alt Hacker NewsI was watching a Charlie Rocket interview today and I got a lot of inspiration from him. He made it a habit of staying positive, turning a loss into a win and always finding the upside. Instead of getting sucked into the despair, he takes a loss as a learning lesson. Good habits can be hard to find but once you get into the habit of something, it becomes super easy. Everything is hard to do -- if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Once you learn to do something, and keep doing it, you understand it better and it can make your life so much easier, or happier, or better, in so many ways. There are also bad habits but those are just as easy to break as good ones.
Replies
Could you share a link to the interview?
There's a fine line between what you described and toxic positivity.
It's important not to ruminate on bad thoughts (when your proposal is a good replacement behavior), but it's also important not to bottle up natural human emotions as if they are unjustified or unreal.
A thought exercise: if it wasn't your behavior that caused your own despair, but your spouse's behaviors that caused you irritation / grief. Do you think it's better to paint a smile on yourself and ignore the underlying problem, or spend a few minutes feeling your emotions, describe the cause to your partner, then politely suggest a substitute behavior? The former builds resentment and bottles up strong emotions for an inevitable outburst down the road. The other diffuses the emotion, potentially alleviates the offending behavior, and doesn't betray what you authentically emote.
[dead]
Agree with most everything and will check our that interview, that attitude is how I try and live, but the last sentence is obviously not true. Taking heroin is a habit, going to a gym is a habit, and obviously one is much easier to stop whether either willfully or not.
I'd say the ease which you can pick up habits or drop them is extremely variable across the specific habit and person. (as a different example, someone with less social awareness will find it harder to pick up the habit of being a hospitable host than someone it comes naturally to, but once learned its probably fairly easy to maintain)
One of my favorite quotes is, "first the man makes the habit, then the habit makes the man" , and it works both ways, good and bad. I really think this is something that should be taught much more explicitly in school to everyone, rather than leaving it only in places like sports and the military.