Hello, everyone! I hope I find you in good health and with lower stress levels. Last time I wrote about the stress-monster and how it could affect your well-being and physical health. As most of you pointed out in the comment section, we are all quite aware that it is a part of our lives. Furthermore, it would be rather naive to expect zero stress levels.
However, living with monsters is not a good way of living. It is much better if one tries to tame them and turn them into something more predictable and controllable. Otherwise, as the endocrinologist Hans Selye warned, its roaring and scratching will exhaust your body and mind. Yeah, I know, Salye didn't mention any monsters. He was a well-established (and serious) scientist who discovered that when being under stress living creatures tend to respond in a similar way. First, they experience an activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal system as the body is prepared for energy expenditure (fight or flight). Then, they try to resist the activation and calm down. This is the so-called resistance phase. If the stress endures for too long, they go into an exhaustion phase. This is the phase in which the body becomes prone to different deseases. (1)
This must be Salye and the Stress Monster
Some of you shared their great strategies for dealing with stress. Thank you for putting this effort! In summary, all of you shared your conscious techniques to cope with stress. I use the word conscious here to state that you were fully aware of what you were doing in order to deal with the stress.
Furthermore, all of you listed a set of things you do to relieve your stress levels. It looks like each of us is armed with a collection of coping strategies in order to cope with everyday stress.
We differ in many ways as far as our personality is concerned. Everyone has their own unique set of personality traits. Lately, there have been posted some great articles about this subject by @dysfunctional (here) and @abigail-dantes (here).
However, not only we vary in our personality traits but each of us uses a different set of tools to deal with stress. In other words, everyone has their unique set of coping strategies.
Coping strategies are defined as conscious and voluntary efforts to regulate emotions, behaviors, cognitions, and psychophysiology and environment variables in response to the stress of everyday
events (2)
Let’s put this straight in case it sounds too complicated:
Coping refers to the thoughts and actions we use to deal with a threatening situation. (7)
However, not all coping strategies lead to a positive result. One may engage in ineffective coping behavior like using drugs or being aggressive. There are many coping strategies that may look like a quick and easy way to reduce stress, but in the long term, they make things even worse. Another example of the unproductive (or maladaptive) coping strategies is alcohol abuse.
Adaptive vs Maladaptive Coping Strategies
Generally speaking, coping strategies are divided into two main groups – adaptive vs maladaptive coping strategies (8). As you have probably already guessed, adaptive strategies are the “good guys”. They help youadapt to the new circumstances and get back to normality.
On the other hand, maladaptive coping strategies do exactly the opposite. At first, they seem like they relieve your stress levels, though they actually prolong the time you are under stress and lead to the phase of exhaustion (1). You may instantly feel better when you drink a bottle of liqueer every night. Does it help you feel less lonely? I doubt it. In the long term, you would continue to feel lonely and the chances of meeting someone would lower. Nobody likes dating drunks after all.
Coping strategies are extremely important when it comes to mental health and subjective well-being. Using adaptive coping style may lower the probability of a disease occurrence and may increase the likelihood of achieving and maintaining excellent levels of health and quality of life (3). Nevertheless, maladaptive strategies usually correlate with emotional distress, including symptoms of depression and anxiety, as well as socio-emotional maladjustment (4, 5).
If you start Cognitive-Behaviour therapy (CBT in short), your coping strategies will be one of the first things your therapist will assess. That is how important they are! In case your therapist concludes that you use maladaptive coping strategies, your therapeutic work will be focused on adopting more productive coping mechanisms.
Your coping strategy is your way out of your problem.
Do you remember the fairy-tale of Henzel and Gretel? Your coping strategy is like the stones and the crumbs Henzel left on the path. The stones are solid and endurable. They will show you the right way. The stones are like adaptive coping strategies. The crumbs, on the other hand, are not reliable. They seem like they will do the work, but in the end they will simply leave you lost deep in the woods. The crumbs are like maladaptive coping strategies. (You can check another great article of @abigail-dantes about the Dark Forest and your way out of it.
Perfect people
Nope! There are no perfect people (as we all know). There is no human being on Earth who uses only adaptive coping strategies. We all engage in various behaviors. Some of them are adaptive, others are not.
