Talk to Yourself Like a Friend

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  • Crossfit session
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      • (P47) Crowded out the intrinsic incentive for good behavior
      • Having less of good is bad, and humanity has so much good in its future
      • A good rule of thumb is to talk to yourself the way you might talk to a friend.

        • Chapter 8: Reimagine Your Temperament > Page 49
        • I give this advice!
      • A good way to think of habit - Zombie modes you to look over unnecessary details so that tasks become second nature, since your brain is taking in less input
      • Don’t view help skeptically (What did I do to deserve this?) or with suspicion (What’s the hidden agenda here?).

        • How to Strengthen and Maintain Your Network > Page 124
        • Such a good idea that I realized too late
    • Find 5 Notes that relate to
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      • Nicholas Christakis and Tom spend a good amount talking about grief. Not just between humans but many animals also express grief towards each other. Chimpanzees have been shown to reintegrate the grieving member back into the community. There was an elephant that found a dead dog and carried it back to its owner. Recognizing these biological commonalities between other species and us, could allow us to empathize more with each other.
      • “No,” Holly finally interjects. “That’s not true. Not everyone can get this job. You have to pass the test.” The test? The Accutrac test? “The test,” I practically yell, “is BULLSHIT! Anyone can pass that test!”

        • Page 113
        • Holy shit. The disillusion followed by pack of empathy
      • Personal experience of people struggling at MIT
      • She views this as herself "stripped down" revealing her true self. I disagree. This to me is what happens when you put people through situations devoid of any humanity or compassion
      • Had this great Longwave journal from April 17th, 2020

        • rambling incoming: I think self-forgiveness is an underappreciated concept. I don't know how universal this is but I spend a lot of mental energy setting large, small, or even micro-level expectations for myself and then falling to meet them. these compound into a lot of useless background anxiety.
        • "forgive yourself" has always come off to me as a meaningless self-care platitude. but accounting for your small failures and mistakes that have upset you — and probably only you — and then working through them from the perspective of both the wrongdoer and the aggrieved, can be worthwhile. the moment those two perspectives meet gives me a sense of peace that until recently I didn't have a name for, which made it harder to find. using the language of forgiveness as it occurs between people has given me a framework to do it with myself.
        • take a situation where person A does something to upset person B. when B asks A "why did you *do* that?", they are actually asking for an acknowledgment and an apology more than an explanation. in the same way, there are many times when I look back at a decision from earlier and ask "why did I do that?". self-forgiveness starts with the understanding that an apology, rather than self-resentment or an attempt at rationalization, is in order.
    • Progressive summarizing
    • Put the notes in a sequence that makes sense
      • Find 5 Notes that relate to iVdkfPKLJ

