Railing against red flags sterilizes life to that of the Stepford Wives.

Humans are irrational, contradictory, unsound oddballs. And that’s the entire point. Social exchanges aren’t draining because our “social battery is low”, or because people are hyper-sensitive to offense, or even because every person we speak with claims to be a thought leader parroting the doctrine of whatever religion they’ve deified. Conversation is exhausting because it come pre-digested and scripted, making for humorless relationships and predictable exchanges devoid of substance. As I mentioned in my previous piece, nothing can just “suck” anymore; it must be reframed as a teachable moment which imbues our understanding of the world in a positive way, like the individual who must find inspiration in their envy of another, or the woman who is tasked with rising above the supposed-non-tragedy that is her mental illness. It’s a distraction from truth.

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At the core of intriguing conversation is an uncertainty about what will be brought to light--- and in what way that will influence our experience of it all. In the spirit of radical honesty, I have a bit of a kink for debate because of its unpredictability. I do tend to have a bit of a high threshold for “friction” or stimulation, which can make most conversations feel boring or overly routine. Ah yes, it’s great to meet you, too, and wow, you love your job because you feel like you’re making a difference and that’s lovely, how wonderful that you’re supported in your healing journey toward self-improvement; so what’s your stance on euthanizing an unwanted animal versus keeping it in a chaotic, miserable shelter, or if it’s ethical to keep someone alive on machines without their “consent”, or if any of us are hardwired for monogamy?

I somewhat understand the compulsion that is purging all “problematic” behavior. But, as I’ve spoken about tirelessly: resilience, purpose, and safety come not from eliminating risk, but navigating it. And finding dealbreakers in every “red flag”, which are mostly just displays of basic humanity? I can’t imagine the outcome being fruitful.

"I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.”

Reality can feel hellish should another person violate our version of it. I think my boss is rude and lacks tact, she thinks she’s being straightforward and honest just like I asked, I say yeah but you can be straightforward and honest while also being tactful, she says that’s exactly what I’m doing so what’s the problem. We’re not having an argument of factual reality, but a conflict of judgment. Aside from basic physics and mathematics, which most sane people can agree upon as being “reality”, much of human experience is that of perception versus truth.

We interpret events through Lens A, for example, and take this version not as a personal account, but as The Truth. “Nobody ever helps me”, “This is literally the worst day ever”, “You’re a racist.” These statements are “valid” and even “truthful” only in the sense that they’re internal weather forecasts of the person speaking them. As the human brain would have it, though, our forecast may not align with the “true” events of the external world. Such is the purpose of entities like juries or peer reviewers or boards of editors. I’ll demonstrate these varied interpretations using a little experiment below.

In the following sentences, one word will be italicized. The italicized word will be the one that is emphasized for effect when reading each sentence aloud. After you read the sentence aloud, explain what is being implied.

1. I didn’t hit my boss.

2. I didn’t hit my boss.

3. I didn’t hit my boss.

4. I didn’t hit my boss.

It’s easy to see how tones, cadence of speech, and overall delivery can contort a message.

To continue on with the “Lens A” example, those who identify more with Lens B share common ground with Lens A-ers in that they believe their personal account is truthful. What feels real to them must feel equally real to everyone else, right? Wrong.

Something can feel accurate without actually being accurate. I will allow Christopher Hitchens to remind us, “Anything that can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” Further, the burden of proof will reliably fall on the person making the claim--- as it should. It unequivocally demands the person with the flapping lips take the higher ground and support their beliefs with something other than, “I just feel like.”.

Radical honesty is a useful hedge against such misunderstanding-induced rage, rage which comes from banter like the scenarios outlined above. “You’re not listening to me” becomes “I feel like I’m not being heard”. “That’s just the way I am” becomes “It’s become a bit of a habit to do X.” Subtle shifts in language recast us from miserable martyr to that of liberated-person-with-the-humility-to-see-themselves-clearly. Understanding that others are not obligated to see our perspectives as we do makes life not only easier, at least in the wrong run--- but richer.

Blindness is a fiction novel by Jose Saramago, one which tells the story of a society suddenly infected with an epidemic of blindness. One by one, civilians lose their sight. All but the main character’s wife are infected by this elusive, unknown pathogen, painting her character as that of a moral voice of reason. Because she can see, her blind counterparts understand her as threatening, similar to the plot of The Allegory of the Cave. Perhaps they’re fearful not of darkness or lapse in vision, but of the uncertainty which grips a person stripped of their senses, of their comforts, of their “green flags”. Her reality is a “red flag” because it deviates too far from what they think they know.

The novel goes on to describe this society rapidly devolving into savagery akin to the boys in Lord of the Flies. When a people are stripped of their vision, they’re apparently stripped of order. When authority and order are absent, it’s scary how easily civilization breaks down to primal instincts, violence, and fractured morality. While vision loss was the plague which contributed to such cruel acts as starving, raping and physically assaulting people, the true pandemic was that of an unwillingness to see what was directly in front of each character. Their lives, at least their perception of it until that point, was a fragile veneer quickly shattered the moment a society is no longer being observed. We’d all be shocked at how quickly we abandon basic kindness and humanity should we feel threatened. And that being so self-absorbed is its own form of blindness.

It resonated so strongly with what I write so often about that I had to find a way to integrate it into my idea of neurotic overinvestment in green-flag hunting.

People and relationships are not checklists. What kind of depth can exist in a partnership if it’s maintained by proof-checking and emotional surveillance? How can we expect to build competence in any skill if we’ve only ever filtered for those environments or pursuits which we’ve labeled as safe?

It’s entirely possible for a person to make a terrible employee but a wonderful friend. A wicked individual can still generate thoughtful ideas. “Good” people, by all societal standards of that which is “good”, can commit atrocious acts of hatred, or demonstrate any of the checklist items that are “red flags”.

It isn’t about spotting every green flag and clinging to it like a life raft. It’s about being a person of virtue who doesn’t need to hoard them in the first place.

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I am a corpse collector of failed business ventures. I’ve tried and failed ideas across industries, interests, and even skill sets. It’s what has hardened my tolerance to rejection and made life wildly easier (and more interesting) to work through. I’m also the laziest “business owner” you’ll ever meet.

Modern culture is rife with inspiration-porn. I suppose the idea of a “reel”, after all, is to broadcast all evidence of success.

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I stand proudly with my sizable collection of failures.

And yes, I opt to use the word “failures” instead of its gentler synonyms like “fail-forwards”, “hiccups”, “pivots”, or the like, as recasting failure as something worthy of a makeover helps no one. The more effort we put into watering down the labeling and phrasing of “failure”, the less equipped we will be to leverage it when it inevitably occurs.

I derail my own ideas and plans for reasons I struggle to comprehend. Some refer to this as “self-sabotage”. I see it more accurately as, “I’m unafraid of failing and also love the risk of trying something that may end horribly.” By clinical standards, it’s easy to assume I have ADHD or some other brand of mental impairment. By my own standards, it’s just something I’ve come to accept about myself.

The degree to which I’ve managed to over-commit, under-commit, and completely mismanage my time and efforts will surely be of benefit to those who recoil at motivationalizing everything. It’s refreshing to hear someone recount their tragedies as mere tragedies versus “windows of opportunity for personal self-growth and development” or, worse yet, “healing journeys”.

I’d like to first start off by saying it’s acceptable to want a simple life. A simple life where you’re mildly miserable in a job you feel stuck in for reasons either financial or emotional is, contrary to millennial-belief, not an emotional death sentence. You can also have a thousand interests without “niching down” into any of them. You can kickstart projects in a passion-fueled frenzy only to find yourself a week later entirely uninterested by the thought of seeing any of them come to fruition. This usually is not pathological, even if it becomes a nuisance to other people. My husband would be happy to vouch for the 50 different side-gigs, contracts, business ideas, and sales pitches I’ve entertained over the years…

The “Side Hustle” Graveyard

Side Hustle #1: Portrait Commissions

I’ve taken many art commissions across the past 10 years and have made a decent amount of “side money” doing so. Financially, it ‘paid off’; psychologically, it folded me like a lawn chair. Although I had initially committed to university for fine arts, I panicked at the last moment and decided to go forward with clinical psychology instead. Regret occasionally tugs at me and manifests into these sporadic urges to take on commissions. Without fail, every time, I agonize over the product being too far from “perfect”. This tendency taints the entire artistic process to that of spite.

Side Hustle/Primary Business #2: Parent Coaching Business

I started a parent training business that survived for a few years based entirely on referrals. By modern business doctrine, this sounds like a success. And I’m still mildly impressed/proud of myself for the connections that I made which were powerful enough to foster new business. To again speak to the financial gain, what I earned was undeniably ‘good’ and better than any amount of money I could’ve made working for an employer. But, similar to the art gig--- I couldn’t handle the uncertainty and the natural ebb and flow that comes with generating your own income. When referrals eventually fizzled and leads became sparse, I found myself aching for something recurrent and predictable, like a W2 position.

