Geoff's Miscellany

Miscellaneous Musings

Mindset

Defeating Self-Defeating Thoughts

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When you narrate your life, how do you write yourself? Personally, I have a long history of narrating myself as a loser, failure, or unfortunate person. If this is your struggle I found a helpful tool for you.

The reason that your self-narration is so important is that it affects your emotions, decisions, and ultimately your character. If the story you’re telling in your head is narrated by the voice of a jerk then you sacrifice your virtue as well as your personal power on the altar of self-pity. If you dramatically describe the tragedies of your life and how awful you are to an imaginary audience of zero, then you are wasting thoughts which could turn your attitudes to joy, your habits to virtue, and your demeanor to strength.

In Martin Seligman’s book Learned Optimism[1]. He outlines five steps for arguing with your self-doubts and while simple is usually better, simple is not always complete. His five aspects of self-talk are excellent. Here are my explanations of them below:

  1. Adversity – Whatever comes your way that leads you to either positive or negative explanations of yourself.
  2. Beliefs/Behaviour – The belief(s) that you base your self-talk on and the behaviors they lead to.
    You also reinforce those beliefs with your self-talk. You also reinforce those beliefs with destructive and unhelpful behaviors.
  3. Consequences – The consequences of your belief/self-talk/behaviors.
    For instance, saying, “I’m a loser,” won’t help fix your life. Saying, “I’m acting like a loser, but if I do [x] differently I can improve,” is more likely to give you a positive attitude. Also it’s important to ask, “What are the results of my behaviour when this adversity comes? Do they lead me to a place of strength, confidence, happiness, and virtue?”
  4. Dispute – This is where you argue with what you said or what you believe about yourself. Seligman recommends four possibilities for disputing:
    1. Evidence – This is important. Most hyper pessimistic thoughts are simply false and if you can distance yourself from them you can refute them by finding evidence to the contrary. You can also find evidence that things will get better. The forms of evidence can be found in the section called, “The Expanded Common Topics of Aristotle” below.
    2. Alternatives – Look for alternative explanations. Instead of “I’m a loser” say, “I messed up, I’ll fix it tomorrow.” Instead of “I always fail,” “This is hard, I’ll have to study longer.”
    3. Implications – If your negative belief is true, look for its implications. See what it means and how it connects to other truths. In a real way, this is just using the common topic of “cause and effect” or “antecedent and consequence.”
    4. Usefulness – Ask yourself, “Is this belief useful for attaining my goals?” If the answer is that the belief is hurting you, then reject it. I’m not a big fan of this approach, but it’s better than being stuck. Also, just because a belief is true does not mean you need to keep repeating it. “I messed up” said a million times in a row does not solve the problems created by the mistake.
    5. Alternatives – There are alternatives to disputing false beliefs and bad behaviors. You can distance yourself from them. This means realizing that beliefs are just beliefs. They may be the result of poor thinking, habit, or accidentally believing a lie. You can act based on what you wish to be true or hope to be true about yourself. Similarly, you can distract yourself. Do something that has nothing to do with the belief. Paint, exercise, cook, go to a coffee shop, anything but wallow. I highly recommend singing a song that is happier than you currently feel.
  5. Energize – Focus on the positive steps that you can and did take after disputing with your false/negative belief. This obviously corresponds with distracting yourself, but this step also includes energizing true beliefs by acting on behalf of them even when your feelings don’t measure up.

Now practice

Every skill requires indirect, “off the spot” training.

So, write these out. And think of specific times where your ABC had a negative belief and a bad consequence.

Then write out how you could have defeated that bad belief and acted (energized) in a more positive direction.

I recommend doing it several times. Try five, that’s a good number for strength training.

This is a thought-kata. A kata is a pattern for learning movements in martial arts. Katas must be practiced over and over again to until they become reflexes.

With practice, you’ll obtain a positive approach to your self-defeating ideas because the process will become a reflex, second nature.

Conclusion

Don’t let your inner jerk argue you into depression or helplessness. Use the best tools available, ancient and modern to destroy that jerk.

  1. Write the thought kata and practice it five times and see what you think.
  2. Use the common topics to perfect the art of refuting your inner-jerk.

