INTP things

Lesson learned: giving second chances in spite of a deal-breaker

This year I decided to focus considerable attention on establishing a new flat and making it a homely environment suitable for hosting guests. It’s been less than two months so far and I’ve come a long way and faced plenty of drama. Early in my search for suitable flatmates, my previous flatmate referred her ex, who decided to take the room, yet didn’t actually get in touch with me properly. Within a few weeks there was suddenly a long list of red flags with this person:

He made the decision to take the room without telling me, instead going through my previous flatmate instead.
He didn’t reach out to confirm anything, meaning I couldn’t screen him properly.
He didn’t have a job, couldn’t pay the bond up front.
In over a month he hasn’t done a single communal chore.
He often left the front door open.
He didn’t clean up after himself.
He claimed not to be antisocial, but he wasn’t really social at all.
He claimed he could observe things that were going on without asking about it, and this was his justification for not asking questions that normal people do about how to not step on other people’s toes. But twice he helped himself to other people’s things without first asking.
Twice there was a very strong smell of weed coming from his room.

But really before most of those things emerged, he paid late on the first day and took several days to sign his flatting agreement, despite multiple prompts. A heated conversation about that made it clear to me that he simply didn’t think paying on time was a big deal, and that I was making a fuss over things that would be sorted out anyway.

I was pretty furious about these things and nearly kicked him out on the spot. However, talking to a level-headed friend helped me make an empowered decision rather than an emotionally driven one. I did have one excellent conversation initially with this person and thought he might have something to contribute, and I also did believe that all the drama with payments would be a one-time thing while things were getting set up. Simultaneously, kicking him out immediately was also a good option, because I never would have chosen this person had I gone through interviewing multiple potential flatmates, and I’m sure that I could have easily found someone with less annoying habits and better communication.

In the end, I chose to be open to the possibility of things getting better, settled my grievances, and gave him a chance. The drama with payments was sorted out, except for the fact that he signed his agreement without even putting his details on it. I didn’t pursue this further as it was actually in my favor to not have it signed if we were to ask him to leave, and I was just tired of chasing up a matter that demonstrated pure incompetence and neglect from his side.

Anyhow, more concerning behaviors emerged from him like the smoking weed in the house, complete lack of communal contribution, and the very strong vibe that every time he was in the house he was either in a rush to enter or a rush to leave. My other flatmate and I wanted someone to connect with, and this guy totally wasn’t it. So we ended up asking him to leave, and this too has been problematic because we offered him some lenience in terms of timeframe to vacate.

At the time it was totally unclear to me whether it was better or not to give him a second chance to stay, as his disregard for timely sorting out of finances was a deal-breaker for me. In hindsight, here’s what I’ve learned about this situation about deciding whether it makes sense to accept a deal-breaker.

The deal-breaker will never change. If you find out very early on that someone doesn’t care about, respect, or value something that is important to you as a requirement, keep in mind that nothing will make them suddenly care about that thing.
No amount of kindness from your end or gratitude from theirs will change the deal-breaker itself. But other good things might come of it.
The deal-breaker can only be avoided under perfect conditions. Every other situation can crumble. People can offer false reassurances or pretend to care, but despite even the best of intentions, whenever something goes wrong or things become hard, they will always default to their original state, which is that they didn’t care about this thing in the first place.
Consider the long-term impact of the missing virtue. Different missing virtues behind the deal-breaker have different degrees of vulnerability in terms of a bad situation getting worse. For example, dishonesty, poor communication, severe addiction, severe mental illness, violence, and stealing are things that are bad and can easily lead to a downward spiral when you try to address any issues arising from it. Some of these will touch every area of a person’s life, and the severity may not be apparent from the get go. When a person lies about small things, maybe most things don’t matter until one thing does, and when you attempt to confront that lie, more lies emerge, and so on. I would actually say that general incompetence, avoidance of responsibility, and even financial hardship also have the potential to spiral. Things that don’t get worse out of time might include habits that you can easily adjust for, or that you get used to eventually.
Consider how often the deal-breaker thing occurs or might occur. If your answer needs to be “in theory, never again, because I’ve dealt with it once and for all”, consider the possibility that it hasn’t been dealt with perfectly, or that unexpected circumstances might arise and trigger things again. So imagine the deal-breaker thing occurring at least one more time and the cost of it.
Consider the possibility of having to resign to the deal-breaker. If resolving a deal-breaker was a nightmare the first time, it will still likely be a nightmare if there is a second time. Things might not be easier the second time either, you might not have the resources if you happen to fall sick or some part of your lifestyle becomes unstable. Or maybe what you’ve experienced so far is only the beginning. What would it be like having to resign to the deal-breaker? Is it worth saying no to the whole situation on the basis that the worst case possibility has too high a cost, that it threatens too much of what is important to us?

Summary

When it comes to putting up with deal-breakers, it’s crucial to evaluate whether they can truly be isolated issues that are either one-off or potentially tolerable and never get worse over time. Consider the underlying virtues that are lacking, as this may highlight the potential for struggles in multiple areas that aren’t yet obvious. For example, poor communication, incompetence, poor boundaries, dishonesty, carelessness, or mental illness are likely to cause reoccurring issues in the known deal-breaker pattern, as well as in a growing list of issues that are impossible to foresee at first. Some problems can genuinely be highly specific annoyances or one-offs, but anything featured in this list will generally not be isolated.

Does Wellington really have good food?

I’m not especially a foodie, because I usually care most about convenience. My initial impressions after living in Wellington for a year were that eating out was more expensive than in other NZ cities, and that Wellington simply had cultural diversity, not quality. But since I had not actually tested many of the restaurants known as being tried and true, I wouldn’t have known Wellington for great food even if it could be found.

I decided to give Wellington a fair chance, so here’s my notes from this journey. My ratings only take into food, not ambience or quality of service.

Chow (4.5/5)

An Asian restaurant with a $15 lunch deal set. I went here only coincidentally, not expecting much, and I was shocked by how flavorful their dishes were. Very hard to beat, I rate them 4.5/5.

CJ’s Hangi (1.5/5)

I’d never tried a hangi before so it was on my bucket list. They pack these meals in an aluminum tray and you pick this up from one of their collection points. I did not like this at all, the smoked flavor of the hangi didn’t contribute much to the veggies. I’ve never really understood stuffing and didn’t enjoy it. The meat was almost good at times, but was overall dry. All in all, there was potential to be as good as canteen food, but even there it missed the mark.

Ekim (4.5/5)

My go-to burger place in Wellington. I don’t like their burgers that much (though I rate other burger places even lower), the main reason being each time they’ve been slightly burned. However, their burrito options are a guilty pleasure, and some of their sides such as kransky are worth trying too.

