Live Your Best Life

I'm not sure where I seen the below passage, but it is extremely grounding.

Are we meant to mourn forever?
There is something sobering about how quickly the world moves on when a person dies. 

It reminds you that applause is brief attention is fleeting, and the crowd does not stay long.
So laugh while your lungs are strong enough to carry it.
Cry when you must.
Love deeply and allow yourself to be loved in return.
Travel if you can.
Eat good food.
Sit with friends and be merry.
Forgive quickly.
Carry no hatred in your chest; it is too heavy for such a short journey.
Do that thing you have been postponing. Stop telling yourself “One day".
Help someone.
Share what you have.
Give, even if it is small.
All we truly have is now. The present hour.
Make every second, minute, and hour count.
Live your best life.

If you can’t be a good example – be a warning

No one put things more starkly and more bleakly that the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, often referred to as the “philosopher of pessimism”.

In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theater before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin. It is a blessing that we do not know what is really going to happen. Could we foresee it, there are times when children might seem like innocent prisoners, condemned not to death, but to life, and as yet all unconscious of what their sentence means. Nevertheless every man desires to reach old age; in other words, a state of life of which it may be said, “It is bad today, and it will be worse tomorrow— and so on till the worst of all.”

If you try to imagine as nearly as you can what an amount of misery, pain, and suffering of every kind the sun shines upon in its course, you will admit that it would be much better if on the earth as little as on the moon the sun were able to call forth the phenomena of life; and if, here as there, the surface were still in a crystalline state.

Again, you may look upon life as an unprofitable episode, disturbing the blessed calm of nonexistence. And in any case, even though things have gone with you tolerably well, the longer you live the more clearly you will feel that, on the whole, life is a disappointment, nay, a cheat.

If two men who were friends in their youth meet again when they are old, after being separated for a lifetime, the chief feeling they will have at the sight of each other will be one of complete disappointment at life as a whole; because their thoughts will be carried back to that earlier time when life seemed so fair as it lay spread out before them in the rosy light of dawn, promised so much — and then performed so little. This feeling will so completely predominate over every other that they will not even consider it necessary to give it words; but on either side it will be silently assumed, and form the groundwork of all they have to talk about.

He who lives to see two or three generations is like a man who sits some time in the conjurer’s booth at a fair and witnesses the performance twice or thrice in succession. The tricks were meant to be seen only once, and when they are no longer a novelty and cease to deceive, their effect is gone.

If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence? Or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood.

- From Studies in Pessimism (1913)

The first step in solving a problem is recognizing that there is one.

 

2018, In the Blink of an Eye

It was the Busta Rhymes, It was the Wursta Rhymes.

From the Ordinary to the Extraordinary.
2 interviews and 4 brake shoes,
Researching and breakthroughs.
New gins, old gins. New friends, old friends.
Relationships, Friendships, Hardships.

Auschwitz tours and Cards against Humanity,
Graphing data while losing my Sanity.
From breakfasts at the Junction, and bloody Coppers tryna function.
Yanny or Laurel, and every minor quarrel,
The piss-ups in Enniscorthy; bordering on the immoral.

Out fine dining or just eating Chickens,
Netflix and chill - scratching my Charles Dickens.
McGregor, Mourinho, and Kim Jong Un,
Causeways and Salt Mines and the Pope in Ballymun.

A little off the top, 20 on number seven,
BT, T.M.Lewin; feck the recession.
A year of kind and special acts,
And the scumbags, maggots, and cheap lousy [redacts].

From flossing to yodelling, to surgery on a grape,
I'm eating too many selection boxes, to maintain this shape.
A gazillion birthdays, 3 weddings and the christening.
Bustin' my balls in spontaneous River Dancin'.

Doctors checking, and dentists pulling,
Bar staff pouring...and me skulling.
Drinking-boozing, messy nights of fun.
Shots and beer, and Christ the fear.