Side Hustle #3: Writing A Book

Somewhat related to my parent coaching business, I wrote a book somewhat informally about protocols parents can implement to raise resilient children. I didn’t publicly try to market the book because I, admittedly, was terrified of how it would be received. I’d already gained some notoriety at this point (unintentionally) for being a straight-shooter whose words “have teeth”, and the fuss kicked up around my attitudes, I feared, would jeopardize my income. The book went essentially nowhere other than a few close colleagues. I’ve since taken to writing Substack pieces, which I far prefer.

Side Hustle #4: Debate-Based CEUs

I’m a Continuing Education Provider for behavior analysts and have spent hundreds of hours developing webinars and live lectures-turned-debates. Regardless of whether or not I’ve decided to charge for them, they’re a source of joy each and every time. They also have filled up pretty quickly and people seem genuinely intrigued by the format, which I have to say is quite unconventional compared to the more traditional trainings provided. Months and months have gone by without my offering a live CE, and I still get requests for their return.

Side Hustle #5: Private CrossFit Coaching

Long before I became a licensed behavior analyst and common sense connoisseur, I had dreams of opening my own health and fitness studio. I became USA Olympic Weightlifting certified, CrossFit certified, USA Powerlifting certified, Strength and Conditioning Assessment and Program Design certified by the time I was 23 years old. I had taken on several private clients by this age, as well as coaching nearly full-time at two CrossFit gyms. While at the time it felt like more money than I’d ever made before, I can’t fathom spending that much “person-contact” time at my ripe old age of 33. Most forms of coaching, at least those in person and on a 1:1 basis, are unsustainable and highly unscalable.

Side Hustle #6: Supervisor & Mentor for Behavior Analysts

In tandem with the webinars, I worked with supervision students in graduate school for behavior analysis, and mentored a small cohort of freshly-minted behavior analysts. This was something I genuinely loved doing and have considered getting back into. I’d meet with students throughout their practicum to troubleshoot clinical problems, role-play scenarios with administrators, management, families, and clients, and plan for what sort of role they’d hope to work in once licensed.

Side Hustle #7: Greeting Cards & E-Commerce

I made snarky greeting cards, stickers, and coloring books in short bursts. My kryptonite was again my unwillingness to get “salesy” and put my work out there more frequently. I still create these for fun.

Side Hustle #8: Health & Fitness Coaching, Again

I frankly can’t remember every form of health and fitness related coaching I’ve done, when exactly I started and stopped, and what the format was, but this was my attempt to move into a more remote type of service. It was far more sustainable than in-person work but was still very difficult to scale.

Side Hustle #9: School SEL, PE, & Health Consulting (Again…)

Lastly, I started a side-company called Mind Your Motion, which is an effort to build physical education and health programs in schools that are geared more towards resilience and critical thinking. While I don’t say this directly to potential clients (which tend to be large educational organizations), I’ll call a spade a spade: it serves to replace any and all SEL frameworks, which only make children (and adults) weak-minded.

As a quick aside--- business-minded people are probably looking at this manifesto of failures and saying to themselves, “it’s because you’re trying to do too many things; you have to pick one and go all in on it.” This may be true. But here’s my overall point. Going “all in” on one thing, and spending all of my time and energy trying to bolster up that one thing… that’s not freedom, at least not to me. And the amount of time, energy, and effort I’d have to put forth to match my current income would drastically cut my weekly free time into pitiful shards. It’s because of my stable, predictable income (which is a damn good income, may I add) that I have the freedom to pick up any side hustle I want--- and ditch it whenever I want.

The Myth of Freedom

I’m realizing I perhaps never wanted freedom from work. Maybe I just wanted freedom from the spinning wheel that is professional ambition, financial “goals” or “benchmarks”, and the stink of bureaucratic bullshit.

What if a cubicle (or an office, or a conference room) is actually freedom? What if you’re making great, sustainable money through the mindless gig our culture demonizes, and you’re able to drop it all come 3:00 PM? So what if it comes with fluorescent lighting and ultra-processed vending machine food and socially awkward colleagues? And, to be blunt, who cares if bored and unfulfilled? It’s a “job”, not a “fun”.

On paper, I’ve profited in every single one of the side-gigs I’ve started. It was never enough to sustain a full-time income, though, as I genuinely despise “the hustle” required to build a successful, thriving business which operates largely outside of the owner’s direct and chronic involvement. I’m not sure I was ever built to develop something like this. While I demand freedom and freewheeling autonomy in any gig I take on, one thing I’ve realized about myself is certain: stability trumps autonomy. And I’m willing to sacrifice some aspects of the reckless abandon I so crave if it means I can expect, every week, to be paid exactly what I worked for.

If you’re like this, jump on in. The water is warm. Do not be swayed by the incessant chatter of ditching your 9-5 so you can “go all in on your business”. It’s courageous to do so. It’s impressive to see people younger and younger starting their own “thing” with minimal education or mentorship as to how to execute. But don’t be fooled into thinking that this is the only path toward liberation, toward a rich life. Conversely, if entrepreneurship sounds inviting, who am I to tell you not to go for it?

People tell me constantly that I should “start my own business”. I’ve been told this nearly every time I show proof of my abilities, whether those be strength-related, art-related, clinical-related, or otherwise. It’s similar to those who tell me I should compete in an event to showcase my athletic skill (which I don’t believe I have much of anymore).

At the end of the day, I gain very little from edging out other people. Competition actually makes me crumble in ways I’m embarrassed to admit. I don’t like sitting around and waiting to see where I rank amongst other people; that’s what I have myself for. I so value my own personal accomplishments, stacked against myself, rather than others, that I will actively avoid most forms of “friendly” contest.

How I Over-Optimize Nothing

I can sleep without checking content statistics at 2AM. I don’t have to show my body to be successful or noticed. My social interactions aren’t plagued by thoughts of profit opportunities. I can adopt 53 hobbies on a Saturday and ditch them all come Thursday, should I so choose. My constellation of interests has zero effect on my income and my ability to provide a rich life for myself and my family.

I am not an entrepreneur. I’m an entrepre-never.

And I’m richer than most in all the ways that matter.

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Yes, Chef

People-pleasing is a culturally-induced pathogen according to Millennials. I do tend to agree that some brands of people-pleasing, like those in which we inadvertently try to control how others respond, are unbecoming. I wrote an entire piece on people-pleasing many months ago, which you can read here. My thesis is simple: people-pleasing has little to do with appeasing another person, but is motivated by sheltering ourselves from any reaction we believe we cannot handle. Differently stated: it’s both conflict-avoidant and validation-driven.

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My personal version of being a “yes-man”, for the sake of this piece, is thoroughly understanding the motive of the person giving direction and playing directly into their hand---through your body language, your tone, and your choice of language. Mastering the crooked art of understanding human behavior, paired with basic business principles, puts those who have adopted the “Yes, Chef” mentality far above their neurotic, burnt-out co-workers---at least in terms of workplace freedom and compensation.

I suppose this is an argument for, “Work Smarter, Not Harder.” Except most people believe they’re working smarter byworking harder, which can end in the promotion to Company Brown-Noser and further social disapproval. I have a different approach.

To adopt “Yes, Chef” does not assume we tolerate disrespect, excessive irrationality, or utter stupidity. The latter two evils are subjective, and will be entirely up to you to determine what criteria fits those bills. The skills required to analyze and predict human behavior are what will forge a finesse that make you unshakable, unbotherable, and “in-the-know” without the stink of Brown-Noser-Extraordinaire.

To path forward? Be capable and simultaneously not stupid. You will say “yes” to projects, cases, deadlines, or conversations that have been perpetually avoided by your co-workers for reasons largely pertaining to “overwhelm”, “burnout”, or any other emotional trickery.

There’s a subtle but crucial, non-negotiable aspect of taking on your new role of the Fearless ‘Yes, Chef’: you cannot, under any circumstances, demand attention or recognition for it. Remember the validation-seeking “people-pleaser” I described earlier, the type which freakishly complies for reasons almost entirely selfish? The same theory applies to becoming the go-to in your W2.

But Also Learn the Tactical No

People occasionally confuse assertiveness with passive-aggression or flagrant cattiness. Women have long since lamented their “assertiveness” being seen as rude or insensitive in the workplace, while men’s assertiveness being seen as commendable. I do not want to dismiss this as being occasionally legitimate. People who stand up for themselves, whether women or men, are submitting to an invisible target being placed upon their forehead. When women do so, specifically in male-dominated industries, it could mistakenly be taken as snobbery.

But more often than not, behaving like a snob begets being seen as a snob. In other words: you’re perceived as a bitch because maybe you are one. We can reject new projects, cases, or work demands while still being kind and, hell, maybe even apologizing. Here are some examples depending on your mood, who you’re speaking with, and what you hope to gain:

The Professional Straight-Shooter: “I’d really like to give this the quality it needs, and I don’t know that I’m able to do that with what’s on my schedule. Maybe you can help me prioritize what needs to be moved so I can get to it?”

