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Here is the point that stands out for me in this article -- The lower your self-complexity, the more fragile you are. Let’s say you’re a man who thinks about hi

Here is the point that stands out for me in this article -- The lower your self-complexity, the more fragile you are. Let’s say you’re a man who thinks about his life mainly in terms of work and family. If your manager gives you harsh feedback, that’s 50% of your sense of self taking a hit. But if your self-complexity is higher—let’s say you have a couple of hobbies, personal goals outside of work, and relationships outside of your family members—the impact will be lessened. People will often define themselves by what they do, this has been true since the stone age when people named themselves after their profession. The more things you do, the less impact there is on your opinion of yourself if someone says that one of the things you do is substandard. Having hobbies will help avoid the trap that people get into when they take a job "because it pays well" and not because they are interested in it. The trap is sprung because it is harder to work at a job you're not invested in, and you don't generally do as well as people who are invested. So you can end up taking time away from other fulfilling activities to get told your doing badly at the thing you are spending all your time trying to do. That is a horrible place to be mentally.

mtberatwork 7y ago
> So you can end up taking time away from other fulfilling activities to get told your doing badly at the thing you are spending all your time trying to do. That is a horrible place to be mentally. I suppose this would be another selling point of BI? If your entire livelihood isn't tied to a demoralizing/uninteresting job, then it may be easier to brush these things off.
- paulannesley 7y ago
  BI = Basic Income?
vincentmarle 7y ago
> If your manager gives you harsh feedback, that’s 50% of your sense of self taking a hit. The answer to this is not diversification... the answer is to work on yourself so your “sense of self” does not get affected by what anyone says.
- MadWombat 7y ago
  > so your “sense of self” does not get affected by what anyone says But it should be affected. As the substance abuse programs say "the first step to solve any problem is to acknowledge that there is a problem". For example, if you think of yourself as a good husband and a good father and then your wife and kids come to you and tell you that you are not, you should probably reassess your self-evaluation. Maybe you are not what you think you are.
  - georgebarnett 7y ago
    Taking what others say on board without allowing it to destroy your own confidence and blind indifference to what others think are separate things.
LiquidSky 7y ago
>Having hobbies will help avoid the trap that people get into when they take a job "because it pays well" and not because they are interested in it. What? People take those jobs because they need money to live and that's their only option (or at least they think it is). Unless your hobby pays, it has absolutely nothing to do with it.
- ChuckMcM 7y ago
  FWIW I have known Vice Presidents with this problem. Their entire notion of self worth was wrapped up in their job performance and what people said of them. People internalize their value in different ways, some are more resilient than others. Having something that you can be passionate about and good at outside your job has been shown to help resiliency. That's a good thing for anyone's mental health I suspect.
nsomaru 7y ago
The solution might be not to increase the number of things that define you, but to sublimate your ego (used loosely here to define what you “believe” yourself to be) into larger circles of identification. For example, a (wo)man (I’ll be using male gendered pronouns here but do not intend to be male-specific) motivated to feed his family has a larger circle of ID than when just looking to feed himself. Thus he is willing to sacrifice the “littler” self for the “bigger” self. Most people end this growth (also known as vairagya in Sanskrit) at the level of family, but it’s possible to keep expanding upwards to community, country, humans, living beings etc. Perturbations at the lower level from wherever you’re standing do not affect you because you’re standing at a higher level. A more expanded viewpoint, if you will. Ego has become finer and more refined.

mtberatwork 7y ago

> So you can end up taking time away from other fulfilling activities to get told your doing badly at the thing you are spending all your time trying to do. That is a horrible place to be mentally. I suppose this would be another selling point of BI? If your entire livelihood isn't tied to a demoralizing/uninteresting job, then it may be easier to brush these things off.

paulannesley 7y ago
BI = Basic Income?

vincentmarle 7y ago

> If your manager gives you harsh feedback, that’s 50% of your sense of self taking a hit. The answer to this is not diversification... the answer is to work on yourself so your “sense of self” does not get affected by what anyone says.

MadWombat 7y ago
> so your “sense of self” does not get affected by what anyone says But it should be affected. As the substance abuse programs say "the first step to solve any problem is to acknowledge that there is a problem". For example, if you think of yourself as a good husband and a good father and then your wife and kids come to you and tell you that you are not, you should probably reassess your self-evaluation. Maybe you are not what you think you are.
- georgebarnett 7y ago
  Taking what others say on board without allowing it to destroy your own confidence and blind indifference to what others think are separate things.

LiquidSky 7y ago

>Having hobbies will help avoid the trap that people get into when they take a job "because it pays well" and not because they are interested in it. What? People take those jobs because they need money to live and that's their only option (or at least they think it is). Unless your hobby pays, it has absolutely nothing to do with it.

ChuckMcM 7y ago
FWIW I have known Vice Presidents with this problem. Their entire notion of self worth was wrapped up in their job performance and what people said of them. People internalize their value in different ways, some are more resilient than others. Having something that you can be passionate about and good at outside your job has been shown to help resiliency. That's a good thing for anyone's mental health I suspect.

nsomaru 7y ago

The solution might be not to increase the number of things that define you, but to sublimate your ego (used loosely here to define what you “believe” yourself to be) into larger circles of identification. For example, a (wo)man (I’ll be using male gendered pronouns here but do not intend to be male-specific) motivated to feed his family has a larger circle of ID than when just looking to feed himself. Thus he is willing to sacrifice the “littler” self for the “bigger” self. Most people end this growth (also known as vairagya in Sanskrit) at the level of family, but it’s possible to keep expanding upwards to community, country, humans, living beings etc. Perturbations at the lower level from wherever you’re standing do not affect you because you’re standing at a higher level. A more expanded viewpoint, if you will. Ego has become finer and more refined.