One downside of Ekim is that they don’t take phone or online orders, and the wait time tends to be similar to that of a restaurant while you wait within their outdoor setup.

Burger Liquor (4.5/5)

“The Smokey” (burger) is supposedly renown so I went to try this. Generally I only like burgers but don’t love them. The Smokey didn’t change that, but it still struck me as a well balanced burger with literally nothing that I could criticize. Complete without flaws. I don’t prefer smoked flavors in the first place, so possibly other burgers would have swayed me more. The chips were decent but ultimately nothing special. Their shakes are apparently a game-changer but I did not try.

1154 (5/5)

I’m not a fan of Italian food. For reference, I generally prefer Italian food less than I do burgers. I’ve also had homemade Italian food by someone who is allegedly a decent cook, according to others. However, 1154 shot straight up to the best Italian food I’ve ever eaten. I had their special for the day, which was conchiglie pasta with chicken, mascarpone sauce, white wine sauce, covered with breadcrumbs. Usually the pasta I’ve had at previous restaurants starts to become bland after eating half of it. Not the case here. Delicious and full of flavor.

1154 is also known for their torta cioccolato (flourless chocolate cake). I had this to take home. It melts wonderfully in your mouth, and as I was eating this, I was just so disarmed by how good it was, eventually I started crying, it was kind of like that scene in Ratatouille where Ego gets transported to his childhood memory.

Scopa (3/5)

Scopa has a reputation for their unique dessert-y Italian hot chocolate, so that’s what I came for. I found it strange. It was rich and confusing, and I can’t easily convince myself I enjoyed it as a dessert more than I would a chocolate yogurt from the supermarket. Was it better than a typical hot chocolate? I suppose so.

I also had their Toscana pizza. Super thin, 4 slices. No better than a fast food pizza (other than a lot less calories). Not worth the price at all.

Ombra (4.5/5)

Another Italian place. I had their polenta chips, which I thought was a risky order because it’s the kind of dish that can easily come out acceptable but mediocre more so than other things. However, it was marvelous. Their “secret mayo” really sealed the deal, and that combined with the sprinkling of ricotta on the chips made for a complete journey of flavors.

I also had their wild venison meatballs. I confess I did not understand the combination of the meatballs with cold salad-like elements: ricotta, butter bean, beetroot chip. Regardless, the meatballs were packed with flavor and it was a satisfying dish overall.

Kisa (4/5)

Kisa features middle Eastern cuisine with a large Turkish influence. I felt quite out of my depth and didn’t order the right things. I had spicy eggplant dip with pita bread, Turkish pickle salad, flank steak shish kebab. Everything had powerful flavors. The eggplant dip was too sour for me, and the pickle salad even more so (what was I expecting?). Those two had my tongue burning by the time I was finished. The kebab was nice but not quite spectacular.

Although my item choices were a bit of an oversight, I wasn’t disappointed in the sense that I felt the dishes delivered on quality and flavor even if I learned it wasn’t for me. And there was a highlight: the top of the pickle salad had pieces of lettuce with a sweet sauce and sprinkling of crunchy garnish. The texture and flavor combination of that topping was glorious; it was probably the most excited I’ve ever been about any part of a salad dish.

Fratelli (3.5/5)

I only had their Pappardelle au ragu. It was average, like “too much seasoning used to make up for deficit in fundamental taste” kinda league.

Everybody Eats (2.5/5)

This is a pay-as-you-feel community restaurant serving 3 course meals and run as a charity with volunteers. Much of their ingredients are donated from businesses. There was something weird or off about something in each course. Like crunchy overcooked rice or fruit that was old yet but not overripe. The portions were also a bit inadequate.

Rita (4.5/5)

3 course meal for around $100. While delicious overall, I think the food was more exploratory than it was simply delicious. Possibly related to the fact that the menu at Rita changes everyday. I suspect the original duo associated with Rita back in 2018-2019 were/are no longer present.

RE Burger (4.5/5)

If I’m being honest, I find that most burger places don’t beat McDonalds in terms of taste. However, RE Burger’s REsauce is pretty similar to the sauce in a Big Mac, and their burgers are obviously more substantial. Their cheeseburger fries are pretty incredible too.

Bellamys by Logan Brown (4/5)

Good but not great. Simple pleasures: their house-churned cultured butter on sourdough was incredible. Everything else was good but also flawed in a noticeable way, even though the menu doesn’t seem designed to be experimental at all. Would I be tempted to go again? Not particularly.

Noodle Kim, Vivian St (5/5)

It’s a shame I only chanced upon this on my second to last day in Wellington, it would easily have become my go-to takeaway option if I had found it sooner! Absolutely delicious, simple and actually healthy/balanced (and not just relative to other takeaways), cheap and good portions. Somehow it just ranks at the top in every regard as a takeaway that’s not a guilty pleasure.

Conclusion

Wellington absolutely does have great food if you put in just a little bit of effort into trying out places. Some of the tastiest stuff is not even from higher end restaurants.

Overcoming depression and anxiety

The last 90 days has been the worst 90-day period of my last 5 years. I’ve hit a new rock bottom filled with illness, grief, hurt, shame, thwarted plans, overwhelm, stress, anger, avoidance, escapism, mild depression and anxiety, dread, disconnection, confusion, loss of control, overeating, shattered dreams and identity, freefall in the abyss of self-sabotage, and unfamiliar territory.

If I had to explain why this Christmas has been so terrible, the major factors are:

The holiday period is always terrible because I’m always reminded of how my family never celebrated Christmas so it has always represented a time for everyone else to be happy, just not me.
Several years ago on Christmas Day, my mom nearly died. And even though by sheer miracle or luck she escaped certain death, years later I still haven’t fully processed what happened.
After more than a year, I’m finally getting on the property ladder, but the timing has been terrible and I’m locked into tens of thousands of dollars of negative cashflow for the next few years.
Due to the above, my dream of traveling to Europe in late 2023 as a digital nomad is probably infeasible.
Many plans and intentions have been ruined for me in 2022, compared to the 3 years previous where I have been highly successful and only faced one major ruined plan per year. Although I’m simply learning the common wisdom that not everything goes according to plan, this is the first time I’ve experienced it on such a scale, that I’m finding it hard to process and to resist forming negative interpretations about myself, despite the fact that I still achieved many significant things in 2022.
I got into a bad relationship and got dumped at the worst time, and even though I mostly recovered from that, being friends with my ex and continuing to hang out with her friend group has been seriously bad for my social life, not because of my ex, but because I’ve finally realized how they are the wrong people for me. This feels unusually devastating because I invested in this group the most (though frankly I didn’t invest much in friend-making overall in 2022), and it gives me flashbacks to the last time I tried really hard to be accepted into a group and had zero progress to show after a year.

