removing many drives that would have been better used as rocket fuel toward action.
I think this is a recipe for getting burned. Most of the time, working smarter is better than working harder, which leads us back to:
it tends to draw people into classifying nearly all problems as Type 3
So, I have not noticed this in my application of it, but I have noticed this in how she presents it. (In particular, one chapter of the work deals with death, and I remember reading thinking “hmm, I probably can’t recommend this book to any rationalists without minimizing that claim somehow.”) I found watching Youtube videos of her doing work with people as more effective than reading the book, I think, because there was a clear sense of “I now know the right way to go about this problem” whereas the book had more of a feeling of “I have now accepted the inevitable.” (Sometimes the latter is the right way to go about the problem, of course.)
I think the two tools she presents—the “is it true?” question and the reversal—both mostly solve this problem.
First, “is it true?” separates the is from the should, which helps in classifying something as type 3 or type 5. If I say something like “my lawyer shouldn’t have told the other side’s lawyer fact X,” and I ask myself “Is that true?” and the answer comes back “well, it’s a violation of his professional code of conduct, and I can sue him for that breach,” then I’m in a more useful place than I was before. If I say something like “Bob shouldn’t have told Joe fact X,” and I ask myself “Is that true?” and the answer comes back “well, I never actually made it clear to Bob that I wanted fact X private, and Bob never gave me the impression of being someone who was willing to keep secrets,” then I’m in a more useful place than I was before.
Second, the reversal points out the many ways in which it’s possible to minimize or avoid harm, which helps determine whether or not a problem actually is one you can do something about. I think pjeby’s point with regards to the munching noises works well here; when you reverse “he shouldn’t be making munching noises” to get “I shouldn’t be making munching noises,” the desired end goal is realizing that it takes one entity to make a sound and another entity to hear it. There are a vast number of unpleasant noises generated throughout the world, and you can’t hear most of them, because of distance or muffling or so on. You could leave, or plug in earplugs, or ask them to stop, all of which might be better than suffering to prove how much you don’t suffer!
You could leave, or plug in earplugs, or ask them to stop, all of which might be better than suffering to prove how much you don’t suffer!
Yep. This is one area where I differ in application from Byron Katie; I tend to focus heavily on self-applied judgments -- i.e. “I should(n’t) X”—rather than other-applied ones. So in AnnaSalomon’s story it seemed to me the real problem was the thought “I shouldn’t be petty”, since there didn’t seem to be any moral judgment being levied against the muncher, vs. against herself.
That being said, Byron Katie is correct that it’s a lot easier to work on other-applied judgments and that it’s better to learn the method using those first.
(I also sometimes find, oddly enough, that when I get to “who would I be without this thought?” on a self-applied judgment, my mind will sometimes object that if I didn’t have this thought, then I’d have to stop being mad at other people for doing the same thing that I’m upset with myself about! I then have to reflect on whether on balance it actually benefits me to be upset at those other people, considering that it rarely motivates them and that the self-judgment is impairing me.)
I think this is a recipe for getting burned. Most of the time, working smarter is better than working harder, which leads us back to:
So, I have not noticed this in my application of it, but I have noticed this in how she presents it. (In particular, one chapter of the work deals with death, and I remember reading thinking “hmm, I probably can’t recommend this book to any rationalists without minimizing that claim somehow.”) I found watching Youtube videos of her doing work with people as more effective than reading the book, I think, because there was a clear sense of “I now know the right way to go about this problem” whereas the book had more of a feeling of “I have now accepted the inevitable.” (Sometimes the latter is the right way to go about the problem, of course.)
I think the two tools she presents—the “is it true?” question and the reversal—both mostly solve this problem.
First, “is it true?” separates the is from the should, which helps in classifying something as type 3 or type 5. If I say something like “my lawyer shouldn’t have told the other side’s lawyer fact X,” and I ask myself “Is that true?” and the answer comes back “well, it’s a violation of his professional code of conduct, and I can sue him for that breach,” then I’m in a more useful place than I was before. If I say something like “Bob shouldn’t have told Joe fact X,” and I ask myself “Is that true?” and the answer comes back “well, I never actually made it clear to Bob that I wanted fact X private, and Bob never gave me the impression of being someone who was willing to keep secrets,” then I’m in a more useful place than I was before.
Second, the reversal points out the many ways in which it’s possible to minimize or avoid harm, which helps determine whether or not a problem actually is one you can do something about. I think pjeby’s point with regards to the munching noises works well here; when you reverse “he shouldn’t be making munching noises” to get “I shouldn’t be making munching noises,” the desired end goal is realizing that it takes one entity to make a sound and another entity to hear it. There are a vast number of unpleasant noises generated throughout the world, and you can’t hear most of them, because of distance or muffling or so on. You could leave, or plug in earplugs, or ask them to stop, all of which might be better than suffering to prove how much you don’t suffer!
Yep. This is one area where I differ in application from Byron Katie; I tend to focus heavily on self-applied judgments -- i.e. “I should(n’t) X”—rather than other-applied ones. So in AnnaSalomon’s story it seemed to me the real problem was the thought “I shouldn’t be petty”, since there didn’t seem to be any moral judgment being levied against the muncher, vs. against herself.
That being said, Byron Katie is correct that it’s a lot easier to work on other-applied judgments and that it’s better to learn the method using those first.
(I also sometimes find, oddly enough, that when I get to “who would I be without this thought?” on a self-applied judgment, my mind will sometimes object that if I didn’t have this thought, then I’d have to stop being mad at other people for doing the same thing that I’m upset with myself about! I then have to reflect on whether on balance it actually benefits me to be upset at those other people, considering that it rarely motivates them and that the self-judgment is impairing me.)