Letting Go of Anger

Your anger is holding you back. It’s time to let it go. A lesson in anger management. 

It is clear that some people just like being angry - or they are afraid of letting go of their anger. Probably the latter.

I deal with a lot of people and in some of the work I do, it isn’t unusual to meet some really angry people. The people who are the maddest are usually the ones who have been the least successful at accomplishing their objectives.

It isn’t that they are angry that they failed. It is because they are angry that they failed.  Their anger doesn’t allow them to consider other ways to solve their problem because the problem isn’t with them or their approach. The problem is with other people who thwarted their efforts. This sort of thing happens all the time and it’s really sad to see people continue to suffer because they won’t let go of their anger for long enough to consider changing tactics. To be successful you need to learn how to control your anger. 

About 90% of our problems arise from our interpersonal interactions. In other words, they are a result of conflicts or disagreements with other people. And even if they aren’t, you still need other people to help you solve your problem. If you get angry with them and write them off as useless out of anger, even if you have good reason to then you are going to not take advantage of the resources other people might have that will help you solve your problem.

Anger also blinds people and keeps them from seeing possible solutions. Angry people are so focused on the object of their anger, that they don’t notice what else is going on around them. This is like hurling yourself against a brick wall trying to get into a building because you never took the time to go around the corner to see if there was a door. People like this get angry that there is no door and getting even madder when people tell them if they just calmed down and walked around the corner they would find the door they are looking for and their problem will be solved. Angry people are usually so invested in their anger they will yell and scream and refuse to even look because it is easier for them to continue doing something that isn’t working than admit to themselves that they were mistaken and rash and behaving poorly in the first place and that they brought most of their problems on themselves.

Anger also keeps people from seeing or understanding nuance. And the nuances matter when you are trying to solve a problem. The devil is in the details and if you can’t deal with the details, you won’t be successful. You’ve heard of the adage, if all you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail. Effective problem solving requires flexibility – sometimes, you need a screw driver, not a hammer. Clinging to your anger may feel good, but it might not be the right tool to help you solve your problem. Taking a step back from your anger to see whether your assumptions are even true can be the difference between success and failure.

Anger holds us back. If you are holding onto residual anger, love yourself enough to let it go.

Standing Alone

While it often seems like we are all alone, the truth is, we are never alone. It only seems like we are.

In one sense, we are alone, in our own heads. We have a theory of mind that allows us to posit that other people have thoughts going on in their heads in much the same way we have thoughts going on in ours, but that is only a theory. We are stuck in our own heads. So, in that sense, we are alone all the time.

However, we are also biologically related to all life on the planet and chemically made up of the same stuff that makes up the universe. It's mind blowing when you think about it.

If we focus on just the humans and our connection to them, there are 7+ billion of us alive at the moment. We are all similar yet different. The key is to understand and accept the similarities and differences at the same time. When you can do that you get that each human is real, not just an abstract idea of a person, but a real person with a real life and real problems and real loves and a real job you know nothing about. The problem we have is that when we interact with other humans, we see and judge the interaction through our own lens of experience. The problem is that this provides us with a distorted view of the interaction. The other person or persons have their own lenses they are viewing things and judging things by and their own distortions.

What helps improve interpersonal interactions is to accept that your view is limited and inaccurate and seek to grasp the inherent realness of the other person’s experience. This requires you to get out of your head and to consider the other person as a person and that requires compassion (despite what horrid thing they may have done).  The beauty of doing this is that the act of consider people compassionately takes you out of your head, where you are stuck, and connects you emotionally to other people so that you aren't alone anymore. 

This aspect of compassion is the reason every major philosopher and teacher and religion teaches compassion in some form. It's incredibly powerful and helps eliminate that feeling of aloneness that is at the heart of most of our existential angst.

As to the question about ethical principles - all of our principles are a product of learning and experience and shared community. So even if you think your principles are yours alone, they aren't. They are a rather arbitrary mix of your own thoughts and what you have learned from and with others. Ethics is a communal activity. You can't do ethics or be moral in isolation. You can only be moral in relationship to other people. So no, in that sense, you don't stand alone even when you think you are.

What do you do to combat the feeling of being alone in the universe? 

