This is an era where everyone is in varying degrees of self-esteem , and is less happy and more anxious.
Take the epidemic as an example. Before the opening up, you would have all kinds of complaints, such as travel restrictions and lack of freedom; worries about not having enough to eat and not being able to get appointments for vaccine ; and working from home from time to time. The key is that while working from home, the beasts also take online classes at home, which makes the house full of chicken feathers, etc.;
Today, three years later, when the virulence of virus has been greatly weakened, and the country is relatively liberalized, you are at a loss again, and you have started to stock up on medicines like crazy, or are you still worried about whether you will be positive? When is it sunny? Can you feel better after having Yang? As a result, all kinds of jokes in the mobile phone videos were filled with laughter...
It was during this period that I read the book "Cognitive Awakening" seriously. The author of
believes that anxiety is nature and the default setting of human beings, and growth is the process of constantly overcoming nature. Is the sentence
very healing for us now?
Since anxiety is natural, facing it, accepting it, dealing with it, and letting go of it is the best way.
1. What is the source of anxiety? How to face it and accept it?
1. The material basis of anxiety is the brain. The author of
believes that anxiety does not entirely depend on our subjective consciousness, but mainly depends on the physiological structure of the brain. New research results recently reported by American scientists also show that people’s anxiety may be controlled by the cerebral cortex.
In our ancestors, the emotion of anxiety had an important meaning, that is, how to protect ourselves and survive in the face of threats from various ferocious beasts. So this emotion is engraved in human genes and is ready to explode.
It can be said that without anxiety, there is no survival. Some people say that the essence of anxiety is the brain’s protective mechanism, which seems reasonable.
Based on the existence of this material foundation, everyone will have anxiety, so there is no need to make a fuss.
Therefore, when facing anxiety, you do not need to blame yourself or feel guilty, nor do you need to go against your nature. Instead, you should find ways to understand the reasons for anxiety and change it. As the
era has developed to this day, anxiety must be viewed correctly. It is not just a negative representation. Think about it, if you didn’t have anxiety, you wouldn’t be careful and safe when driving; if you didn’t have anxiety, you wouldn’t work hard and strive for the best; if you didn’t have anxiety, you might not be as happy and comfortable as you thought, but you might face more crises and pain.
It can be seen that as long as we learn to let go of our burdens, accept our shortcomings calmly, accept the limitations of environmental conditions, and do what we can, moderate anxiety will not only have no harm to our lives, but is even a healthy emotion.
Therefore, if you can correctly understand anxiety, you will not feel fear because of anxiety.
2. The gap between desire and ability is too large.
In fact, as long as people are alive, they will have various desires. As the saying goes, desire is the driving force for people to live. Desires are always related to abilities. If you want to realize your desires, your abilities must be strengthened.
In life, you often hear how many books someone has read, how many classes he has taken, etc. But the result of many people doing this is that they constantly move themselves, but do not pay attention to their own thinking, actions and changes. They only stay on the surface of learning and keep their efforts on the surface.
Once you don't get the results you want, you will think that you haven't worked hard enough and you should continue to study hard. So I fell into a vicious cycle of "the more I study, the more anxious I become, and the more anxious I become, the more I study." The fundamental reason for this phenomenon in
is the mismatch between ability and desire.
When your abilities do not match your desires, please slow down. Do a good job in accumulation and make your savings, so that you can make gains after a long period of time.
The famous writer Lin Qingxuan once said that a relative of one of his friends never wore a pair of shoes that fit his feet and often walked around in huge shoes.When someone asks her, she will say: "Big and small shoes are the same price, why not buy a bigger one?"
In life, many people keep asking for it, just like buying large shoes and forgetting that they don't fit their feet. In fact, they are just driven by their inner greed.
There are so many good things that we can't count them all. We can't get them all. Just like we can't have both of them, we must know how to give them up and not be greedy. And we always want to get as much as possible, which leads to excessive desires and finally becomes a burden.
Therefore, you must restrain your desires and rationally recognize your true abilities. In the face of nature, we still have to calm down and accept ourselves calmly.
3. Eagerness for quick success will lead to waste in haste.
People are eager for success, seek refuge in ease, and see immediate results without much effort. This book believes that this is also human nature.
When you face something too hastily, you may not be able to achieve the desired results. Today's fast-paced life makes you feel restless and it's easy to lose your composure.
Just like Fang Zhongyong in the works of Wang Anshi, he was able to write poems at the age of five and was appreciated by the whole town. So some people invited his father and son to be guests, and some asked Zhongyong to write poems. And his father, instead of seriously cultivating his children, thought it would be profitable. As a result, Zhongyong was taken here and there every day, and Zhongyong had no time to study at all.
When he was twelve or thirteen years old, Zhongyong's poems could no longer be compared with those before. After a few more years, he became completely normal. This is the consequence of Zhongyong's father's eagerness for quick success.
Therefore, once people become impetuous, they will be busy and chaotic all day long. After a long time, they will be caught up in the rapid flow of life and become very mediocre.
In today's uncertain environment, once you feel anxious, it reminds you to stop and walk slowly. Adjust your expectations for yourself. You must know clearly that everything can be done slowly and not in a hurry. There are no shortcuts on the road to success. You can only go step by step.
Therefore, if you want to truly deal with anxiety, it is not enough to rely solely on the external environment. You must also enhance your inner strength, be high-minded and down-to-earth.
2, in the face of anxiety, how can we deal with it and let it go?
This book thinks you can do this:
1. Have patience.
Patience is one of the most precious qualities of human beings. As this article says, those who have patience win the world.
