I wrote above that it may work better for optimistic people and not well for pessimistic people, but you know gave me another perspective. It may work for people with actual problems on their hands. If you have an okay life and mostly just anxious that nothing unusually bad should happen, it does not work that well, because you keep worrying about a million things that don’t happen.
Montaigne: “My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.”
At some level having problem is better than not having problems because you see only a few negative outcomes, while with not having problems your mind is free to imagine ANY disaster to worry about.
For example in a relationship crisis one my worry about divorce, but one stops worrying about things like one’s partner dying in an accident, becoming forever bed-ridden etc.
I guess a real worry displaces a thousand imagined ones?
As for employment are you sure you did? The worst thing is not having to live a year or two off savings / welfare / loans. The worst thing is never being able to work again.
Example: when my dads business went bust he was like 57. Too early for pension. Had he not had some savings, and nobody will employ an 57 years old ex entrepreneur partially because nobody employs 57 years old people in general but in also because entrepreneurs are too independent. My dad radiated I-am-the-boss from all his pores. Nobody would employ him because they would not think he takes orders from a boss, too independent and bossy to be an underling of someone. Perhaps if a business would have a subsidiary or department that would function very independently he would have been a good candidate to lead it,but his expertise was in construction projects under €2M and in that line of business there is no such thing, everything is led by owners.
Or, like, imagine being a 45 years old COBOL programmer. Sure you could learn something else. But why would anyone hire you and pay you to learn something else when they can get flexible 25 years old minds at half price?
Agreed. I didn’t visualize the worst (compare to this xkcd). But it was still some steps worse than the situation at that point already was. And I compared that to subjectively worse situations like my children dying—which would be horrible but I have the vague feeling that it wouldn’t cripple me permanently.
I wrote above that it may work better for optimistic people and not well for pessimistic people, but you know gave me another perspective. It may work for people with actual problems on their hands. If you have an okay life and mostly just anxious that nothing unusually bad should happen, it does not work that well, because you keep worrying about a million things that don’t happen.
Montaigne: “My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.”
At some level having problem is better than not having problems because you see only a few negative outcomes, while with not having problems your mind is free to imagine ANY disaster to worry about.
For example in a relationship crisis one my worry about divorce, but one stops worrying about things like one’s partner dying in an accident, becoming forever bed-ridden etc.
I guess a real worry displaces a thousand imagined ones?
As for employment are you sure you did? The worst thing is not having to live a year or two off savings / welfare / loans. The worst thing is never being able to work again.
Example: when my dads business went bust he was like 57. Too early for pension. Had he not had some savings, and nobody will employ an 57 years old ex entrepreneur partially because nobody employs 57 years old people in general but in also because entrepreneurs are too independent. My dad radiated I-am-the-boss from all his pores. Nobody would employ him because they would not think he takes orders from a boss, too independent and bossy to be an underling of someone. Perhaps if a business would have a subsidiary or department that would function very independently he would have been a good candidate to lead it,but his expertise was in construction projects under €2M and in that line of business there is no such thing, everything is led by owners.
Or, like, imagine being a 45 years old COBOL programmer. Sure you could learn something else. But why would anyone hire you and pay you to learn something else when they can get flexible 25 years old minds at half price?
Agreed. I didn’t visualize the worst (compare to this xkcd). But it was still some steps worse than the situation at that point already was. And I compared that to subjectively worse situations like my children dying—which would be horrible but I have the vague feeling that it wouldn’t cripple me permanently.