Avoiding the Trap of Offense and Grievance-Mongering

Pepsi. United Airlines. Sean Spicer. At first, I thought that maybe I should give a quick re-cap of the details surrounding the recent controversies in the news related to these entities. After all, readers who missed the pertinent media reports will only perceive a random, disconnected list about as meaningful as “sketch pad, Vietnamese flag, Kim Cattrall.” Actually, I Googled Kim Cattrall and the word “controversy” just to see if there indeed ever were any controversy, and of course, there were positive hits returned. I only picked her name because I liked her in Star Trek. The Google results prove my point, though–controversy arises from everywhere these days. It really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things what Spicer or Cattrall actually did, and once enough time passes people will forget anyway. They’ll have moved on to the next outrage-of-the-week. What matters is that the American people, or more accurately all of us in the West, are trapped in a controversy echo-chamber. The System breeds such sensitivity into us that we’ll take offense to anything, to the point that even random lists inevitably capture examples.

People have been brought up since kindergarten to be “sensitive” and have “empathy” for anything with two legs or less anywhere in the world. As a result, we’re simply out of balance. Modern technology has caused us to forget human-scale limits. The wisest and conservative observation is this: you can’t save ’em all.

Remember that it takes two to tango. The work of transforming the words and actions of another into something offensive takes place in your own skull. The ancient Stoics knew a thing or two about this.

Often, people aren’t offended about something done or said to them–they’re third parties who observe something done to another person that makes them angry. It’s called “white knighting.” Who defines the prevailing model of morality that says the Other is always right, and that something is only good if it comes at the expense of the Self? Who does it benefit for you to feel this way? Hint: usually not you. The mainstream media curates and edits with an agenda–their agenda, not yours.

Want some mental peace? Use Dunbar’s Number–care about 150 people close to home. Senator Ben Sasse may dismiss this attitude as “tribalism,” but that’s what humans are built for. Good luck changing that. Ask yourself if there is anything about the situation in question that’s unusual for human history, considering that people have been killing each other for millennia, and will continue to do so. Ask yourself if there’s anything you can actually do about the situation, besides generate words on the Internet. Can you cook food? Deliver blankets to somewhere within driving distance? If it’s too far away to drive, forget it. Hint: attending protests to make the government “do something” doesn’t count.

I am sympathetic to the idea that some of the outrages come from the realization that when something bad happens to someone, there’s the chance in the future that it could also happen to you. This “domino theory” logic can be exhausting, though, since an infinite number of things could happen to you. Odds are, though, that these outlandish events won’t happen to you. Think of it this way: the same odds that prevent you from winning the lottery save you from dying in a terrorist attack, for example. The vast majority of the time, the supposed negative event is happening to someone else. Remember that if you’re busy looking out for someone else, then no one is looking out for you since the other guy is programmed to keep watch on events 10,000 miles away.

And if these observations on snipping the myriad cords of emotional vampirism that tie us down offend you, well, have a Pepsi.

Sources:

The Limits of Friendship

The Stoic: 9 Principles to Help You Keep Calm in Chaos

Clashing views of America: Sen. Sasse challenges the alt-right

Paul Fallavollita is the guy that your professors warned you about. Fallavollita’s columns have appeared at Moleskinerie, Ether Zone, The American Partisan, Spintech, LewRockwell.com, and Enter Stage Right. Fallavollita earned his Master of Arts degree in political science from Purdue University. Having grown up in Massachusetts, he moved to Upstate South Carolina as fast as he could. A latte addict, he works in financial services and is owned by a cat.

Avoiding the Trap of Offense and Grievance-Mongering

How to escape the overthinking trap: stop judging yourself | Mark Rice-Oxley

Before Christmas I took a young relative to a jazz concert. The thought of it ruined his whole day. He scuffed around the house like an alt-right voter at a refugee camp.

In the event, even he acknowledged that we had a fine time. But neither of us would ever get back the dreadful hours that preceded it. He’d fallen prey to a cardinal paradox – poisoning the present by agonising over a future hardship that never materialised.

We’ve all done that. The homo sapiens is so damn clever, and yet sometimes so stupid with it. We are the only species that can really think “offline” – wrapped up in things that haven’t yet happened or things that are long gone but can never be changed. This makes us excellent problem solvers, but appalling worriers at the same time.

Thinking is what gave humans ascendancy. But overthinking is threatening to bring us down. Critical thinking has undoubtedly advanced our cause and become one of the essential assets of being so brilliantly human, but introspective thinking – our near constant self-evaluation, who we are, where we fit, how we compare – is becoming one of the most destructive aspects of modern life. We must purge it.

We are in thrall to the rigid, judgmental thoughts we think about ourselves, prisoners of the sinewy web of cogitation that tells us we are strong, clever, important, unassertive, patriotic, hopeless, old, fat, hard done by, forgotten – when actually we may be many of these things rolled into one. This narrow view of ourselves shapes impossible expectations that can only lead to disappointment. It ripples outwards into our emotions and our behaviour. The results are to be seen daily on our front pages. A father thinks he is the ultimate authority in his family. When his daughter challenges him, he has her killed. A young man thinks he is strong, identifies through his supposed manliness; it directs his violent behaviour.

Our obsessive thinking about ourselves even informs the air of political revolt that made 2016 such a big turning point. In the richest, healthiest, most prosperous era we have ever known, people punish themselves by ruminating and finding that their lives don’t match up to those they think others are leading. It’s a short step from disappointment to blame, and a protest vote.