Once you lose patience, it is easy to fall into an endless loop of "urgently wanting to get it" and "not being able to get it immediately".
And being impatient is human nature.
This book believes that admitting lack of patience is not a shameful thing at all. It has nothing to do with one's own moral character. It is just a natural attribute and is the same for everyone.
gives an example of losing patience to despair. Bell Everyone knows that Bell invented the telephone. However, there was another inventor before Bell who made considerable contributions to the development of the telephone. He was Rice.
Rice once studied a sound transmission device that can transmit music using electric current. Unfortunately, it cannot be used to transmit voice and cannot make people talk to each other. Later I learned that the most important reason was that one of the screws in the device was screwed in less than half a turn, about five meters .
Based on Rice's research, Bell took new measures on the one hand, and on the other hand, he tightened the screw in Rice's device by half a turn. Rice's oversight was discovered and corrected by Bell, and a miracle occurred.
A device that cannot make calls has magically turned into a practical telephone.
It is true that "a slight mistake can make a thousand miles difference", and the difference between success and failure is only 5 millimeters, which is half a millimeter.
Bell's improvements made Les deeply moved. He said, I gave up five meters away from success and failed to persist. I will remember this lesson for the rest of my life.
"It takes nine steps to build a mountain, but only one basket of soil is left behind." It means building a mountain but only one basket of soil is missing, so you give up.
So, what is patience closely related to? The book believes that it is closely related to cognitive laws. Cognitive rules are the multiplier of patience. Patience means not being hasty for success and allowing yourself to change slowly, often even accompanied by failure, but patience will have a good soothing effect, and it is also the law of cognition at work.
2, look at problems from multiple dimensions.
Your anxiety may also stem from having a too single perspective on the problem. The ability to self-coach is not Ah Q’s spirit, but the ability to look at problems from multiple dimensions.
In fact, when facing various difficulties, the ability to see problems from multiple dimensions is often the key to solving problems. It can not only help you achieve your career, but also help you resolve worries and expand your business.
This is also doomed that what you observe is only one of countless dimensions. Therefore, what you change can only be one dimension in this multi-dimensional world.
Understand this, and you will be able to understand that there are no clever tricks or magical effects in this world that can solve all problems. The views we hold and the methods we master are only applicable to a certain dimension or scope.
Because everyone lives in a different environment, has different experiences, and has different knowledge, when looking at the same problem, the level of understanding and perspective will be different, and the choices will be different.
For example, if the glass of water is also half full, some people lament and sigh: Why is "only half a glass of water left?" Some people are pleasantly surprised: "There is still half a glass of water left.";
Similarly, in the face of setbacks, some people are immersed in pain and unable to extricate themselves, while some people think that this is God's help to help them grow;
So, no matter what state you are in, you can always find a better perspective to see the problem. It's just that some people will only focus on the flaws in things, while some people can always find the bright spots in things.
Usually, people look at problems from a single perspective.
For example, when a child is disobedient, your first reaction is usually to get angry and curse, instead of patiently letting the child tell you the reason calmly, but you lack self-examination.
Therefore, we must strengthen our study, think from others' perspective, and remain objective and not make assumptions. Once you can change your perspective, or look at the problem from the perspective of multi-dimensional , you can soothe your restless heart and make it peaceful. This is by no means what any consolation can achieve.
3. Only a rich mind can relieve worries.
The mind is the inertial pattern of attitude towards things, and the "scarcity psychology" is the cause of anxiety.
In the 1950s and 1960s, material scarcity made people trapped in their livelihood and worried, leading them to be impatient and short-sighted. And this short-sighted behavior reinforces the psychology of scarcity.
The scarcity caused by poverty lowers people's minds.
For example, many families have given birth to several children, and they have no energy to raise them alone. When they don’t have enough food to eat, they don’t have much money to invest in education, and they rarely have long-term plans. Some people live a life with their back to the earth and their back to the sky.
In today's era, we are rich in materials, developed in science and technology, and convenient in information. Material scarcity seems to be getting smaller and smaller, and people's worry is no longer about not having enough to eat, but about eating too much. Although
has no worries about food and clothing, under the unprecedented fast pace, competition has become increasingly fierce, and it has fallen into the scarcity of success.
Competitive pressure forces you to constantly want more and acquire more skills. When you are faced with multiple tasks at the same time, you want to do everything but can't do anything well, and you are overwhelmed, which leads to mental decline.
For example, you really want to enrich yourself during vacation or free time, so you schedule your time very full. As a result, not only can you not achieve it, but you will regret it because you are deeply involved in entertainment.
For another example, online shopping is very convenient and exciting, but your unwarranted desire makes you hoard a lot of unnecessary things.
So, what really affects you is whether your mind is rich or not. With a rich mind, you can restrain your desires in any environment. Practice has proved that this method is scientific and full of wisdom.
is written at the end:
It can be seen that anxiety is not the enemy we want to annihilate. We must make good use of anxiety. When anxiety knocks on the door, we might as well learn what the philosopher Kierkegaard did: "Warmly welcome anxiety."
Kierkegaard's words make us realize that in fact, we do not need to cure anxiety, nor do we need to overcome or defeat anxiety. What we need to do is to face anxiety, let anxiety become the driving force of life, and let anxiety coexist harmoniously with us.
In the face of anxiety, we have been on the road of growth. Since it is innate, we must face it, accept it, and deal with it. Just like with the coronavirus, if we finally put it down, we will win.
This is why I recommend you read this book.