Repealing the 8th, "It's Coming Home".
Donald Trump, and a Game of Thrones.
Over-worked and underlaid,
Wondering next when I'll get paid.

The M50 and swearing, but air travel's fine,
Albeit, I'm preloaded on wine.
Upload, download, liking and scrolling,
Ticking off bucket lists and scenes in Poland.

Jameson tours and the 90 foot of snow,
Hen parties, music; and the boats and hoes.
Stairways to Heaven and selfies from hell.
Hello to new employers, and to others farewell.

Overindulgence and moderation,
Peter Casey and a polling station.
Studying-advising, musing-procrastinating.
Always buying, more than saving.

To jumping in, and my comfort zones,
To the Lynx showers and the new colognes.
Bills, NCTs and Penalty Points.
Inbox checking, PowerPoints.

Wandering Northside, Southside, Countryside,
Wondering if I'll ever be Board Certified.
Presidential hopefuls and Michael D.
To too much thinking WITH my D.

And the working hard or hardly working,
The Titanic, volunteering, and all the flirting.
From reading comments in the Journal,
To overcoming societal hurdles.

Alarms, snooze; being lazy,
To newborn nieces...'Sup Baby!
Crossing a rope bridge in Northern tranquillity,
To working with disability, and wanting stability.

RIP Dolores and a Queen of Soul,
Royal Weddings, Backstops, and Brexit me hole!
Sober analysis and common sense,
Or being indecisive and sitting on the fence.

Laminating, researching, systematic-reviewing.
Gym and sweating, or sitting and regretting.
Dressing up, grooming and shaving,
Dating - Mating - Masturbating.

To being an ass, and a misplaced boarding pass,
To the comedy and laughs, that ye can't say at Mass.
The West of Ireland, Beasts from the East,
Afternoon tea in the sunny South East.

Happiness, sadness, pain and stress,
Sports and dog-walking...cleaning up his mess.
The whole shebang, and travels to London,
Crying-fighting-apologising...loving.

John Lewis and a cross city Luas; watering cans - hose pipe bans.
Bad weather, good weather - now and then.
That summer for 3 months, can we have it again?
Haps to the Baps, and VB-MAPPs;
Chicken wraps and hungover Macs.

Confirmations and celebrations,
Heuston station, agencies relocating.
Eating-munching, and trying not to choke,
Cleaning, scrubbing...leave the big pan to soak.

All the self-talk and the feeling well,
To the sneaky self-doubt...FML.
Hear me now, and hear me well,
It'll probably get worse before it gets well.

Every faux pas, and every blooper,
Fearing change, yet embracing the future.
To every yes, and every no,
From pillar to post, to the status quo.

So 2019, no quiet ones then,
In the words of a Pint-Man, "I'll go at it again".

Depressive Disorders

The causes of depression are mixed. There is no one cause for depression - even for a single person. And so we think of it as a risk factor model: where depression develops in the context of risks, and when those risks get high enough, the person goes over some threshold to develop this self-sustaining depression. Those risks might be divided into three categories; psychological, environmental and biological.

On the biological side we have genetics and other physiological factors which can give the person a predisposition towards being depressed. The psychological aspect can include thinking patterns or cognitive style personalities that may leave a person at a greater risk for depression. While environmental factors can include the stressors the person faces and a lack of social support. When the sum total of all these risk factors get high enough, then that can push us over some threshold and we go into a period of clinical depression. For some people, one of those three factors may be stronger than the other but it's unlikely that there is one cause - there's usually some balance of all of the factors. Nevertheless, all of the risk factors should be attended to.

As depression begins to take hold, people stop performing behaviours that previously provided reinforcement, such as hobbies and socialising. Moreover, depressed people tend to make others feel anxious, depressed and hostile (Joiner and Coyne, 1999). Eventually, these other people begin to lose patience, failing to understand why the person just can't snap out of it. This diminishes social support even further and may eventually cause depressed people to be abandoned by those who are most important to them (Nezlek et al., 2000). Additionally, longitudinal studies show that reductions in social support are a good predictor of subsequent depression (Burton, 2004).