Too much of our behaviour is determined not by how things are, but how we think things are

But this overthinking tendency is not limited to politics. It embeds personal misery in an era in which we are tempted, even encouraged, to compare ourselves with other people: the teenager who feels low because of what her Instagram feed makes her think; the thwarted youngster, demoralised by the success of others; the employee who feels insecure because she thinks the boss blanked her on the stairwell; the hypochondriac who thinks he is dying of everything. Think bad, feel bad. Compare and despair. It’s no wonder there is a mental illness epidemic out there. Time to wake up, people. The voice in your head is not who you are. It’s just an excitable commentator. You are the game.

Too much of our behaviour is determined not by how things are, but how we think things are. But this thinking is not worth paying too much attention to, for two reasons. First, it is probably incorrect. Let’s face it: we are hardly objective in evaluating ourselves. We overexaggerate both our talents and failings. This is the original fake news.

And second, whether right or wrong, these self-evaluations simply are not helpful. They just make us feel worse.

We need a completely new relationship with our thoughts. Instead of viewing the world and our experience as we think they ought to be, we need to treat them as they actually are. We need to recognise when we are ruining a day, a week, a moment or a relationship with catastrophic thoughts and judgments, and understand that often it is the thought itself that makes us feel bad, not the experience itself.

But how to cultivate that sense of detachment from a poisonous, unhelpful or just plain wrong stream of thinking? Visual clues can help: a post-it on a computer screen (mine just says “thinking …”) or a screensaver on a phone. I wear a black wristband to remind me why I do this. A discreet tattoo might do the same, if that’s your thing.

Habit is even better: get used to observing, say, the first three thoughts you have upon waking every day – were they functional, workaday, banal; or were they judgmental, apprehensive, punishing? Some people like to use motifs – thoughts as a torrent of traffic, cars driving past, and you don’t have to get in the passenger seat. And that same recurring, corrosive notion can be an ugly polluting SUV that comes, stays and moves on again, without really affecting you. Or else thoughts are a busy stream, chattering away in front of you, often pulling you under. But each time you are submerged, eventually you notice and pull yourself out and sit undisturbed, again and again until it starts to become habit to notice the thought rather than believe it.

Happily, some schools are starting to teach this important element of psychological flexibility. It should be compulsory in secondary schools.The myriad apps that teach the practice of being present in the now are another entry point, helping us cultivate our observing selves, rather than our thinking selves.

Instead of obsessing, fuming, curdling about things we don’t have, we need to accept and celebrate what we do. Instead of worrying about things we can’t control – people’s opinion of us, for example – we need to direct our attentions to things we can influence, and leave the rest be. Instead of judging each other, and – worse – ourselves, let us simply take as we find. Instead of ruining our short time alive by setting expectations of how we think everything should be, from our jobs to our love lives, our children to our prospects, let us accept that some things will not always go as we wish.

You’re not who you think you are. You’re so much more than that.

How to escape the overthinking trap: stop judging yourself | Mark Rice-Oxley

Iain Duncan Smith says I am dependent. But my benefits are a lifeline, not a trap

‘Dependency sounds like people are addicted to rewards. If that is the prevailing perspective, then no wonder people who need to have help come to feel picked on and ashamed.’ Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Iain Duncan Smith’s speech last week on jobseekers possessing to search for perform just before they can sign on, talked about “dependency” 14 occasions. He didn’t mention individuals created redundant, or staying at house to care for loved ones or, like me, who are also sick to operate. I uncover that deeply disturbing and I compose in the hope that the operate and pensions secretary thinks about the consequences of what he says and changes how he speaks in the potential.

I’m 52 and live in Newcastle with my wife and two young children. Six many years in the past I was diagnosed with a uncommon and incurable form of leukaemia (cancer of the blood). My objective is to live long sufficient to see my young children grow up.

I left college at sixteen and have worked all my life due to the fact that is all I wished to do. I come from a loved ones which was hardworking and was brought up to understand that you got a task and worked all your existence. I’ve worked in retail, the motor business, in insurance coverage and, for 12 years I worked at the Department for Operate and Pensions. It truly is been a good daily life. Not rich, not bad, but I’ve loved every little thing we have worked hard for.

For 4 years right after my diagnosis, I worked complete time but I was extremely tired, in ache and choosing up every cold and flu going due to the fact of my weakened immune technique. I retired due to ill health at the finish of 2012 and given that then have claimed the advantages I am entitled to and that I have contributed to all my existence so that we can proceed to pay the mortgage loan and place food on the table.

You could say that me and my family are dependent on rewards. In the exact same way we had been dependent on my salary and we are still dependent on my pension and the income my wife earns. Unless of course we are born rich, we all depend on the funds coming in every single month. But Iain Duncan Smith makes use of dependent in a way I reject. Dependency sounds like folks are addicted to positive aspects. If which is the prevailing attitude, then no wonder folks who need to have help come to feel picked on and ashamed.

I’m not unusual. Other folks who have had help from benefits have essential that assist because they were operating in reduced-paid jobs, looking for work or, like me, unable to function. Perhaps we are an inconvenient reminder that becoming unable to pay the expenses with no aid is not a straightforward moral failing – it truly is anything that so several of us are only a diagnosis or a redundancy letter away from. If I can not persuade men and women in electrical power to stop speaking about dependency, possibly they would agree that, for each and every time they do, they match it with a reference to the millions of us for whom help from rewards is a lifeline, not a trap.

Iain Duncan Smith says I am dependent. But my benefits are a lifeline, not a trap