My body recognizes the current state I’m in. At my worst, I’ve been:

Binging games, food, Netflix, PMO, alcohol
Ruining my sleep schedule
So incredibly uncomfortable facing the real world that I spend hours immersed in puzzle games instead (shoutout to this addictive puzzle game site though and my current favorite, Tents, which is kind of like an actually solvable version of minesweeper)
Extremely distractible, and about a third as productive as normal at work
Doing nothing but hiding from the world during the holidays, also crying and feeling sorry for myself

It hasn’t been all bad though. Despite my dire state, I’ve:

Made multiple new friends and connections
Had more meaningful conversions than during the rest of the year added together
Come to terms with big temporarily-saddening decisions that will ultimately be good for me
Learned a tremendous amount about myself, both concrete knowledge and directions that need further exploration
Gained important clarity and insight on how I should aim to orient myself for a happier 2023.

So how do I overcome my depression and anxiety?

I’ve been in this state twice before, and that gives me confidence that I will overcome this again. Previously I was at luxury to take unlimited holidays (because I wasn’t working or independent), this time I will be working while recovering. I’m far from an expert, but a few insights come to mind.

1. Let go of guilt and regret.

If you feel bad about how you’ve wasted the last several days/months/years not living to your potential, let go if it. Watch Overcoming Regrets of Wasted Time. Long story short, your “wasted time” wasn’t wasted, you learned what it feels like to be unhealthy and for things to not be right, and how much it sucks. This is useful experience and it also makes you relatable to other people with similar struggles in the way that not everyone can be.

2. Your mental health is the last thing that will return to normal

You’re probably feeling down due to three reasons: the external circumstances, which led you to feel sad and hopeless, which lead you to spiral into a depressed state with imbalances in your brain. Even if your external circumstances became ideal, you’d still feel down because you’re not over your feelings. And even if you did therapy exercises to process your feelings, you’d still feel down the next day due to the non-ideal condition of your brain and body.

How terrible you feel is not a fair reflection of how life is actually going for you, and it isn’t helpful to spend too much energy on trying to improve how you feel now. In order to return to normal, you have to do the things that improve your wellbeing eventually instead.

3. Basics: exercise, eating, and rest

The basic 3 things that are sensible to prioritize during your “everything feels terrible” recovery phase are exercise, eating, and rest. The minimum for exercise should be walking for 20 minutes a day. A solid amount would doing a gym session every other day. Either end of these will both eventually make you feel better, but also probably make you feel less worse shortly after doing them. Eating doesn’t need to be super healthy, but it does need to be not eating to punish yourself, and to avoid foods that are known to irritate you or interrupt your sleep patterns (e.g., avoid careless alcohol or caffeine consumption). Then for sleep, the goal is just to reduce self-sabotage such as revenge sleep procrastination. Why? Falling into an unhealthy sleep pattern will undo the benefits of and disrupt healthy eating and exercise.

4. Reducing escapism

You’re probably indulging in all manner of escapism habits, due to feeling irritable, anxious, impulsive, restless, uncomfortable, and so on. It may not be possible to stop your escapism habits altogether, but the goal is just to become more aware of when you’re doing it, identify the most problematic type of activity for it, and try to gradually wean yourself off it. If you’ve been doing escapism 16 hours a day, then doing it 14 hours today while fitting in proper exercise and one healthy meal is an improvement. If you did 8 hours of escapism yesterday, then convincing yourself to do no more than that while also achieving a very important 10 minute task is an improvement.

Don’t shame or judge yourself. Your mind isn’t playing by the normal rules, so it’s fine if you look for easy wins. The more you resist an addiction, the more it can grip you. So instead, it could be more productive to gamify things or coerce yourself by saying “ok, I’m still going to do this useless thing because it’s too darn addictive, but at least for every hour I’m going to do one useful ten minute task in between.” And you’ll still have set an important precedence, that you are capable of doing at least a small amount of important tasks, and that you can be better than you were yesterday.

5. Identify and use a technique for breaking your escapism

When you know you’re procrastinating or escaping, you also know that you have the option to stop doing that. The way to do this is to choose an “activation trigger,” for lack of a better term. It’s hard to explain, so here are some examples of ones you can choose:

Breathing exercise. 10 slow breaths.
IAAA from the book Running On Empty, or basically name at least three emotions you’re currently feeling, accept them and explain why you might be feeling that way.
The five second rule. Basically count to 5 and just start doing the task you wish you could be doing.

I personally use IAAA but I keep naming emotions until I can’t think of anymore. When I’m desperately avoiding my problems, the first step is to stop thinking and doing. This is where I tell myself, if I want to break out of this, I need to do stop doing that puzzle that I’m using as distraction by doing IAAA. Just pause, take a deep breath and accept that I’m going to examine my emotions. Since I’ve used IAAA many times, I know and trust that it will make things better, even if it doesn’t magically solve problems. It gives me clarity and calms my emotional panic, allowing me at least enough head space to decide on what easy wins I have available to tackle. Even if I still feel relatively jittery, and that may be inevitable given the present level of anxiety, I’m still able to redirect that energy towards facing reality. Also, I might get distracted multiple times when initiating my chosen task, and end up back at the puzzle game instinctively, but it becomes 10x easier to stop that again without needing to do IAAA.

6. Doing important things

What are these important things I’m referring to, besides the basic 3? They could be life responsibilities or obligations, but at a fundamental level, they are simply things that either:

Take your life forwards a little bit. Examples: planning your schedule/routines/goals, reading non-fiction, learning, practicing a skill.
Heal you or take you closer to a healthier state of living. E.g., tidying the house, distancing yourself from bad influences such as unhealthy food or friends who aren’t good for you, getting emotional support from family/friends, doing your laundry, getting your seasonal hay fever meds.
Make you feel better, either eventually or in the short term. E.g., getting a massage, booking yourself in for therapy, expressing yourself, achieving something meaningful to you.

It’s worth noting that simply surviving to fight another day is an accomplishment in itself. Even if all you did was the basic 3 plus enough chores to maintain basic hygiene, while still doing a ton of escapism, the fact that you’re not doing worse than yesterday despite still feeling terrible is a success. In fact, doing the above for long enough even though you don’t feel you’ve actually taken any forwards steps in your life might still be enough for your body and brain to start resetting, for escapism to start to lose its grip on you, and for being functional to get easier and easier until you find yourself taking steps forward again.

Closing words of advice

The above isn’t easy. It requires trust and action in spite of your feelings making you constantly want to escape from the world instead. The truth is, you probably won’t improve everyday, and that’s perfectly normal and fine. What’s important is the struggle. If nothing else, try to fight the grip of escapism every day and struggle. Maybe you struggle today and you “lose”, but it’s not for nothing. Fighting for your livelihood is never for nothing. Your scattered attempts to struggle eventually add up over time so long as you don’t give up.