I remember how fascinated I was when I discovered the world of the coping styles during the first years in the university and my CBT training. Then the inevitable thing happened. I started to discover the unproductive behaviors I used in some stressful situations. So, I started beating myself up about it. Don’t worry! This is something that psychology students often do. However, it is another maladaptive coping mechanism. It was a long way until I got to the point in which I stopped to engage in self-blaming, but in rather more effective behavior like self-reflection and re-evaluation. The latter is much more likely to bring you a positive affect at the end of the day (6).
Gradually, I started to reevaluate my reactions in certain stressful situations and consciously apply more adaptive coping strategies. For example, when being stressed and angry I used to socially withdraw and shut myself off. It was quite unproductive because it didn’t lead to any change. Furthermore, not dealing with the situation made me even angrier and more stressed. Realizing that, I started putting effort to speak my mind out loud and be more active in dealing with the distressful situations.
Learning new behavior models, reflecting and reevaluating is a never-ending process, though. I keep doing all of these on a daily basis. And I am getting better and better in my new behavior models. Imagine what a super-woman I could be after 70 years of reevaluating and self-reflecting. Yep! A 90-year-old super-granny: D
Meet the future me. A 90-year-old Super Granny.
Jokes aside. I strongly believe that the coping strategies we use are a key to happy and fulfilling lives. That is why I decided to bring this issue up. Next time we will examine different examples of adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies. I am sorry, but I simply couldn’t put it all into a single article.
A little task for you
In the end, I have a little task for you. It is a small case based on two real stories (all the names and the irrelevant information have been replaced). If you find it fun to make assumptions, please leave me a comment with your hypothesis. I would enjoy discussing it.
Here is the case:
Lessley and Michael were both in their late 50’s. Both of them were well established in their professions. Lessley was a newspaper journalist and Michael was an engineer.
Unfortunately, both Lessley and Michael faced something unexpected. Their wives asked for a divorce.
Lessley and Michael went into a deep crisis. Both of them felt like everything they had built for the past 30 years, was just slipping between their fingers. Or at least they thought so.
Now Lessley and Michael are in their mid 60’s.
Lessley is doing rather well. He is working as a freelance journalist for some online magazines. He has left his home country and moved to Italy. He has an Italian girlfriend (Adriana) who owns a small shop in a relatively small village. They met online after Lessley’s daughter sighed him up on an online dating site.
Michael, on the other hand, is not coping that well. He was fired from his work as a constructor. He is not looking for a new job. He complains of poor health. He doesn’t shower and forgets to eat. He spends most of his time inside his apartment, drinking all day and watching TV. He doesn’t see his friends anymore and rarely calls his family. He doesn’t answer his phone either.
So, what do you think happened in between? Why these people ended up in such a different way when a similar event happened to both of them? What are your assumptions about the effective and ineffective behaviors they used?
Thanks for spending your precious time reading this article. I hope I see you around.
Previous article:
How to cope with stress (Part 1)
Created by Valeria Sim, @insight-out.
All rights reserved.
References:
(1) Selye, H. (1950). Stress and the General Adaptation Syndrome. British Medical Journal, June 17, 1383-1392
(2) F Rodríguez, F., Torres, M., Páez, J., Inglés, C. (2016) Prevalence of strategies for coping with daily stress in children. Psychotema, 2016, Vol. 28, No4, p. 370-376
(3) Folkman, S., & Moskowitz, J. T. (2004). Coping: Pitfalls and Promise. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 745-774.
(4) Lapointe, V., & Marcotte, D. (2000). Gender-typed characteristics and coping strategies of depressed adolescents. European Review of Applied Psychology, 50, 451-460.
(5) Seiffge-Krenke, I. (2000). Causal links between stressful events, coping style, and adolescent symptomatology. Journal of Adolescence, 23, 675-691.
(6) Dunkley, D. (2016). Perfectionism and daily stress, coping, and affect: Advancing multilevel explanatory conceptualizations. In the book “The psychology of perfectionism: Theory, research, applications”, Publisher: London: Routledge, Editors: J. Stoeber, pp.33
(7) https://humanstress.ca/stress/trick-your-stress/steps-to-instant-stress-management/
(8) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coping_psychology
Images (under CC0 Creative Commons):
https://pixabay.com/en/monster-laboratory-scientist-3080733/
https://pixabay.com/en/stop-shield-traffic-sign-road-sign-634941/
https://pixabay.com/en/superman-superhero-cape-sky-1016322/
https://pixabay.com/en/cell-phone-comic-characters-1298944/
This post has all the ingredients that, in my opinion, deliver a great read to the audience Valeria. It is straight-forward , it adds valuable and practical information to the audience, and it gives us direction. Further, in this kind of discussion I also think it is paramount to invite people to engage in reevaluation. And you did that very subtly and tastefully.
