You can’t escape cause and effect, but there is a way of viewing human agency that is motivating, plausible and humane.We feel that we are free, the originators of our own choices, not just conduits through which the chain of cause and effect flows. But think about it a little more and this ‘voluntarist’ conception of free will starts to look untenable.

Thinking About Free Will

A lot of the time, you might feel as though you have freedom to act as you wish (a view known as ‘voluntarism’), but taking into account your history, personality, mood and other factors, there is in fact an inevitability to everything you do.

All Your Choices Are in A Sense Inevitable

Even quantum physics and the randomness of quantum causation cannot offer us an escape because the ability to act randomly is not the same as having free will.

There’s No Escaping the Chain of Cause and Effect

To act free of causes would be to act without reason. Such a freedom would be gratuitous, since the only grounds for our choice would be the power to choose itself.

Having Voluntarist Free Will Would Mean Being Entirely Capricious

We would have no moral character if we did not strongly feel that there were things we simply could not do, and others we felt we must.

The Constraints upon Our Choices Allow for The Concept of Character

To accept that one has done wrong and take responsibility for it is to resolve to try not to do it again and to put right anything that went wrong. We evidently do have the capacity to do this, and that is all that matters.

Praise and Blame Don’t Depend on Absolute Freedom

It is only because we reflect on the things that could so easily have been done differently if conditions or our frame of mind had been slightly different that we learn to take responsibility and do better next time.

It’s Useful to Feel You Could Have Done Things Differently, Even if It’s a Fiction

The ‘compatibilist’ conception of free will acknowledges the causal necessity of the physical world, but it also recognises that, if no one ‘made me do it’, I acted freely.

Don’t Reject the Concept of Free Will, Rethink It

First-order desires include wanting cake or sex or to scratch yourself; second-order desires are your desires about these desires, such as wishing to resist the desire for cake. Free beings are ones who can act on their desires about their desires, and not just automatically on their desires.

Achieve a Free Will Worth Having by Aligning Your First- and Second-Order Desires

You can’t escape cause and effect, but there is a way of viewing human agency that is motivating, plausible and humane

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

How to think about free will | Psyche Guides

<ul><li>Most people perceive phone-snubbing as harmful but continue to do it.</li><li>We tend to think our own phone use during an interaction affects others less than their phone use affects us.</li><li>People attribute more positive motives to their own phone use than to others' use.</li></ul>

We Keep Checking Our Phones While Socializing: Key Points

People often complain when others are distracted by cell phones — spouses not fully listening to each other because they keep glancing at their phones, a couple on a dinner date at a restaurant with their phones on the table, friends hanging out together all immersed in their phones. Yet despite how much we complain about the distraction of cell phones, we continue to allow ourselves to succumb to it. New research explores why we "phub" (short for "phone snub") others, despite disapproving of the practice.

Phubbing(Phone Snubbing) And The Lure Of Distraction

Research on phubbing suggests that the negative attitude many people have toward this behavior is justified. People tend to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James-Roberts-21/publication/315342898_Phubbed_and_Alone_Phone_Snubbing_Social_Exclusion_and_Attachment_to_Social_Media/links/59cd0f07a6fdcc1be7229dd5/Phubbed-and-Alone-Phone-Snubbing-Social-Exclusion-and-Attachment-to-Social-Media.pdf">feel excluded and their mood suffers</a> when they're being ignored in favor of someone's phone. And frequently being phubbed by a romantic partner creates <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/close-encounters/201510/phubbing-when-checking-your-cell-hurts-your-relationship">conflict and leads to lower relationship satisfaction</a>. Phones are also <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/691462?fbclid=IwAR0-mde6yvYaCJ7XS9hhHeMEzdy6VR40bwqHdhiYbCzCsexJBxqrzYx-MZ4&">distracting</a>, making it difficult for people to fully attend to whatever else is going in their environment.

