I’m not one for self help books although over the years I’ve certainly read a lot of them. Most of the mystic-guru-manifest-your-destiny-learn-to-love-yourself books are predominantly opiate for people who want to feel better about themselves without doing the hard work of change. With that said, however, human physiology and psychology should be taught in all the schools so that we could learn why we are really doing what we are doing which isn’t anything like why we think we are doing what we are doing and is primarily driven by the biology of dopamine and not rational thinking.
Only infrequently do I get non-fiction books from my local library system although I often browse the shelves. It’s almost always a disappointment as I feel like the offerings are there to brainwash me into a state of toxic victim-hood. The worst subjugation of all is being convinced that you are a victim because victim-hood removes any and all personal agency and renders you powerless. That’s a terrible state to be in. With all that said, I just read Anna Lembke’s book Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age ofIndulgence and it is well worth a read, particularly if you do not understand how dopamine affects every facet of our lives.
Right now I’m reading Gretchen Rubin’s book The Four Tendencies. This is less scientific than Lembke’s book but it is an interesting read and another window into why we do what we do. Rubin, of course, is mostly known for The Happiness Project. I’m not sure if that book made anyone any happier because as Rubin writes in The Four Tendencies, her own inclination (upholder) made it relatively easy for her to follow through on her goals and plans. You can take a short quiz – reminiscent of quizzes of old which used to appear in every issue of every women's magazine world wide – here and see what your tendencies are. Apparently, three million people have taken the quiz so it is plausible that Rubin has one of the best validated measures of psychological tendency around given that most psycho-social assessment tools are validated on college students.
The results may have some utility. It’s no surprise to me, or anyone who really knows me, that I ranked as a mixture of upholder and questioner. I’m not good with societal rules and regulations and never met a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) I did not want to burn on sight, but, I can and do adhere to my own standards with almost regimented rigour. Most of us know ourselves well enough that we don’t need a quiz to reveal our tendencies to us, but, it’s instructive (or at least it was instructive to me) to be reminded that other people have way different tendencies and this is possibly the cause of some of the inevitable friction that occurs in all human relationships.
It’s long been my contention that we all have our own “things.” Annoying habits - tendencies if you will - and personality quirks that make all of us at least a bit difficult (maybe a lot difficult in certain situations), and I try my darndest to let all that shit go. Not one of us is anywhere near perfect yet we must rub along together. There’s knowing and knowing, as they say, and while it’s good to intellectually know this stuff, a little reminder that we are wildly different and what I might find easy others might find difficult just makes letting all that shit go that bit easier.
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