I used to believe that with age we naturally get "wiser"; nowadays, I suspect I misunderstood being wiser with being experienced. And I came to that realization as I come across more, and more people in their late 50's, 60's, and 70's who still react and interact with others and their environment pretty much as they did when they were much younger.
I suppose our default, in a general way, is to go about life without stopping to think about ourselves, our thought processes and behaviours. Life is simply too busy for that. In the occasion that we finally do it, we do it judgmentally.
Patience and kindness are definitely fundamental tools with which we need to equip ourselves to embark on the journey towards self-evaluation and, consequently, adaptive coping strategies. After all, who doesn't want to be a super-granny? 🙃
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I had the very same experience with that issue. I was so surprised when I met the concept of "biological age" and "psychological age". Then everything just fell into the right place. I could explain to myself the inadequate behaviors some people engaged with. Maturity is never a matter of age. I firmly believe that maturity is also a matter of conscious never-ending efforts.
I never thought of it in this way. But it makes a lot of sense.
I couldn't agree more. Our "default settings" are definitely to be judgmental toward ourselves and others. It takes quite a training and self-control to avoid it and be more open-minded and accepting.
Well, I suggest we make a "Super-Granny" club :D
Thank you for your wonderful comment, dear @abigail-dantes! And thank you a lot for your encouraging words!
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I feel addressed by your answer here and want to tell you that I perceive it similar.
It definitely is my "default" in many occasions ... I decided to reduce them and be more kind towards myself and others. I chose on having more time and being less busy. Difficult but possible! :)
Oh boy, "kindness" is such a big word ... experiencing it, yes that we can make true.
You said:
Doesn't it matter what you want to see and what you don't want to see and how much you try to discover a surprising potential in an elder? Admittedly, I feel (if I'm not in a good mood myself) that instead of turning to what shaped an old person, I'm more inclined to see him in a way that he didn't learn anything after all. I don't know why this kind of "masochistic joy" to find this confirmed unwise in the other than just the other way around.
What about letting this misunderstanding of yours nevertheless be true as just to add the term "potentiality" for wisdom in there? As life experience is a matter of fact - the older you become the more is adding onto your realm of experiences.
Isn't there also the more fascinating and learning potential in those who give one a living example of having gained wisdom throughout their lives - no matter how many of them run around? To see that as one box which is constantly filled with those experiences and besides this box another one, which, if you open up to it and look into it, gifts you with what is wise and offers itself for your well being, which leaves you with inspiration as a consequence that you looked inside?
The other box, which of course also stands open but one glance and you see that nothing new is offering there. Yet you catch yourself and others to constantly look into it nevertheless and not liking it. ... 😝
I assume every one of us - you, me and the rest of the universe - would like to be asked and encouraged to rummage into those experiences which we found of great inspiration and also intelligent acting to then give this examples to the one who asks as a friend. 🌀
❤
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What a succinct guide to writing a worthwhile post. I went to sleep last night a bit discombobulated because I couldn't get a focus on a post. I started to work on another post and was still disorganized. Then, in your comment, I found a formula for writing a worthwhile post: Direct speech, useful information, and a hint about how to move forward. Thanks @abigail-dantes!
As for changing while we age--I think it's important for growth of any kind to leave our comfort zone. Habit is the enemy of growth. We won't change unless we seek change. In some cases life circumstances impose change. An example: sometimes when people survive a terrible illness, they speak about how the experienced forced them to reevaluate the way they live and view life.
As for using patience and kindness (I'll add forgiveness), I think sometimes it's harder to apply to ourselves than to others.
And the goal of being super-granny--nothing more important than that :)
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Oh, What a most wonderful way to finish my day in the office : reading your always heart-warming words! 😍 It is incredibly humbling to hear that you found guidance in my comment to get your work going. My Gosh ...
YES: 'We won't change unless we seek change', although, for that to happen we first need to acknowledge that our ways are not really working for us, or for those we love. For that realization to take place, humility is paramount. But humility is very scarce these days, and like you explained, it mostly emerges when something extreme happens (eg. an illness, an accident).
Forgiveness is a very, very important addition to that list. Several studies point to how essential this process is in our lives for subjective well-being to be maintained.