Grateful + Inquisitive: “Thanks for considering me for this! If I do take this on, I’ll be honest, something else will probably slip. Which is most important to you?”

Humor (My Favorite): “If I say yes, you owe me a Xanax. That doesn’t seem sustainable for anybody- can we reschedule this without my refilling a prescription?”

The Deferral: “Oh man, I wish I could! I’m on the cusp of no-can-do. I’ll let you know when I wrap up with [current project], if that works for you?”

Reassuring Boundary: “I can’t do it this week. After X is finished, I’m good to start; so we’re looking at between A-Date and B-Date. How does that sound?”

Competence is the Only “Flex” That Pays

Knowing your audience, learning “crowd work”, and sharpening your skillset is a trifecta I’ve come to refer to as adaptable competence. Your “edge” comes from analyzing information you’re presented with from every angle and only then deciding your stance. There isn’t exactly a formula for how to do this, but I’ve done my best to nail it down into a few steps:

1. Your Boss’s Bottom Line Is Your North Star (TLDR: Get Over Yourself)

2. Be Exceptionally Better Than Everyone Else

3. Explain Boss’s Pain In Their Language

4. Offer Yourself Up As the Only Solution

5. Leverage, Leverage, Leverage

1. Your Boss’ Bottom Line Is Your North Star

a. Forget your own for now. Bosses have their own quirks and “languages,” but strip it down and they’re driven by one thing: reduce pain, maximize profit. Listen for what that is. Memorize their phrasing. Use their words back at them.

2. Be Exceptionally Better Than Everyone Else

a. A downside of hyper-competence is being given more work because your co-workers are probably stupid. I don’t actually mean this the harsh way it sounds; it’s just a fact of working quickly, efficiently, and without turning the workplace into a theater for insecurity. Look to your co-workers’ quality of work and the traits they bring to the workplace; their top-line work ethic is your new beginner-level marker.

3. Explain Boss’ Pain In Their Language

a. You have the skills (professionally and socially) to leverage pain. Now you’re tasked with explaining it back to them by paraphrasing, telling a story, and being careful to use words exactly as they’ve phrased them. It doesn’t matter if you find the phrasing personally repugnant; this isn’t about you, perse. It’s about your boss needing to feel heard so you can move on to step 4, which is one step closer to that freedom you claim to crave.

4. Offer Yourself Up As the Only Solution

a. Because your co-workers are self-centered, stupid, and driven by their own inability to manage their emotions, you’re perhaps now becoming noticeable. You’re spotting inefficiencies and bottlenecks in leadership’s systems, and you’re unknowingly generating ideas to stop the hemorrhaging. Do not share these ideas with your co-workers. Share them with Boss in Boss Language. You are now the only person skilled enough to provide this solution; it’s entirely on you to ensure it stays that way.

5. Leverage, Leverage, Leverage

a. This doesn’t save you from every tyrant boss or office spat, but it ranks you as dependable. Once you’re known for competence and quick wit, you earn trust. Trust = less supervision = more freedom.

Deliver the Results

Because we’re not idiots motivated by emotional reasoning, our work must speak for itself. Delivering results or “making good” on our end of the bargain is a crucial step toward liberation as a W2. Over-committing-and-under-performing, and sheepishly making excuses for biting off more than we can chew because of [insert diagnosis here] is exactly how to become forever micromanaged and watched with hawk-like fervor.

We can deliver results without gloating (see earlier anecdote about “never making a spectacle of your accomplishments”). Delivering the results will depend entirely on what task, project, or demand you’ve taken on, but will include the following factors:

1. Very clear understanding of the problem

a. Example: Instead of saying “The scheduling software is annoying to use”, say “Employees are clocking in late because the software requires multiple log-ins, costing us 40–60 minutes of labor per week across the department.”

2. How the problem is negatively affecting Boss’ bottom line

a. Example: “Because the shipping labels weren’t printing correctly, five orders were delayed last week. That led to two refunds and one negative review, which not only costs money but also affects our ratings--- and most of our referrals come from those ratings.”

3. What you took upon yourself to try to mitigate the damage

a. Example: “I contacted the software vendor directly and tested a workaround that reduces login steps. I trained the morning shift on it so we’re already seeing fewer late punches.”

4. A plan for avoiding these same mistakes in the future

a. Example: “I drafted a quick-start guide with screenshots so future hires don’t waste time on login issues. I also suggested to IT that we set a recurring review of the software to catch these glitches earlier.”

5. Proof

a. Example: “Since we started using the workaround, late punches have dropped from eight per week to zero.”

Be the person who says “yes” more than the average worker, “no” more strategically than the dramatic ones, and always ties your effort to the bottom line. That’s how you optimize a career: by knowing when to kiss ass and when to kick it.

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Passion is an emotional prank. At least if it’s used as a metric for declaring a major and making money.

Dependence breeds resentment. And there is no force as poisonous, as potent, as the apathy born of loathing what you used to love.

Many of you contacted me to share how deeply you resonated with my last piece about buying a laundromat. I figured I’d capitalize on our apathy and perform an autopsy on my personality problem. Below are snippets from the exchanges I’ve had with many of you about your pursuit of a “simpler life”; maybe I’m looking for it, but I’ve found a common thread amongst them all:

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1. People having failed repeatedly at monetizing their hobbies, because they start to hate them, which stifles creativity and motivation to do them at all

2. Feeling insecure about what used to just be a passion project or “for fun”

3. Being pressured to start a business by others (based on their interests/passions) because of their skill

4. Becoming hyper-perfectionistic and neurotic with routines that used to be stress-relieving

5. Obsessing in private how people would like their public persona

David Graeber, author of Bullshit Jobs, writes an unflinching account of the “spiritual damage” that is doing work which is useless, unnecessary, and functionally pointless. In one portion of his book, he writes, “I am using the term “box tickers” to refer to employees who exist only or primarily to allow an organization to be able to claim it is doing something that, in fact, it is not doing.”

For much of human history, mostly before the debut of technology and when identity was shaped through religion or community, work functioned as a form of survival rather than self-actualization. “Doing your part” held more weight to the everyday employee than the self-expression so rampant in younger workforces. Abraham Maslow reminds us that survival needs must be met before our brain even begins to consider concepts like “purpose”, “meaning”, or “self-betterment”; you’re unlikely to agonize over your soul’s calling if you can’t afford heat during a Midwestern winter.

Although work was necessary for us humans to live, pre-industrial societies sustained their lives and relationships through these work roles, making for at least subtle changes in an person’s self-concept (i.e., while hard work was not yet seen as a moral obligation, a sense of duty remained at the core of work). It was with these newly-rendered temperaments that the professional focus shifted away from steady, paying gigs to the promise of a “meaningful impact.”

Historian Christopher Lasch in The Culture of Narcissism describes the Protestant work ethic as being morally virtuous, even righteous, but not personally fulfilling. I frequently wonder if we’d be better off seeing our professions through the lens of “morally good” versus “I’m passionate about this and it’s my calling, and it’s pivotal to who I am as a person.”Absorbing our work to compose a performative brand has made for young professionals seemingly incapable of understanding themselves outside of how well-liked they are by faceless avatars, avatars entirely uninterested in who they are beyond their Instagram enactments.

Sociologists refer to this Western-specific melodrama as “passion ideology”, or a surly fetish for “loving what we do so we never have to work a day in our lives”, or that we’re lesser-than individuals exiled to a life misaligned with our public-facing values should we confess this unadulterated truth: that we want to do everything but also nothing, that owning a business and snagging the title of “Girl Boss” sounds great, in theory, but so does coasting along getting paid to do next to nothing in a bullshit job.

Feigning open-mouthed fascination with makeshift problems is our way of compensating for Graeber’s understanding of our “bullshit job”. Those hellbent on attaining some fleeting sense of intention in their work (I was for many years) are almost guaranteed a professional life rich with make-believe troubles to “solve” with sham findings. There’s an industry for this brand of imaginary play, and it’s called “consulting”, or any role whose title ends in “coordinator” or “liaison”.

But what if we allow our work to stay soulless, while all of the hours outside of it remain intact, rife with joy, meaning, fun? You be the judge of which ranks as more demoralizing: dancing around with our cellulite-covered ass cheeks on social media in an attempt to market ourselves and our personal lives like products… or getting paid stable income to do nothing? I suppose both scenarios are unnerving, at best. And our willingness to tolerate either is largely dependent upon our personality and, yes, our values.