Positive Perseverance

While persevering is no guarantee of success, there can be no success without it.

Life is hard. Sometimes annoyingly so. I feel like my husband and I have been going through a period of bad luck where things just aren’t going our way. It’s frustrating. But, we stick at it, and keep plugging along working to make things better for ourselves, our family and the world in which we live.

What keeps us going? Well, first, that we don’t have an alternative. Things are what they are and we have no choice but to deal with them. We might as well tackle these things with a positive attitude.

I liken this to my son who hates doing homework and is bored doing it. Whenever he says, I’m bored, I say, so am I, so get the homework done so we can go do something else more fun. Drudgery is a part of life. Get it done and move on and the better the attitude you have about the drudgery, the quicker you get it over with. Fighting it just draws it out.

The next thing that keeps us going is hope.  Hope for the future. Again, we may continue to have bad luck. There is only so much that we can control in our lives. But that shouldn’t stop us from making an effort. There is a lot we can control and by doing those things we improve the possibility that our luck might change. That we may get a break.

An example of this is looking for a new job. There are still way to many people out of work and it doesn’t matter how well qualified you are, you may still lose out on a job to another candidate. Don’t take it personally. My husband lost out on a job a while back that he was actually the top candidate for until another guy lost his job and became available and knocked my husband out of the running. Sometimes things like that happen and sometimes you catch a break. The point is that unless you persevere and keep trying you won’t even be in the running.

For me, the work I do is lonely. I’m a writer. I post stuff and rarely does anyone respond. But sometimes they do and sometimes you find that you had a tremendous impact on someone else’s life. Like yesterday I got a call from a mother who told me that her daughter has become totally empowered because of a book I wrote. If I wasn’t out there persevering despite the lack of positive response, I would not have even met that woman in the first place to have had that impact.

You never know what will come of your efforts. Possibly nothing. But even if that is true, it is still worth it to positively persevere. Because you just never know.

Do you have a story of perseverance you’d like to share? Please share if you do because it will help motivate the rest of us to keep going when the going gets hard. 

10 Virtues

What does it mean to be a virtuous person? Can virtuous people still have fun? 

The School of Life in London issued a list of 10 virtues for the modern age. There is a reason people keep coming up with these sorts of lists. It turns out that to be good, we actually have to remind ourselves to be good and having a list of some sort to guide us provides a handy easy to remember reference list to consider when considering our actions.

Here is the 10 virtues from the School of Life - http://www.theschooloflife.com/blog/2013/02/ten-virtues-for-the-modern-age/  I’m not going to summarize them here – you need to click through the link to see what they are.

They view this as a project to foster public dialogue about what it means to be a good person. I endorse that goal whole heartedly. I just hate lists of 10. 

I prefer lists of three instead. Easy to remember and count on one hand.

So here is my list.

Be Compassionate.
Be Responsible
Be Honest.

However, I do think it can be simplified even further – don’t be a dick. http://humanisthappiness.blogspot.com/2011/04/dont-be-dick.html

What do you include on your ethical cheat sheet?

The goal is self-control

If you can’t control yourself and succumb to temptation, the solution isn’t to remove temptation; the solution is to work on your self control!

A while back there was a news story about a Saudi cleric who recommended baby girls be clad in baby burkas. (see: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/342731#ixzz2JwH9Rk7i)

Why? Because apparently there are a number of Muslim men who are raping their young daughters. And it’s becoming a bit of a problem. Now, one of the solutions to this problem has been to advocate changing the law to make it illegal for a man to kill his wife or child or abuse them, which is apparently currently legal under Saudi Arabia’s version of Sharia. This seems like a rational step. Make it illegal for men to abuse women.

However a Saudi cleric has another idea. Since some Saudi men can’t resist themselves even around tiny little babies, that babies and young girls should wear burkas so that the men in their lives won’t be tempted to rape and torture them.

And here is where Humanism differs from a religious approach. We believe in personal responsibility and in respecting individuals. Rape and any form of sexual abuse against anyone of any age is not ok because it dehumanizes the victim on a very basic human level! It’s about control and power and ultimately about disrespect.