 

In short, behavioural theorists believe that to begin feeling better, depressed people must break this vicious cycle by initially forcing themselves to engage in behaviours that are likely to produce some degree of pleasure. Eventually, positive reinforcement produced by this process of behavioural activation will begin to counteract the depressive affect, undermine the sense of hopelessness that characterizes depression, and increase feelings of personal control over the environment.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

''If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather. Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.''
              ~ Stephen Fry

The Chameleon Effect

According to authors Chartrand and Bargh ,"The chameleon effect refers to nonconscious mimicry of the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of one's interaction partners, such that one's behavior passively and unintentionally changes to match that of others in one's current social environment." (Journal Of Personality and Social Psychology, 1999).

 
How many times have you yawned after viewing another person do it? Or noticed your tone of voice depended on the company you were in. What about meeting up with people from where you used to grow up and now realising that your homeland accent has suddenly started coming out of your mouth...

 

The chameleon effect can happen naturally and frequently because we feel a rapport with people who mimic our moves. Most of us do it automatically to varying degrees, we mimic the people around us all the time without even realizing it.

 

In one study of the chameleon effect, Chartrand and Bargh found that students who rated high on empathy were more likely to imitate others. "Those who pay more attention mimic more," says Chartrand.

 

We also mimic the facial expressions of other people. This is so hardwired that one-month old infants have been shown to smile, stick out their tongues, and open their mouths when they see someone else doing the same (Meltzoff & Moore, 1977).

Unintentional mimicry and imitation functions as a social cohesive. The chameleon effect actually becomes a warm response that facilitates social interactions. Mirroring a persons language shows that you understand your conversation partner, and that you are an empathetic listener.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

''When you are in the company of lunatics, behave like a lunatic. When you are in the company of intelligentsias, speak with brilliance...that is how a chameleon behaves, the territory changes it, and it adapts to the changes.''
                                                                                                                    ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

Hedgehog's Dilemma

The hedgehog's dilemma, or sometimes the porcupine dilemma, is an analogy about the challenges of human intimacy. It describes a situation in which a group of hedgehogs all seek to become close to one another in order to share heat during cold weather. They must remain apart, however, as they cannot avoid hurting one another with their sharp spines. Though they all share the intention of a close reciprocal relationship, this may not occur, for reasons they cannot avoid.

 

From 'Studies in Pessimism' (Schopenhauer, p. 142);

''A number of porcupines huddled together for warmth on a cold day in winter; but, as they began to prick one another with their quills, they were obliged to disperse. However the cold drove them together again, when just the same thing happened. At last, after many turns of huddling and dispersing, they discovered that they would be best off by remaining at a little distance from one another.

 

In the same way the need of society drives the human porcupines together, only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature. The moderate distance which they at last discover to be the only tolerable condition of intercourse, is the code of politeness and fine manners; and those who transgress it are roughly told - in the English phrase - to keep their distance. By this arrangement the mutual need of warmth is only very moderately satisfied; but then people do not get pricked. A man who has some heat in himself prefers to remain outside, where he will neither prick other people nor get pricked himself.''

                            

Both Schopenhauer and Freud have used this situation to describe what they feel is the state of individuals in relation to others in society. The hedgehog's dilemma suggests that despite goodwill, human intimacy cannot occur without substantial mutual harm, and what results is cautious behaviour and weak relationships.

 

The dilemma is also used to justify or explain introversion and isolationism. The concept originates from Arthur Schopenhauer's 'Parerga and Paralipomena'. It then entered the realm of psychology after the tale was discovered and adopted by Freud in 1921.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sometimes love can be a spiky situation.