Lifehack Method review

I tried a one week trial of Lifehack Tribe for a week. Here’s my thoughts about it.

The Lifehack Method by Demir & Carey Bentley is a productivity system and coaching service, for lack of a better term. More specifically:

Lifehack Method is just a brand name as well as the general productivity system that Demir teaches.
Lifehack Tribe is a big part of the ecosystem, it includes their online learning modules, weekly/monthly live group planning sessions, online forums, accountability buddy search and access to Focusmate.
Lifehack Bootcamp is a 60-day intensive productivity coaching program.

Is Lifehack Method legitimate?

Yes, they are legitimate. I had no problems signing up for a $1 trial and then cancelling my ongoing subscription.

Yes, when you first end up on their mailing list of attend one of their free online webinars, their ads are super spammy and imply that you’re getting an extremely time-limited deal that really isn’t.

Are Demir and Carey genuine coaches?

Is Demir a genuine productivity coach? Based on his appearance in live videos, yes he seems genuine, and the videos he posts on YouTube are also somewhat useful, not just filtered clickbait that leaves you wanting more substance. His live responses to questions during video calls also surprised me a lot, he definitely came across as someone with significant experience and the ability to read into a questioner’s mindset accurately.

If I’m being honest, Demir strikes me as someone with slightly above average intelligence supposedly doing above average things due to hard work and having a system that works for him. Lifehack Method isn’t magical and revolutionary. It makes sense and probably works well for people who tend to be similar to him. My suspicion however is that the more intelligent you are, the more lacking and one-dimensional you’ll find Lifehack Method to be.

Carey on the other hand seems completely inauthentic, someone clearly focused on sales and promotion in the way they talk. The kind of person I wouldn’t trust a word of advice from without wondering what’s in it for her. Does this take away from Lifehack Method’s usefulness? Not really.

What are the big ideas behind Lifehack Method?

Planning and leveraged tasks

One of the big focuses in the Lifehack Method is planning your week, and in particular making sure you get your “leveraged” tasks done. Leveraging just means doing what’s most important and propels you forward. Demir’s practical take on the idea of exponential growth through habits is to spend 4 hours a week prioritizing what makes your life 1% easier or better.

Examples of leveraged tasks for me could be:

Spending 1 hour a week for several weeks to get acquainted with more gym exercises, with the intention of reducing the time it takes to go through my routine and improving how hard I push myself.
Spend a few hours with nutritional planning (or perhaps getting feedback from a nutritionist), then setting up all of my regular grocery shopping online and delivered, probably saving me 1-2 hours a week while improving my eating, decreasing my cheat days with takeaways, and overall saving me money despite the cost of deliveries.
Reading non-fiction. This might not have guaranteed outcomes but the odds are, if I read for a few hours a week, at some point I’ll come across some knowledge or ideas that lead to a critical improvement in my lifestyle.
Upskilling myself professionally.

Group accountability

Another big theme in the Lifehack ecosystem is group accountability. Lifehack Tribe runs scheduled planning sessions over Zoom. It’s much like being part of a gym group, if you show up then you know you’re going to get things done as everyone else is doing it and you don’t want to be the odd one out. Lifehack Tribe membership also includes a Focusmate subscription. Focusmate is kind of like an online study/accountability buddy thing where you book a session with someone, you each state your intentions for that session then each do your thing in silence and report back at the end of the session.

Lifehack also has several learning modules, which I didn’t really go through, but some of it is general self-help content you could find elsewhere regarding growth mindset and obstacles.

Practical work tips

A lot of the regular and new content revolves around practical tips for certain workflows, for example how to use Asana effectively, how to cut down on email overload, how to use team communication apps without getting distracted, etc. It’s good that this information is specific and grounded, but at the same time it also highlights what I mean by how the Lifehack Method is a semi-structured mish-mash of things that Demir has made work for him through arbitrary effort and experience rather than any profound insight.

Is Lifehack Tribe worth US$85/mo?

Lifehack Tribe membership is not expensive compared to other productivity system memberships. I believe it would work for some people, but I decided not to try a paid subscription for longer simply because the group setting is the most attractive part of the package, yet all the calls are at super awkward times for me being in a very different timezone from the US.

In conclusion, I think the Lifehack Method could be practical for some people, it’s not a particularly brilliant system (not that it needs to be to be worth the money), and there’s no risk to trying it for a week. Also, I was pretty busy during the week of the trial, so there may well have been some powerful content in the learning modules that I didn’t look into but were alluded to multiple times.

Fourth read of “Running On Empty”

This holiday season I hit a new rock bottom in my life, and it reminded me to take a step back and re-read the book that started my journey.

It took me just over 3 hours to read. Surprisingly, quite a few things stood out to me and for the first time I started to see more value in what have been my least favorite parts of the book. Here are my notes on things that stood out to me. My ponderances are in italics.

Chapter 2:

A workaholic parent who outsources parenting to a nanny inevitably sends their child the message that they are not worth their time, no matter how well the nanny parents the child.

A healthy Achievement/Perfection parent supports their child to achieve what the child wants, rather than pressuring the child to achieve what the parent wants.

When a child is treated by her AP parents as if her feelings and emotional needs don’t matter, a deeply personal part of herself is being denied. Do I do this to myself when I self-parent? And the things that I didn’t receive from my parents, could it be that I still crave them from external sources like crazy even though I can provide these for myself?

Loving your child isn’t enough, you need to be in tune in order for them to develop healthily. For a parent to be in tune, they must be aware of and understand emotions in general. Maybe I don’t understand emotions well enough to do a complete job of self-parenting yet. Also, I think L (my ex) loved me but it wasn’t enough, because she wasn’t in tune with me. She didn’t understand my emotions at all.

