4 ms·

At one point I had a bookshelf full of books on depression, fear, lack of confidence, etc., so it's impossible to answer such a broad question in a comment, but

At one point I had a bookshelf full of books on depression, fear, lack of confidence, etc., so it's impossible to answer such a broad question in a comment, but let me comment on the "high potential" sub-question. Personally I no longer think that "high potential" is a real thing--I think of it more as of a mental trap that can play part in depression (it definitely played a big part in mine..). What I mean by that (and it's not my own concept, I'm sure I read about it in one of the aforementioned books), is that the only reality that exists is the one we're living in right now. There are no other realities--unless you're dr Strange of course, I'm assuming you're not :)--where you're better off. As a consequence, your place in this reality is exactly where you're supposed to be at this very moment. Note that if you're in a bad situation, I'm not saying you should be happy about it, not at all!! I'm saying that given there's only this one reality that we have, if you are in a given situation then you are in the given situation and no amount of "what ifs" will change the present moment. It will only make you more depressed. So this is basically acceptance. But the term "acceptance" can mean two different things to different people--I don't mean acceptance as in resignation or passivity ("it is like it is so it's all hopeless"), I mean something like "as of this moment the state of the world is XYZ and there are no other worlds in which I'm in a better place, so there's no point in beating myself that I could have done ABC. If I could have done it back then, I would have done it. If I didn't do it then that was the only possibility back then because as of now we're at the point XYZ, which is a result of me not doing ABC before (and of bazillion other events, so me doing ABC might still not end up the way I would think)."). Tongue in a cheek--I'm sure I could have written it more clearly :)) EDIT: I think I lost the "high potential" thread along the way. So: IMO "high potential" is a mental construct that can easily depress us. "I have/had such a high potential and I haven't used it. I'm a failure". No, stop!! This is a fantasy land! You might have the highest IQ in the world (or the most flexible muscles, or whatever other advantage there can be). And you've definitely been using your IQ in your decision making, almost by definition. And you made the decisions you made yourself, correct? (I'm ignoring all the external interferences, as we're talking about "high potential".) Which means that you used your potential. The fact that you can easily generate 100-digit prime numbers out of the top of your head doesn't mean that you can be top scientist just like that, because the scientist also need a reliable schedule, curiosity and tons of other things. And so the "high potential" fantasy is basically focusing on the prime numbers and skipping the other factors. Now you can beat yourself that you lost you high potential because you didn't get up at 6 day by day to do some research. But that's exactly my point--you didn't because you didn't think it was advantageous to you, or maybe you did think that but you've had undiagnosed ADHD and that made it an order of magnitude harder. So what I'm saying is that your actual potential has been exactly what you observed! And if you're not convinced, or if you disagree with me, then I have one final question: let's say you really had a high potential and you really failed at it, and you're really a failure (all BS, but let's assume otherwise). Given that the past is gone and you cannot do anything about it, how does beating yourself help you?

Aeolun 3y ago
Reflect on what you did wrong, but do not keep beating yourself up over it?
- TomaszZielinski 3y ago
  Yes! "Extract" your lessons from the past but with the future in mind. One big caveat--it's "wrong" only by your today's standards. Back then it was most likely "right" (willful crimes aside), that's why you chose to do it! So I would strike it and leave simply: "reflect on what you did, (...)".
grrandalf 3y ago
> So what I'm saying is that your actual potential has been exactly what you observed! +1; How close is my paraphrasing to what you were thinking? achievement(person) = potential(person) - adversity(person) People implicitly assume the 'adversity' term is negligible. But in reality, the 'adversity' term can very large, and vary widely from person to person. [yep the "equation" isn't dimensionally consistent. It's meant to be a "completion prompt" to your internal LLM to translate those tokens to a longer paragraph.]
- TomaszZielinski 3y ago
  At first I thought your equation sums it up perfectly, then caveats started to appear and then caveats to caveats. And in an hour I realized a PhD could be built around it :)). So I won't give you a simple answer, but I'll write some loose thoughts, likely incoherent, etc., OK? - I think the only real/tangible/measurable/graspable part is the `achievement` side. Although personally I wouldn't call it `achievement` but sth like `present state`. It's because `achievement` invites comparison, and if someone already compares themselves to some idealize figure, then I think it would be more helpful to use neutral terms. Also, it cannot be measured--you can measure net worth, but not empathy or compassion. - On the right side of the equation I would treat both the potential and the adversity as unknown and fixed. By fixed I mean that in each moment of the past they had some fixed value, and by unknown I mean that it's practically impossible to measure their values. We only know the result (i.e. the left side), but not as a measurement, only as a state, so to speak. - I can see that thinking about the potential and adversity as separate terms might be useful if someone beats themselves about wasted potential, but then can look at the equation to remind themselves that the potential is always tied with adversity, they go hand in hand together and looking only at the potential is like looking at your assets but not on your mortgage. - Another useful angle of the equation might be that if someone is beating themselves about not working to decrease the adversity, then they might notice that working on it would "consume" the potential points! (E.g. time is required to use your potential, but if you spend it on dealing with adversity..). (But then it might be dangerous as it also conveys they idea there is a measurable, standalone thing called "one's true potential", which I don't believe exists.) > People implicitly assume the 'adversity' term is negligible. I thought about it for a short while and my take would be that people share (discuss) their adversities with others all the time, but when it comes to formulating the equation they often tend to end up with sth like: expectedAndMandatoryAchievement(person) = perceivedHighPotential(person) /* - adversity(person) */ I guess I'm saying that people don't think the adversity is negligible, but they tend to completely cover it with a newspaper when thinking about the potential vs reality. And this is a straight path to depression... OK, let me end here! I hope my LLM didn't hallucinate too much, but it's closer to stream of consciousness than to well though out arguments, so buyers beware! Last but not least, thank you for a great prompt--it made me think about the topic from a different angle!