Aspirational labor, or pretend-work which serves the purpose of emotional wellbeing more so than financial (see above industries, like “consulting”), smudges the lines between our hobbies, our jobs, and our sense-of-selves. In many ways, we don’t have jobs anymore; we are jobs. Performing for the sake of attention has appeared to replace much of a person’s actual personality, eroding trust and leveraging gullibility as financial security. This forces people to either get ridiculously, elite-level good at that hobby they once considered “just for fun”, or to keep up in private with the persona they’ve so gaudily marketed in public. Both are time-consuming and require far more work than we realize.

Maybe, just maybe, coasting and accepting life as an average joe is the most stable path toward FIRE (financially independent/retiring early). I do very much appreciate “influencers” like Codie Sanchez and the Hormozis convincing every day, average employees to reclaim Main Street by owning their own businesses. I also think it’s overly simplified and a tad reductionist to assume that the act of buying or starting a business is, inarguably, hard work, but also mind-numbingly simple. Even the simplest of businesses will more than likely require a person to work double the amount they would had they just stayed in their 9-5. It’s worth it to weigh and measure what gradient of insufferable crap you’re willing to scrub before jumping in the glistening pool that is “entrepreneurship is for everyone, and being an entrepreneur means you’re cooler than the average shmuck.”

Working with my hands has been the central feature of every hobby I find meaningful, a productive use of my time, and a net-positive towards my personal growth. Working at an animal shelter for 6-8 hours a week, much of which is scrubbing dog poop off of the grooves of my shoes, underneath my nails, in the fibers of my clothes, and even from my eyebrows, has become just one task I take pride in more than any behavior plan I’ve ever written. It’s almost like I can visibly witness any professional ambitions I once had swirling down the rust-and-shit-smeared drain along with the fragments of feces, urine, and grime.

I have two Master’s degrees, both of which pertain to the human psyche and why us humans are insistent upon our own extinction via repeated, seemingly unpunishable stupidity. Although I had my reservations about college even during my graduate programs, its rotten motives were only revealed after I’d entered the workforce. With my every basic need met and now two expensive pieces of paper to my name (along with over a hundred thousand dollars in student loans), I’d scrounge every grimy corner of clinical settings, schools, group homes, and research labs for that little ember of purpose other students spoke so frequently of. That ember would never be found in a career, because this entire idea (i.e., that work serves the purpose of brand-and-identity-building) is deceiving as it is clownish.

Do you think plumbers feel like imposters? Do you think electricians spiral about whether they’ve earned the right to install wiring in a corporate office, or farmers are tormented by their values misaligning with having to breed dairy cows?

Do I feel a sense of, “This is so not my vibe” when a shelter dog takes a sprinting dive into diarrhea, turns to lurch towards me, and paints feces across my mouth in steaming streaks? Not in the slightest. It’s actually quite the opposite. Lobotomizing my “work personality”, and removing any pursuit of purpose from any gig which lacks clear mastery criteria, is how I’ve managed to forge peak excitement in that which is mundane.

Overidentifying with abstract, often times made-up roles builds the bones of misery. We need a sense of mastery in a skill to feel accomplished, and roles without clear criteria for this sort of skill-acquisition (i.e., writers, artists, entrepreneurs, therapists) breed a sense of “imposter syndrome”, which is little more than insecurity. What does it mean to be a “good” versus “great” therapist? How does a writer know when they’ve mastered writing? Do artists feel rewarded when they’ve “officially” hit a ceiling on their skillset?

Through university degrees, some of us believe we’ve purchased a future ripe for significance, only to find our purpose in the dirt, down a grimy hallway, in a steaming pile of shit. To reiterate a reality that will never go viral: some of us are perfectly content with our low-6-figure salaries, traveling once a year (maybe a little less), hoarding as much money as possible to retire early doing something completely unsexy, boring, revolutionary, or “rewarding”. Paid pointlessness is, in many ways, a form of freedom.

I once heard Alex Hormozi state that “good friends are busy friends.” I think I understand what he’s getting at with this statement: that people he finds personally valuable and relationships he treasures tend to be with those who share his motivation for work and money. What this statement misses, though, is the entire concept of modern day: that 75% of jobs are functionally meaningless and, while they can make anyone look “busy”, they still produce zero results worthy of a blink.

Anyone can spend 9+ hours a day pretending to work. Even I can do that, and I can’t say with certainty that I’ve ever worked longer than a 10-hour day in my entire life. To be frank, I’m sure there are many a day that I worked out more than I actually worked.

Hard work and productivity are not siblings, but distant cousins. Most “productive” people I’ve met are productive so long as the task is aligned with what’s comfortable and socially acceptable. Most hard-working people I’ve met are complete nobodies to the outside world and have found solace in peace over purpose.

Maybe, just maybe, simplicity will be the new revolution.

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestlyunorthodox.substack.com

*As a quick aside, I’m changing the format of my pieces so that they’re easier to read and are more visually pleasing. As much as I despise the idea of “dumbing down” the skill of reading comprehension, it’s worth a shot to condense things into formats better received. I’ve shortened the material as well as included numbered lists/bulleted sections to give you a better idea of what you’re getting into. Gurwinder Bhogal refers to these as “listicles”, or articles-containing-lists. I loved the idea, so thought I’d give it a whirl.

When Self-Control Quietly Quits

I have an impulse problem. It’s a phantom pet I’ve nurtured my entire life despite my understanding that this cuddly pet is feral. It’s a wicked game of cat-and-mouse that is alluring to people like me: the thrill of wanting but not having overrides the actual attainment of whatever it is we’ve fixated on for the day, the week, the year.

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Perhaps this is further evidence that my impulse problem is one of clinical-grade proportion. Regardless, though, my recognition of it is my saving grace and spares me therapy and psychotropic costs.

I’ve found that my impulses act up not in times of peak distress, but in times of peak enjoyment. Some aspect of joy, at least a lion’s share of the time, lacks the potency to register as joyous, as thrilling, as unfettered delight. I’ve struggled to understand this oddity, myself, as I tend to find nearly everything funny, amusing, or worthy of my curiosity.

It’s a cruel affliction to constantly feel like I’m chasing an elusive sensation, only to obtain The Thing and grow immediately bored with it. The fervor with each pursuit is what produces The Thing, rather than The Thing itself. This has held true since my childhood: I treasured practice for sports but hated competition; the throes of learning to draw were more rewarding than completion of the drawing; agonizing over a skill was more fun in retrospect than fluency of it.

My clinical education has taught me that us humans are misguided, highly-inaccurate judges of our own experiences. Despite this knowledge, I’ll proceed to take a stab at what’s going on with my psyche. I’ve come to realize that “good feelings”, or my circumstances largely meeting the criteria for “good” or “stable” or “successful”, tend to trigger my impulses more than pressure, high stakes, or distressing circumstances. Anna Lembke describes this as a baseline homeostasis, or an emotional default, that is permanently tipped toward sensation-seeking for reasons neuroscientists cannot explain. She refers to impulsive people as requiring a “higher level of friction”, and heedlessly seeking that friction in moments of boredom, when experiencing relaxation, and even in times of stability. Sameness, in many ways, is not ideal for us impulsive dimwits.

The problems which interfere most with my life are my obsessive behavior and the apparent amnesia I suffer when a shiny object, event, or opportunity lurches into my periphery. Whether or not these are clinical symptoms or just evidence of a rusty hinge on the scale of my brain chemistry, the onus is on me to decide how to lessen my impulsivity. It is on me, and nobody else, to build a robust skillset during times I’m most prone to behave inappropriately.

Self-awareness is my Swiss army knife, and it’s what has resulted in my decision to more aggressively exit any and all forms of clinical/therapeutic/psychological work... and look to recession-proof, boring-but-effective businesses to buy.

And yes, I’m serious, and yes, I loathe clinical work with the blazing fire of a thousand suns. If you find yourself skeptical that this is yet another seductive plight, I would understand. But I can assure you it’s something I’ve taken seriously, and have deemed fundamental to my long-term sanity and financial success. Why are boring businesses especially crucial for impulsive people? So glad you asked!

1. They provide predictable, external structure: regular hours, repetitive operations, predictable tasks

2. They offer clear problems and clear solutions: little room for abstract or unsolvable or unmeasurable problems of “purpose”

3. The rewards are mechanical instead of emotional: do the work and get paid

4. They provide the friction I need to keep impulses in check: no chasing fancy initiatives, pursuits that make people think more critically, or emotionally-driven goals. You’re locked into mundane systems whether you like it or not

They Tell You To Dream Big. I Say Dream In Quarters.

Cue my faceless confessional: I have not purchased a laundromat (or any small business) yet. I’ve instead researched endlessly how to acquire small businesses, learn what clues and facts to look for in a business’ financials, and quietly sift through my due diligence checklist to avoid that which is at the core of my dysfunction: compulsive decision-making. The mundane nature of business, coupled with my fear of it, are curative for my impulsivity.

