Happiness and the Big Reset
da5zeay
was venting about various work and executive-level issues that in the
normal course of the day, he'd be unable to express to people. So after
he ran down, he said, "Ok, I'm done. I'm ok". And I mentally reset my
internal "friend happiness meter" and stopped worrying about it.
This is a trick we evolved some time ago, when we realized that without
regular daily interaction, we tended to form unbalanced perceptions of
the other's life. Because we're friends and former comrades-in-work, we
care a great deal when something unpleasant is going down...I'm already
grabbing a baseball bat and jumping into my car to team up,
metaphorically speaking, if I think action is called for. That's what's
awesome about having friends. But it's kind of stressful by proxy. I
don't like the feeling when my buds are not in a good place.
At one point we realized that we were giving each other vastly lopsided
impressions of how bad things were, when things were actually generally
OK. So now if we suspect that the other person might be reading too
much into something, or perhaps making an assumption based on old
habits we've since beaten, we say, "Dude, old pattern / just venting.
Reset your impression." And we take each other at face value, and do
it. It's remarkably liberating. The basis of friendship is implicit
trust, and to be able to cash it in so readily is just awesome.
I was thinking last night that this is a good trick to be able to apply
to one's self, that ability to effortlessly reset your impressions and
expectations. It opens yourself to the world of possibility and the
future, not what baggage you've accumulated in the past. Learning is a
little quicker and easier. It frees you from your own judgment and
guilt. If you can do it for your friend, you should be able to do it
for yourself. This may be the very foundation of self-actualization,
and therefore happiness. At the very least, it might make one's
progress through life just a little clearer.