Mental Traps: The Overthinker’s Guide to a Happier Life by Andre Kukla
Mental traps are identified not by the content of our ideas but by their form. Any aspect of daily life - household chores, weekend recreation, careers, relationships - may be thought about either productively or unproductively. We fall into the same traps when we wash the dishes as when we contemplate marriage or divorce. It’s not the subject of our thinking, but how we deal with the subject, that makes the difference.
The basic idea underlying mental traps was concisely expressed a few thousand years ago: To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under Heaven.
First, we’re often unaware of what we’re thinking. Second, even when we are aware of our thoughts, we often don’t recognize their injurious nature. Third, even when we recognize their injurious nature, we often can’t quit because of the force of habit.
Were it not for these little trials and tribulations, we would be unable to learn anything about ourselves. So we begin to welcome trouble as an ally, and to be fascinated by our reactions to it. And everyday life is transformed into an endless adventure. For what is adventure if not an attitude toward trouble.
The first trap, persistence, is to continue to work on projects that have lost their value. The activity had meaning for us once - or we would never have begun. But the meaning has evaporated before we reach the end. Yet we go on, either because we don’t notice the change or out of sheer inertia.
A useful distinction may be drawn between persistence and perseverance. We persevere when we steadfastly pursue our aims despite the obstacles that are encountered along the way. But we merely persist if we doggedly carry on in directions that are known to lead to a dead end.
Amplification is the trap of working harder than necessary to achieve our aim, as when we swat a fly with a sledgehammer. The opposite error of doing too little received far more attention. But took ugh is also a mistake. If we do too little, we fall short of the goal. And if we do too much, we squander our resources.
It’s especially common to fall into the trap of repetition when the goal’s attainment of non-attainment is difficult to confirm.
In fixation, our progress toward the goal is blocked. We can proceed no further until we receive a telephone call, an authorization, a shipment of materials, a new inspiration. But instead of turning to other affairs, we remain immobilized until we can get going once again on the same project. In short, we wait.
There are no preliminaries to living. It starts now.
It sometimes becomes clear that our plans have irremediably failed. The game is over and we’ve lost. The consequences of failure may be dreadful. Nevertheless, there’s nothing more to be done. Our moves are exhausted; the deadline is past. If we continue to occupy ourselves with the affair at this point, we fall into the trap of reversion.
Reversion is the temporal opposite of fixation. In fixation, we work furiously to hasten an immovable future. In reversion, we labor to change the immutable past.
Anticipation is the trap of starting too soon. It’s true that if we start too late, we may not have enough time to finish. But there are also penalties for starting too soon. When we anticipate, we render ourselves liable to overworking, preworking, and working in vain.
(…) And doing what we like is never a trap.
Work streamlines itself over time.
If we want life to be happy enough or meaningful enough to meet some standard that we’ve set for it, our goal can neither definitely met nor definitely missed until life itself has come to an end. Our fate may be been dismal until now; but tomorrow may tell a different story. And a present sense of satisfaction may be taken away from us overnight. “Call no man happy until he is dead,” goes an ancient Greek proverb. The final judgement on the quality of our life can’t be made in the midst of life itself. Hence it can never be made. Yet we anticipate it. Here is a flagrant example of tackling a problem before all the information is in.
We often end up having worked in vain because our problems take care of ourselves.
Certainly, if we make a habit of always preparing ourselves for the worst, we’ll be working in vain far more often than we need. There’s usually time enough to accept our fate when it finally overtakes us. Instead of making ourselves perpetually gloomy by always assuming the worst, we would do better to make no assumptions at all and simply continue to live our life. If the worst happens, then we can see how we’ll get through it.
There are times when we’re called upon to change our course of action even though we are already usefully or pleasantly occupied. The fire alarm rings just as we get to the most exciting part of our book. We hear of an incredibly opportune one-day sale just as we settle down to an afternoon’s sunbathing. We spill our coffee all over the papers we were working on. The time has come to redirect our attention. If, at this juncture, we try to hold on to our old course, we fall into the trap of resistance.
There are three conditions under which we should abandon the past and turn to a new future: (1) when delaying our entry into the new diminishes our fortune, (2) when delay causes us to miss a potential increment in our fortune, and (3) when the change to the new is in any case inevitable - that is, when we are visited by emergencies, opportunities, and interruptions.
When we have a plan for every moment of every day, no person or process in the world can ever take the initiative toward us without our construing it as an interruption.
If the Universe should pull the reins from our hand by visiting us with the unexpected, there’s no immediate cause for sorrow. The track record of the Universe is at least as good as our own. A life in which we are always having to react to unforeseen developments is not necessarily less happy or less creative than a life of total self-direction. Even if both lives resulted in equivalent outcomes, the former would have the advantage of sparing us the burden of deciding. WIth the Universe at the reins, we can relax and enjoy the ride.
Viewed from the outside, it may appear that we hesitate to start even though we have nothing to do. In reality, the new task intrudes upon our planned nothingness.
We fall into the trap of division when we try to attend to two things at once.
Strictly speaking, attention is indivisible. When we try to be conscious of two things, it may appear that we’re allotting a portion of our attention to each. But close inspection reveals either (1) that the whole of consciousness is being made to shift back and forth between the two activities, or (2) that one of the activities is relegated to the unconscious, automatic mode of operation.
Self-definition is self-mutilation on a heroic scale. This isn’t to say that we all lack consistency of personality. Even if we cease to formulate our character, an external observer will be able to detect recurring patterns in our choices and reactions. But we can’t formulate the results of such observations for ourselves without producing certain drastic results.
Beliefs about the self are self-fulfilling prophecies, and the fulfillment of the prophecy in turn welds us ever more strongly to the belief that engendered it. Our formulas for ourselves are at once true and profoundly misleading. The Man Who Never Eats Vegetables is quite correct - he never eats vegetables. But if he didn’t hold this view of himself, he might actually indulge in an occasional carrot.
We won’t be able to achieve inner peace until we’re ready to face the possibility that conflict is unending. Let’s not be comforted by hopes and lies. Let’s dedicate ourselves wholly to the truth, wherever it may lead.