Further Humanism doesn’t tell 5 year old girls that they are responsible for their father raping them because they should have been wearing a burka!  We instead tell the father – he is responsible to protect his daughter and to not harm her in any way.

Asking everyone around you to accommodate the fact you have no self-control is to make other people responsible for your actions and choices. It is an immature response to bad behavior. It is like a 10 year old you have told not to touch something breaking it and then blaming you for leaving it out for them to play with in the first place.

Mature people take responsibility for their actions. The solution isn’t to ask half of humanity to not tempt you by their very existence. The solution is to work on your self-control so that you can be in the presence of your five year old daughter and not think of raping her! Or better yet – how about working on your self control and compassion and respect for others so that raping any girl is not something you would ever consider!

Constructive Criticism

Learning how to take criticism constructively is important. How can managers adjust their approach to help their employees take criticism constructively even if the employee is “sensitive?”

Job success and satisfaction are tied together. By and large people want to do good and they feel good when they do. The problem is that all work requires learning and adjustments. The ability and willingness to correct mistakes is key. This is why constructive criticism is so important.

The problem is that the very real humans you are trying to give advice to have their own issues and their own insecurities. And these insecurities get in the way of people actually learning how to improve what they are doing.

So, in the spirit of Humanistic Leadership and business management, let’s talk about what the research shows us about best practices when it comes to constructive criticism.

The good news is that there are really just two main variables that impact how a person responds to criticism.

Self Esteem

The first is self-esteem. People with low self-esteem respond very poorly to criticism. In fact the more they fight it, the lower their self-esteem probably is. Managers can use this information by recognizing that in order to deliver constructive advice; they first have to provide some support to help shore up the self-esteem of the individual they are critiquing. You can do this by complimenting them on what they are doing right and then framing the advice as a way that they can improve even more and do even better and that you are confident in their ability to rise to the challenge.

Gender Differences

The second thing is that it turns out that men and women respond to criticism differently.  This basically means that how they defend themselves from the criticism differs. Men tend to express their feelings outward, in other words, the person critiquing them is the person with the problem. Women tend to internalize it by beating themselves up or taking the criticism as a personal attack. As a result, it is fairly easy to recognize men who have low self-esteem, they are the ones bashing and blaming everyone else for their mistakes.  Women, on the other hand are harder to recognize because the anger and frustration are directed inwards. This is a challenge for managers who will need to make an extra effort with female employees to ensure that bad feelings don’t start to fester and to find ways to assess HOW the advice was taken.

Ego

As for the rest of us – what is the advice to take criticism better? Let go of your ego. Your goal should be to do the best job you can and any criticism you receive regardless of why it is being given, should be viewed as an opportunity to learn and improve. If you are focused on your ultimate goal of being successful, you are more likely to use criticism to help you achieve your goals. 

What was the worst advice you ever received. What did you learn from it?

PS – this post was inspired by a press release sent out by Psychtests.com in case you were interested and is based on their research.  - http://testyourself.psychtests.com/testid/2129

The Science of Optimism

Why optimism is good for your, regardless of what the skeptics say.

I have become a huge fan of a blog called Brain Pickings. They have such interesting posts. Anyway – one was about the science of optimism. Go ahead and read it here: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/12/12/science-of-optimism-sharot/

I like that it provides science to back up what I already feel which is that being optimistic is better than being pessimistic. And yeah, I realize that is confirmation bias at work, but I am too much of an optimistic to care.

Here is a synopsis:

“Though the belief in a better future is often an illusion, optimism has clear benefits in the present. Hope keeps our minds at ease, lowers stress, and improves physical health. This is probably the most surprising benefit of optimism. All else being equal, optimists are healthier and live longer. It is not just that healthy people are more optimistic, but optimism can enhance health. Expecting our future to be good reduces stress and anxiety, which is good for our health. Researchers studying heart attack patients have found that optimists were more likely than nonoptimistic patients to take vitamins, eat low-fat diets, and exercise, thereby reducing their overall coronary risk. A study of cancer patients revealed that pessimistic patients under the age of 60 were more likely to die within eight months than nonpessimistic patients of the same initial health, status, and age.”