The Downside of Phubbing

<ul><li>Positive personal reasons: Finding the phone use more enjoyable or interesting than the interaction with the other person, or using the phone for something important or time sensitive.</li><li>Positive social reasons: Showing the other person something on the phone, or using the phone in a way that related to the conversation.</li><li>Negative personal reasons: Avoiding boredom, discomfort, or other negative feelings.</li><li>Negative social reasons: Dislike of the other person, or being upset with the other person.</li></ul>

Reason Phubbing Keeps Happening

Recognizing that we have this <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/basics/bias">bias</a> may help us avoid it. Research suggests that making yourself more aware of this bias and considering how it may be operating when you're using your phone can help you to see how your phone use may be negatively affecting others. And since you're likely to view your own phone use more positively than the other person does, this is a reminder to think about how you may be perceived by the other person before you pull out your phone.

How to Avoid the Bias

Research examines why we engage in a behavior we know is socially undesirable.

communication

Communication

Why Do We Let Our Phones Interfere When We Socialize?

<ul><li>Recent studies have shown that events and forces at work today are making happiness less likely for many people, and widening "happiness gaps" between the most privileged and everyone else.</li><li>People who study happiness and promote ways to get more of it keep emphasizing the same cluster of individual-level tips and tools.</li><li>There's something dishonest in minimizing the role of social forces-and that this dishonestly can be rooted in discounting the experiences of people who are hurt or marginalized by those forces.</li></ul>

Social Conditions and Inequality Affect Well-Being

<ul><li>Structural forces affect happiness.</li><li>Slavery was a structural force, setting a pattern of social, cultural, economic, and interpersonal relationships between Black and white Americans that persists to this day.</li><li>The family is a force structured by laws about marriage, divorce, taxes, reproductive health, and the power men historically had over those laws.</li><li>Your social network is a structure shaped by interactions with other structures.</li></ul>

Structures And Our Feelings

Positive psychology was once revolutionary for the way it turned away from studying and treating dysfunction in individuals toward examining the practices and traits that helped people to flourishUnfortunately, this focus on the individual led many researchers and teachers to consciously reject structural explanations for individual misfortune and unhappiness

Reckoning with Positivity

<ul><li>The evidence for how social forces can undermine or enhance happiness goes well beyond America's determination to marginalize and oppress racial minorities, revealing that any inequality hurts well-being.</li><li>Groups (and often countries) with less power, income, or wealth just aren't as happy as those who have more.</li><li>Only people in the lower half of the income range felt less happy; people who made more money seemed fine as inequality rose.</li><li>A 2011 study found that Americans became less happy as income inequality grew-but not all Americans.</li></ul>

Happiness And Socio-Economic Conditions

<ul><li>Happiness inequality was already rising alongside income and wealth inequality in the years before COVID-19.</li><li>During the pandemic, it appears that well-being became even more difficult for some than others.</li><li>We have created institutions and policies to mitigate the impact of disease.</li><li>The more stringent a country’s policies in restricting citizens’ movements and behavior, the worse they felt.</li><li>These policies were situational, meaning that the circumstances made happiness seemingly impossible for the majority of people.</li></ul>

Happiness And The Pandemic

Many organizations continue to emphasize "easy steps" and "quick fixes" that will make you as an individual happier.These companies discount or underestimate the power of social forces in shaping our happiness and life satisfaction.We need to look beyond tips and tools for individual improvement, toward the ways we can create a social tide that will lift as many boats as possible.

The Limits of Individual Solutions

Social conditions and inequality affect well-being. So, why do we keep insisting 

mindfulness

Mindfulness

How Much Control Do You Have Over Your Own Happiness?

Most of us prefer to avoid feeling angry at work (and, really, in any other area of life, such as relationships, family, sports, and even social media). However, this doesn’t help us in achieving that goal. In fact, unless you are not human, you will find that there are many situations that can trigger your anger, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jopy.12214">including some</a> that seem absolutely justified: unfairness, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763419302167">provocation</a>, the realization that people are trying to take advantage of us; not to mention incompetent drivers, <a href="https://hbr.org/2020/03/how-to-spot-an-incompetent-leader">bad bosses</a>, annoying work colleagues, and, of course, a slow internet connection.

