My friend sent me an article about women who commit suicide after 50, when the frequency goes up. She wrote (speaking of herself) “obviously not alone”.
Yes, but what is the value in noting this.
Is it to prove that one is justified?
There is no logical justification other than “bad programming”, but the justification here tends to be “see I’m stuck and can’t change this as other people doing it proves the point." (In extreme cases, there may be justification, but it is extremely rare. See When Is It Justified To Orchestrate Your Grand Exit. Otherwise, this is just a a testament to how bad somebody’s program is and that they haven’t learned how to operate in life – such learning being eminently doable for anyone who is not extremely impaired.)
Patently ridiculous logic – which of course is what proves the point (that we fail to use logic - and therefore much of what we think and do is illogical and not helpful).
It suggests that people do not use logic as the final arbiter, drawing conclusions in an irrational way based on selected “evidence” (true or false).
Certainly, there are happy people in the world – and, except for a few extreme malformed systems in a few people, that fact means there is some way of thinking and operating in life that produces higher happiness.
Scientifically, up to 30% of our happiness is genetic (“given”, but it has been proven that we can even turn off DNA bits that are illadaptive).
Only 10% of our happiness is based on circumstances, a fact that seems to be mindboggling, as we orient most of our lives toward creating better circumstances and getting approbation from other people.
This suggests that we are directing 90% of our effort toward getting 10% of the results and, of course, that we are basing our conclusions on incorrect data and cultural learning. I would suggest that that is not very workable and that you should, instead, learn where the payoffs are and then do those things. ( See the overview Contrasting Happy People and Unhappy People to get the initial perspective and then make sure you’ve got the basic idea by reading a link to a summary on that topic.)
The other 60% is all in how you think and operate, which is eminently controllable (via learning/training/practicing, identifying and doing what works). So, you can take anybody’s given and situation and create sufficient upside to be at least reasonably happy. (How do Buddhisst monk with no big house, super auto, super accomplishments, etc. create themselves being “the happiest people on earth” according to the study by neurobrain scientist Davidson? I would suggest that there could be something we could learn here that is usable and productive!!! See "Thoughts Are Just Thoughts", which has a discussion about this.)
So, is there any justification for any non-highly-impaired person assuming the worst or even assuming that they can’t change their situation? No, never, nunca, nein!
Now, if her comment (obviously not alone ) was meant as “yes, I see that I am only human and that the human condition can get this bad – but, but, but… I can only use this toward compassion for myself and others as humans, subject to misinformation…. But I can learn and then correct the information and then operate from it.
One huge logic error: The future is determined by the past.
Almost everyone will acknowledge the truth of that – and then they will go about operating as if the opposite is true.
"I’ve never been able to diet – therefore…” The “therefore” is “I won’t be able to do it in the future because my ability and knowledge are pretty fixed.”
"I've been this way for 60 years, therefore..."
The truth is more like this:
“So far, I haven’t learned what is necessary to create what I really want in life (and to know what it is that I should create). Therefore, it is up to me to fill in that void. I am not at fault because of this, for it is merely that I through my life just have not had it all come together so that I would learn this. If others can learn it, I can also.”
L.S. Barksdale’s magnificent works on self esteem and correcting human thinking contain a key concept, which requires one to learn about in more depth rather than only looking at it on the surface or as being trite:
“Everybody does the best they can at the time given the current limits of their awareness. Therefore, the fault is not the person, but the lack of awareness. Accordingly, the solution is to increase one’s awareness until one operates mostly as one wishes.” (I paraphrased a bit – see the actual