When I’m not doing my mindless behavior analytic work, I’ve devoted most moments of free time to physical labor tasks----all of which are unpaid. I was always meant to be working and sweating with my hands, sweltering under the Midwestern sun, completing “real” work with a measurable result. Therapeutic jobs are directly, aggressively antithetical to those character traits I treasure. As an active person built to be moving, with a peculiar bent for mild physical suffering, sitting in a chair listening to trivial problems would never end well.

I’m gradually expanding my blue-collar tool belt, from growing my own vegetables and fruits to tilling land to caring for farm animals. My woodworking, though embarrassingly imprecise, has garnered a tenacity my professional career has repeatedly failed to bring. My childhood and teenage years were largely spent with my family and I working tirelessly in an animal shelter, and I’ve added kennel work to my growing list of pro-bono labor.

In addition to redefining myself as a hard worker (ha!), I have quite a bit of research and hands-on experience to hoard before I decide which businesses I’d like to purchase in the coming years. I’ve narrowed it down to three:

1. Laundromat

2. Vending machines

3. Anything involving animals/pet care

4. Maybe all three!

All three ventures share two core qualities:

Firstly, nobody gives a damn about my credentials, and people do not sit around in their lethargic, Western malaise acting fascinated by problems. There’s work to be done that is straightforward with minimal margin for emotion-driven interpretation.

Secondly, there’s minimal management of irrational human beings. Of course, with staff and clients being of the human brand, moments of frustration and “are you fucking kidding me?” are guaranteed. But to drastically reduce both the opportunity and frequency for such elective discourse makes for the pivot I need.

It took me a few years of being licensed to realize that I may hate managing grown adults, at least as it relates to managing their emotional outbursts. Being a psychotherapist or human service professional carries with these roles a stereotypical glow, the kind which elicits a wetness in the eyes trailed immediately with some statement as to how we’re “doing God’s work.” This is a kind analysis, but it’s highly inexact. People simply do not understand, by no fault of their own, the bureaucratic idiocy which drives nonsensical and meaningless billable hours, the political bent to nearly all of women in management positions, and how much time is spent doing busywork that bears little semblance to our role.

Signs I Outgrew My “Helping “Profession”

1. Chronic frustration with hearing problems, problems which I’d addressed for several consecutive months while clients inched toward abysmal change

2. A perverse impatience with “rapport-building”, the surface-level small talk, and being a sounding post for problems better solved with common sense

3. “Breakthroughs” became about as thrilling as traffic school

All of this to say, I want nothing to do with anything I went to school for. I’m another victim of the idiotic advice to “follow my passion”, which is largely detrimental for a normal person, let alone for an impulsive one with a new passion every month. I am a challenge-glutton, and I must be tamed by logic… not inspiration. Passion makes us betray ourselves again and again.

Impulse vs. Intuition

If you’re reading and find yourself nodding along, perhaps you can resonate with this epiphany: my professional career rendered me a martyr for systems designed to be faulty. I was first noticed in the field for my punchy criticisms of nonsensical, leftist rhetoric that I still think all of us should be critical of, but being noticed did little in terms of changing the system or even encouraging diverse thinking. I believed I held the power to modify frameworks from the inside and “make a difference” the way elder clinicians promised. None of it happened and never will happen--- at least for me. I don’t want to make a difference anymore. I want to find a gig that does not demand I make any sort of difference or find any sort of purpose.

If you’re impulsive like me, you need a container rather than a calling. Maybe boring businesses are that container.

And I do hope you follow along as I bouncily waltz away from “mental health”.

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I lie about my brother because I’m desperate to control how other people will respond, despite impossible conversations being central my entire shtick. Consciously, I fail to see these “people-pleasing” bids as attempts to manipulate the outcome of a conversation. Growing more aware of our deception, but choosing to deceive regardless, would render a person cruel or clinically bat-shit (or both). I don’t think I’m cruel, but I definitely flirt with the margins of bat-shit. To reassure myself and my readers, this is largely normal behavior that most of us do both with and without conscious awareness. We fib, we construct an intricate series of white lies, and we shmooze and fake-smile so as to keep some unwritten peace between ourselves and the people we interact with.

I once worked with a family who lost their beloved father quite suddenly. The family quilt, held tightly together through Pops’ sense of humor and patience, was now tattered, irreparable. The relationships between the others (the two sisters, brother, and Mom) hung only by frayed threads they hadn’t realized as so spindly, so fine. These brands of difficulty, whether mildly insane or truly tragic, soften the veneer of our “perfect life” and reveal our worst tendencies and traits just below. It’s unfortunate that it takes such bad circumstances to fully understand ourselves.

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The family had one adult child with severe Down’s Syndrome. They had been burdened for decades by the highly destructive behavior and cost of therapies and out-of-pocket providers and “sensory equipment”, and it was the late Pops’ primary task to guide the house in managing the unrelenting load. With Pops’ absence in mind, I couldn’t find it within me to share my own experience of my brother sort-of-kind-of tragically passing. I say “sort-of-kind-of” because my family had come to accept his death as imminent by virtue of his heroin addiction; we just couldn’t forecast the timeline of it. I believe it was two or so years ago when I had first written about Conner’s death on Substack, and remember phrasing it something like, “We absorbed his passing while he was still here, as if he had already faded.” It was a live-action role-play that is the idiom, “death by a thousand cuts”.

When I first heard that the daughter with Down’s Syndrome was a twin, my knee-jerk reaction was to respond with, “I am too!” In lockstep with my emotions I was tibia-deep in the bear trap of awkward conversation. My options were straightforward: be honest and stoic and authentic in the same manner I encourage others to be when these situations arise… or lie. I chose the latter. I lied about Conner being dead by claiming he was still alive.

Death and death do not cancel each other out in conversation, as I’d come to conclude. This became my justification. My little mind and its penchant for trickery would see this as an opportunity to deceive even myself into believing that talk of my brother was unimportant. I proceeded to speak as if Conner were only minutes away, enjoying his life as I did mine.

Firstly, this tendency is profoundly selfish, albeit subliminal. My own fear of their reaction was what drove me to not only to lie--- but to justify lying. I sometimes reenact the fake scenario where I ruefully tell my parents I lied about Conner being alive and well, all to their disgust and their torment and their salted weeps. Why do we do this to ourselves? In the same wicked scheme that is paying money to experience sadness watching a movie, I apparently opt for experiencing agony by imagining my parents branding me a callow brute, unfit to sit at the grown-up table of real-life.

Let’s return to my lying to the family--- an event that actually occurred outside of my imagination. Yes, of course I cared about how they were managing to get by in light of the tragedy they’d all been dealt. It was this understanding that resulted in the strange sense that I’d owed them a positive experience, a laugh, a kernel of reassurance that they’d learn to accept this as only a small interruption to the life they’d planned for. They didn’t demand this from me, nor did they imply they needed my consoling. It was undue pressure I’d placed on myself to provide something impossible to materialize: their Dad and all that came with him.

I left many words unsaid because I was unwilling to tolerate their questions, their reaction, their condolences to Conner being gone. Psychologists are probably foaming at the mouth theorizing the many reasons this is only a manifestation of my own intolerance for my own condolences to Conner.

So I tried to control the family instead.

In my own defense, I’ve come to this analysis only in retrospect. This moment captured through my keyboard was an exchange lasting probably 20 seconds or less. In the thick of that space, between her comment and mine, the ping of a subtle impulse convinced me,“It’s not worth the trouble of explaining. You have a twin brother, and that’s the end of the story.”

The words unsaid are those feelings I have about Conner. They’re unsaid around my parents because I am a hypocrite. This discernment has evolved into a question I’m now unable to wrest from the forefront of my mind.

It’s a question of whether or not we could hold a belief with an iron grip despite consistently acting against it. Can we believe something but also take consistent action against its core feature? Can we value our health while regularly indulging in Thin Mints? On perhaps a deeper note: can we treasure the sanctity of marriage but allow our eyes to gaze astray? As I age, many of my beliefs and perspectives have unraveled with new information, information which lurches toward me from the unlikeliest of places.

I’m terrified of my parents’ reactions to any conversation related to my brother. Mom has managed to maintain composure when his name is brought up, a step in her progress that took about three years following his death to achieve. Prior to this milestone reached, she was a puddle at the mere mention of something only tangentially related to Conner in any way. As the English language and human cognition would have it, any single person, place, or thing can find a connection to something else if we torture reality enough. While I’m certain she didn’t try to look for Conner in unrelated places, I imagine her pain was so all-consuming that he trickled into every crack of her conscience--- whether she liked it or not.

My Dad, on the other hand, has always been more reserved in his emotional expressions. There have been three moments in my entire life that I’ve seen him cry. Once was when we were heading into a horrendous Illinois winter with multiple feet of snow, and my brother sold our snowblower for what was equivalent to a teaspoon of heroin. Conner’s addiction had already absolved him of any useful housework or yardwork, leaving the labor to my Dad and I. While I can’t remember exactly how my Dad managed to afford a snowblower, I know my parents’ manufacturing-plant, blue-collar jobs made it a 6-month venture to put money aside to plan for its purchase. Dad’s tears came that night. Conner’s did not.