The sun is setting over here. It has been a beautiful, fresh day. The first of my favorite month of the year :) So, I better go outside now to appreciate the blue sky for a little while. I will be thinking of you for a while and sending you much love from across the ocean ❤ :)
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🌄🎔
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I didn't know about these coping differences. Very insightful, my wife would love having it a CBT approach. Brava Val and congrats for a well deserved curie!
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Thank you, @f3nix! :D
Next time I will get into specifics. I hope your wife finds it interesting, although she is probably familiar with the matter :)
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I would add that they are sometimes responsible for our misery also. You cannot change the outside world, but you can change your response to it. Healthy coping mechanisms mean healthy life and relationships with others :)
You did a great job with this article!
Thanks for the mention also !
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They are, indeed.
No need to thank me. Your work has been an inspiration for me :) Thank you!
Thanks for your nice words :D
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I think you can change the outside world — we've been doing it since the dawn of civilization, and all animals do it too (anthills and whatnot).
And changing ourselves is only a manner of speaking, if determinism is true. A tree does not so much change itself when it grows as it simply changes. So we, too, change according to our combined influences and inheritances. It's something that happens to us, rather than something we do to ourselves.
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Well, I don't quite agree. Of course, we change due to the course of time and the experience we have. You used a beautiful metaphor here - like a tree. And most of the time we are not even aware of it.
However, I firmly believe that an individual could consciously change their beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and their view of the world. For me, that is where hope lives :D
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It depends how we interpret the words we use. Determinism is definitely true and free will doesn't exist, and this has been proven in both philosophy and science using completely independent tools.
A person will change consciously in the same way he watches a movie consciously or suffers consciously. He might have the illusion of making choices, but those choices are just a result of everything that makes him the person he is. If we imagine the person's brain like a computer, something you can pull out of the skull and place it on a desk in front of you, and give it input, the input will always be reacted to in the same way OR the reactions will be random. There's no middle way, no 'free will' or 'soul' etc. The person will always choose the same depending on who he is and how powerful the external stimuli is.
Our goal as scientists, I think, is to figure out all the deterministic ways in which our minds act, and influence them in the right direction: the right direction being determined in a combination of desire + logic + what everyone thinks and wants + who knows what.
Anyway, it doesn't really have that much import in practice, other than to emphasize that we must (as scientists) always look for the reasons things happen. To say things happened because a person freely chose them is not an explanation, it's the end of an explanation, like saying 'God did it' or 'it was a miracle'. To give an explanation why things happened is to take away free will.
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Oh, God, I am dealing with a philosopher here! How didn't I see that coming? Lol :D
So, are you saying that there is no such thing as consciousness?
Well, I doubt that. Yes, of course, we are a result of our past experiences, we respond to the environmental stimuli, as well as we are some kind of a biochemical mess.
But, we can process information consciously, we can be aware of our experiences and we can focus and switch our attention to different stimuli on purpose. For example, when you are exercising hard and you experience a total exhaustion at some point, then you focus on something else than your muscle pain and suddenly you hold it for a little longer.
We take many unconscious decisions but we can make an effort and process the information from both the outside and inner worlds and make a conscious call. I am referring here to Daniel Kahneman's work.
Why wouldn't one suffer consciously? We perceive our pain and we can reflect upon it. Some masterpieces were born in this way, didn't they? For example, K. G. Jung consciously examined his visual and vocal hallucinations for years.
Well, just to buzz you a little. If I believe that God did something and this influences who I am and what I do, doesn't this mean that God actually did it in my inner private world? Isn't it all a matter of individual perception?
Well, yeah, I agree with you, it doesn't really have that much import in practice. Even if our choices are somehow determined by the biochemicals in our bodies, we have the perception of free will and we make choices on a daily basis, we have dilemmas and existential crises. This is the world we live in and we deal with.
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No, there definitely is. Though some philosophers admittedly have been silly enough to deny it.
No!
True.
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Lol. Oh, that short and frank reply made me laugh :D
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Thanks, guys!
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Lessley and Michael have different coping mechanisms used. One is successful and the other is not mainly because Lesley has better-coping behavior. As what I've observed, Michael was not able to adapt to the stress coping mechanism mainly because he avoided it. On the other hand, Lessley was open and accepted the situation and perhaps listened to other peoples advice. For me, it's really important to connect to positive people that will encourage you.
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True, they are different.
That however is somewhat circular. In the culture we live in one is successful and the other is not. In another culture that stones people to death who would take another partner, and rewards people who pine away forever, Michael would gain the upper hand.