Chapter 3: Common themes in neglected children as adults

Counter-dependence: avoiding asking for help
Unrealistic self-appraisal
1. Little opportunity to develop one’s identity or get reliable feedback of strengths and weaknesses.
2. Gone through life with no guide, no emotional general knowledge, no way to know where one exists in the world of being and life. Hard to catch back up on this as an adult man, when all the silly time people spend together is harder to get into or ask for.
3. You give up quickly when things get challenging
4. Hard to identify talents, tend to over-emphasize weaknesses
5. Feel like a misfit
Guilt and shame: Asking oneself the question “what is wrong with me?”
Fatal Flaw (If people really know me they won’t like me):
I don’t hide myself but I don’t show myself either, because it feels impossible to? And that no one would be interested?
Difficulty nurturing self and others
1. Like compassion, nurturance is an emotional glue that binds us together as people. It is the gas that fills our emotional tanks.
2. People think you’re arrogant
Poor self-discipline
1. Difficulty forcing themselves to do things they don’t want to
2. Think of themselves as scattered, lazy, unmotivated
3. Emotionally neglected children, left to their own devices, learn self-indulgence instead
4. You feel you are lazy, a procrastinator, have difficulty with deadlines, tend to overindulge
5. Disorganized
6. Avoid mundane tasks

Chapter 4: Common factors for genuine risk of self-harm

Emptiness and numbness
Suffering in silence
Questioning the meaning and value of life
Escape fantasy

Chapter 5: Things that get in the way of successful change

False expectations
That change is linear
That setbacks are failures
That if you get off track, you may as well give up
Avoidance
Of things that feel foreign, that are difficult, of hard work
Challenge the moments where your avoidance kicks in
Discomfort
Unfamiliarity, not knowing what will happen, feeling unsafe or fearful

Chapter 6

The smartest people are those who use their emotions to help them think and who use their thoughts to manage their emotions. Most successful people are driven by feeling.

Passion drives us to procreate, create and invent
Hurt pushes us to correct a situation
Sadness tells us we are losing something important
Curiosity drives us to explore and learn

There was a time in my life a few years ago where I was emotionally fluent enough to recognize my emotions happening close to real time. I don’t think I’m there anymore.

Exercise: review feelings 3 times a day

There are no bad emotions. Emotions are simply present and we can decide what to do about them.

Feelings don’t always make rational sense, but they always exist for a good reason.

Express your feelings assertively.

When a spouse feels something is missing in a relationship but can’t explain it, often what they’re asking for is a feeling of emotional connection, a feeling that their spouse can read them and that they can read their spouse, that they and their spouse naturally feel each other’s feelings. Couples who are truly emotionally connected let each other know when they are hurt, get angry, and fight things out when needed.

Vertical questioning: Start with a guess of their state, e.g.: You seem glum. Was everything OK with your mom?

Chapter 7

Self-nurture:

Putting yourself first
Eating
Exercise
Rest and relaxation

Asking for help: accept that other people don’t feel guilty or uncomfortable saying no. The majority of people have little angst asking for help and little angst saying no. As soon as you can join them, a new world will open up for you.

Put a higher priority on your own enjoyment.
What do I even enjoy on a weekly basis, besides dancing?

Self-discipline exercise:
Three things: every day do three things that you don’t want to do or stop yourself from doing three things you want to do but shouldn’t

Self-soothing: when IAAA isn’t enough and you need to self-soothe feelings that are persistent or difficult to manage. Build a list of strategies, because the worst time to try to figure out is when you need it the most. Ideas:

Long shower
Listening to music
Gym
Running/walking
Playing music
Massage
Call family/friend
Be in nature
Meditate
Self-talk

Self-compassion:

Develop an inner loving-but-firm voice: learn from your mistakes by questioning your behavior in a non-judgmental way about what went wrong and how to prevent it in future
Hold yourself accountable without judgment or blame

Chapter 8

Emotion is like water flowing. If you put a barrier or block it, it will reverse and flow back to the source in a negative way. Instead, let it flow and understand the source.

Can an autistic person be emotionally manipulative?

I didn’t find much on this topic on the internet, so I decided to fill in the gap myself and hopefully provide validation for those in a time of need.

Yes, autistic people can be emotionally manipulative. This is most likely to apply in the case of mild ASD where the person is highly capable of masking. The rest of this post assumes this case and clarifies the implications for those who suspect they might be being emotionally manipulated by someone on the spectrum.

The only article I found on this topic suggests that autists can be unintentionally manipulative, that there’s usually an underlying reason to do with alleviating their anxiety or sensory issues, and that autists typically do not have the ability to get inside other people’s heads in a way that there can be intentional manipulation.

I’d like to respond to this portrayal with the following assertions:

If an autistic person is highly capable of masking, and many are, it means they have consciously and/or subconsciously picked up practical skills and intuition on how to improve other people’s impressions of them. (This is the most minimal form of manipulation, virtually everyone does it, and it’s not an inherently bad thing to do.) Therefore, individuals capable of masking are also capable of conscious manipulation if they want to.
Emotional manipulation of the harmful kind does not require malicious intent or conscious awareness. It can be unintentional and subconscious, and it does not require the manipulator to have any understanding of the minds of the people they are manipulating.
Any autistic person capable of masking is also fundamentally capable of unintentional harmful manipulation. This can come about by an autistic person picking up and reinforcing behaviors that influence others in a way that makes their lives easier in the short-term without necessarily knowing why or being aware of how it their subjects are being affected.
Irrespective of the context of neurodiversity, many victims of bullying and abuse subconsciously develop manipulative behaviors that help win people’s support or favor in a way that incites unhealthy emotional attachment. In the case of younger women who have been abused, it is also common for their manipulative behaviors to particularly target men and induce protective instincts and attraction.

Higher level manipulations

Although autistic people typically value honesty, those on the autistic spectrum are quite capable of telling white lies and bending the truth for their own agenda. Even in autistic individuals who explicitly try to be honest by principle, like anyone else, in the heat of a moment they can end up telling lies in the name of making their lives easier. In fact, harmful and manipulative truth-bending can be a habitual behavior even in autists who at first appear to be honest, and it may be quite difficult to come to an evidenced conclusion that they are engaging in this. Here are some possible categorizations of truth bending, each with different severity and implications:

The autist may have full awareness of when they bend the truth to their advantage. Like many people, they may hold the stance that the ends justify the means depending on the situation, and therefore this does not necessarily contradict their view of honesty as one of their general virtues.
They may have virtually no awareness that they’re bending the truth, and no awareness of how their statements affects the recipient.
They may have partial or delayed awareness, particularly with internal emotions that they can’t decipher immediately in the moment but are fully capable of processing with time and introspection. An autistic person who regularly bends the truth in this way basically says things that are “convenient for them if true” without actually standing on grounds of veracity. If they also have a reasonable comprehension of their own emotions in retrospect and a semblance of understanding in how their words can mislead people in a negative way, then they have the ability to take responsibility for their manipulative behaviors and their consequences. Despite this ability, there may however be a cognitive gap that makes it less likely for manipulative autists to consider it worthwhile reducing or acknowledging their manipulation. Consider the following example:

Autist is participating in an emotionally rich interaction.
Autist makes a wishful and ultimately misleading claim staked on their hypothesized emotional state despite not really knowing in the moment.
The subject takes their claim at face value.
Days later the autist becomes aware of their actual emotional stance on the past matter.
Autist may not notice or remember their misleading claim, especially if it’s not explicitly brought up again in conversation.
Even if they recall that claim, they would need to do some additional processing to realize that the claim was misleading.
Even if they realize the claim was misleading, they may need to do some additional processing to realize that the misleading claim could have negative consequences they may care about, which they may not.
Even if they realize the misleading claim could have negative consequences, they would need to do additional processing to consider what those consequences might be, or go to the effort of raising it with the subject despite not knowing if it even matters.
The whole chain above can easily be stopped at any time by the autist: not being in a position to do such processing at the time; forgetting about any of it at any stage (e.g., due to ADHD or executive dysfunction); not considering the burden worthy of the clarification; having a self-righteous or victim mentality; general lack of cognitive and emotional empathy, or systematically being blind to either negative consequences or the magnitude of these consequences from the perspective of the subject.
Due all of the above factors, even the subject were manipulated in a significant and undesirable way, it may be very challenging to broach the subject and reach any kind of resolution with the manipulative autist.

