A lot of rationalists are on the self-improvement train and I have been as well, but lately I’ve been thinking that maybe personality traits just don’t change over time. As a baby I nursed for comfort and would overnurse until I threw up; as an adult I still have trouble telling when I’m hungry or full and seem predisposed to develop eating disorders. As a child I had massive problems with anxiety and rage; as an adult, I still do. I’ve always been weirdly drawn to house cleaning and related skills – when my mom would drive to the grocery store my sister would stay in the car and write in her notebook, while I would learn how to calculate which cereal had the cheapest unit price – and housework is still one of the things I spend most of my time on.
I’ve changed a lot, but these things haven’t changed.
Do people just all have underlying traits that stay with them from birth to death and make them who they are?
I feel like Kaj has a post where he says something has substantially changed for him. I think it’s this one.
Also, I think my underlying traits haven’t changed too much, but my experience of life has. I’ve been intensely depressed and lonely at times, and other times forgotten life could even be that bad. Which I will definitely take and put time and effort into changing, even if it doesn’t count as ‘underlying traits’.
To me it seems that change is difficult and frustratingly slow, but possible. Over time, slow changes accumulate.
The traits that don’t change, do they still have the same intensity? I have some bad traits that used to be worse in the past.
Your behavior is a function of your traits and your environment. Even if the traits are (at least in short term) fixed, perhaps you could change something about your environment? If you forget things, take notes, or set up dozen alarms in your smartphone. Buy tools that encourage you to do the right thing, and put them in a visible place in your room. Also, people you meet regularly are like live reminders (of things they typically do or talk about). Sometimes just hanging out with different people has a big impact on how you behave.
For problems with food, have you tried Soylent? This outsources the questions of “how much?” and “what?”.
Taking care of housework sounds like a good thing.
A lot of rationalists are on the self-improvement train and I have been as well, but lately I’ve been thinking that maybe personality traits just don’t change over time. As a baby I nursed for comfort and would overnurse until I threw up; as an adult I still have trouble telling when I’m hungry or full and seem predisposed to develop eating disorders. As a child I had massive problems with anxiety and rage; as an adult, I still do. I’ve always been weirdly drawn to house cleaning and related skills – when my mom would drive to the grocery store my sister would stay in the car and write in her notebook, while I would learn how to calculate which cereal had the cheapest unit price – and housework is still one of the things I spend most of my time on.
I’ve changed a lot, but these things haven’t changed.
Do people just all have underlying traits that stay with them from birth to death and make them who they are?
I feel like Kaj has a post where he says something has substantially changed for him. I think it’s this one.
Also, I think my underlying traits haven’t changed too much, but my experience of life has. I’ve been intensely depressed and lonely at times, and other times forgotten life could even be that bad. Which I will definitely take and put time and effort into changing, even if it doesn’t count as ‘underlying traits’.
To me it seems that change is difficult and frustratingly slow, but possible. Over time, slow changes accumulate.
The traits that don’t change, do they still have the same intensity? I have some bad traits that used to be worse in the past.
Your behavior is a function of your traits and your environment. Even if the traits are (at least in short term) fixed, perhaps you could change something about your environment? If you forget things, take notes, or set up dozen alarms in your smartphone. Buy tools that encourage you to do the right thing, and put them in a visible place in your room. Also, people you meet regularly are like live reminders (of things they typically do or talk about). Sometimes just hanging out with different people has a big impact on how you behave.
For problems with food, have you tried Soylent? This outsources the questions of “how much?” and “what?”.
Taking care of housework sounds like a good thing.