June 11, 2024
Ignorance is Bliss
This proverb is horribly misunderstood. It is misquoted and often interpreted as "people who know less are happier". While this may be true, the interpretation is largely useless - an illogical source of envy at best.
The original quote is as follows:
"In knowing nothing, life is most delightful"
- Publilius Syrus
On Ignorance
People always tell you to face your fears but they never tell you how.
Our brains love to think. To plan out scenarios. Endless what-ifs. Overthinking is a common denominator for a swathe of mental health conditions.
For some, the natural tendency toward the fear of the unknown is to try to account for things that could happen. This may manifest as OCD in needing to double, triple, quadruple check things. Or as anxiety through constant worry about ficticious scenarios.
Along the way, you begin to fear the overthinking itself. Your brain reacts by default the same way it does other scary things you're overthinking - by overthinking. You can begin overthinking your overthinking in of itself. The more you ruminate, the further down that spiral you go.
Alternatively, you try to shove it to the back of your mind and force yourself to forget about it. The very act of trying to ignore it causes you to think on it more. This ends up having the same effect.
We don't start out this way. As children we don't contemplate the past or the future. We "live in the moment" until some traumatic event teaches us to behave otherwise.
To overcome this rumination spiral, we have to break the loop. We have to consider the possible scenarios and, internally, accept that those bad outcomes are possible and there is nothing we can do to change them. The proverbial plane may very well crash. There's nothing you could do about it if it did.
If you suffer from anxiety, that sentence is terrifying to read. You have to take solace in your own ignorance. You have to learn to laugh at yourself for thinking that way in the first place and discard your anxiety. Not force it away or try to compensate by scenario planning. You have to learn to smile at your own stupidity.
Knowing you are ignorant of the future becomes your weapon against overthinking.
"The only way out is through"
- Robert Frost
The Real Risk
You can ruminate on your fears and spend your life fearful of what could happen. You can choose to never get on another plane. You can guarantee you will never die in a plane crash.
The Type I error here is dying in a plane crash. Literally one in a million statistically. Near-zero if you don't fly on Boeing planes.
The Type II error is going the rest of your life without traveling overseas. Foregoing vacations. Foregoing visiting family and friends.
It isn't even close.
The cost of Type II errors always outweigh the cost of Type I errors.
Type II errors are invisible because they're impossible to track. You can look up how many plane crashes happened in the last year. There is no way to quantify life foregone.
Side note: This concept of Type II errors applies to everything. Look around.
"Qué será, será
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Qué será, será
What will be, will be"
- Doris Day
Accepting and internalizing your fears is no small feat.
The good news is: You can do this for everything. Anxiety, fear of heights, fear of flying, etc.
The bad news is: You have to do this for everything. It takes time. Each thing you want to overcome is its own battle. After that, it still takes reinforcement but it does get easier.
The Angel of Death
The single hardest fear to overcome, and the source of many others, is the fear of death.
It's something everyone deals with as they age. Time goes quick. Better to work hard and keep your mind off it, some may argue. You may notice the parallels between this and the discussion above. This method only delays the problem but does nothing to address it.
The fear of death can be dealth with in the same fashion. By facing it directly you can transform your fear of death from something that perpetually holds you back to the cornerstone of your own mental fortitude.
This is much, much easier said than done. It's not something I have acheived - but the path is clear. Redirect the energy used overthinking toward something positive.
Tell yourself: "I'm going to die anyway. Let's fucking do it."
Forgiveness
An equally difficult, seemingly impossible, concept to come to terms with is forgiveness.
Should someone who commits a crime be punished multiple times for the same crime? Obviously not.
Why, then, do we hold on to grudges and continue to mentally punish ourselves and others for something that may have happened long ago?
The Judge
If you think about it, every time we dredge up bad memories, it does nothing to the other person. It's not like thinking badly of them allows you any kind of vengeance. Your own self is the only outlet for the negative emotions. In an effort to hold onto the past, we only end up making ourselves suffer more.
Forgiving someone is even harder if we can't separate ourselves from the person that did us harm. Especially if that person is ourselves.
The Victim
We have a natural tendency to vitimize ourselves. This, ironically, allows us to avoid taking responsibility.
The only responsibility we can take for our past mistakes is by sincere apology and treating those mistakes as lessons to avoid repeating.
By continuing to ruminate, we only allow ourselves to be punished multiple times - even for the actions of others. While it's important to learn from our past mistakes, it is equally important to let go of the mistakes once we've taken what we can from the experience.
The Verdict
The ultimate defense we have against the internal judge is knowing that we tried our best.
The same as any fear, in order to overcome something, we must first accept it. A soured relationship is another mental battle to overcome through acceptance.
Actions cannot be undone. Forgiveness does not necessarily imply second chances. Forgiveness is about you and your own mental health. By accepting what happened in the past, we can allow ourselves to finally move on.
No negative self-talk. Avoid negative thoughts. Exercise is the easiest way to get your mind off things. It's easy to allow yourself to slip into a cycle of negative thoughts and bad moods. Like any other mistake, you also need to forgive yourself for having the negative thoughts in the first place.
You'll find, with practice, it's just as easy to ruminate on good thoughts and to find yourself in a wonderful mood.
You have agency over all of your thoughts and actions.