Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You

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Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You

Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You

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Consider your friends: you have formed an affection for them despite their obvious points of deficiency, which you happily discuss when they are absent. These minor regrets, far from undermining your fondness, are in fact an important part of it; people’s vulnerabilities are near impossible to untangle from their strengths. The Greeks, however, were not of this opinion, and their preferred model – that emotions stem from how we interpret events – now once again has the upper ground in modern clinical understanding. We have already looked at the things that lie within our control, namely our thoughts and actions, and how we take charge of these by distinguishing between ‘appearances’ and ‘impressions’: between external events and our interpretations of those events. But now we have a huge coda to that thought: nothing else matters. How other people behave towards us, for example, is of no real interest, as their behaviour is ‘external’ and not within the realm of our thoughts or actions. If our partner is stressed and acts…

The well-being of ourselves and others may be to us a ‘preferred indifferent’, and thus something to be enjoyed or secured where convenient, but it is ultimately an indifferent because it does not occupy that realm of actions and thoughts that is uniquely our concern. Things will not necessarily work out for the best. External events will proceed as planned without our involvement, and that knowledge can encourage us to treat them as they occur with a Stoic, qualified indifference. We are mitigating any future disappointment. It might sound pessimistic to qualify everything with such a reserve clause, and in a sense it is. It is a very valuable and life-enhancing form of pessimism. Perhaps, then, to feel anger is unavoidable but not in itself helpful; the key is turning it into something constructive. We are angry because we would like to change something in the world (or maybe in ourselves), something that seems to be unjust. I’d say it’s a must-read for anyone who reads a lot. If you don’t read much (books, articles etc), it’ll still be useful (because you definitely consume some sort of content). A good relationship, like a good parent or a good death, need only be ‘good enough’, consisting of two people navigating each other’s inadequacies with kindness and sympathy.aside from rare cases of true injustice (when we must move from anger to ensuring progress), we can be assured that most of our fuming and moaning is just that: noise. It seems so self-evidently preferable to enjoy your work, and to draw a sense of meaning from it, that it sounds bizarre to question the idea. Alan Watts, who gave us the image of trying to wrap up water with string, made the point that it is absurd to work at something you don’t enjoy, purely to make more money to be able to live longer and continue doing something you don’t… Out There and In Here are two very different kingdoms, and other people are not accountable for how we feel. No one, however ludicrously they behave, has the right or the direct means to affect your self-control or dignity. No one need annoy us so much that we in turn become a source of annoyance to others.

We might prefer to ask a person the less career-specific ‘What do you get up to?’ or simply not enquire about work. Meanwhile, we can take comfort in the knowledge that for the vast sweep of human history it did not occur to people that they were supposed to enjoy their work. Our daily employment does not need to be our identity. It’s a wonderful bonus to do what one enjoys, but it’s not necessary. Far more important is knowing how to navigate the difficulties and disappointments in life and work, without setting up a romantic ideal of a ‘perfect’ job; it’s no more helpful or realistic than that of a perfect partner. Otherwise we are… To treasure something is to hold on to it carefully, realising that it is precious and risks being lost or taken from us. It is only the finite nature of our relationships that gives them their meaning. I am responsible for how I feel about external events. What am I doing to give myself this feeling? Love seems to come without a template. We may think we know what we want in a partner and then one day find ourselves in love for very different reasons. In the same way that differing, developed individuals contribute to Mill’s view of society and make it worth belonging to, so too the differences between people in a relationship can be precisely the substance of what makes it valuable. And then, rather than falling for that old fallacy of entering into a relationship thinking you will ‘change’ the other person to… For it to be solid, our happiness would not rely on fortuity or what we happen to have. It would be fundamentally about who we are. StoicismIf something is not under our control, we can recognise it as such and decide that it’s fine as it is. Thus it became permissible to prefer certain external things such as wealth, family and social position, as long as one didn’t become attached to them. Stoics do not have to eschew these comforts in the way the Cynics did, as their aim is merely to gain psychological robustness (virtue) through not needing or attempting to control anything in life beyond their thoughts and actions. Marcus Aurelius wrote admiringly of his adopted father, that he was able to enjoy great wealth ‘without arrogance and without apology. If [riches] were there, he took advantage of them. If not, he didn’t miss them.’ We can benefit from remembering the words of the novelist David Foster Wallace: ‘You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realise how seldom they do.’ Guilt This book has transformed my relationship with note-taking. I took copious notes while reading it, and everytime I review my highlights, I discover new nuggets. The Stoic approach is effective for ensuring greater levels of tranquillity, and for most of the time that’s likely to be enough. But not all of the time. For if we live a diminished life driven by a fear that tells us we are in some sense unworthy, our concept of happiness may remain similarly limited.

It’s not events out there that cause our problems, but rather, our reactions to those events, the stories we tell ourselves. Therefore, if we find ourselves feeling negative emotions (anger, jealousy, dismay, annoyance, etc), we can realise that our emotions stem from within, and just decide to let them go. Our ruinous, dehumanising society began for Rousseau with the fact that we must work. This leads to us reflecting on our social position, and creates feelings of envy and vanity. The Stoics tell us to ‘remove disturbances’, but for so His aim, then, is not to avoid those he doesn’t like but to find a way around the clashing of personalities and achieve a harmonious relationship with all people. We must remember this if Stoicism ever seems detached and cold to us. Its ultimate aim is not an emotionless detachment from others but is rather about living in harmony with what the ancients called ‘Nature’ and being a productive part of humankind.Aristotle was interested in how we might be good, rather than know goodness. Thus when he taught ethics, his aim was to improve the lives of his pupils at a practical, everyday level.



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