Aeolun 3y ago

Reflect on what you did wrong, but do not keep beating yourself up over it?

TomaszZielinski 3y ago
Yes! "Extract" your lessons from the past but with the future in mind. One big caveat--it's "wrong" only by your today's standards. Back then it was most likely "right" (willful crimes aside), that's why you chose to do it! So I would strike it and leave simply: "reflect on what you did, (...)".

grrandalf 3y ago

> So what I'm saying is that your actual potential has been exactly what you observed! +1; How close is my paraphrasing to what you were thinking? achievement(person) = potential(person) - adversity(person) People implicitly assume the 'adversity' term is negligible. But in reality, the 'adversity' term can very large, and vary widely from person to person. [yep the "equation" isn't dimensionally consistent. It's meant to be a "completion prompt" to your internal LLM to translate those tokens to a longer paragraph.]

TomaszZielinski 3y ago
At first I thought your equation sums it up perfectly, then caveats started to appear and then caveats to caveats. And in an hour I realized a PhD could be built around it :)). So I won't give you a simple answer, but I'll write some loose thoughts, likely incoherent, etc., OK? - I think the only real/tangible/measurable/graspable part is the `achievement` side. Although personally I wouldn't call it `achievement` but sth like `present state`. It's because `achievement` invites comparison, and if someone already compares themselves to some idealize figure, then I think it would be more helpful to use neutral terms. Also, it cannot be measured--you can measure net worth, but not empathy or compassion. - On the right side of the equation I would treat both the potential and the adversity as unknown and fixed. By fixed I mean that in each moment of the past they had some fixed value, and by unknown I mean that it's practically impossible to measure their values. We only know the result (i.e. the left side), but not as a measurement, only as a state, so to speak. - I can see that thinking about the potential and adversity as separate terms might be useful if someone beats themselves about wasted potential, but then can look at the equation to remind themselves that the potential is always tied with adversity, they go hand in hand together and looking only at the potential is like looking at your assets but not on your mortgage. - Another useful angle of the equation might be that if someone is beating themselves about not working to decrease the adversity, then they might notice that working on it would "consume" the potential points! (E.g. time is required to use your potential, but if you spend it on dealing with adversity..). (But then it might be dangerous as it also conveys they idea there is a measurable, standalone thing called "one's true potential", which I don't believe exists.) > People implicitly assume the 'adversity' term is negligible. I thought about it for a short while and my take would be that people share (discuss) their adversities with others all the time, but when it comes to formulating the equation they often tend to end up with sth like: expectedAndMandatoryAchievement(person) = perceivedHighPotential(person) /* - adversity(person) */ I guess I'm saying that people don't think the adversity is negligible, but they tend to completely cover it with a newspaper when thinking about the potential vs reality. And this is a straight path to depression... OK, let me end here! I hope my LLM didn't hallucinate too much, but it's closer to stream of consciousness than to well though out arguments, so buyers beware! Last but not least, thank you for a great prompt--it made me think about the topic from a different angle!