On a related note, many of my personal development stories that end in “I don’t worry about X any more” usually involve experiencing some sort of especially horrible example of X to which all lesser X-instances pale in comparison. We’ve discussed artificially inducing this at the London meetups, (referred to as “terror therapy” or “extreme CoZE”), but the idea of subjecting oneself to traumatic experiences in domains of existing discomfort doesn’t seem to be a popular one.
This may be a case of Typical Mind Fallacy. I’ve been thinking recently about how my (fairly pedestrian) traumatic experiences are instrumentally useful as motivation, in spite of being billed as “unhealthy” to dwell upon. I’m starting to get the impression that my reaction is somewhat atypical.
On the plus side, this could mean I have an amazing resource for motivation inaccessible to others. On the minus side, I may have to subject myself to horrible experiences in order to make it work.
Many traditional initiation rituals, which tend to be designed to teach you a lesson you won’t forget, are quite traumatic. I’d like to believe the trauma serves a purpose beyond hazing and reinforcement of hierarchy, although I do not know it does.
On a related note, many of my personal development stories that end in “I don’t worry about X any more” usually involve experiencing some sort of especially horrible example of X to which all lesser X-instances pale in comparison. We’ve discussed artificially inducing this at the London meetups, (referred to as “terror therapy” or “extreme CoZE”), but the idea of subjecting oneself to traumatic experiences in domains of existing discomfort doesn’t seem to be a popular one.
Huh. Horrible trauma has the opposite effect on me; it makes my aversions stronger. CoZE’s gradual approach has worked better for me.
This may be a case of Typical Mind Fallacy. I’ve been thinking recently about how my (fairly pedestrian) traumatic experiences are instrumentally useful as motivation, in spite of being billed as “unhealthy” to dwell upon. I’m starting to get the impression that my reaction is somewhat atypical.
On the plus side, this could mean I have an amazing resource for motivation inaccessible to others. On the minus side, I may have to subject myself to horrible experiences in order to make it work.
The term to google here is post-traumatic growth.
Many traditional initiation rituals, which tend to be designed to teach you a lesson you won’t forget, are quite traumatic. I’d like to believe the trauma serves a purpose beyond hazing and reinforcement of hierarchy, although I do not know it does.