How to Bounce Back When Life Gets You Down (And Become a Better Person in the Process)
By Tony J. Robinson
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I could easily copy/paste Tony’s entire article there are so many good pull quotes from it. His article is a definite, 100% read through. Twice. Just do it. Seriously. You will be better for it. I think it resonates so much with me because of my belief in the fail better philosophy.
The next time you find yourself having just gone through a bad experience, take the time to dissect what happened. How did you get in that situation? What could you do to prevent it from happening again? How can you handle things better next time?
Without asking those questions, you won’t be able to grow from that experience. You’ll just be frustrated, upset, and bound to be in the same situation again.
But not only does Tony believe we can learn from our mistakes and fail better, he also drives home an often forgotten next step. The concept that you, and only you, are in control of your life:
Don’t label yourself a victim. Being a victim means you’re not in control and if you’re not in control then it’ll be impossible for you to grow from those bad experiences.
You have to stay in the driver’s seat when it comes to learning from life’s unfortunate moments, and using them as learning experiences that you grow from. You can’t be the kind of person that just “goes with the flow” because more often than not that flow is headed somewhere you don’t want to be.
Words to live by…
Preventing Burnout: A Cautionary Tale
By Tim Ferriss and Charlie Hoehn
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Tim Ferriss is my favorite non fiction author. Undisputed #1. It started with The 4-Hour Work Week, grew with the book that changed the way I look at eating and working out, The 4-Hour Work Week and then culminated with The 4-Hour Chef, which despite it’s name is about more than just cooking or chef-ery.
The best part about Tim’s books is the frankness in which he speaks. He doesn’t pull any punches and he speaks with authority, even if some of his ideas seem impossible or possibly insane. The 4-Hour Work Week is his best, not only because he teaches you to create a new company in which you can go live your life and not be consumed by a 9-5, but because he helps you prioritize what’s important in life.
In this article Tim’s former assistant Charlie Hoehn discusses what burn out is and how he easily lost site of what’s important in life even while from the outside everything looked “perfect”.
I was too ashamed and proud to reach out to anyone for help, so I bottled my feelings up and stumbled around for the next year. It was the worst I’ve ever felt in my life.
Charlie also points out some questions everyone should be asking themselves to determine if they are on the verge of burnout. Some of the questions are extreme, only-in-silicone-valley questions, but it’s still worth reading over. Because as the article title implies, you don’t want to be another cautionary tale.
No one knew the full extent of my situation but me, and I was in denial. It’s worth taking a moment to ask yourself:
- Do I feel guilty or anxious when I’m not working?
- Have I stopped playing with my friends?
- Do all of my daily activities revolve around building a more successful career?
- Am I always sleeping fewer than eight hours per night?
- Am I consuming stimulants multiple times per day to hide my exhaustion?
- Am I sitting still and staring at screens for most of my waking hours?
- Do I interact with people primarily through screens?
- Am I indoors all day long, depriving myself of fresh air and sunlight?
- Do I depend on alcohol or drugs to cope with social situations outside of work?
To take the next step, Charlie has written a book (hopefully in a leisurely manner) that helps workaholics come back from the brink, aptly titled Play It Away: A Workaholic’s Cure for Anxiety. Part 2 of Charlie’s story will be coming out soon on Tim’s blog, so make sure to keep checking back at <www.fourhourworkweek.com>.
How Gadgets Ruin Relationships and Corrupt Emotions
By Dr. Sue Johnson
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Ugh. Gadgets. This article was difficult to get through. Not because it’s a bad read, mind you, rather it’s hard to read words you know are true and don’t want to admit to yourself. Gadgets. They’re everywhere. In fact, to simply write this post, I find the articles through my RSS reader Unread on my iPhone, send them to Pocket on my iPad, where I sort them and then copy to Lightly which exports the highlighted articles to Evernote on my Mac and then I finish writing the post in LightPaper.
Ugh. Gadgets.
I often bemoan that when I find myself feeling gloomy, I end up thumb surfing on my iPhone. Just a mindless thumbing over and over for nothing in particular. Just zombified thumb surfing. And I have to admit, the more my nose is in my iPhone/iPad/Mac, the less I’m connected to those around me. And now there’s proof:
But this is about more than an issue of gadget etiquette or a lack of consideration for others. It’s about connection. While our electronic gadgetry is keeping us more connected in some ways, it is a shallow connection — not the deep emotional engagement needed for any kind of meaningful relationship. Why? Because texting and e-mails are set up for volume, velocity, and multitasking — that is, the splitting of attention.
