The Mental Emotional Health Blog

“They are ill discoverers that think there is no land when they see nothing but sea.” -Francis Bacon

Friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself.” -C.S. Lewis

The pain now is part of the happiness then. -C.S. Lewis

If you wish me to weep, you yourself must feel grief. -Horace

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go. -Oscar Wilde

He who has a ‘why’ to live for, can bear with almost any ‘how’. -attributed to Nietzsche

 

The popular saying is that “curiosity killed the cat”. But in humans curiosity can serve us well. When a person feels paranoia that others are watching or out to get him/her, that feeling tends to build on it’s own fear/anxiety. In order to counteract paranoia, I suggest finding a way to be curious about other people.

A person who is curious is not trapped. Mentally, there is an emphasis is on observing and learning, and that takes the place of paranoia. In other words, it is difficult to feel genuinely curious and paranoid at the same time.

So if I feel paranoid at the grocery store that everyone is looking at me, I could observe other people and ask myself such questions as, “Does their clothing match?”, “How old are that person’s shoes?”, or whether or not I think that person owns a pet, and what kind of pet I could picture them owning.  If successful, my thought processes start to function with some logic based on observable reality.

If the curiosity angle isn’t working you can always try telling yourself, “They’re looking at me. So what? Some people are just nosy.”

Today’s entry is in the context of careers. In figuring out what you want to do for your career, it helps to look realistically at what you want to do and what you’re willing to put up with.

There are those people that find their dream job and work doesn’t even feel like work. But for most people that isn’t the case. Every job/career has built-in challenges, which are much easier to address and work through if you feel you have actively chosen them. That is why the title today is “Choose Your Headaches”. You won’t be able to control other people at your job, and you won’t be able to control most of what happens at your job. But if you consider your workplace realistically and brace yourself to deal with those undesirable things, you will be in a much better frame of mind to conquer the challenges presented to you.

Hi everyone. I just got back from a short vacation, so I obviously haven’t written much lately. Also, I have some things going on that will need my attention so my posts will be less frequent for a while. I’m expecting a range from 2-4 posts a week.

 Thanks to all of you for reading and commenting, and feel free to check out some of my past entries. Categories are listed on the right column of this page.

Take care!

This article was featured today on Yahoo, and I always find it interesting to explore gender dynamics. The article is “A Dating Guide For Women: ‘Man Talk’ Translation” by David Wygant, and the link is here: Link

A couple comments about the article:

#4 - A guy saying he needs his space isn’t always a game. Some guys do feel the need to play games, or do the whole chase thing. But sometimes guys want to be less distracted while they figure out if they really like you. It could be a guy is taking a decision about you seriously.

#9 - Yes, he is paying attention to your interests by watching one of your shows by himself and then asking about it. One crucial point though is that this can be temporary. He might watch and ask about your shows while you are getting to know each other, or are in the early stages of being together (which can be years), but once he’s really comfortable in the relationship he might not care as much about your shows. The other crucial point with this is understanding that if a guy stops watching your shows later in the relationship, it doesn’t necessarily mean he has stopped liking or caring about you.