I have a couple of questions I’d like to ask you all. It’s research for something I’d like to do with my local meetup group, and I’d appreciate your help.
1) Can you name one or more activities or experiences you find to be depletary, in the sense of ego depletion, (i.e. something that fatigues you along some psychological axis the more you do it). If they exist, I would prefer examples that are personally salient to you.
2) Can you name one or more unreasonable demands you feel you are under, psychologically speaking? I’m thinking of cases which you might phrase “I’d like to (not) do X, but my brain just won’t let me”. As an example, if I get into a protracted internet argument, I feel like my brain compels me to rehash the argument over and over again. This feels like an unreasonable demand from my brain, and I would like to not be subject to it. Again, personally salient examples are especially welcome.
1) Official paperwork, especially if it’s the sort where a trivial error can be a major hassle, like tax forms. I have some fairly serious Ugh Fields around the latter.
2) I obsess over previous mistakes, even ones that were made months or years ago. I even obsess over hypothetical mistakes, where I could have screwed something up if I’d been a trifle less lucky or if my synapses had fired a little differently. The mental monologue in the first case runs something like goddamnit, I’m supposed to be better than that. In the second case it’s more of an abject horror at what Could Have Happened.
1) Job searching. It forces you to really size yourself up and compare yourself to everyone around you.
2) I really like your example. My own: feeling pressured to hang out with certain friends (because they’ll feel neglected). Rather than realize that friends that guilt you into seeing them need to be see LESS, my brain just makes me feel bad.
1) I find that interacting with other people face-to-face is mentally exhausting for me. A few hours or so of prolonged exposure is not so bad, but more than that and I have to exert noticeable effort to not be snappish and crabby with people.
2) I suffer from an unreasonable need to sit with my back to a wall, or some other solid structure, even within my own home.
1) Interacting with a lot of randoms when I’m not in a great mood. Example: I used to play a ton of magic, less these days. Consistently I would have some fun but as the day went on and I had to make small talk with more and more strangers most of whom were fairly lame, I would get sick of it and just want to stop.
1b) long lasting one on one interactions with people I’m not extremely close to. Even with friends, spending more than an hour or so with someone one on one gets to be very stressful for me.
1c) Cleaning or similar tasks, if not spaced out a lot.
For 1), spending time in the company of people who are not extremely close friends. Doing this can often have fun aspects, but it also feels very much like continually exerting willpower (to keep interacting, being polite and interested/interesting, being socially normal enough, etc) and after a prolonged period I just want to hide under a blanket by myself for a few days. (I don’t actually do that.)
For 2), I’d like to not think up and then keep rehashing pointless worries that are based on nothing very likely to be true or that much of a problem. For example, what if I screwed up the lab machine configuration on my last experiment session? Well, I probably didn’t, and even if I did it’s not actually the end of the world and I can’t do anything about it over the weekend. Won’t stop me fretting about it though.
I have a couple of questions I’d like to ask you all. It’s research for something I’d like to do with my local meetup group, and I’d appreciate your help.
1) Can you name one or more activities or experiences you find to be depletary, in the sense of ego depletion, (i.e. something that fatigues you along some psychological axis the more you do it). If they exist, I would prefer examples that are personally salient to you.
2) Can you name one or more unreasonable demands you feel you are under, psychologically speaking? I’m thinking of cases which you might phrase “I’d like to (not) do X, but my brain just won’t let me”. As an example, if I get into a protracted internet argument, I feel like my brain compels me to rehash the argument over and over again. This feels like an unreasonable demand from my brain, and I would like to not be subject to it. Again, personally salient examples are especially welcome.
Thank you.
1) Official paperwork, especially if it’s the sort where a trivial error can be a major hassle, like tax forms. I have some fairly serious Ugh Fields around the latter.
2) I obsess over previous mistakes, even ones that were made months or years ago. I even obsess over hypothetical mistakes, where I could have screwed something up if I’d been a trifle less lucky or if my synapses had fired a little differently. The mental monologue in the first case runs something like goddamnit, I’m supposed to be better than that. In the second case it’s more of an abject horror at what Could Have Happened.
Upvote for meetups!
1) Job searching. It forces you to really size yourself up and compare yourself to everyone around you.
2) I really like your example. My own: feeling pressured to hang out with certain friends (because they’ll feel neglected). Rather than realize that friends that guilt you into seeing them need to be see LESS, my brain just makes me feel bad.
1) I find that interacting with other people face-to-face is mentally exhausting for me. A few hours or so of prolonged exposure is not so bad, but more than that and I have to exert noticeable effort to not be snappish and crabby with people.
2) I suffer from an unreasonable need to sit with my back to a wall, or some other solid structure, even within my own home.
1) Interacting with a lot of randoms when I’m not in a great mood. Example: I used to play a ton of magic, less these days. Consistently I would have some fun but as the day went on and I had to make small talk with more and more strangers most of whom were fairly lame, I would get sick of it and just want to stop.
1b) long lasting one on one interactions with people I’m not extremely close to. Even with friends, spending more than an hour or so with someone one on one gets to be very stressful for me.
1c) Cleaning or similar tasks, if not spaced out a lot.
For 1), spending time in the company of people who are not extremely close friends. Doing this can often have fun aspects, but it also feels very much like continually exerting willpower (to keep interacting, being polite and interested/interesting, being socially normal enough, etc) and after a prolonged period I just want to hide under a blanket by myself for a few days. (I don’t actually do that.)
For 2), I’d like to not think up and then keep rehashing pointless worries that are based on nothing very likely to be true or that much of a problem. For example, what if I screwed up the lab machine configuration on my last experiment session? Well, I probably didn’t, and even if I did it’s not actually the end of the world and I can’t do anything about it over the weekend. Won’t stop me fretting about it though.