Anger At Work: The Premise

Psychologists have studied anger for over 100 years. Like any universal behavior, it is clear that there must be at least some rational reasons, and even justifications, for anger to be so pervasive and dominant in every society, and across all walks of life. From an evolutionary perspective, anger is best understood as a neuro-cognitive adaptation <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090513821000908">“designed to bargain for better treatment.”</a> In other words, anger is a demand for help, change, and action.

Studying Anger

Anger is both a common defense tactic, as well as a universal offense strategy. We get angry to show power, status, and to intimidate, even if this also shows we are unable to manage a situation well. In many ways, anger is an attempt to gain control when we have lost self-control.

Functions Of Anger: Showing Status or Strength to Others

Anger is cathartic, which is why repressing or suppressing it has <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-61519-001">been linked</a> to a wide range of psychological and physical well-being deficits. As Mark Twain famously noted, “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”

Functions Of Anger: Venting

Anger is a signal that the status quo must be changed, and it can fuel moral outrage, which is often a force for good.And yet, there’s no question that anger is also corrosive.

Functions Of Anger: A Force For Change

Everybody can learn to manage their anger more effectively, and that there are clear benefits to doing so. Here are some tools and approaches that can with anger management:<ul><li>Cognitive behavioral therapy.</li><li>Mindfulness.</li><li>Empathy.</li><li>Rational compassion.</li><li>Reducing exposure to stressful situations.</li></ul>

Anger Management

There are many ways to self-coach and get better at managing our anger, and they will generally pay off. The point is not to eliminate it from our lives, which would not make us human, but to learn to control it and even display it in strategic ways, so as to mitigate its downside and leverage its upside. Ultimately, the best way to judge anger is by its particular effects, both on ourselves and others.

The Bottom Line

The point is not to eliminate it from our lives, which would not make us human, but to learn to control it and even display it in strategic ways.


mentalhealth

Mental Health

Science explains that anger at work has a bright side. Here’s how to manage it

Love at first sight: Is it possible? Do people really meet and in moments simply know they're meant to be? New evidence suggests: Yes, they do.The idea is wonderfully romantic: Two strangers see each other "across a crowded room," there's an instant attraction, an electric spark, and suddenly they've found their match and never look back. In a world where dating often requires a lot of work—that comes with disappointment, rejection, and uncertainty—falling in love at first sight has strong appeal.We look at some findings from a recent study on love at first sight.

Love At First Sight

People really do report experiencing love at first sight in the instant they encounter a person. It's a strong initial attraction that would later become a relationship. One compelling counter-argument—that people have biased memories and essentially create the illusion of having fallen for each other instantly—isn't an appropriate explanation for all cases of love at first sight.

Love at First Sight Isn't Just Biased Memory

In this study, strangers were more likely to report experiencing love at first sight with physically attractive others; in fact, one rating higher in <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/beauty">attractiveness</a> on the scale that the researchers used corresponded with a nine times greater likelihood that others would report that electric love-at-first-sight feeling.

You're More Likely to Feel Love at First Sight with Beautiful People

The researchers aren't sure why this happens, but it begs more investigation. Might women be less inclined to this experience because they are more selective in whom they might date, as other research has shown? Men might, for example, report this experience with multiple potential partners. But whether this translates into relationships is another question.

Men Report Love at First Sight More than Women

A comparison of participant reports of love at first sight showed that it's typically a one-sided phenomenon; this suggests that shared instant love isn't very common. The researchers suspect, however, that one partner's intense initial experience could help shape the other person's recollection, shifting it toward a belief that he or she also experienced love at first sight.

Love at first sight isn't usually mutual

The kind of qualities that are known to reflect love—<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/relationships">intimacy</a>, commitment, passion—are not particularly strong in those first moments when people say they've fallen in love at first sight. At least, these emotions are not experienced to the same degree as they are by people in established relationships. The love-at-first-sight experience appears open to these emotions to a greater extent than first meetings where love at first sight is not reported.

Love at First Sight Isn't Really "Love"

Science favors the romantics. Love at first sight actually is experienced by people, but it's not so much "love" or "passion," Instead, it's a strong pull or attraction that makes someone particularly open to the possibilities of a relationship. Love at first sight can happen multiple times, and maybe the instances where it fizzles or simply never translates into a relationship are forgotten. But when love at first sight does launch a sustained relationship, the story is a great one.

loveandrelationships

Love & Relationships

Is Love at First Sight Real?