Perhaps the most horrible few hours of witnessing my Dad crying came when he called to tell me that Conner had died. The police in Florida tried to contact my Mom first but couldn’t get a hold of her. Dad was next on the list.

Dad called me with a crack in his voice I immediately knew was imbued with tragedy. Nothing prepares you for events like death, no matter how many times you’ve neurotically rehearsed your emotional response. When your brother is a heroin addict, you nail your lines; then it only becomes a matter of time before you’re charged with performing them. That matter of time, though, wallops the wind out of your every fiber as if you’d had no idea all these years he was anything other than a healthy, happy kid. Rehearsal is moot in the labyrinth that is grief.

Dad is a veracious reader and writer. I’ve inherited his love for the English language and its ability to invoke both wonder and rage within a single sentence. It’s crazy, really, to think words have that much power. I suppose it’s why the words unsaid are equally damning.

The words unsaid are those feelings I have about Conner. They’re unsaid around my parents because I am a hypocrite. I’m a hypocrite because my entire career and reputation is based on my willingness to talk to anyone about anything, my ability to respect diverse points of view with a warmth and a sense of humor, and demonstrating competence through my openness to conversation. But I can’t have a single conversation about my brother so long as the listeners are my parents.

I’m a hypocrite because the hours I pour into motivating others to resolve conflict, I’m unable to do with my parents. The silent conflict remains, and avoidance begets avoidance. The Conner-sourced tension has since distilled down to that of a simmer, gradually cooled down from the rolling boil it was for years after we’d gotten The Call. But the cauldron still functions as the invisible stew between us. I’m a hypocrite because I don’t want to move it. The cauldron that is guilt, the cauldron that is fear dictates my next course of action. My thoughts about Conner, my disturbing dreams about Conner; they evaporate into the mist which hangs carefully over the stew. Mom, Dad and I… We’ve all trained one another to become avoidant, at least as it relates to his memories.

To answer my own question, maybe we can believe strongly in an idea or a notion while also betraying it. Maybe life is that complex, and that’s the beauty in it. Maybe we see these traits in other people and admire how they demonstrate them better than we’re capable of. Perhaps the very belief we hold, but are inept at embodying, is one better left to people more equipped than we are to pay this belief forward. That, or we can learn to engender it on our own. Either way, our dependence on others remains a constant.

When I see professional track athletes and their work ethic, I’m only minimally inspired to put in more effort in my own exercise routine. Does it mean I do not value hard work, fitness, and perseverance in the name of achieving a goal? Obviously not. My values-gradient is just different from Sha’Carri Richardson.

Conner loved our family despite behaving as if we were disposable. If we were to assign numerical value to how often our habits reflect our truest beliefs… what number would suffice? Who gets to decide what that quotient looks like? With the world moving so quickly toward medicalizing and numerically assigning quotients to every experience, is this something we can get away with just leaving be? Can we understand that the most meaningful aspects of life cannot be plugged into a formula or ChatGPT? Or, that if they are, they almost immediately bleed substance? Maybe the world’s problems seem so herculean that we’re desperate for a more concrete answer, one like a simple formula or a checklist or a flowchart. There is no flowchart to properly quantify the pain and suffering of Conner’s last few years of living.

There’s also no formula for determining how far along I am in my recovery from anorexia. Or how much my parents have healed following the tragic death of a child.

Or when I’ll be less of a hypocrite and share my truest writing with Mom and Dad.

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If you’d like to receive CEUs for this episode, please follow the below payment link! After submitting payment, you’ll be directed to a Google form. Upon a passing score, you’ll receive an automated CEU certificate straight to your email.

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Right to Rot examines how behavioral health systems, particularly group homes, ABA programs, and long-term disability services, can unintentionally foster learned helplessness by stripping individuals of meaningful decision-making, discomfort tolerance, and personal agency. Rooted in a well-intentioned desire to protect, many systems over-rely on prompts, avoid challenge, and champion low standards, leading clients to internalize a belief that they are incapable of acting independently.

We'll explore how staff judgment often overrides client autonomy, especially in matters related to health, fitness, diet, hygiene, and risk. When a disabled adult declines a walk, refuses vegetables, or smokes outside, the system may allow it… citing “choice.” But when the same person asks to deadlift, eat low-carb, or go for a run outside, the system intervenes. This selective cherry-picking reflects a deeper bias: that some forms of health and independence are too sophisticated or too risky for “people with [insert diagnosis here].” The result is not true choice.

Staff, too, are often trapped in systems that discourage initiative, creativity, and critical thinking. Protocols emphasize risk management over empowerment. Policies reward safety over strength of most any kind. The same learned helplessness we see in clients (i.e., avoidance of discomfort, inability to manage oneself emotionally, hyper-reliance on staff) is seen in the people paid to support them.

This CEU challenges practitioners to recognize the behavioral and cultural patterns that reinforce stagnation under the guise of support. It calls into question our definitions of dignity, risk, and quality of life for people with disabilities.

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

* Describe current health disparities between adults with developmental disabilities and their neurotypical peers.

* Analyze how overextension of the “dignity of risk” and Human Rights Committees can impede skill acquisition and worsen long-term outcomes.

* Identify cognitive and behavioral factors that limit capacity for health-based decision-making in moderate to severely impaired populations.

* Propose ethical, evidence-based interventions that promote autonomy through structure, skill-building, and behavioral momentum (instead of permissiveness).

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestlyunorthodox.substack.com

To avoid semantic arguments and/or confusion, any reference to optimist or pessimist throughout this piece will be based on the below definitions.

Optimist: a person who tends to be hopeful and confident about the future or the success of something.

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Pessimist: a person who tends to see the worst aspect of things or believe that the worst will happen.

Perhaps the best place to begin is by examining the great bastardization of optimism, commonly dubbed “toxic positivity” or “fake happiness”.

Counterfeit optimists rely on platitudes and vapid language swaps to trudge through their day. They’re the ones chirping at you to “just be mindful” after your leg has been severed in a horrific lawn-mowing fiasco. They’re present to gently demand you “don’t say that!” when you reference anything brutally honest about your worst traits. And doggone it, counterfeit optimists will be damned if reality gets in the way of their overly-positive reframe on the world. Their pursuit of happiness becomes the very thing which makes happiness an impossibility. From a clinical standpoint, people who are depressed actually have a more accurate perspective on reality than non-depressed people.

With the advent of social media, we’ve tainted the concept of happiness, or even meaning, to that of entertainment. I’m no stranger to entertainment or to its benefits, as I see a general thirst for more joy in our lives, our lives which have become medicalized to the degree of data-tracking breaths, blood, steps, and heart beats via wearable devices and apps. There’s a fine line between self-awareness and self-obsession, I suppose.

George Orwell feared that our existence would be one of oppression; our every decision would be controlled by fear and pain. Aldous Huxley, conversely, argued that it would be our perverse obsession with triviality and distraction that would secure our decay. In looking to modern culture, I ruefully accept the latter as more accurate. To pull from behavioral science, our behavior is largely influenced by our environment. While I hate to rely on external circumstances as being so powerful in our decisions, they play a larger role than we believe in why we almost instinctually thumb toward Instagram or pound on the keyboard like an ape when our computer freezes.

The magical and often times invisible linchpin in our decisions comes down to one word: contingencies. If-then. This then that, or if that then not this. If I drive 58 miles per hour in a 35 past a cop lurking in a Baskin Robbins, then I will get pulled over. If I do not show up to work, then I will not get paid. These more mundane examples run amok in everyday life with little effort in looking. To speed things up, I’ll focus on social contingencies: how quickly we can modify our behavior based on social approval or rejection. Counterfeit optimists? Highly attuned to exactly what you think of them.

Outwardly, counterfeit optimists may appear well-adjusted. They make so many lists! They’re so organized and resourceful! They’re always jumping up and down and squealing in a high-pitched voice! They’re so bubbly and inspirational! With some clinical prowess, and a childhood lead by older parents with an allergy to merriment, allow me to assure you: while there is a rare portion of people who are genuinely excited to seize each day, many who rely on pop-psychology to appear happy are wildly insecure, terribly avoidant, and neurotic. Their fear of negativity, in both experiencing it and responding to it, is repeatedly rewarded through the escapism of inspirational quotes and mantras in times of distress. Who knew not feeling bad was as easy as telling myself that there is no “bad”? If this sounds familiar, rest assured: I’ve been this person countless times throughout my 33 years of being alive. I may have even been one this morning. What’s more important is how we respond to negativity when our behavior is taken as an average across time.

It's with my somber-yet-sarcastic outlook on reality that I’ve come to revel in what may be referred to as “cheerful pessimism”, or the Stoic realization that we should expect everything and be certain of nothing.