In conclusion, autistic people can be knowingly or unknowingly manipulative in harmful ways, and even those considered generally honest may regularly employ self-serving manipulations for which they are technically able to take responsibility for or remedy, but at significant cost in time, difficulty, and emotional labor.

Lessons from an INTP-ESFP relationship with ADHD/autism in play

I had a short-lived relationship with an ESFP. It was basically one month of low-key pure bliss followed by one month of painful disconnection after I made an important but also circumstantially unpreventable mistake. Her ADHD and autistic traits as well as my own (clinically unconfirmed) autistic tendencies were probably a large factor in our dynamic.

I would summarize her as:

Caring and proactively serving to friends
Honest and direct
Flirty and sassy
Intelligent but not being challenged to use her brain much in life
Cute and child-like
High acceptance energy, non-judgmental
Highly experienced with therapy and problem-solving methods that one typically only learns through therapy and related experiences
Literal
Fashionable
Hedonistic and moderately experience-seeking
Love languages are ambiguously split between physical touch, quality time and acts of service
Sex-positive but not the ONS type
Not a jealous type, unexplored interest in open relationship dynamics
Feminist and LGBTQI-friendly
Ramble-friendly
Patient (for most things)
Highly illogical, poor at explaining things
Very comfort-zone based
Practical with spending money on things that make her happy
Partially self-aware but doesn’t understand herself well, introspection is highly delayed
Unreliable at giving feedback and knowing how to respond to others expressing their emotions
Self-centric empathy: high empathic concern but poor cognitive and emotional empathy
A social climber who dislikes social climbing behaviors in others

Things were great at the start (and I didn’t have to guess whether she was into me!), we were becoming intense friends before she revealed her crush. I saw high potential because she effortlessly ticked off all of my practical/logistical compatibility concerns in a relationship, which is no common feat.

It’s no great tragedy that we turned out to be incompatible, but there are some significant insights I picked up that are especially key within the INTP-ESFP dynamic and in the context of neurodiversity differences in relationships.

1. ESFP truths are fleeting

ESFPs are known to be honest, and they usually are when it comes to objective information. However, this is not the case for opinions, interpretations, disagreements, or conflict resolution, where they may blurt something out in the heat of the moment that they don’t actually believe. They’re not intentionally lying, but what they want to say in the moment may not hold up to later scrutiny. Because their word isn’t meant to be absolute, they can unwittingly mislead people for a long time and see no need to correct it because they didn’t know what they said wouldn’t hold up and past words aren’t meant to be future precedent anyway.

I learned the hard way that autism doesn’t really change this equation about fleeting honesty and can make it worse because it can increase the time required for an ESFP to tune into how they actually feel about something.

2. ESFPs really suck at logic

I’ve always found it easy to talk to ESFPs but also hard to get into intellectual conversations about anything. This is because of their tertiary Te. Even when they know a lot about a subject, their knowledge lacks systematic organization and so they end up talking around and about a subject without being able to answer critical thinking questions using chains of logic.

Asking an ESFP what they think about a new topic they just learned about: don’t expect anything they say to make sense.

Asking an ESFP a critical thinking question about a topic they have experience in: don’t expect anything they say on the fly to make sense.

Asking an ESFP to think about a question within their expertise and get back to you: expect a more confident answer but still without chains of logic.

3. ESFPs require long feedback loops to improve and they don’t like them

So ESFPs are bad at logic but the only way they can sharpen up is to vocalize that bad logic and slowly realize that it’s bad. That’s why attempts at intellectual conversations with ESFPs are often either them listening without being able to critically contribute, or them presenting their thoughts and having no idea if what they said was helpful/accurate while you can only gently rephrase questions to try and eke something out of them.

ESFPs are highly sensitive to criticism and tend to react with defensiveness, so an ESFP coming to realize their logic flawed is often either going to be 1) completely futile, or 2) a really long and concerted effort.

4. ESFPs will always put their own feelings first

We established that ESFP truths are fleeting, and a big part of this is that they often place their feelings at the center of truth. They can subtly and unintentionally manipulate their partners by making them feel guilty based on flexing truths about how they feel and how they interpret things in the relationship. If an ESFP ever develops ill feelings, their view of the relationship, their previous intentions, and their responsibilities are self-justified in shifting arbitrarily and you might not even be kept in the loop. When an ESFP feels wronged or let down, trying to have an interactive conversation with both sides being heard is likely to be a doomed approach. They won’t budge an inch if you don’t take their side first.

Once you take their side, apologize unreservedly and take full responsibility for your actions. They’ll probably keep resenting you and it’s still not your chance to have your side heard. They might allow you to speak but their truth is already set by the compass that is their feelings.

This can be a really unfair dynamic especially if the only way you could have avoided disappointing them was by being a mind-reader. Asking them what they need/want/expect doesn’t work because they don’t know and whatever answer they give will likely expire within hours or days. The fact is they don’t know until the thing has already happened. They just want you to be able to intuit their needs through observation and past life experience. ESFPs also may employ reverse logic to use out-of-order evidence to justify their current interpretation of the truth. For example, if they messed up first and you messed up in response, they might use your mistake to justify why they didn’t mess up at all and why it’s all on you.

If you’re in this situation but still want to try and make things work, you have to try and work to the mechanics of the ESFP feelings-truth feedback system.

