5 Simple Mind Hacks That Changed My Life
Ever had a single moment that changed your entire life? One event, one mental tweak, one epiphany that made everything better?
I have.
Granted, we’re not talking about something as huge as turning into a masked crimefighter because my parents were murdered in front of me — but that’s a good thing. Only so many people have experiences like that. I’m talking about relatively small modifications that have had an outsized positive impact on my life. Not only can these mind hacks do the same thing for you, but you can adopt every one of them by the end of this article if you choose to do so.
1) Making yourself impervious to criticism.
When you write about politics for a living, you get called every nasty thing in the book. There’s not a single feature on my body that hasn’t been thoroughly critiqued. I’ve been called ugly, fat, stupid, inbred, retarded, a fascist, a Nazi, a racist, and dozens of other terms that I’m not allowed to write on PJM. I get smeared and lied about. I receive death threats. There’s not a day that goes by in my life where I don’t either get hate mail or get attacked in the comments of articles that I write. After reading that, ponder the fact that when I started writing for a living, not only was I sensitive to criticism, but conflict with other people made me uncomfortable. So how did I go from that to retweeting hate aimed at me on Twitter, laughing off death threats, and taking on four liberals at a time on HuffPostLive?
It started with adopting a quote from Frederick Douglas as a motto.
A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.
As a practical matter, what does that mean? That anyone who insults is — by virtue of the fact that he is insulting — unworthy of my time, attention, or serious consideration. Some people might argue that someone who’s deliberately insulting you might also have a legitimate point too. Setting aside the fact that happens about as often as Lady Gaga turns down a chance to wear a weird dress, if the point is worth making, someone else will surely come along and make it as well and then I can respond to it. Once you internalize this sort of thinking, insults no longer have any impact because the very fact that someone is treating you in a deliberately insulting manner makes his opinion irrelevant.
Even better than learning from your mistakes is learning from somebody else’s
everyone makes mistakes, that’s why it’s so easy to blame all yours on other people.
And it’s a lot less painful.
Bad GPS day pic
“You always do the best you can right now.” is postmodernist BS.
People slack off – we all do – sometimes out of laziness. To deny this is evading reality.
I would rather be a bit down than to lie to myself.
One more aspect to this – If you test students for self esteem – those that score lowers achieve the best – and those that score highest the least.
Oh, hear hear, Karl! The only mildly useful take-away in the article is the Frederick Douglass quote.
I think you missed the point. When a person slacks off, and performs poorly due to that decision, they, at that point, have to realize that they’ve done the best they can at that time, figure out the root cause (slackerliness) and change it. Then the next time, they’ll be able to do better. Cause and effect, and learning from your mistakes. That’s what I got out of that.
#5 is a tough one for me, too. It’s so much easier to stay at home, and so much more challenging to get up and leave the house. Thanks for verbalizing that.
I agree about self-esteem. This is the problem with American education, in my view: when the main goal is to develop self-esteem, nobody can be better than the worst student. Otherwise, it will hurt his/her feelings.
This was a terrific article. Thank you for it!
This was a good read, especially #5 since it convinced me to go to a party I’ve been invited to Saturday night even though I’d rather stay home alone.
It reminds me very much of the “Four Agreements”, which I try very hard to live by. Look them up if you get a minute.
New Age crap.
Great article, just what I needed right now. I will be forwarding and bookmarking it – thanks!
Hermano!
Great article and thanks for writing it. Levels of self-disclosure like this take courage but they are what make reading the candid thoughts of others such an unparalleled experience.
Number 5 reminded me of two things. Jackie Vernon’s (a hilarious comedian but someone who was at his heyday probably long before your time) answer to why he hated to go outside: “’Cause there’s *air* out there.”
The other’s a tad more philosophical, a quote from Norman Vincent Peale: “In anticipate all upcoming events with enthusiasm and expectation of good.” This one has worked wonders for me.
Gosh darn it….”I anticipate….”
Good advice that all of us need to remember. I also like to keep my sense of humor and wit, for the world is a very serious place and if we loose our ability to laugh, especially at yourself, all is lost. The ability to love and laugh is what keeps us going!
John, the threats you endure are serious, be careful my friend!
I have an inner drill sergeant. He’s always right.