Appendix: The Expanded Common Topic (types of argument) of Aristotle[2]:

The common topics are tools for building arguments. They are the ultimate tool for crushing writers’ block. The idea is that there are certain types of evidence to be used in any speech. It is important to categorize them so that you can research the various avenues of evidence and form an argument using the topics most convincing to your audience. Obviously, these can also be used to critique the arguments of others.

I recommend using the common topics not only as tools for rhetoric and argument, which I’ll write about in the future. For this post recommend using them to argue against a crappy mindset because they are forms of evidence and argument which will help you know yourself better and convince yourself to move on.

  1. Definition
    • Genus
    • Division
  2. Comparison
    • Similarity
    • Difference
    • Degree
  3. Relationship
    • Cause and effect
    • Antecedent and Consequent
    • Contraries
    • Contradictories
  4. Circumstance
    • Possible and Impossible
    • Past Fact and Future Fact
  5. Testimony
    • Authority
    • Testimonial
    • Statistics
    • Maxims
    • Laws
    • Precedents

Examples:
When some adversity comes your way and bad/negative beliefs come up and you want to argue against them here are examples using the different common topics:

  1. Definition – Using definitions to frame an argument.
    Negative Definition of Adversity: “Why do bad things always happen to me?”
    Positive Definition of Adversity: “How will I overcome this time?”
  2. Testimonial – Using a personal example from yourself or somebody else.
    Negative Belief – I have a bone disorder, I’m just a loser.
    Testimonial – Remember a story of somebody with a medical problem who succeeded.
  3. Authority – Appealing to an expert or an accepted body of knowledge.
    Negative Belief – I totally failed everybody, I’m the worst. I’ll never change.
    Appeal to Authority – The Bible says that people can change.
  4. Similarity – The comparison of similar things to yield new knowledge (argument by analogy)
    Negative Belief – I’m just a regular person, I can’t figure this stuff out.
    Similarity – This or that regular person is happy and takes ownership of like, I can too.

References

[1]  Martin E. P Seligman, Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life (New York: Vintage Books, 2006), 210-223

[2] Edward P.J Corbett and Robert J Connors, Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 84-140

Francis Bacon: How to be Lucky

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It cannot be denied, but outward accidents conduce much to fortune; favor, opportunity, death of others, occasion fitting virtue. But chiefly, the mould of a man’s fortune is in his own hands. Faber quisque fortunæ suæ [Every one is the architect of his own fortune], saith the poet. And the most frequent of external causes is, that the folly of one man is the fortune of another. For no man prospers so suddenly as by others’ errors. Serpens nisi serpentem comederit non fit draco [A serpent must have eaten another serpent before he can become a dragon]. Overt and apparent virtues bring forth praise; but there be secret and hidden virtues that bring forth fortune; certain deliveries of a man’s self, which have no name.

Francis Bacon, “Essays or Counsels: Civil and Moral,” in The Harvard Classics 3: Essays by Bacon, Milton, and Browne, ed. Charles W. Eliot (New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1909), 104–105.

Martial arts for your mind: thought kata

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One of the great analogies for growing in virtue is that of a battle against the passions and appetites. The particular virtues which are like a battle to develop are temperance and fortitude.

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What is a Spiritual Exercise?

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In What is Ancient Philosohy?, Pierre Hadot argues that ancient philosophers were offering ways of life that eschewed the pull of the passions and instead aimed at optimal human existence (happiness or ευδαιμονια).   In order to accomplish this, philosophers weren’t just offering arguments or proposing ideas just to change people’s ideas, they were trying to help people obtain a vision of ultimate reality and then live their lives in conformity to that reality. And so, the philosophers offered philosophical or spiritual exercises, which Hadot defines as:

By this term [spiritual exercises], I mean practices which could be physical, as in dietary regimes, or discursive, as in dialogue and meditation, or intuitive, as in contemplation, but which were all intended to effect a modification and a transformation in the subject who practiced them. The philosophy teacher’s discourse could also assume the form of a spiritual exercise, if the discourse were presented in such a way that the disciple, as auditor, reader, or interlocutor, could make spiritual progress and transform himself within.

Pierre Hadot What is Ancient Philosophy?, 6

So when Epictetus offers a version of the argument for God from design, what he means to do is make someone aware, not only of the existence of a mind behind the cosmos, but he means to help them become grateful to God for the universe and their experiences therein. 

