[This post was originally written for puttylike.com] Hi, my name’s Neil Hughes and, because I’m human, I want you to be impressed by me. This is a normal urge. We are social animals, so it’s natural to be concerned about our status within the tribe. Our brains: Am I important? What do people think when […]
Category: Happiness
Jiggling an Imaginary Rope Helps You Re-Evaluate Your Life
[Warning: contains mild physics.] Imagine a short piece of rope. We’ll call him Ropert. Let’s imagine that Ropert represents our lives.
Why You’re So Confused About What You Want
[This post was originally written for puttylike.com] There’s lots of advice out there on how to achieve your dreams. But what if I don’t know what my dream even is?! How on earth do I move on when I have difficulty realising what I even want?
Some Reminders About Your Value
. It’s surprisingly easy to forget these things about ourselves:
Doing Things is Overrated… So Stop (A Bit)
You know that bit in the Simpsons intro where Maggie is steering on a pretend wheel to mimic the driving that Marge is doing? Our brains would genuinely be happier if we could attach a fake steering wheel to “life” and pretend we were controlling everything that happens to us.
Why Am I Always Repeating the Same Problems Over and Over?
[May be relevant if you feel as if the same problems keep resurfacing in your life without ever being properly dealt with.] I Imagine that you’re untying a giant tangle made up of many, many pieces of coloured string. (I have no idea why you might be doing this. Presumably you’re very bored.)
The Gap Between Where We Are and What We Want
It seems fairly clear to me is that there’s often a gap between “what we have” and “what we want”. If I were to accurately model this gap using Science(TM) and Art(TM) it’d look something like this:
The One Answer to All Our Problems
I want the answer. The one, single answer which will solve all my problems.
Oh no, I’m Motivated By Fear!
Now that I’m (mostly) successfully managing my anxiety, everything should be great forever… right?! Well, no. Obviously life isn’t magically perfect. (Though of course “less anxiety” is a huge improvement!) This is fine. I never expected perfection. But something else I didn’t expect was that managing anxiety better could itself cause problems.
My Life Is Not Worth Living
Minds May Say… When things go wrong, my life is not worth living… If I don’t get a degree, my life is not worth living. If I don’t have a partner, my life is not worth living. If I fail at work, my life is not worth living. If I spend an evening alone while […]