Both coping mechanisms evolved, presumably, and therefore they presumably gave some benefit in the past, in some kind of circumstance. Judging them requires much more, I think, than simply observing which one happens to be more successful right now.
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You mean that stones women to death :)
Yes, I agree that different cultures acquire different behavior. But in this particular case, we discuss how an individual copes with a certain stressful event. Statistically, the so-called maladaptive coping strategies (like alcohol abuse or social withdrawal) correlate with lower scores in tests on subjective well-being. They also correlate with physical and mental health issues.
Of course, this is only statistics. From an individual perspective, there must be some cases in which alcohol abuse leads to a higher score in personal well-being questionnaires.
Statistically, some behaviors lead to a better result in a stressful situation. This is what the article is about.
You know, this reminds me of a discussion I had with a work colleague who happens to be a philosopher. We argued about deviant behavior amongst teenagers. As you probably guess, he stated that we cannot say which behavior is deviant. On the other hand, I argued that there are particular behaviors that are obviously deviant like taking drugs. What do you think about this issue? :)
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Well it's not uncustomary for men to take up arms and kill a man who disgraced their sister or whatever, it still happens in India and it happened up to recently on my island and in Crete etc. ... and so I went for the gender-neutral people even tho stoning is not the usual treatment in that case :)
There's definitely cases in which it leads to artistic genius! :D
The issue overall is rather complicated. Us philosophers tend to seek Truth (even the ones who don't believe in it), whereas psychologists seem to be searching for something like being functional in the current social milieu. In that sense, someone like the Buddha who was preoccupied with death would be deemed sick and unable to let go, and someone who spends real money to buy extra lives on candy crash would be deemed absolutely healthy and in no need of hospitalization just cos he scores healthy on a questionnaire :D
Philosophers even have this central saying in their tradition, 'better an unhappy Socrates than a happy pig'. This says a lot, I think, about where they (we) stand on issues of mental sickness. To them, it's not so much about how much a person is suffering, but about whether he is right.
If a person goes to a practicing psychologist and says "I'm a gay who lives in a very conservative community, and I suffer because of it", what will the psychologist say? You can replace 'gay' with 'atheist' or whatever is outside the norm. Currently a psychologist has, I think, the right tools to approach the issue because the culture has come a long way. But previously they might do otherwise, like they did with Alan Turing.
If a client says to his psychologist, "my partner cheated on me and I want to cut off his nuts", what does the psychologist say? Does he say "right on! we evolved to cut the nuts of people who cheat on us! don't let those cheating genes spread!" Will he explain the whole historical and biological background that makes us sexually vindictive and conservative, like Jordan Peterson would? Or will he be postconstructivist and say it's all cultural and the mind is pliable and we need to change (in a Clockwork Orange-reminiscent way) how you perceive certain events and how you react to them etc etc? Will he search for a faulty neural circuitry? Will be tell him to channel his feelings into art which will undoubtedly be 'ugly' like Francis Bacon's? Will he just enumerate the pros and cons of what might happen if he attempts to cut off the nuts, at which point the client will just decide to act clever and cut the nuts in ways that won't get him caught? :D
It's overall a complicated and interesting issue, cos it taps into so many other questions that are difficult to answer, like ethics for one, and whether it exists objectively.
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Yes, indeed. You philosophers kind of think about the world, whilst psychologist (or at least some branches of psychology) try to find ways to live in the world :)
Oh, I love this saying! Everything comes with a price, doesn't it? :)
Yes, it is. However, you made some great points here. Thanks for spending time commenting and provoking me by bringing these questions!
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I see your "live in the world", and I raise you Heidegger's Being in the world :P
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Thanks! I will find it and watch it. :)
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts @alexander.alexis!
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Hello, @acryptolover!
I completely agree with you. Other people could be an amazing resource of strengths in difficult situations.
Facing a problem instead of avoiding it gives you a better chance of getting your life back.
Thank you very much for commenting! I hope the article was helpful!
All the best!
@insight-out
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It was such a helpful article @insight-out! Thanks really for sharing!
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thankyou :)
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Thanks a lot!
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It is more complicated than it seems, dealing with the strees is practically impossible, every day people are stressed by any circumstance, just as it is easy to stress is also easy to get rid of.