Logic is your worst friend in this situation, even mature emotional logic won’t work.
The key strategy is to avoid the root cause and distract them from their negative emotions by inducing positive ones.
Make them laugh. Take them on a fun date. Give them a meaningful gift, or something as simple as buying them snacks that you know they like. Take care of chores or other unexciting burdens for them.
Assuming that you’ve already taken their side and apologized sincerely, do not proactively talk about that event ever again. Pretend it never happened unless they bring it up. Don’t feel bad about it or try to apologize any further, it will only make things worse.
Don’t ask them anything as they’ll be unhelpful while holding a grudge (this may happen subconsciously on their part). Ask their friends or your friends for advice on what makes them happy and just do it. Worst case, trial and error is your only chance.
Their feelings are the point of reference for the truth, so ideally with this approach they’ll be reminded of good things about the relationship, feel cared for enough to be willing to rethink and process past hurt like a mature adult, and then you can hopefully move forward at their pace. Your insights or solutions are not welcome if they come too far ahead of theirs even if they would otherwise eventually come to the same conclusions. If you are lucky, they will keep you in the loop as they rethink. If not, then you just have to wait for the dice of judgment.

5. ESFPs are not empaths

ESFPs feel intensely, but even when they have high empathic concern this is generally going to be sympathy or self-centric projections of suffering (typical for Fi users) rather than tuning in to what the other person is actually feeling. ESFPs typically lack in both intuition and cognitive ability for understanding other people’s nuanced emotions and their causes. Even if they are capable of understanding, it’s likely to be hard to discover whether they are able and willing in the first place because it goes against the grain of how they naturally operate. ESFPs don’t like to change for others and have little patience or desire to work on relationship issues, big or small. They want things to just work and have no problem walking away if they don’t.

Neurodiversity does not change this fact. ADHD/autism probably make it harder for the ESFP to convey signs of listening and give appropriate feedback.

6. INTPs will always struggle to feel heard by an ESFP

Part of the dynamic with any extroverted partnership for an INTP is that the INTP will typically invest the majority of their social energy into the partnership while the extrovert is less likely to. ESFPs are unlikely to meet an INTP’s intellectual and emotional needs by just being their usual outgoing selves with the INTP, due to the abovementioned mismatch in inability to have nuanced discussions both for logical and emotional topics.

ADHD and autism make this worse because ADHDers tend to interrupt a lot while autists may have the tendency to start sharing random facts/memories in response and derail the attempted communication by the INTP.

7. Be prepared for trial and error

Don’t expect an ESFP to give 50/50 (let alone 100/100) to a relationship even after going exclusive. ESFPs learn about themselves through trial and error, and relationships are no different. You are one iteration of the trial, and it’s far more convenient for an ESFP to move onto the next trial if things don’t fit together effortlessly than to attempt to make things work. They don’t want to bother, and honestly it makes sense for them because they will learn more quickly through varied relationships and experiences anyway. So keep this in my early on and don’t sit on more uncertainty than you’re comfortable with bearing.

Learnings specific to myself

Words are not a primary love language for me, but simultaneously words are very important, carry a lot of power, and I have a need for emotional precedence to be set explicitly through words. (Common ASD trait.)
I like to have high levels of feedback and prefer a partner who can reliably articulate themselves.
I’m quite naïvely trusting in terms of taking someone’s word as reliable truth. (Common ASD trait.)
I really dislike being punished for not being a mind-reader and won’t tolerate it in future, but I also do need to be more chill in terms of trying things without knowing.
I should be more vocal about my needs and wants. This will lead to finding out faster whether there’s true compatibility.
I need to be more assertive about my boundaries and try to ensure that dating someone doesn’t hinder my personal well-being or encroach on my need for time management.
I still believe that friends first is my preferred approach and that I’d prefer my long-term partner to be a best friend.
Given that someone I’m dating is likely to take up most of my social time within a week, it’s a red flag if my deeper friendship needs like presence and being heard and understood reliably can’t be met easily.
Not everyone can or will want to understand me deeply and this is a valid yellow flag if absent.
My chameleon instincts turn on really strong, I’m not really sure if this is good, bad, or neither.
Despite receiving little positive feedback on this throughout my lifetime, there are people out there who find me (physically) highly attractive.
Apparently I have a higher than normal chance of clicking with people with ADHD. There’s definitely been a lot of attraction in being with someone who can perceive and appreciate many of my autistic-spectrum quirks too.

Untangling for the end-of-year stretch

Don’t fixate on visible rate of progress and exact achievements for things that are outside of your direct control. Commit to the process and to the inputs that you can control and hold yourself accountable to and don’t sweat about the rest.

2022 has been a year of significant change and instability for me. I have:

Moved to a new city, facing new logistical challenges
Explored new groups and made new social connections
Attended multiple speed dating events and started using dating apps seriously
Hosted and organized social events
Learned about and considered joining a mentorship-based network marketing community that has a decent following locally
Gotten heavily addicted to Brazilian Zouk and started investing significant time and money and traveling to attend dance festivals
Been volunteering as a peer support person at a mental health ward
Experienced significant relationship challenges with my boss and volatility in my work and viability of continuing in my current job
Started job hunting for basically the first time in my professional career, with nothing to show for it yet
Gotten sick four times this year, for a minimum of two weeks at a time
Lost a lot of physical strength and am trying to regain it at the gym
Learned a bit more about Effective Altruism and potential career aspirations
Been rocky this whole year about my finances and ability to afford a mortgage needed in December, given the unending rises in interest rates during this 15 month wait for settlement
Started dating someone with life partner potential and am navigating the unfamiliar dating life, with plenty of logistical volatility in sight for the short term
Visited Australia and am convinced that life in Australia is a desirable no-brainer upgrade compared to life in NZ.

Around March, I had drafted a list of ambitious goals for the year, even twice as ambitious as my goals in 2021. Those goals fell by the wayside mainly due to work/economic instability and the emergent urgency of finding a new job or changing my work conditions. On some level, I felt powerless about my goals and was surprised by how easily my ability to achieve them were diminished greatly by job uncertainty as well as the unexpected challenges of adapting to a new city. I didn’t beat myself up for needing a lot longer to adapt and learn about these new life challenges, but all the same it has been a shocking lesson on the value of having stability in life.

Moving from my small world hometown to a more ambitious and open-minded city has resulted in an expansion of my world of ideas and possibilities. Visiting Australia has contributed to that too. Growing a longer list of wants and needs and aspirations and possibilities while maintaining an internal locus of control on these new vast expanses has been met with some degree of stress response on my part. I feel like I don’t have enough time to do everything that I want to do, that I’m in a race against time, and the casualty if I don’t win that race is living a life that is inconsistent with my values and beliefs. My goal for writing this post is just to help myself get to the bottom of my fears and concerns so that I can acknowledge them and put them to bed and gain clarity on my approach for the rest of the year.