The ubiquity of spiritual exercises in the ancient world helps make sense of Jesus’ paradox of public piety. In Matthew 5:14-17, Jesus says to do good deeds publicly. In Matthew 6:1-18, Jesus says to hide your good deeds so thoroughly that they fade from conscious memory (Matthew 25:37-40). Which is it? If we take his first command in sequence to be a piority, Jesus means to say, “My kingdom should be a people of the sort that those who observe their public life wish to worship God.” But on the other hand, there’s a serious moral burden to bear when we are seen and praised for doing good deeds. And so Jesus commends as a spiritual exercise to conceal certain good deeds some or most of the time so that the God who sees what happens in secret will reward the believer rather than the watching public. 

C.S. Lewis, while not relying on Hadot, saw this mode of thought in the writings of the ancients absorbed and reworded it in his book on how to read. In it, he distinguishes between the way the many and the few read. The many use literature for, essentially entertaining themselves or learning new skills. Lewis, on the other hand, sees literature offering a vision of life (so it is to be used) but it can only be “used” insofar as it is attended to and received as and for what the author meant it to be:

The distinction can hardly be better expressed than by saying that the many use art and the few receive it. The many behave in this like a man who talks when he should listen or gives when he should take. I do not mean by this that the right spectator is passive. His also is an imaginative activity; but an obedient one. He seems passive at first because he is making sure of his orders. If, when they have been fully grasped, he decides that they are not worth obeying—in other words, that this is a bad picture—he turns away altogether.

C.S. Lewis An Experiment in Criticism III.19b-20a

Literary art is a spiritual exercise proffered to the reader by the artist, and once truly understood, then it is used or not. Of course, this raises all sorts of questions about art that is meant merely to entertain or titillate without any definite end, but even such art is offering a vision of life to be accepted or rejected and which one subtly endorses more and more the more frequently he enjoys artworks of that sort. 

Later authors, like Rene Descartes, employed even geometry as a spiritual exercise. Descartes thought that arts like Geometry and Philosophy existed for self-cultivation by which he meant,

…[D]eveloping the ability to allow the will to recognize and to accept freely the insights of reason, and not just following the passions or memorized patterns of actions. It meant essentially recognizing the limits of reason and willing not to make judgments about things beyond reason’s scope.

Matthew Jones Descartes’ Geometry as a Spiritual Exercise, 53.

As far as I can tell, the utility of the concept of spiritual exercises for understanding education in general, ancient philosophy, and even the Biblical texts cannot be overestimated. 

Money Mindset

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The Bible seems to say two things about money. That it’s all good or it’s all bad. Of course, what it really says is that money, like all good things, can be worshiped as an idol. Samson worships a woman as an idol (he tells her how to released him from his vow to God), Israel worships the Torah as an idol (see the New Testament), and Adam and Eve treat food as an idol, trusting it for wisdom rather than God. Yet none of these is bad. I suspect that Christians are more suspicious of money because theologians, who are notoriously bad at being creative, industrious, and good with people (all skills that help one make money), then to teach that money (which they cannot make easily) is almost entirely bad, rather than hitting the balance appropriately.

Here’s my attempt at a brief mindset shift to help Christians deal with money in a fashion that is neither idolatrous or irresponsible. Here’s the mindset shift:

Money is a metric.

What do I mean:

  1. Money is a measure of positive spiritual health
    1. If you have a positive bank balance and observe that you feel joy because it is a result of virtues you would choose to obtain even without money (industriousness, creativity, charisma, frugality, and generosity) is a sign of spiritual health. In other words, you know how to make money and be rich or to lose it all and be poor without anxiety because Christ gives you strength (Phil 4:11-13).
    2. If you have nice things that you can use to care for your family, this may be a sign of wisdom (Proverbs 21:20).
  2. Money is a measure of negative spiritual health
    1. Having a negative bank balance, severe anxiety, an obsession with financial status, or a resentment of those more successful than you is a sign that you may need to repent of your laziness, pay off your debts, learn some new skills, and manage your own life rather than hating everybody else.
    2. Having a large bank balance because you never give alms, help the church, show hospitality, take breaks for family, or choose health over work is a sign that you worship money.

Learning to view money as a metric, one tool among many for assessing my spiritual health has been very useful. I hope that it is helpful to you as well.