Studies suggest that up to 70% of people have experienced impostorism at work. Imposter syndrome might sometimes motivate people to achieve, but it can also put intense pressure on mental health. As the workplace experience a period of rapid change, it is critical to understand how these two conditions feed into each other and what can be done to prevent them.

Imposter syndrome is a known problem among professionals

Imposter syndrome (IS) shows up differently in people. It commonly makes someone believe they are an intellectual fraud, despite evidence to the contrary. <ul><li>People with IS may feel the need to over-work and over-deliver to avoid being found out.</li><li>They might be high achievers or avoid taking on challenges so they can't be 'found out.'</li><li>They attribute success to luck or hard work rather than ability.</li></ul>

Imposter syndrome (IS) symptoms

A key factor why Impostor Syndrome and burnout overlap is that Impostor Syndrome shows up in a similar way to the third dimension of burnout - the feeling of professional inefficacy. When you are experiencing burnout, you never feel you are doing enough. You feel like the ineffective person on the team. This is very similar to the definition of imposter syndrome. With IS, people develop tactics to compensate for or mask their impostorism, such as taking on too much work to win approval or avoiding promotion because they fear exposure.

Feeling like a fraud

Research shows GenZ workers are most likely to struggle with both imposter syndrome and burnout. Junior staff that launched their careers during the pandemic were unable to observe colleagues in person and adjust to workplace dynamics. They did not receive moments of feedback and reassurance that are vital to building professional confidence. However, older generations are suffering too. <ul><li>On an individual level, imposter syndrome can be tackled by rewiring the brain's response to stress.</li><li>Workers should be encouraged to build cognitive boundaries around their work.</li></ul>

Prevention is key 

Feeling like you’re bad at your job is miserable. Worse, it’s also more likely to lead to professional burnout.

career

Career

The link between imposter syndrome and burnout

As the felt response to a given situation, emotions play a key part in your reactions. When you’re in tune with them, you have access to important knowledge that helps with:<ul><li>decision-making</li><li>relationship success</li><li>day-to-day interactions</li></ul>

Emotions control reactions

“Emotions make our lives exciting, unique, and vibrant,” Botnick says. “Strong feelings can signify that we embrace life fully, that we’re not repressing our natural reactions.”Emotions that regularly get out of hand might lead to:<ul><li>relationship or friendship conflict</li><li>difficulty relating to others</li><li>trouble at work or school</li><li>an urge to use substances to help manage your emotions</li><li>physical or emotional outbursts</li></ul>

Take a look at the impact of your emotions

When you suppress or repress emotions, you’re preventing yourself from experiencing and expressing feelings. This can happen consciously (suppression) or unconsciously (repression).Either can contribute to mental and physical health symptoms, including:<ul><li>anxiety</li><li>depression</li><li>sleep issues</li><li>muscle tension and pain</li><li>difficulty managing stress</li><li>substance misuse</li></ul> Healthy emotional expression involves finding some balance between overwhelming emotions and no emotions at all.

Aim for regulation, not repression

<ul><li>What am I feeling right now? (disappointed, confused, furious)</li><li>What happened to make me feel this way? (They brushed me off with no explanation.)</li><li>Does the situation have a different explanation that might make sense? (Maybe they’re stressed, sick, or dealing with something else they don’t feel comfortable explaining. They might plan to explain more when they can.)</li><li>What do I want to do about these feelings? (Scream, vent my frustration by throwing things, text back something rude.)</li><li>Is there a better way of coping with them? (Ask if everything’s OK. Ask when they’re free next. Go for a walk or run.)</li></ul>

3. Identify what you’re feeling

Emotions get the best of everyone sometimes, but there are a few things you can do to take back control.

health

Health

How to Control Your Emotions: 11 Strategies to Try

When you're having anxiety and stress always remember to remain calm and patient, do not let fear control your emotions and actions, the more you observe your health while being collected the easier it gets to know how to maintain it.