In some circles, to expect any event to go awry is textbook pessimism. I, in many ways, disagree. There is something to be said about the negativity bias, which spotlights only those negative events and assigns greater weight and prominence to unpleasant thoughts and feelings. You've experienced this before if 1) you're a human being and/or 2) you've received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback and one negative comment, and you proceed to stew in the pungent marinade of criticism for days following the blow, entirely dismissing all of the good. Negativity is a hell of a drug.

I still contest, though, that to be realistically negative bears greater resilience than the air-headed optimism we come across so frequently in younger populations. The determining factor in psychological wellbeing is our response to negativity and positivity, rather than the ratio of total positive-to-negative events. It’s this very reason some experience tragedy but do not go on to develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) while others claim their roommate being mad at them is “little t” trauma and cause for calling the campus counseling hotline. It’s a matter of acceptance and action.

Failure to accept what reality is is the carrot frantically guiding so many delusional bunnies toward hopeful happiness. Fixating on a sensation (i.e., happiness), which we’ve long since known is fleeting, should unsurprisingly result in a person always fiending for a high that never quite “hits right” like the first time. This incessant loop of chase-almost-there-why-don’t-I-feel-better is what causes persistent frustration and despair. Existential depression, a low mood characterized by traditional depressive symptoms, arises from a sense meaninglessness and feeling that life lacks purpose. This is a bit of a double-edged sword. Those with depressive symptoms are more realistic judges of reality compared to their bubbly counterparts, as mentioned earlier. They’re philosophical thinkers, hence their somber belief in their existence and what “this” all means. Society has come to value thoughts of philosophers like Socrates or Aristotle, which leaves us in a bit of a pickle: thinking can be good, aside from the times that it’s bad.

Viktor Frankl, well-known author of Man’s Search for Meaning, pulls from his theory that is logotherapy to help us “dereflect”: turn attention away from our problems and toward something of larger importance or meaning. To hyperfocus on a problem and its negative implications is to actively avoid the action necessary to resolve that problem, a cluster of events that often happens subconsciously. One of the best ways to do so, especially for the person who feels that life lacks substance? Shift toward an act that will benefit another person, and expect nothing in return (there it is again--- expect nothing!). Create a hierarchy of events that typically lead to excessive introspection, and commit to calling someone on the phone and only ask about how they’re doing. Make a note of what it felt like to sustain attention toward something/someone outside of yourself.

The more we age and cognitively mature, the greater likelihood our demands for joy increase. Watch a preschool classroom for even 15 minutes and you’re sure to find yourself nostalgic in observing the unfettered glee over things we’ve deemed trivial: an extra-big balloon, someone making a silly face, a new Hot Wheels track. In watching what makes a marionette of their wee, playful hearts, I find myself muttering, “I wish I got that excited about anything anymore.” Pessimist!

Or am I? Because being an adult means much of your everyday life will be rife with pain, frustration, irritability, or downright cynicism. Perhaps disorders or even mild impairment from these depressive symptoms aren’t the problems, but are manifestations of what we’re truly struggling with: accepting the gradient of human experience. The quote I’ve included as the subheading for today’s piece encapsulates this idea. It’s entirely possible to acknowledge the positivity of a situation while closely monitoring and preparing for the negative. And willful ignorance of that which is icky? I’d argue this is a greater demonstration of “believing that bad things will happen” than simply accepting bad news is always a possibility.

I heard a statistic recently which cited a need for 3% of the American populace to have to be licensed therapists to supply the demand for mental health disorders. The estimated population of the United States is currently 335 million people, which implies 10 million needing to become licensed clinicians to supposedly make a dent in our One Nation, Under Therapy. To illustrate the impossibility of this: between mental health counselors, marriage and family therapists, psychologists, social workers, and substance-and-drug-rehab counselors, we have about 811,000 licensed professionals. Now what?

Instead of demanding we license more professionals to meet an ever-increasing need, I propose a radical shift in understanding mental distress. The rise in mental illness, with depression and anxiety reigning supreme across all age brackets, genders, and even socioeconomic status, is born of our intolerance for reality. We recognize that a fetish for optimism is about as equally damaging as simply being a sad sack, but we’re still unsure how to strike a thoughtful balance between accepting the difficulties of life while preserving hope for a better future. My one suggestion is to learn to become “happy” with being unhappy. And It doesn’t even require a professional!

1. Pause more often. To become accepting means we must first become aware, and to become aware, we need to slow the hell down and get in tune with our everyday behavior. This is an argument for some form of continued practice in mindfulness/meditation.

2. Choose a behavior you regularly engage in that you’d like to change. Your task is to first become aware of whenever you’re about to engage in the behavior, and proceed to complete 60 seconds of box breathing every single time you catch yourself. Getting annoying? Good! That’s the point. Change does not feel good. It will never feel good.

3. Expect negativity, discomfort, and distress in your day-to-day life. Instead of desperate attempts to reframe them as “learning opportunities” or “teachable moments” or some brand of grit fetish, just sit still with the gunk. Don’t try to fix it, argue it, ruminate or rehash. Sit there. I find it helpful to say, out loud, “Huh!” when I’m tempted to overreact to something (like this morning when my sourdough bread didn’t rise in the oven.)

4. Understand that feeling “better” does not mean you’re improving--- or that feeling “bad” does not imply you’re doing something wrong. This is why myself and so many others have dropped out of mindfulness practices: it doesn’t “feel right”, we don’t “feel centered”, our “thoughts go all over”, we “can’t relax or find peace.” These are commercial, brilliantly-marketed-but-inaccurate concepts of mindfulness. It does not feel cathartic or calming in the moment, and it is not supposed to. Expect that it will feel wildly uncomfortable (see #3), commit to practicing regardless, and reap the benefits only after consistent practice despite the feelings.

5. If you’re someone who does not know how to respond to someone else’s negative remarks, so usually reverts to saying something like “Don’t say that!” or “Stop it!”… YOU stop it. Maybe you simply respond with “huh!” when someone says something to you. How does that feel?

I’d love to hear your experiences with these experiments, as usual, and please feel free to use some of the free resources I’ve put on the website!

www.mindyourmotion.info

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I take an unconventional approach to treatment. And by “unconventional”, I mean common sense, common sense which is largely condemned in mental health and behavioral health fields. When I first suggested a student with social anxiety be required to take public speaking, her treatment team responded, “Won’t that just make her anxiety like, so much worse?” This was nearly 5 years ago, right as the tide turned toward likening mental illness to Pokémon cards. Our delusion has grown worse since then.

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One feature of academic dialogue is the advent of AI, the general decay of universities, and how technology is destroying young peoples’ personalities and learning. I’m unsure these conversations are constructive in that a profound focus on fear rarely tends to end in solutions. Continuing to talk about how med students are getting through med school via ChatGPT, for example, is a futile endeavor. Is it imperative we understand any problem thoroughly should we hope to develop a solution? Of course. But we must not mistake complaining about a problem for solution-focused action toward resolving the problem. Bitching is the ultimate social enchanter, casting a spell of productivity or catharsis without any proof of outcome that the spell is working its magic.

ChatGPT isn’t being used as a tool to enhance thinking, but to replace it. For those with sense, this is a dilemma which has culminated year after year with each technological advancement. In our understanding of how swiftly technology advances, though, is it realistic to assume that fear-stricken discussions of AI’s command are beneficial? Will they move us closer to healthier alternatives? Have we seen positive changes in literacy skills or academic skill acquisition through slowly-increasing removal of “EdTech”? Can young people make eye contact with another professional and speak clearly and respectfully? While school primarily serves the supposed purpose of acquiring foundational numeracy, literacy, and thinking skills, it also provides valuable social lessons. These fringe benefits, like critical thinking, conflict resolution, and perspective-taking, cannot occur if social exchanges are replaced with screens--- of if their teachers aren’t modeling the skills.

Jonathan Haidt, much of whose work I deeply respect, has gained traction with his plan to ‘Free the Anxious Generation’--- by getting phones out of schools. This is, according to his book and theory, the linchpin in turning around our nation’s “mental health crisis.” While I agree that smart phones have removed countless opportunities for social and intellectual growth, as mentioned earlier, I’m not entirely sold on the notion that their removal will guarantee improved well-being. This lends a hand to a deeper portion of the matter: that people do not seem to know how to teach critical thinking, perspective taking, or conflict resolution, as they’ve opted out of these opportunities in their own lives. Even in the absence of all technological devices, we’re not born with the ability to think clearly, let alone teach this art to a group of wide-eyed whipper snappers with attitude problems and Asperger’s-like social skills.

With this in mind, I propose a stupidly-simple avenue toward combatting the cheaters and the socially inept: require only in-class, written essays and oratory exams. It will certainly take more time on the part of the student and the educator. It may also aggravate or “trigger” the students who have grown accustomed to deciding for themselves what brand of “hard thing” they’re willing to tolerate in their personal, professional, and academic lives. This is expected and certainly not a cue to stop your efforts. No form of mastery arrives devoid of difficulty, and that which does is not mastery, but entertainment.

