Tldr: Love used to be in short supply (for self and others). Read Replacing guilt and tried improv + metta meditation. Now it is in big supply and has lead to significant positive changes in my actions.
I have always been in a single-player and critical mindset, optimizing everything for me. Thinking about what would be a nice thing to do for others (and empathizing with their feelings) hardly ever popped into my awareness.
Over the last year,
Replacing guilt made me realize I didn’t need negative thoughts to motivate me. This led me to incrementally decrease my self-criticism and learn to treat myself as I would a close friend.
Improv acting made me realize on a gut level that everyone has their own subjective experience that feels as true to them as mine feels to myself. This led me to get out of my head and be with the person.
Metta meditation made me realize I can learn to love others and myself far more than I do. A consequence is that deeply loving someone makes it really unlikely to have a bad social experience with them. Problems such as awkwardness, feeling judged, bad conversations, etc just die off and you actively start having very enjoyable social experiences. I’m surprised no self-help book talks about this.
Obviously, the process involved a lot more ups and downs than suggested here. But these are the three big factors I feel comfortable abstracting to that capture the fundamental changes.
I’m incredibly thankful to lesswrong and the wider rationality movement for the mentals tools it provides. My 2020 self would not have predicted this :)
Tldr: Love used to be in short supply (for self and others). Read Replacing guilt and tried improv + metta meditation. Now it is in big supply and has lead to significant positive changes in my actions.
I have always been in a single-player and critical mindset, optimizing everything for me. Thinking about what would be a nice thing to do for others (and empathizing with their feelings) hardly ever popped into my awareness.
Over the last year,
Replacing guilt made me realize I didn’t need negative thoughts to motivate me. This led me to incrementally decrease my self-criticism and learn to treat myself as I would a close friend.
Improv acting made me realize on a gut level that everyone has their own subjective experience that feels as true to them as mine feels to myself. This led me to get out of my head and be with the person.
Metta meditation made me realize I can learn to love others and myself far more than I do. A consequence is that deeply loving someone makes it really unlikely to have a bad social experience with them. Problems such as awkwardness, feeling judged, bad conversations, etc just die off and you actively start having very enjoyable social experiences. I’m surprised no self-help book talks about this.
Obviously, the process involved a lot more ups and downs than suggested here. But these are the three big factors I feel comfortable abstracting to that capture the fundamental changes.
I’m incredibly thankful to lesswrong and the wider rationality movement for the mentals tools it provides. My 2020 self would not have predicted this :)