Anxiety and Stress

Your goal in life is to be more Patient than you were yesterday, always cool down your temper, because when you make decisions while angry or excited, you will remember what was their motive later.

Patience 

Stay away from anything that makes you unconscious about your surroundings, Alcohol, weed and drugs are only ways of escaping the inevitable, provided you didn't hurt yourself doing them that is.

Conciousness

We always try to learn the safe way, we don't only learn from our own mistakes, others went through ,whatever we are going through right now, we should take tips.

Observation

You know what they say: "if you wanna go fast, go alone, but if you wanna go far, go together".Seek friendships that go with you the long way.

TEAM PLAY

I've learned these at a young age, and always shared them with my friends, it helped many of them including myself grow mentally and lose the void within.

What's the source of Anxiety

Anxiety is a roadmap that points us to a real or imagined threat, pain from the past or something in the present that needs our attention. While anxiety can be debilitating and must be managed, we need it. If we disable or mute our anxiety indicators, we won't know where the problem is.

We need anxiety

Thoughts can help shape behaviour and therefore reality. But motivation is mostly a physiological issue, not a mind issue. The "fight, flight, or freeze" response is activated by a physiological mechanism inside the nervous system. When you are stuck in fight or flight, such as panic or racing thoughts, you are not able to think your way out. Turning the amygdala response off is the key to motivation. The amygdala is your panic button in the brain. If your brain is perceiving a threat, it will shut down your system (procrastination) or put it in hyperarousal (motivation).

You can't think your way out of stuck

"Mental" health has very little to do with our minds. A nervous system stuck in a fight, flight, or freeze response will show the exact symptoms as clinical depression or pathological anxiety. The nervous system is not an illness or disorder. It is doing exactly what it is designed to do. When a brain is stuck in fight, flight, or freeze it is misattuning to safety and danger in the environment. If we see mental health as an actual physical process, then we have a greater chance of finding our way to tools that can get ourselves unstuck.

Mental health is a physical process

The actions that destroy our plans and relationships are a suboptimal effort at self-protection. What we call “self-sabotage” often happens because if you achieve a goal, things will need to change. All change involves some degree of loss. Any change to our status quo can trigger a threat response as change requires risk.

Self-sabotage is a misnomer


Not all behaviour is acceptable, but all behaviour is functional. Behaviour modification without understanding behaviour will almost always make us inert. You don't need to make giant behavioural transformations to get unstuck-getting unstuck requires tiny micro-shifts, and those shifts compound rapidly. Once you're in motion, your cognitive work suddenly becomes powerful.

All behavior is functional

A psychotherapist insists, “‘Mental’ health has very little to do with our minds.”


There’s no such thing as self-sabotage. A psychotherapist debunks the most common concepts that keep us stuck

. follow the thread and become a charming one

Be Unstoppable

Steps: 1) Identify negative thoughts that pop into your mind and write them down 2) Understand the distortion happening with each thought 3) Write a reframed positive version of those thoughts 3) Speak those new positive thoughts as affirmations each day

1. Positive Thinking

Steps: 1) Set one, specific, measurable fitness goal and write it down 2) Make it simple and easy to achieve Eg. 10 pushups before bed 3) Log it daily, keep it simple in the beginning 4) Try to improve on the goal each day/week Eg. 1 more rep

2. Exercise 

Steps: 1) Choose one task you want to get done 2) Plan and dedicate a block of time to do the task 3) Set a time limit to achieve it in 4) Turn your notifications off to get rid of distractions 5) Deep work until the task is done

3. Single tasking 

- Stop procrastinating - Become a top 1% male - Build unstoppable habits - Gain top tier confidence Read "Iron Clad Discipline" and become an unstoppable man.

4. Men, if you want to: 

Steps: 1) Choose an early and consistent waking time 2) Find your intentions for the morning (Workout, homework, business ect) 3) Choose productive habits that align with your intentions 4) Start with a big and healthy breakfast

5. Morning Routine 

Unstoppable people are like warriors. They are always ready to take on the world. They are guided by a light from within, full of boundless energy and unwavering in their goals. They have learned to activate their natural talents and develop the skills necessary to achieve whatever they aim for.

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