Responding to my own post. With something different.
Like most of us, my job can go from smooth sailing to shit in an instant. I’ve been fighting some code that I wrote years ago. In my defense I’m trying to convert it to something else so I don’t leave things that my co-workers won’t understand when I retire in a few years. Yeah Me!
Anyway, both my Wife and I walk away from the trials and tribulations that can be just everyday life is we play chess or cribbage. Nearly every night. Some people go for a bike ride or read a book. I think it’s important to get out of your head and focus on something else for a while.
I am a stage 4 cancer patient. This condition has led me to experience severe anxiety. To treat this I am having an antidepressant and seeing a psychologist about every month. I mention this not to elicit sympathy, but so that people can see where I’m coming from.
I have learned a lot from my psychologist about CBT, and I have found it very helpful in reducing my anxiety. I have also talked about mindfulness with my sister, a Buddhist. The two have some similarities in (as Spice_Weasel says) trying to break the cycle of rumination. This is a most unhelpful habit in that it not only marinates you in negative thoughts or memories, but you also get cross with yourself for allowing this to happen! So it can take on an aspect of shame and blame. The Buddhist approach is to become curious about your fear and things you are afraid of, to the extent of (metaphorically) asking them questions. At the same time you remind yourself these are just thoughts and feelings – they will go away.
The other aspect of CBT I find helpful is its emphasis on making you aware of your own responsibility for the kind of thoughts you tend to have. My wife and I both tend to catastrophise, imagining the worst possible outcome. CBT asks you why you do this, and encourages you to remember that you don’t know what will happen. When we go to see my oncologist, we might imagine that he will be telling me to get my affairs in order, but we don’t know that he will tell me that. Donald Trump might be the leading Republican candidate, but we don’t know what outcomes that will lead to. CBT can be summarised as encouraging us to ask “So what?” to our anxieties. It works for me.
I feel some of my friends like to show off their knowledge of world events by frightening themselves with Putin, Trump, immigration, infectious diseases, etc. I feel it is good to be aware that these negative (or potentially negative) factors exist. But if we can’t fix them, don’t obsess over them.
(To be clear – “responsibility” does not mean that people are responsible for what happens to them, e.g. being in an abusive relationship, or having cancer. Taking responsibility means becoming aware that how you deal with these circumstances is up to you.)
In those days if you weren’t overseas fighting the Huns your job often involved being suspended a thousand feet above Fifth Avenue or hundreds of feet below ground in the total darkness of a Pennsylvania coal mine. These days people are upset if they are asked to come to an air conditioned office building more than two days a week.
Also most of them dropped dead at 40 from something.
I think that certainly contributes to a lot of people’s stress. A significant number of white collar workers have what I call “bullshit” jobs where they basically operate as cogs in some incomprehensible corporate machine with little to no inkling how their particular role fits into the overall company’s success or strategy. Often made more confusing by the cognitive dissonance that comes from corporations constantly trying to keep appearances up.
Compared this to say, a roofer who gets pretty clear feedback on whether people are building/repairing homes and where the quality of his work is immediately apparent.
Oh, I’m not a cog, or a roofer. But when systems go down, and it’s your code… well…
Same with a roofer in a way. Just different problems that come up. Shingles not delivered, rain whatever. But I would agree that they can see the job complete and pretty much walk away. For many, it’s a never ending circle of updates and changes, often referred to scope creep.
I’m glad you posted this. I don’t have an answer. I’m reading some of the replies now looking for answers.
I joined the board when I was in my 20s. I was much more idealistic then. Now I’m in my 40s and I’m much more jaded and burnt out. I don’t like the trend line I am seeing in myself. I worry I’ll become one of those highly selfish, cynical people as I age if I can’t figure out how to keep my humanity. Its not even that the world has gotten worse, in many ways the world is better. Its just that the older I get the more aware of the fragility of myself and aware of the fragility of life sets in. This awareness makes me more withdrawn, afraid and jaded even though I can see the world objectively getting better. The wars going on now are nothing compared to the wars that happened in the 19th century for example.
I do think leaving a better world for future generations is arguably the most important thing we can do in life.
But the trajectory of individually increasing selfishness and cynicism (or at least fatalism) with age is also well-nigh universal. The question for each of us is how are we changing over time compared to our age cohort? Being 50% more fatalistic than 20yo you might be great if everybody else is 200% more fatalistic by your age.
Same thing with the increasing wisdom that can come from age. There’s no point in patting yourself on the back for your increasing wisdom until / unless you’ve compared your wisdom trajectory to that of your age cohort and found you’ve become wiser than they have.
I mean it’s not like anything you or I do fundamentally changes how the world works.
And if anything, I feel like I’ve become less selfish and cynical as I grow older. In my 20s and 30s I mostly cared about making money and partying. I have two small kids now so a lot of what I do is to try and prepare them for the world when they are adults. Admittedly, I have no idea what that world will look like in 15 years or so.
The opposite has been true for me, but, in all fairness, I started my adult life in a state of profound depression, and believed it was always going to be that way. If you had asked me twenty years ago whether I wanted to change anything about my life, I’d have said yes in a heartbeat. Now, I would not. All of the abuse and depression and fear worked out into something worthwhile. I’ve since come to the conclusion that happiness isn’t something you have, it’s something you do. You decide what’s important to you and you make space for it and when despair stalks you, you ask yourself the next thing you can do that will move you closer to your values and you do that, and eventually despair gets bored and leaves you alone. My life is far from perfect, it’s definitely not free of suffering or anxiety, but it’s my life, I built it myself, I own it, and that makes a difference in how I feel.
I understand why the climate crisis invokes such a strong sense of doom but sometimes I wonder if it’s rooted in the denial of death. We are all going to die, some of us horribly, many of us alone, and while premature death, disease and suffering should absolutely be prevented whenever possible, it’s really just delaying the inevitable. As I get older I’ve started to make peace with that.
I am really happy to hear this. I recently read a book called Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I’ve Loved written by a woman with stage IV cancer. She’s a theologist exploring the assumptions of the prosperity gospel and grappling with the problem of suffering through a faith lens. It’s a funny and moving book, but the reason I mention it here is that since she had been told her death was imminent, she’s written this book and has another one about to be released. Which means she’s been more productive dying than I have been living. I’m certain it has helped her to cope.
My mom died at 93. It was time. Her quality of life was getting pretty bad, though I did everything I could for her.
My MIL is at the same stage, and says she wants to die. All her friends have. It came close yesterday, but she is improving. She DOES NOT want any heroic life saving measures, we all hope she can leave in peace.