However, we must learn to live with this monster. In my case I live in a country where stress is part of our lives, you can stress for any example, I can not find food, medicines, internet service is deficient, electric service does not work properly, I have to do hours to fill my car of fuel and when my car is damaged I do not get spare parts, the money does not reach because the prices increase day by day ... it's crazy! But we must learn to use this monster, in my case I get stressed every day, when I arrive at my house I try to relax a bit like that.
Fantastic publication congratulations
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Thank you for your comment, @carloserp-2000! You are right - we must learn to live with the monster and make it a little bit more friendly :)
I know that things have been crazy in Venezuela lately. When communism went down in my country things were similar. People's savings were gone over night. All factories were shut down. Many people lost their jobs. Money worthed nothing. At some point in the early nineties, we had coupons so that we could buy the essential things to survive. I remember my father waiting all night long to load fuel in his car.
I don't remember much because I was a child and didn't understand what was going on. However, now I cannot even imagine how difficult it was for my parents to take care of their family in the post-communism jungle. But they survived. We survived. I think all this experience made us very resilient.
Bulgaria is still the poorest country in the EU, rotting in corruption and bureaucracy. But things are changing slowly.
I hope things will change for Venezuela soon!
Thanks again for stopping by and thanks a lot for the resteem!
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Lessley got over his wife quickly cos he didn't really love her. He only wanted a placeholder-wife and Adriana is as good as any.
Michael on the other hand went full Buddhist on our ass and realized the absolute absurdity of attaching himself to impermanent things. He realized that, since every relation is contingent, having it is pointless.
Hey, that's as good an explanation as any :D
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Lol. Of course, it is :D
In this case, I would say that Michael adapted better to the stressful event and found a way to feel fulfilled, satisfied and perhaps happy again. So he must have used better (more adaptive) coping strategies.
On the other hand, probably Lessley avoided dealing with his issues and found a placeholder wife - Adriana. We could even speculate that he had an issue with being too dependent on his life-partner and he couldn't deal with the situation of being alone/ single. Thus, he probably used an avoiding coping strategy and didn't deal with his dependency.
The success of the coping strategy depends on the final result. If the individual feels OK and the distress is gone, so it's OK. Whatever works, right?
I was wondering, is their a permanent thing that worth attaching to? :) Or if you are a Buddist, you never attach to anything?
P.S. How are you doing, btw? I am looking forward to your next part about Sex and the sexes :)
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Well I don't know. I was watching the trailer for the new Death Wish (with Bruce Willis) and there was a scene with a psychologist who was telling Bruce Willis (who decided to deal with his issues by taking the law into his hands and killing villains) "whatever you're doing it's working, just keep it up" :D (I'm quoting from memory, but you can look up the trailer, probably the main one on IMDb).
Well I'm not a Buddhist but I love Buddhism. Depending on where one stands on Buddhism I might praise it or argue against it (like I did with Erica!)
Buddhists would probably admit there's some certainties maybe, like math, but perhaps they'd argue that attaching to them might still lead to potential suffering. For example if you get drunk you might get equations wrong, or if you become a mathematician you might get jealous of more accomplished colleagues :D
I think they'd argue that practically speaking you should just pay attention to the 4 Noble Truths, which are basically all about impermanence. As I keep reminding Erica, Buddhism is in the end a nihilistic religion, in the sense that its goal is to escape Life, which it deems as a bad thing. "Why not kill themselves then?" you might ask yourself. Well, as all anti-life (to borrow a Nietzschean term) religions, they always got a clause against suicide and killing! In the case of Christianity for instance it's just a sin (how lazy!) In the case of Buddhism it reveals attachment to an outcome and therefore as soon as you're dead you'll just return to serve your sentence in another life, so your killing yourself was pointless. But the goal is to escape and never return, to escape from the 'cycle of birth and rebirth', and that's what Nirvana is all about, and that's what the Buddha achieved: not just the temporary illusory death that suicide achieves, but permanent actual death! :D
I'm okay, preparing my next posts amidst many other hobbies that I try to juggle. Thanks for asking :)
I like the title Sex and the Sexes! ))
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Lol! You like buzzing people, don't you! :D
Take it if you think it might fit somewhere. I would be flattered :D
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Guilty! :D
Do you know about the reputation of Socrates as a gadfly? Philosophy is meant to unsettle people!
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Lol. I knew it. Philosophers always try to cause trouble! That's why I have never liked these guys. :D
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😢
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Oh, no, the sad face. OK. I don't like some philosophers. Like Schopenhauer :)
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