It sounds like you’re saying that my aversion to failing at something else is irrational. Would you mind pointing out the error in my reasoning? (This sort of exchange is basically cognitive behavioral therapy, btw.)
Many of the things that you have said are characteristic of the sort of disordered thinking that goes hand-in-hand with depression. The book Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy covers some of them. You may want to try reading it (if you have not already) so that you will be able to recognize thoughts typical among the depressed. (I find some measure of comfort from realizing that certain thoughts are depressive delusions and will pass with changes in mood.)
As a concrete example, you said:
I’m just not smart or hard-working enough to do anything more interesting than pushing paper (my current job).
These are basically the harshest reasons one could give for failing at something. They are innate and permanent. An equally valid frame would be to think that some outside circumstance was responsible (bad economy, say) or that you had not yet mastered the right skill set.
I am thoroughly familiar with Feeling Good and feel that I can argue circles around it. My original statement (that I’ll fail at everything) is an example of “overgeneralization” and “fortune telling.” But this sounds to me like just a way of stating the problem of induction: nothing can ever be certain or generalized because we don’t know what we don’t know etc. etc. However, science itself basically rests on induction. If I drop a steel ball (from the surface of this planet), will it float, even if I think positively really hard? No. It won’t. Our reason makes conclusions based on past evidence. If past evidence suggests that attempts lead to failure, why ISN’T it reasonable to assume that future attempts will lead to failure? Yes, the variables will be different, I guess, but it’s still a gamble. If you think I should give it a go anyway, then you may as well advise me to buy lottery tickets, imo. And I just can’t dredge up the sufficient motivation to pursue something with chances like that.
An equally valid frame would be to think that some outside circumstance was responsible (bad economy, say) or that you had not yet mastered the right skill set.
Kind of funny that you suggest blaming external forces instead of taking personal responsibility, but okay. I would say the latter is the case for me: I did not master the sufficient skill set, even after ten years or whatever. The people who are successful in my field do so MUCH earlier. So, okay, I didn’t master the right skill set. I don’t see how that’s supposed to make me feel any better. It doesn’t change my shitty situation. And it only makes me question, well why didn’t I? I wanted to; I attempted to. Clearly, I did something wrong. I either don’t have sufficient talent at my field or talent at learning to have mastered those skills.
But those are innate and permanent traits, which you (and many others) apparently consider invalid, which I don’t really get, but I’ll accept it for the moment. So due to non-innate and temporary faults, I failed to achieve my objectives. Again, how is this supposed to make me feel better? Because I’m supposed to believe those faults have mysteriously vanished, or I can work to improve them? Even if that’s so, the rewards that are reasonable to expect from attempting to improve them seem so minimal at this point that, again, it doesn’t seem worth bothering about. I’m willing to concede that this is depressive thinking, but it seems to me more like a difference of opinion than disordered reasoning: some people think hard work with little reward or low chance of a big reward is fun; I do not. It’s no different that my hating a movie you like and vice versa.
Many of the things that you have said are characteristic of the sort of disordered thinking that goes hand-in-hand with depression. The book Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy covers some of them. You may want to try reading it (if you have not already) so that you will be able to recognize thoughts typical among the depressed. (I find some measure of comfort from realizing that certain thoughts are depressive delusions and will pass with changes in mood.)
As a concrete example, you said:
These are basically the harshest reasons one could give for failing at something. They are innate and permanent. An equally valid frame would be to think that some outside circumstance was responsible (bad economy, say) or that you had not yet mastered the right skill set.
I am thoroughly familiar with Feeling Good and feel that I can argue circles around it. My original statement (that I’ll fail at everything) is an example of “overgeneralization” and “fortune telling.” But this sounds to me like just a way of stating the problem of induction: nothing can ever be certain or generalized because we don’t know what we don’t know etc. etc. However, science itself basically rests on induction. If I drop a steel ball (from the surface of this planet), will it float, even if I think positively really hard? No. It won’t. Our reason makes conclusions based on past evidence. If past evidence suggests that attempts lead to failure, why ISN’T it reasonable to assume that future attempts will lead to failure? Yes, the variables will be different, I guess, but it’s still a gamble. If you think I should give it a go anyway, then you may as well advise me to buy lottery tickets, imo. And I just can’t dredge up the sufficient motivation to pursue something with chances like that.
Kind of funny that you suggest blaming external forces instead of taking personal responsibility, but okay. I would say the latter is the case for me: I did not master the sufficient skill set, even after ten years or whatever. The people who are successful in my field do so MUCH earlier. So, okay, I didn’t master the right skill set. I don’t see how that’s supposed to make me feel any better. It doesn’t change my shitty situation. And it only makes me question, well why didn’t I? I wanted to; I attempted to. Clearly, I did something wrong. I either don’t have sufficient talent at my field or talent at learning to have mastered those skills.
But those are innate and permanent traits, which you (and many others) apparently consider invalid, which I don’t really get, but I’ll accept it for the moment. So due to non-innate and temporary faults, I failed to achieve my objectives. Again, how is this supposed to make me feel better? Because I’m supposed to believe those faults have mysteriously vanished, or I can work to improve them? Even if that’s so, the rewards that are reasonable to expect from attempting to improve them seem so minimal at this point that, again, it doesn’t seem worth bothering about. I’m willing to concede that this is depressive thinking, but it seems to me more like a difference of opinion than disordered reasoning: some people think hard work with little reward or low chance of a big reward is fun; I do not. It’s no different that my hating a movie you like and vice versa.