manager. They also are not kidding about how slow it is - it took about 30minutes for the 10mb file, but it did complete.
Be me hacking
Verb Coopted by self improvement life tips bros
Ai bros coopt verb from normal vocabulary
Behavioral phychologists coopt the term from ai bros
Everything is ok
Two minute rule. If you can do it in two minutes, just do it.
To me that just evolved into a hyperfixation over the weekend and I worked 20+ hours, now I am sleep deprived and half delirious, but the job is done and I am proud ;)
It didn’t work