        • H1auu60Cm
        • -POwCjVZM
        • Personal experience of people struggling at MIT
        • jGwo9LE8X
        • OSdioSWZL
      • H1auu60Cm
        • Biologically animals find a way to empathize with each other. Where's the empathy for ourselves?
      • jGwo9LE8X
      • Personal experience of people struggling at MIT
      • OSdioSWZL
      • Realization Why I love referring to myself as "Vargas" - In high school I was Dave - low self esteem
    • Breakout Room
      • Positive direction
      • Renato Rios
      • Mark Cheng
    • Additional notes
      • What got me excited when I was 5 years old? How could I tap into that by the time I'm 25 years old?
      • 29:27 The display of suffering illuminates us to consciousness a lot more
      • Random Thought every criticism we have of someone else is based on a criticism of our past self
      • The loss of ego associated with the psychedelic experience helped people with depression, as many cases of depression come down an extreme heightened sense of ego.
      • The Coddling of the American Mind
    • Outline - Whoops
    • Scott Galloway started a course called Strategy Sprint
    • Abstract
      • The book Indistractable covered 4 pillars on how to steer you away from distraction and towards traction. One of these pillars focused on mastering internal triggers. We often go towards distraction when we are being harsh on ourselves and being overly critical, so we distract ourselves to fell better. A good rule of thumb is to talk to yourself the way you might talk to a friend.
      • This lack of self compassion has many negative side effects that go beyond just getting distracted. But where does it come from? Evolutionary, mammals tend to have a substantial amount of empathy towards each other. Why can't we have the same for ourselves?
        • I might nix this
      • I had the great fortune of meeting a bunch of brilliant people at MIT. One of the biggest factors holding them back was the lack of forgiving themselves. There was an arms race of self-loathing between students: "well I haven't started my one problem set", "well I haven't started my two problem sets are my test tomorrow!" But, this loathing never projected outwards. We were able to tell each other "it's okay that you won't be able to finish this pset, it won't matter in the long run, you're still smart".
      • Ego could be a nefarious part of ourselves to manage. When we identify too closely with the outcomes occurring in our lives, we put ourselves as the sole responsibility of what went wrong. In an extreme ownership sense, this could be very helpful for knowing how to act next. But when it comes to how we feel about the situations we're in it could lead to downward spirals of irrational thought
      • Two common antidotes to this: psychedelics and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Psychedelics have been shown to disassociate oneself from their own ego, bringing to light what does and doesn't matter to them in the world. It has allowed them to accept their current situation as out of their control. It has also allowed them to quit certain addictions like alcohol and smoking more effectively than current psychotherapy solutions. CBT beats the same ego disassociation drum, by forcing your self to write down everything your feeling. The exercise of being more mindful of the logical associations you're making in your head will allow you to recognize them as a third person. It will allow you to see the irrationality in your thinking as you get on the path towards being more self empathetic
      • My friend Ian Reynolds once wrote that "forgive yourself" has always come off to me as a meaningless self-care platitude. He's found that using the language of forgiveness as it occurs between people has given him a framework to do it with himself. Self-forgiveness starts with the understanding that an apology, rather than self-resentment or an attempt at rationalization, is in order. My personal shift to referring to myself as Vargas - being able to refer to myself in the third person, just like I treat myself. I could forgive myself for mistakes
        • Start with HS story - "Dave"
    • Breakout Room 2
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  • Imagine you see your friend having a bad day. They talked about all of the failures they had to face. A job interview didn’t go as well as expected. Homework that needed to be punted another day. Basketball team losing due to a key error made in the final seconds. Your natural reaction is to comfort them, because they are your friend and you know how special of a person they really are to let these events determine otherwise. Now, imagine that this friend who's having a bad day is you.
  • I met a bunch of brilliant people at MIT. One of the biggest factors holding some of them back was the lack of forgiveness they had for themselves. There was an arms race of self-loathing between students. One's cry of "I haven't started my one problem set!" would often be matched with "well, I haven't started my two problem sets or studying for my test tomorrow!" But, this loathing never projected outwards. They were able to comfort each other with "it's okay, it won't matter in the long run, you're still smart". Somehow, they couldn't say the same for themselves.
  • Lacking self-compassion is quicksand. Jonathan Haidt called it personalizing in his book The Coddling of the American Mind. It is attributing a disproportionate amount of blame to yourself for negative events. These types of emotional reasoning allow us to make connections in our heads that would sound ridiculous if said out loud. Succumbing ourselves to these connections then leads us to find devices that could help us feel otherwise. These distractions then increase the chance for more events that we perceive as failures, sinking further into the quicksand.
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  • Ego could be a nefarious part of ourselves to manage. When we identify too closely with the outcomes occurring in our lives, the ego is tempted to place itself as the center of attention. It wants to put ourselves as the sole responsibility of what went wrong, often taking blame for factors for which we couldn't control. In an extreme ownership sense, this could be helpful for knowing how to act next. But when it comes to how we feel about the situations we're in, it could lead to downward spirals of irrational thought.
  • Two common antidotes to ego gaining popularity: psychedelics and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Psychedelics have been shown to disassociate oneself from their own ego, bringing to light what does and doesn't matter to them in their world. It has allowed them to accept their current situation as out of their control. Certain addictions that acted as crutches for distraction like alcohol and smoking were alleviated at higher rates with psychedelic assisted therapies than other comparable solutions. CBT beats the same ego disassociation drum, by forcing yourself to write down everything you're feeling. The exercise of being more mindful of the logical associations you're making in your head will allow you to recognize them in the third person. You will then see the irrationality in your thinking as you get on the path towards being more self-empathetic.
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  • The common theme between these solutions is disassociating from your ego. Recognize that you are not the start and end of all the problems you face, and only then could you start thinking more clearly about the solution. Think about how we reacted when confronted with the hypothetical close friend. You would demonstrate compassion towards them. This reaction should not change when the subject of the negative consequences is now ourselves instead of a close friend. As Nir Eyal concluded in his book Indistractable when talking about mastering internal triggers, "a good rule of thumb is to talk to yourself the way you might talk to a friend".
  • Ian Reynolds, a friend of mine, shared a journal with me in April. He wrote that "'forgive yourself' has always come off to me as a meaningless self-care platitude." He's since found that using the language of forgiveness as it occurs between people has given him a framework to do it with himself. Self-forgiveness starts with the understanding that an apology, rather than self-resentment or an attempt at rationalization, is in order. This is helping him not only feel better about his past mistakes, but to learn from them too in order to make progress.
  • I love to refer to myself as "Vargas" in the third person. I not only do this in moments of self reflection, but I also vocalize it in front of my friends. Past Vargas didn’t complete all the tickets he had scheduled for this sprint. Last night Vargas didn't get enough sleep. By no longer identifying with negative outcomes, I could view them holistically to both determine what is true and what I could do to improve going forward.
  • I could view previous moments in time as being lived by a friend so that I could help my friend learn.