Have you ever thought of why you seem to give up so easily sometimes? Or when you wake up every morning, why you feel as though the day is going to end up shitty, but in your mind knows it's not the case?
As part of my work, I was given this book "Learned Optimism - How to Change Your Mind and Life" by Martin Seligman, to read and see how an elderly person can be sucked into depression during the post-65 years. But it's not just for seniors, it's for everyone. Don't be fooled by the title - it's not the average "lift your soul and mind with 27 effective habits" book. Seligman is a pschyology professor who has done 20 years of research into optimism and what brings out the best or worst form of thinking in people.
The nub of the matter in the book for me are two things - learned helplessness and explanatory style. Sometimes we are faced with misfortunes which set us back again and again (for example always getting it wrong when writing policy papers, or no one turning up for outings when you so enthusiastically organise them one month in advance). When faced with such repeated misfortunes, a person tends to explain it by either saying (a) it is an isolated case, that will last only temporarily, and that it's the fault of others, and that in a normal situation, this wouldn't happen, or (b) it's a pattern, it's a permanent screw-up, never to be reversed, it's your fault. (b) is to learn helplessness.
(a) is the Optimists' way of thinking, and (b), Pessimist. Of course, there is no perfect optimist, but apparently, there are a huge number of perfect pessimists who fall into depression. There are voices inside all of us telling us what to think, giving us reasons for why we succeeded and why we failed.
These voices are known as the explanatory style we adopt. Without even knowing, we tend to listen to these voices and base our behaviour on them. For example, when we fail a driving test, you know in your mind that it's just not your day, and/or the tester was a strict @#$%, and/or it was a hot day so you were sleepy etc. But there could be another voice telling you, subconsciously, that you're at fault since you're a loser and you are not meant to drive a car.
The trick is to sense these negative voices and turn them around to give a positive explanatory style - not just for the sake of it, but because it's true.
In the context of my worldview, I believe that the good voices we hear are those in our fitrah, our natural state. The negative voices are by shaytan, mostly. The negative voices tend to put doubt in your actions, and drag you down in some compounded self-doubting exercise. Seligman's advice is to rebut the negative voices and have a positive self-explanatory style. This, most of us do, but not for all occasions. We have our own pick of what we like (and thus good at) and what we don't like (thus not good at).
Reading the book reminded me what we naturally know, but we tend to forget - to listen to our voices in our heart, which have been put there by the Creator to guide us. They will always come to tell us that we're on the right track, if we are doing so, but dispel us, if we're doing something that we shouldn't be doing as "the created".
I guess, in the end, we all have our own coping mechanisms when we're feeling down. But the important thing is to talk it through in our minds.
As part of my work, I was given this book "Learned Optimism - How to Change Your Mind and Life" by Martin Seligman, to read and see how an elderly person can be sucked into depression during the post-65 years. But it's not just for seniors, it's for everyone. Don't be fooled by the title - it's not the average "lift your soul and mind with 27 effective habits" book. Seligman is a pschyology professor who has done 20 years of research into optimism and what brings out the best or worst form of thinking in people.
The nub of the matter in the book for me are two things - learned helplessness and explanatory style. Sometimes we are faced with misfortunes which set us back again and again (for example always getting it wrong when writing policy papers, or no one turning up for outings when you so enthusiastically organise them one month in advance). When faced with such repeated misfortunes, a person tends to explain it by either saying (a) it is an isolated case, that will last only temporarily, and that it's the fault of others, and that in a normal situation, this wouldn't happen, or (b) it's a pattern, it's a permanent screw-up, never to be reversed, it's your fault. (b) is to learn helplessness.
(a) is the Optimists' way of thinking, and (b), Pessimist. Of course, there is no perfect optimist, but apparently, there are a huge number of perfect pessimists who fall into depression. There are voices inside all of us telling us what to think, giving us reasons for why we succeeded and why we failed.
These voices are known as the explanatory style we adopt. Without even knowing, we tend to listen to these voices and base our behaviour on them. For example, when we fail a driving test, you know in your mind that it's just not your day, and/or the tester was a strict @#$%, and/or it was a hot day so you were sleepy etc. But there could be another voice telling you, subconsciously, that you're at fault since you're a loser and you are not meant to drive a car.
The trick is to sense these negative voices and turn them around to give a positive explanatory style - not just for the sake of it, but because it's true.
In the context of my worldview, I believe that the good voices we hear are those in our fitrah, our natural state. The negative voices are by shaytan, mostly. The negative voices tend to put doubt in your actions, and drag you down in some compounded self-doubting exercise. Seligman's advice is to rebut the negative voices and have a positive self-explanatory style. This, most of us do, but not for all occasions. We have our own pick of what we like (and thus good at) and what we don't like (thus not good at).
Reading the book reminded me what we naturally know, but we tend to forget - to listen to our voices in our heart, which have been put there by the Creator to guide us. They will always come to tell us that we're on the right track, if we are doing so, but dispel us, if we're doing something that we shouldn't be doing as "the created".
I guess, in the end, we all have our own coping mechanisms when we're feeling down. But the important thing is to talk it through in our minds.
2 comments:
happy father's day dei! Your FIrsT! =D (hui)
Thank you... :)
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