Random list of fears and concerns:

My biggest fear that comes to mind is not being able to live with myself due to not living the next year or so in a way that is true to what I believe in and am capable of.
I’m afraid of time passing by wasted by not spending it on intentional things, or by my willpower being too weak to resist bailing on hard things due to believable excuses.
I’m concerned about how to balance time spent with my girlfriend in terms of quality and quantity while not diverting from my short term and long term life goals.
I’m concerned that I’m not spending enough investing my learning potential. That is, time spent on knowledge/skill/productivity learning as opposed to time spent on material/sensory/social experiences, where I consider that the former is the right focus for exponential growth. I’m not doing enough to cultivate exponential growth.
Just like I was caught off guard by how hard it was to move city or face job uncertainty or be sick so much this year, and those acted as strong temporary blockers of visible progress towards my life goals, I’m afraid of other things cropping up like that, such as health issues.
I’m afraid of taking inefficient paths and getting distracted by the wrong things only to discover much later that the obvious paths were indeed the correct paths.

If a friend approached me with what I’ve written above, seeking reassurance, what would I say to them?

Wow, those are a lot of challenges you’ve faced this year, and it doesn’t sound easy, so kudos to you for that and still wanting to take on more. Regarding the success that you’re aiming for in life, I don’t know exactly how one gets there, but from what I’ve heard, it’s never a straightforward and linear journey with clear direction and answers all along the way. Highly successful people often have stories that leap all over the place, where it sounds like the way they navigated their life choices and opportunities and major events was more like a creative process. When you don’t have perfect information within a world that is full of endless possibilities, more than anyone can truly ever grasp, instinct, creativity, risk-taking, and experimentation can all take you to worthwhile places compared to having a theoretical plan and trying to ignore everything else. As for the success stories out there that sound pretty one dimensional or like it came out of nowhere, often it just took someone decades to get good at one thing, and eventually one lucky opportunity to go big showed up, and their success was really made possible from all the slow boring development that they had done up to that point.

Whether you choose a more creative approach that takes you from one thing to another, or a steadier approach where you work on getting good at one area for a really long time, the important thing is to trust in the process. If you work on something consistently for a really long time, it is an inevitable thing that you’ll get better at it. Everyone has different timelines so you don’t know when you’re going to succeed in that thing, but there is no particular reason why you won’t succeed within anything that you put enough of your time and dedication into. And you have your whole life ahead of you to figure out what works for you.

Perfect does not exist so forget about having a perfect journey or plan. Even if a perfect plan existed, it would literally be impossible for you to follow it. Your circumstances and your path is going to be unique. Allow yourself to be on that unique journey at your unique pace.

Failing and making mistakes is how you learn and grow; don’t be afraid of that. Invest in your potential by focusing on the process. Don’t fixate on visible rate of progress and exact achievements for things that are outside of your direct control. Commit to the process and to the inputs that you can control and hold yourself accountable to and don’t sweat about the rest. Know that you’re going to be okay. Remember that you’re loved and enough as you are now, that you have nothing to prove and no obligation to the world, simply choice as to how you want to live your life. Everything will come in its time. Submit yourself to the journey, be proud of your humanity, and enjoy the journey through both triumphs and struggles.

Spontaneous breakthrough

One of my life’s goals is to find a way to solve a problem that is widely regarded as impossible by healthcare practitioners. Recently I made a key breakthrough on this in the form of a realization.

Background: I want to learn how to help people who are “unhappily unhappy”, people who’s level of suffering is sufficient that they are willing to give up their current ways of being in pursuit of greater happiness. Helping people who want to be helped is of course an achievable endeavor. Beyond that, I want to discover how to help people who are “happily unhappy”, people who are consistently unhappy but are far more content with their suffering than they are willing to risk any part of their existing lifestyle for the opportunity to be happy, even if that outcome could be guaranteed. Helping people who don’t want to be helped is considered a lost cause by most scholars and clinicians, but I refuse to believe that without trying to find a way.

My breakthrough observation which took 6 years to make is this:
Imagine that one’s mental health struggles is like boxing in a ring. Facing up to yourself and your issues is like entering the ring and voluntarily starting the boxing match. Your therapist, family/friends, and your support network cannot fight the match for you, but they can encourage you to show up in the first place, bring you and equip you with the best gear that you own, and prep you to be in the best state of mind that you can be in given your current condition.

I believe this analogy accurately captures three truths about mental health:

No one can confront someone else’s deepest fears and challenges on their behalf.
Yet, it is possible for a support network to make a difference in whether an important battle was fought at all, as well as whether there was an advantage on one side. This is true at least in some scenarios and some lives, and the difference that can be made can be considered decisive, at least from a retrospective consequentialist point of view.
The gap between the “happily unhappy” and “unhappily unhappy” is a gap in want for help, and the theoretical problem of trying to induce a conversion between these states in someone else is akin to the art of doing whatever would work to have someone enter the boxing match (and hopefully come out with a positive outcome).

I’m not so sure what that last point means (and it may take several years to understand it), but it offers at last two immediate insights:

The analogy highlights what is “at least” possible to achieve as part of the support crew. So what are the limits of decisive effectiveness a support crew can bring, and is there any category of influence that is more powerful or fundamentally different to what the support crew can achieve?
How to be a highly effective and convincing support crew is in the creative realm, as is helping people who don’t want to be happy. Different things will work better for different people.

An interesting thing I like about this analogy is that it allows me to transform a problem that primarily lies in the emotional domain into a problem that’s within both the physical/practical and emotional domain, allowing me to examine the problem and possible solutions from more angles.

Living with uncertainty in a new city

In pursuit of both long-term and short-term ambitions, I’ve relocated from my hometown to another city (my current “city of dreams”), for the first time in my life. Three weeks in, I’m still struggling to feel settled in, the most obvious reason being that I’ve had to look for a permanent place to move, and before I move there I can’t establish permanent routines when it comes to grocery shopping, hobbies, chores, commuting, etc.

The lack of routine, structure, and familiarity have had a significant toll on my stress levels, productivity, and energy levels. I suspect that the high degree of uncertainty in my everyday life is causing moderate levels of stress as part of a partially hardwired physical response in the body. My normal emotional self-care techniques can’t prevent it.

Here are some ideas I’ve gathered specific to dealing with high uncertainty:

Recognize that my brain likes to feel in control and it may be rebelling by making me resort to past addictions such as gaming or social media, since these are far more familiar than following new routines or even old ones in a new environment.
Recognize uncertainty as an opportunity to set new habits.
Make plans but stay flexible.
Shift my focus on what I can control.
Practice gratitude.
Create and follow my visions.
Set intentions and resolutions.
Adopt rituals.
Measure progress.

These are all good suggestions, though I feel this is the actual root of what I’m missing: I’ve been “coping” with all the tasks I need to do to get by and holding out for the move in date for my new place, but really what I need to do is decide unambiguously that I’m not just going to survive the uncertainty times ahead, I’m going to thrive throughout it.