Growth and Biblical Wisdom

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Everybody has a self-theory, some hypothesis or doctrine about what/who they are. Some of these theories are simple sentences like, “I’m an athlete.” Others are more fundamental, like, “I’m worthless.” According to Carol Dweck and Daniel Molden, our self-theories lead directly to our self-esteem maintenance/repair strategies after we fail at a task or to reach a goal. (Dweck, 130-131). They have distilled the various self-theories into two helpful categories.

The Self Theories:

  1. Entity theory:
    Entity theory is the theory that all of your personal traits are fixed in place.
  2. Incremental Theory:
    The incremental theory of the self is the theory that no matter who you are, your qualities and abilities can be improved upon.

Two strategies of self-esteem repair:

  1. Fixed/Static View
    It is often found that those who hold to the entity theory, because of the assumption that change is impossible, also have a static view of self-esteem repair. These people repair their self-esteem by avoidance of activities that are difficult. Adherents to this self-theory also utilize comparison of their performance to examples who performed even more poorly than themselves to bolster their sense of worth/skill.
  2. Growth View
    Those who hold to the incremental self-theory, because of the assumption that change is possible, adopt a growth perspective on self-esteem repair. These individuals use strategies like examination of deficits and practicing unattained skills.  They are also more likely to utilize comparison of personal performance to those who performed even better to understand why they succeeded.

Can you guess which self-theory and which strategies tend to be associated with success? If you guessed, “the incremental theory and the growth view,” you guessed correctly.

In the book of Proverbs, the self-theory assumed by the author is the incremental theory. The author assumes that people can change:

Pro 8:1-5 ESV  Does not wisdom call? Does not understanding raise her voice?  (2)  On the heights beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand;  (3)  beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud:  (4)  “To you, O men, I call, and my cry is to the children of man.  (5)  O simple ones, learn prudence; O fools, learn sense.

And as one would expect from somebody who holds the incremental view, the author of Proverbs recommends responding to personal failures and challenges with a growth strategy:

  1. Pro 9:8b-9a Reprove a wise man and he will love you. Instruct a wise man, and he will grow wiser.
  2. Pro 15:5  A fool despises his father’s instruction, but whoever heeds reproof is prudent.
  3. Pro 15:12  A scoffer does not like to be reproved; he will not go to the wise.
  4. Pro 15:32  Whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence.

The whole book basically indicates that one of the main differences between the wise and the unwise is that the wise are willing to face correction and improve. They admit their flaws and errors. They do so whether the flaws pertain to morality, character, knowledge, skill, or anything else.

Conclusion

Learning to change our perspective on failures and internal shame is very difficult. We often feel painfully ashamed of failures, mistakes, and sins. This shame can paralyze us into being unable to admit fault. It can even force us into hiding our flaws and dwelling only on our positive traits and thus can prevent change. It is all the better to admit personal failures of morals, knowledge, and skill. Fessing up to oneself, to God, and to other people is a liberating experience. In so doing, shame can become the sort of sorrow that leads to repentance and personal transformation. One good article on the subject can be found here: Why I Like When Other Men Make Me Feel Bad About Myself.

Works Cited:

Andrew J Elliot and Carol S Dweck, Handbook of Competence and Motivation (New York: Guilford Press, 2005).

Appendix:

Though the author of Proverbs assumes that you and I can change, he is a realist. You and I have all known people that we worry about because they keep making bad decisions. The fear is that eventually it might be too late to change. Proverbs does notice that some people will want to change their habits at the last minute before a calamity. They procrastinate. They hope to perhaps utilizing a montage strategy. “Oh, I messed around all year and have to make a 100 on the final and only have 8 hours to study…wisdom come save me with clips of fun, hard work, and sweet music!” Kind of like in Rocky, Revenge of the Nerds, the Muppets Movie, and Mulan:

Wisdom, in the book of Proverbs, is personified as a cosmically powerful female prophet who represents the highest aspirations of human motherhood, the ultimate wife, and the most wise sister a young man could have. Young men typically love women, this is probably why the literary device is used. The book is written for young men, but it clearly applies to women as well. Anyway, here is what Lady Wisdom says after being ignored until the last minute before a disaster:

Pro 1:24-27  Because I have called and you refused to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded,  (25)  because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof,  (26)  I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you,  (27)  when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you.

If you refuse to change your character long enough, you won’t be able to suddenly make the necessary repairs in order to succeed. I tried this in Hebrew as an undergrad. You cannot study at the last minute for Hebrew and succeed.