Eva bursts into tears whenever she has a hard problem to deal with, like a stressful project at work or above-average levels of social drama amongst her friends. This is, of course, completely unproductive—in fact, in the case of drama, it worsens things—and Eva wants to stop it. First, she has to figure out why it happens. Are the tears caused by sadness? It turns out not—she can be brought to tears even by things that don’t make her sad. The latest project from work was exciting and a great opportunity and it still made her cry. After a little work sorting through lists of things that make her cry, Eva concludes that it’s linked to how much pressure she feels to solve the problem: for instance, if she’s part of a team that’s assigned a project, she’s less likely to react this way than if she’s operating solo, and if her friends embroiled in drama turn to her for help, she’ll wind up tearful more often than if she’s just a spectator with no special responsibility. Now she needs to set herself up not to cry. She decides to do this by making sure she has social support in her endeavors: if the boss gives her an assignment, she says to the next employee over, “I should be able to handle this, but if I need help, can I count on you?” That way, she can think of the task as something that isn’t entirely on her. When next social drama rears its head, Eva reconceptualizes her part in the solution as finding and voicing the group’s existing consensus, rather than personally creating a novel way to make everything better. While this new approach reduces the incidence of stress tears, it doesn’t disassemble the underlying architecture that causes the tendency in the first place. That’s more complicated to address: Eva spends some time thinking about why responsibility is such an emotional thing for her, and looks for ways to duplicate the sense of support she feels when she has help in situations where she doesn’t. Eventually, it is not much of a risk that Eva will cry if presented with a problem to solve.
Cross-posted from Seven Shiny Stories
7. Experiment
Eva bursts into tears whenever she has a hard problem to deal with, like a stressful project at work or above-average levels of social drama amongst her friends. This is, of course, completely unproductive—in fact, in the case of drama, it worsens things—and Eva wants to stop it. First, she has to figure out why it happens. Are the tears caused by sadness? It turns out not—she can be brought to tears even by things that don’t make her sad. The latest project from work was exciting and a great opportunity and it still made her cry. After a little work sorting through lists of things that make her cry, Eva concludes that it’s linked to how much pressure she feels to solve the problem: for instance, if she’s part of a team that’s assigned a project, she’s less likely to react this way than if she’s operating solo, and if her friends embroiled in drama turn to her for help, she’ll wind up tearful more often than if she’s just a spectator with no special responsibility. Now she needs to set herself up not to cry. She decides to do this by making sure she has social support in her endeavors: if the boss gives her an assignment, she says to the next employee over, “I should be able to handle this, but if I need help, can I count on you?” That way, she can think of the task as something that isn’t entirely on her. When next social drama rears its head, Eva reconceptualizes her part in the solution as finding and voicing the group’s existing consensus, rather than personally creating a novel way to make everything better. While this new approach reduces the incidence of stress tears, it doesn’t disassemble the underlying architecture that causes the tendency in the first place. That’s more complicated to address: Eva spends some time thinking about why responsibility is such an emotional thing for her, and looks for ways to duplicate the sense of support she feels when she has help in situations where she doesn’t. Eventually, it is not much of a risk that Eva will cry if presented with a problem to solve.