Self Monitoring

Self-monitoring is the ability and desire to regulate one's public expressiveness to fit the clues and/or requirements of the situation. In any setting, people are generally motivated to behave appropriately (Michener et al., 1986).

High self-monitors (HSMs) easily blend into social situations, knowing what to do or say with each person. They appear more friendly and less anxious to observers, are sensitive to social cues, and are likely to vary their behaviour from situation to situation. High self-monitors read non-verbal behaviour better, and will change their behaviour to suit the situation as they perceive it. They are more concerned with acting appropriately than being true to themselves.

They are more flexible and responsive to their environment than low self-monitors are. For example, high self-monitors can be expected to demonstrate greater flexibility in adapting their leadership style to changing situations, using a variety of conflict-resolution techniques (Robbins, 1993: 714).

High self-monitors describe themselves as flexible, adaptive, and shrewd. They tend to use situational factors to explain their behaviour. They have many friends, but are not very close with most of them. They have different friends for different activities. Friendship loss is not a difficulty, as there are other friends to take the place of any that are lost.                 

High self-monitors are more likely to be successful in managerial positions where individuals are required to play multiple, and even contradicting roles. Thus, the high self-monitor is capable of putting on different "faces" for different audiences. Examples of occupations or positions that might require high self-monitoring would include HR manager, CEO, organizational development specialist or marketing and sales director (Robbins, 1993: 108).

They are often more effective than low self-monitors in jobs that require boundary spanning (communicating and interacting with different groups of people who, because of contrasting goals, training, or skills "speak different languages"). Since they can readily adjust their actions to the norms, expectations, and style of each group, high self-monitors are more successful in dealing with them than are low self-monitors, and this improves performance. Boundary-spanning roles are very important in most organizations, so assigning high self-monitoring people to such positions may yield substantial benefits.


Low self-monitors (LSMs), on the other hand, act themselves - regardless of the situation. They rarely conform to the norms of the social setting. LSMs are less sensitive to social cues, and less likely to change their behaviour from one situation to another. Low self-monitors tend to display their true dispositions and attitudes in every situation. Low self-monitors' actions usually reflect their inner feelings and attitudes and thus they are less likely to change or adjust in a new context (Greenberg & Baron, 1990, pp. 204-206).

They prefer to be seen as they really are, and they behave so as to express internal attitudes and dispositions. Their attitudes are more accessible, so LSMs have a greater consistency between their attitudes and their behaviour. LSMs are more likely to show effects of fatigue and moods than HSMs. They have few friends, but these friends are quite close to them. They have the same friends for all of their activities. They select friends with similar attitudes. Friendship loss is difficult, because there are so few that each will be missed quite a bit, and the loss will affect most if not all activities. They tend to have steady, and more intimate relationships, and they care about their partner's personality.

Low self-monitoring, for those guilty of it, may not always be about being oblivious in social situations. It's about freedom of speech. Low self-monitors may see no reason to hold themselves back or sugar-coat the truth - to say anything other than what they're thinking, and acting in ways that doesn't reflect who they are is not something they like.

Example

Have you ever been to a club and seen some people dancing with wild abandon whilst others shuffle about nonchalantly? The wild dancers are low self-monitors, whilst the shufflers are probably high self-monitors.

So what?

Using it

 

Appeal to high self-monitors by telling them that they will look good and get social approval for what you want them to do. In advertising, high self-monitors respond more to image-based ads that promise to make them look good, whilst low self-monitors respond better to product-based ads and prefer high quality goods.

Findings also indicate that attitudes towards littering is partially mediated by the relationship between self-monitoring  (Ojedokun and Balogun, 2013).

So which side do you fall on? Find out here: Self Monitoring Scale developed by Mark Snyder in 1974.
_______________________________________________________________________________

Snyder, M. (1974). Self Monitoring of expressive behaviour. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30, 526-537.
Snyder, M. & Gangestad, S. (1986). On the nature of self-monitoring: Matters of assessment, matters of validity, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1, 125-139.