What Our Brains DO: Living With, Processing and Dealing with Hardships
Another short "brain dropping" on the strangeness of Being Human.
I was helping out a friend this morning (via email) and we got involved in a lengthy discussion about the different ways we cope with difficulties and hardships; how we approach different situations.
As I mentioned a couple of days ago, Mrs. Denmarkguy is currently helping a friend in Texas. I lived there for 20+ years, and was mostly miserable because I don't "do" hot weather. And yet I "dealt with it" for over 20 years.
Daisies in the afternoon sun
It got me to thinking about our different approaches to coping.
I realized that pretty much all my life, my primary "coping skill" has been centered on finding ways to "make the most of misery." Of course, the downside to that is that you are choosing to stay in miserable situations, while "making the most of them."
In metaphorical terms, it's the "Bloom where you're planted" approach. Whereas you may be choosing to "have a party," you are still choosing to stay in the proverbial frying pan, which is damn uncomfortable, party or not.
In contrast, my friend said that she has zero tolerance for hardship, and the moment it presents itself, she starts casting about for ways out and alternatives and "something else." She's less interested in solutions, than simply change.
That can be great, in the sense that you have a high level of awareness of when something is uncomfortable, but the drawback is never "sticking to anything" for very long, and thus there's an attendant sense of instability.
NOrthern sunset
Happiness and Not Seeing a Way Out?
The discussion continued into looking at how our brains are wired, and how much of what we choose to do is "natural," and how much is part of learned behavior.
My friend admits to having a "Low Discomfort Tolerance."
I tend to get stuck because I typically lack the basic belief that "anything better EXISTS," Or, the subconscious "cost-benefit analysis" tells me that the "cost" of changing is disproportionately high, compared to the "cost" of simply "grinning and bearing it."
We then explored the extent to which any one of us feel we are "entitled" to happiness, in life. My insight of the day was that I never have really put the search for happiness very high in my list of life priorities. She, on the other hand, has never paid much attention to being loyal and steadfast" (she's been married six times, if that tells you anything!).
Either way, I have come to realize that I was never very good at "visualizing a way out" when things were going badly, but I have excelled at "dealing with things that are going badly."
Not going to attach a positive or negative value to that... it is merely an observation of "what IS."
Thanks for reading!
What's YOUR approach, if you have one? Do you feel it has served you well? Does something need to change? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!
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Created at 190617 19:15 PST
1047
I think one has to distinguish between "necessary" and "unnecessary" suffering. To put up with "unnecessary" suffering (suffering that doesn't contribute to your aim) is a defect of the ego I would think.
Good point!
Culture, in a sense, has a defect of ego. What I mean by that is the many instances in which we tend to "glorify" suffering as essential rather than optional. I believe it's a Buddhist truism that *"PAIN is inevitable, suffering is optional." And yet, there's often evidence that suffering is some kind of "must."
Having been in the art business (for example) for many years... the myth of "the Tormented Artist" is perpetuated, often with the subtext that the art isn't "real" or "authentic" unless it was created under torment and suffering. If you create art to express your happiness, it's not taken seriously; it's considered "fluff," no matter how good it actually might be.
Personally, I'd agree such an approach is more a reflection of an ego-defect (on a collective level) than it is about reality.
I once worked with a guy who was always moaning and groaning about his "bad back" as he worked. He was doing the job "under the table" because he was receiving "Workman Compensation" pay from the government for an industrial accident, and if the government knew he was working he would lose that. I ran across a really good masseuse/physio therapist who was visiting from Japan. I told my work mate that I could get him a session and I was very confident that it would fix his bad back. He looked at me with trepidation and said: "Oh, no. I will lose my Workman's Compensation!" He wouldn't book an appointment with the therapist.
Wow, that's a sad tale, too. Quite common, unfortunately. One of my neighbors when I lived in Texas many years back was actually a Workman's Comp investigator, and he would tell stories about all sorts of trickery and shenanigans people would pull... including filming a man with a "debilitating bad back" lifting the engine out of the back of a VW bug!
"People are addicted to their problems because it lets them escape their fears."
Dakota Meyer
I am enjoying your journaling type posts. It is a relief to get it in writing.
@denmarkguy ... are you ever on discord?
resteeming
Thank you @rebeccabe! I'm sort of getting back to my "writing roots," here.
I am very rarely on Discord as I barely have the time to even write these days, let alone spending a lot of time with chat. Powerhousecreatives is pretty much the only Discord channel that gets my attention, anymore....
I have not seen you on powerhousecreatives, I too am a member. Guess we are just missing each other.
I mostly just log in to see posts I can carry out my "daily duties" on...
daily duties on?
I think there's a nice balance somewhere. I do think it's good to be really aware of what is and is not making you happy. I even think it's good to change things up to facilitate feeling better. I do that a lot. However, I'll say that for the most part, that is a bandaid. Moving, changing relationships, etc never made me happy. It's always a choice. So comes the grin and bear it. Honestly, even though you may not be happy, there's at least a recognition that you probably won't change that by changing climates or husbands or what have you.
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Thanks for stopping by @solarsupermama!
It seems to me that a lot of people get trapped by the myth that "movement" somehow allows us to skip through depth processing. Some people go shopping, some watch endless TV, some watch cat videos on YouTube, some jump relationships. As you suggest, these are just bandaids. They allow a momentary injection of good feelings that mask the deeper issue... of course, the opposite "danger" is that you can get trapped in eternal processing of the deeper meanings of things, and then you forget to actually get out there and LIVE life!
Exactly that. I had a friend who would immediately go do something else every time she felt an inkling of difficulty. She just encountered the same shit over and over. But like you said, eternal processing is also pointless.
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