On the Importance of Psychological Comfort for Health and Effectiveness

My health and my effectiveness depend heavily on psychological comfort. Over the years I’ve worked out a few rules for myself — hard to keep, but I try:

— Don’t worry about what hasn’t happened yet. “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality,” said Seneca. At times the brain spins up such fantastical horrors of what might happen that you start, for no good reason, sinking yourself into the alternate reality of those scenarios — and then the brain even begins rigging the facts to fit them. Luckily, almost always none of it is fated to happen, and the facts turn out to be false — unless, of course, you summon the trouble on yourself with your own thoughts.

— Accept the world as it is everywhere you can’t change it (that is, almost always). You can disagree with a huge number of situations in the world, but no one is better off for the energy you burn on anger and hatred — while it’s quite easy to destroy yourself from the inside. Especially now, in the context of politics.

— Unsubscribe from most news, except what touches your professional work. 99% of information is noise, and if something genuinely important happens, it’s hard not to hear about it (at the very least, someone forwards a repost or asks your opinion).

— Don’t gnaw at yourself over missed opportunities or money left on the table. It’s especially hard when you meant to do something and didn’t — and had you done it, you’d have caught the firebird by the tail, but now you get to suffer and live with the thought.

— Stop thinking about how things might have gone under different circumstances and focus on what to do in the situation that de facto exists here and now.

— Use the “three-year rule.” If three years from now, looking back on this event, it won’t feel important enough — then it’s probably not that important now either.

— Less ego, fewer thoughts about what someone out there thinks of us. Everyone is 99% thinking about themselves.

— Believe that everything happens for the best! Maybe the universe has its own, more interesting plan than the goals we sometimes set and then grieve over when something goes wrong. Have you ever had a moment where you ate yourself alive over some event you saw as an epic failure — only to find out years later that it was the best thing that ever happened to you?

Here’s to psychological comfort, health, and effectiveness for us all! 😎