killall -i negative-daemon-process
Technical people tend to be comfortable with systems and rules, but sometimes those standard mental patterns lead to our getting stuck when things aren’t looking up. Most of us know intellectually that processing a down point in life takes some self-examination, but where do we start? What are the processes our minds are running that are causing the problems? If we can understand our actual mental mechanics more clearly, we can start to apply the toolkit for fixing them.
Man’s Search for Meaning
Viktor E. Frankl
1995 (original 1946)
Time investment: 5 hours
Everyone has the sensation that their life is shit at times, and Frankel knows this better than most after his years in a concentration camp. He helps you move out of the dreariness of your past into focusing on how you get to a better future.
Focusing
Gendlin
1978
Time investment 1 hour
It seems like a simple question: “how do you feel about things?” For me, it was not. I would say I haven’t curated my emotional life at the level I wish I had. This book has a very simple message, so it’s more of an encouragement and guide to the ambiance and mindset required to sit with yourself and pry into the space between body and mind. In a way, I suspect most of us know that “processing things” takes some time sitting by yourself and paying attention to your internals. But damned if having someone invite you to do it in a specific way isn’t especially helpful. Perhaps putting even this small amount of process around the act made it more accessible for a tech-oriented person like myself.
The Happiness Hypothesis: Ten Ways to Find Happiness and Meaning in Life
Jonathan Haidt
2021
Time investment: 10.5 hours
Haidt offers insights into the importance of connecting to something greater than ourselves and connecting to others and how to manage and foster those drivers of happiness.“Love and work are to people what water and sunshine are to plants” is just one, and his backing of these assertions with good scientific research is, perhaps, what appealed to me as an engineer. Or perhaps he helped me rationalize the emphasis, time, and emotional investment I’ve put into working: meaningful work is a big part of a meaningful life.
The elephant and rider metaphor is also useful for visualizing how much of our decision making is emotionally driven and doesn’t percolate up to the conscious brain. If our emotional self, the elephant, wants to do or not do something, the rider is going to have a hard time getting things moving on the desired path. The tips on aligning the elephant and rider are useful.
The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse
Gregg Easterbrook
2003
Time investment: 11.5 hours
This book was a driver in my giving up on the news–which has a huge pessimistic bias that makes me less happy over time. It also pointed to a shortcoming that impedes my happiness and probably other tech workers’ happiness: too few expressions of gratitude. Do we really need to comment on other people just doing their jobs or being decent humans day after day? The answer is yes, more for the one doing the acknowledgements than for those doing what ought to be done. As well as being a great reminder of how far humanity has come, Easterbrook makes some interesting points about how modern environmentalism and modern choice overload can make us less happy.
Stumbling on Happiness
Daniel Gilbert
2006
Time investment: 7.5 hours
This book examines the science of how our predictions of the future can be as unreliable as our memories of the past, and how that affects our happiness. Once Gilbert outlines major features of how the brain functions–or malfunctions, he examines how happiness is tied to the choices we make. We think we choose based on making our future or present self happy. But the way the brain deals with and constructs the future has systemic errors; becoming aware of them helps us work to correct for them. Those of us with a fetish for logical thinking will appreciate the insight on how we form a picture of reality and how we determine how we feel about it.
Strategies to reach your potential
Shane Parrish and Dr. Julie Gurner
Time investment: 1 hour
This podcast talks about the importance of the narrative we tell ourselves as well as ways to reframe it. This begins with taking back our own lives by identifying the imaginary rules we have in our heads but can’t see. As an engineer it was enabling to see that there was a profound, rules-based system in my subconscious; we technical people know how to work with and probe those systems once they know they exist.
This show also discusses how to get validation without becoming over-reliant on it. Their ideas on setting and enforcing boundaries and preserving what is important to our mental and physical health will be a reminder for most of us. They also discuss where self discipline will help you and where relying on it too much will set you up for failure. I think a lot of us in the tech space place a high value on discipline since it enables what we do, but knowing there are limits to how far discipline can get you helps us find other ways to get results.
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
Jordan Peterson
2014
Time investment: 16 hours
Using a wide range of anecdotal illustrations, Peterson outlines strategies for balancing our enjoyment of life with our goals to become better humans. Peterson reminds us that life is hard and we shouldn’t expect it to be easy. For me, it was a good “tough love” style invitation to step up and do what needs to be done to have a better life. This much shorter video of Peterson discussing aspects of depression specifically could give you a taste of his style in ten minutes.
The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology that Fuel Success and Performance at Work
Shawn Achor
2010
Time investment: 7.5 hours
This book flips our usual understanding that success brings happiness: instead, it’s optimism and positivity that help us find success. Moving to an optimistic frame is day to day work, and for an engineer like myself, this is itself a positive message. I know how to work. Now I know that my level of optimism and thus my odds of success can be improved.
One response to “Resources for an engineer trying to work themself out of a bad mental space”
I’ll add another:
“Get Right with God”
https://www.gotquestions.org/get-right-with-God.html
Vic