In other words, optimism may be a bit irrational but that doesn’t really matter because the optimism helps us cope better with difficulties, leads us to take better care of ourselves and plan more effectively for the future. Take that pessimistic skeptics – you know who you are! Of course, the standard caveat applies – all things in moderation. The pessimistic skeptics aren’t completely wrong either – as always, it’s about getting the balance right.

The real question is what are you irrationally optimistic about and why do you cling to your optimism despite it all? 

Negotiating with a child

How a Humanistic Parent uses negotiation to help their children learn how to think critically and better navigate social interactions.

I realize a lot of parenting experts counsel against negotiating with a child. They say it erodes parental authority. I think they are wrong. I negotiate with my child all the time. Negotiation is an important skill. It helps the child learn to use their words to get what they want and that is so much better than them thinking the only way to get what they want is through a tantrum. It helps them develop verbal skills, reasoning, and compassion.

Here are some basic negotiation techniques to help you get the most out of your child:

Treat negotiation like a game.

Negotiation done well is fun. Sometimes I throw in absurd conditions into the negotiation to see what my son will do with it.

Both sides must be willing to give and take a bit.

This helps your child understand and learn that you will be flexible only if they will. Reciprocity is a good thing for kids to learn.

You can’t always get what you want.

I often allow my son to attempt negotiation even when I know what he is trying to negotiate isn’t something he will succeed at. As he “forces” me to give him good reasons why I won’t give in, he learns quite a lot about my reasoning in the process. And, assuming I have a good reason why not to give in – he deserves to know what those reasons are.

Diminishing returns:

This is a trick I learned from my dad. If you offer a fair deal and your child refuses it – trying to get more, you start negotiating in the other direction, meaning, the deal the child is getting keeps getting worse and worse. For example, if you are negotiating a weekend bedtime and you offer an extra ½ hour and they want an extra hour – you might drop it to 15 minutes and if they keep trying to get their hour – drop to 10 minutes, 5 minutes, regular bedtime, ½ early. The reason to do this is because part of the art of negotiation is knowing when to stop and take the deal you have if it is a good deal. It doesn’t take long for them to understand that the more they protest, the more they are losing and they should take a good deal when it is offered.

Do you negotiate with your child? If so what are some of the techniques you use? 

Finding Clarity

Gain Clarity, Get Committed, and Capture Your Goals With Critical Thinking

Humanists are by and large internally motivated. Our philosophy helps us to prioritize our ethics and find balance between our competing needs, desires and responsibilities. Plus, and this is a big plus, the time we spend on learning how to think well helps us to find clarity.

I say this because a LOT of people think that critical thinking is boring and intellectual. But spending some time learning how to think about how you think is actually the key to gaining clarity and from clarity commitment and motivation to accomplish your goals, whatever they might be. 

So, let’s talk about the process of finding clarity in the context of critical thinking and Humanist ethics and how this will help us to be more successful in life. 

First up: Refection.

What do you want to accomplish and more importantly, why?

If you want to gain clarity of purpose in your life, you need to spend some time considering why you think the things you think and whether what you think is even so. This is the power of critical thinking and the power of why. Asking yourself why helps you properly define the real problem you are trying to solve. This helps bring clarity and puts in you a position to be successful! In a way that focusing on what you want to accomplish won’t.

Next: Visioning.

Now that you are clear on your goal, the next step is to consider what an ideal solution to your problem might be. And again, we have to do something thinking to get this right. If you don’t want your solution to be limited, you need to ask yourself is what if.  What if things were different? What if I could end world hunger? What if there were no limitations put on you. Finding the motivation to take on the world is tough. Spending time thinking about what if possibilities helps you gain the motivation by helping you truly understand what is at stake and what can be gained by your efforts. 

Finally: Strategy.

Once you know what you want to accomplish, why you want to accomplish and what the benefits are to acheiving your goals, the next step is to develop a pragmatic strategy to accomplish it. Pie in the sky ideas are great but they won’t become reality unless you do some hard thinking about what is possible in reality. What steps do you need to take to get there. What will actually work vs. what do you just think will work. And again, critical thinking is key. If your assumptions about what works and what doesn’t is flawed, you aren’t going to succeed.  Critical thinking is key.

Here is a nice exercise, share with me what your goals are and more importantly why you chose that goal.