This is a follow up to a post I wrote back in January. Given how many harmful ideas there are in the world of self-improvement, I have a feeling there will be more follow ups to come. Without further ado, here are more ideas to avoid.
- “You can’t become more sensitive to pleasure without also becoming more sensitive to pain.” My experience has been the exact opposite. The further I’ve gone on my personal growth journey, the less sensitive to pain I’ve gotten. By that I mean I’ve become less affected by personal attacks, manipulations, threats, and other abuses. Simultaneously, it’s become easier for me to have fun, laugh freely at things I find enjoyable, get into a good mood and stay there, recover more quickly when I get into a bad mood, etc. Having less emotional baggage has made the good feelings stronger and the bad feelings weaker. As such, I completely disagree with the notion that increased growth leads to increased sensitivity to pain. Further, the primary person who said a version of this around me has undergone little to no personal growth, and, accordingly, has no experience from which to speak on this. That is why I don’t trust her perspective on this, and my own experience is why I don’t believe others who repeat this idea.
- “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Going through a painful experience doesn’t give you strength, fully recovering from it does. I’ve written before about this, so I won’t go into too much detail about it here. I will say that the pain and stress from my dog Sawyer’s death last year weakened me severely for most of 2022 and I’m certain that’s why I got sicker last summer than I had been in over a decade. All the healing work I did to get through that pain is what strengthened me, not the pain itself. Additionally, because not everyone succeeds in fully healing after a traumatic experience, anyone who doesn’t heal will experience a lower quality of life after the trauma than they had before the trauma.
- “Fight for those you love.” My perspective on this one has undoubtedly been shaped by being around argumentative people almost all my life. That said, I don’t see why anyone wants to fight for their relationships when they could cooperate instead. Yelling, interrupting each other, lobbing insults, and other examples of dysfunction neither solve problems nor move anybody forward. Progress and healing happen when emotions settle down and each person can communicate effectively about what’s bothering them. That doesn’t happen when tempers flare, emotions go through the roof, and nobody can hear what anybody else is saying. By the time all of the dust from a fight finally settles, so much time and energy have been wasted and huge amounts of ill will have been created. All of that makes it less likely that problems will be solved, which makes the relationship much more likely to fail. It’s much better to skip over all of that negativity by recognizing when emotions are too hot for effective communication, waiting for them to settle, having a heart-to-heart, and then quickly arriving at the problem-solving part. My life has become much more peaceful as I’ve steadily removed those who are determined to take everything personally, fight, and escalate a calm discussion into a full-blown altercation. Those who are worth sticking by are those who communicate in a civil manner and work effectively through whatever problems arise.
- “Match energy.” Some live by this philosophy that demands they treat others exactly how others treat them. Similarly to the previous idea, I prefer to do one better. With those who treat me well, I find it extremely easy to treat them well in return. Earlier in my life, I would treat badly those who also treated me badly. That has changed. At this point, I still treat well those who treat me well, and I interact as little as possible with those who treat me badly. I totally avoid them whenever possible; when that’s impossible, I minimize our interactions. This way, I can still feel good by refusing to stoop to their level without risking getting hurt by them yet again. Plus it leaves me with more time and energy to spend with those who treat me well.