Our gadgets therefore create an illusion of connection. The danger, though, is that they also set up a new way of relating in which we are continually in touch — but emotionally detached.
An “illusion of connection”. Ugh. That doesn’t sound good. But wait a second, what is connection? I would argue, although no one would disagree with this point, that connection is based on empathy. So what is empathy?
Empathy is the capacity to perceive and identify with another’s emotional state. The word, coined in the 20th century, derives from the Greek empatheia, meaning “affection” and “suffering.” But the concept was first developed by 19th-century German philosophers who gave it the name Einfühlung, meaning “feeling into.” How strong that capacity is in human beings is being proven in study after study.
…
Roughly, the way empathy seems to happen is: you see me (or even, as in the experiment above, imagine me) experiencing a strong feeling, maybe pain or disgust; you mirror my response in your brain; you mimic me with your body (your face crinkles in the exact same way as mine does); you respond to me on an emotional level and move into empathetic concern for me; you help me.
Dr. Johnson’s article is excerpted from her book Love Sense. You should check that book out too.
What Will Games Be Like in 20 Years
By Andrew Goldfarb
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Video games are awesome. Both in the good and bad sense of the word. For every study on how awful they are I can show you a study on how advantageous they can be. When it comes to gaming I take the “all in moderation” approach. Like anything, too much, too soon (violence, etc) can quickly turn in to a nightmare.
Since my early days of writing my comic book series (shameless plug: Out of This World Comics) I’ve always been interested in finding ways to engage kids in learning new social/mental health skills. My choice, obviously, was comic books. I know it better, it’s easier to pull off and it’s my first love. But I always believed that some day video games would be used for much more than running, gunning and adventure. I always believed that one day we’d be able to harness technology to create a virtual “role play” in which new behaviors and skills could be practiced and refined.
But with all that said, it’s still not clear that virtual environment really work for this type of interaction? Obviously we wouldn’t want to replace real human contact, but as we continue to become more virtual and gadget oriented, will we still be able to use a virtual reality for gaining skills in the real world?
Andrew Goldfarb of IGN sat down with some of the top game developers to talk virtual reality and the idea that games will continue to become more and more “real”. In the article there is a quote from Bruce Straley, game director of The Last of Us:
“I think the more we shy away from human contact and interaction, the more stunted we’re going to be in regards to just the ability to empathize with other humans,” he continued. “We remove ourselves from the ability to grow and evolve as a culture. That gets really scary on that bigger, more fundamental meta level. I’m with Neil 100 percent. We’re all after the same goal. Conflict and story and things like that, designed procedurally, I can’t even fathom how. There’s one thing where I’m interacting with other humans in a multiplayer environment. I’m having fun because I’m engaging with another human. But is that actually exposing or revealing the essence or the core of what it is to participate in the human experience? Which is having to deal with my flaws and face your flaws in the mirror of each other – to look at each other as humans and say, we’re in this together for a short amount of time on this earth.”
I tend to agree with this quote, especially the last two sentences. It will be interesting to see if a person can truly be vulnerable in an unreal reality.
As a bonus, check out this new video game. Tell me it’s not a wonderful title for kids to play:
What I Learned from Taking the Gratitude Challenge
By Pamela Milam
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I’ve had the recent pleasure of finding Pamela Milam on, of all places, Twitter. She writes for rewireme.com and has a good number of articles in which she discusses the topic of counseling and emotional wellness. I recommend reading her work as she is one of the most vulnerable and honest writers in our field. It’s refreshing to read her stories.
In her article she discusses taking the Gratitude Challenge and it’s impact on her life.
Good things repeat themselves….repeatedly. What I call the Frequent F’s (Friends/Family, Food, and Freedom) show up time and again to remind me that life is good—and that it’s good more often than not.
Pamela goes on to describe what freedom means to her:
Freedom. Until I reviewed the list at the end of the challenge, I had not focused much on my freedom. I don’t mean freedom in a patriotic way, although that’s true, too. I mean the freedom my job gives me to learn about other people, the freedom I have to control my own schedule, and the freedom my secure relationship gives me to explore life from a steady foundation. I was surprised to see variations on the theme of freedom popping up over and over throughout my list.
I believe we should all be taking the time to go over what Pamela calls the Frequent F’s and take inventory of the relationships and freedoms we experience.
You can also read more about Pamela’s experience with the Gratitude Challenge.
Why a Reading List? I do a good amount of reading and I‘m constantly finding articles which are informative, entertaining and applicable to my private practice. Instead of hoarding this information to myself, I’ve decided to begin sharing the articles and pull quotes on a semi-regular basis.