I’ve taught hundreds of undergraduates using this method and have had only one student across the years drop my class--- and this was before I’d even written this requirement into my syllabus. Must have been a personality mismatch. While some griped about my teaching methods (i.e., I do not follow textbooks, rote schedules for learning, and I do not post predictable notes so the kids can passively ‘learn’), I’ve had overwhelmingly positive feedback about my “style”. As educators or people responsible for instilling virtuous behavior in the next generation, it’s imperative we first understand how the human mind works, and how our behavior is largely shaped by arbitrary cultural expectations, norms, and shifts.

First of all, modern culture has taught us that any slight hint of the word “no” is to be immediately honored without question, sans a trace of skepticism. This bold verbal stand is the person’s “choice”. But what if we didn’t take “no” as a sacred permission slip to avoid all that we dislike? And since when did people paying to be educated or mentored or coached become the arbiters of rulings regarding discomfort? If it were the case that young people were competent to make choices for their own self-betterment, we would not need schools, coaches, parents, pediatricians, or child psychologists. People paying to be educated (let’s specifically focus on K-12 students), whether financially or simply through their attendance, should expect that their educator is not at the whim of their insecurities. This entitlement, although sadly normalized, is not lost on me. But do not think for a moment it’s something we, the adults, must submit to.

What if we tell our students, respectfully, “Thanks for sharing, but I wasn’t asking”? There are such things as expected behaviors and standards, and hurt feelings are poor metrics to use in deciding what those standards should be. To behave virtuously is to do so when we least want to and when we feel least prepared to do so; that is what makes it virtuous. We’ve fallen into an emotional trap of asking permission to be authoritative, as if the people relying on us to guide them are equal to us in their pursuit of growth. This is not true and never has been true. I realize it’s a noble idea, that children are “allies” or “partners” or even “friends”. They are not, and you will not help them with this idea in mind. Ever. Their hatred of public speaking, or even your own, is irrelevant. To be an adult of substance is to be an adult that gets over themselves.

I have friends at more progressive universities who are told they must accommodate all of their students’ discomforts and unreasonable requests, including “don’t call on me in class because I get anxious,” or “I get triple the test taking time because I have anxiety” or even “I have a full-time job so I want an extension on my paper.” These students do not need an accommodation--- they need a public speaking requirement and a cognitive kick in the pants. The same goes for most forms of the modern “accommodate and sedate” paradigm: we amplify how good an initiative feels versus understanding how it relates to our goals. Our goals as educators, therapists, coaches, or even parents is not to help the next generation feel good, especially if doing so comes at the expense of any form of personal growth. Our overarching value is, I hope, that of instilling cardinal virtues in the next generation so they behave as aligned, self-composed, self-aware individuals who do not feel entitled to request the world tailor its day-to-day to their irrational fears.

Oratory exams are a wonderful start, specifically for those educators who have reached out to me asking for advice on how to stop their students from using ChatGPT for all of their assignments. I frequently implement Peter Boghossian’s Street Epistemology (SE) to foster back-and-forth conversations about any topic of mine or the students’ choosing. SE is simple: a claim statement is made, such as, “Fast food should come with warning labels”, and participants are required to rate their beliefs on a scale from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. In the natural divergence of opinions, educators model how to employ Socratic-based, open-ended questions to gain a better understanding of why someone may agree or disagree with the claim statement. In regards to education and learning itself, here is an oral prompt that you can provide to your students or staff:

“Is it more important to teach you all (students) what to think, or how to think?”

Socratic Probes:

· Is it possible to teach information without shaping someone’s beliefs?

· Are facts neutral, in and of themselves?

· How does the current education system reflect your view?

Students are expected to prepare a 3-5 minute opening argument in response to the prompt, a prompt they are not given ahead of time. They are permitted to prepare their argument for 10-15 minutes as soon as it’s delivered at the beginning of class; this is the only instance in which use of technology is permitted. When it’s “go-time”, though… no PowerPoints. No bullet points given to the students listening. Paper to pencil, pencil to speech.

Public speaking and oratory exams are not only beneficial in that they teach us to speak more persuasively, but it builds a person’s belief in their ability to engage people and lead them toward alternative thinking. The more we age, the more difficult it is to sway our beliefs. To motivate divergent thinking, then, is crucial should we hope to reform or revolutionize any institution, theory, or practice. In expected succession comes critical feedback or even hostile skepticism, all to be expected when we present ideas that diverge from the social norm. In repeated practice under these in-situ, potentially high-stress, high-pressure, on-the-spot conflicts, students better learn to manage symptoms of adrenaline or anxiety--- and overcome them with an audience. Want to build confidence in your kid? Make them talk in front of people. Ditch the therapist.

In the same vein as psychological adaptation, oratory exams ultimately desensitize students to rejection and failure, two aspects of being social creatures that forge avoidance far into adulthood, for some. I still receive emails, texts, and calls from professionals who ask for advice as to how best to manage negative reactions or “hate”. It’s become abundantly clear to me throughout the years as a clinician who is out of practice in their oratory and emotional regulation skills. Employers clearly don’t see these as virtues.

To further enhance the benefits of public speaking, I propose a mass revival of the written essay. On a surface, executive functioning level, the slower speed of handwriting versus typing forces us to better organize our thoughts. This dually functions as a buffer against plagiarizing and idea-shopping on the Internet. Further, without apps and computer functions like Grammarly, spell-check, or predictive text, the student is forced to refine these skills as they go along. Repetition rewires the brain, and such repetition builds stronger neural pathways--- for better or for worse. Choose your repetition wisely!

Handwriting, in my clinical opinion, is a complete non-negotiable. It’s both fascinating and baffling that schools still feel compelled to provide Chromebook-and-Wi-Fi-access-only assignments and proceed to complain that their students are passive, fragile, and seemingly unfit to think independently. I’m not a teacher, so perhaps I’m speaking out of turn on this matter. But I am a former college instructor, and my students hand-wrote nearly every single assignment given--- in tandem with debate practice, frequent technology-free class discussions, and final projects which require speaking in front of their peers. Our adult minds must shake off the rust of avoiding opportunities to think clearly. It is our moral obligation to help students understand the urgency in communicating ideas without using their feelings as yardsticks.

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect. It’s best, then, to go do things worth writing about.

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Reframing negative events into those more optimistic had made marionettes of our hearts. I didn’t eat that unhealthy, sugar-laden apple fritter! I ate a non-nutrient-dense-food that I enjoyed and was still able to maneuver into my healthy lifestyle! I didn’t slack off on my responsibilities, routines, and committing to that which is difficult; I’m just in a different season right now. I didn’t snap at my husband, it was just a trauma response. There may be miniscule kernels of truth in these reframes, but they all have one, common denominator: they’re lies we tell ourselves to avoid the truth.

The semantic shape-shifting can, though, result in a drive to change behavior. People with a cynical disposition may benefit from swapping “I have to” to “I get to”, or even beginning each day with a statement like, “Today will be a good one.” Or, at worst, “Today will not be a bad one.” There’s ample evidence to suggest that behaving “as if” (that is, acting as if you already possess the mindset or trait of the person you want to be), even if we’re not entirely sold on the new identity, can influence the rate of positive thoughts and desirable behaviors. In the words of philosopher William James, “emotions follow behavior”. We cannot think ourselves to an improved life much like watching Tiger Woods golf will always fail to improve our swing. “The work” is in the doing, not the reframing or the talking about the doing. Also imperative to consider is our belief about our abilities. To behave “as if” is not “faking it until you make it” or a psychological sleight of hand. It’s merely accepting the possibility that you can be different. It technically is a form of “reframing”.

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When “positive reframing” goes awry is when it’s used as a substitution for accepting a problem. With reframes hellbent on generating “positive spins”, we end up putting our effort, energy, and attention toward a reality that may not be entirely rational or even accurate---- which most often results in irrational responding. Yes, you did eat that enormous Crumbl cookie and yes, a thousand calories of sugar and butter is bad for you. Yes, there are such things as bad foods, regardless of the frequency or volume, and no, moderation is not an attainable, measurable goal for the large majority who have no awareness as to how much they’re consuming on a day-to-day basis, let alone how to measure “moderation” based on that amount. Failure to accept these truths leads only to repeated, poor outcomes.

And to spend time trying to contort reality to one that stings less not only wastes that precious time we’ve so carefully managed--- but it disincentivizes change. To overly plan for the future so as to cushion the blow of uncertainty is one of the hallmark symptoms of anxiety disorders, although this symptom is masked as “self-reflection”, “self-help”, or “doing the work.” Analysis is good, but like anything else, even too much of a good thing can be… well… bad.

Thoughts influence emotions which influence behaviors, and double-vice-versa. It’s both the beauty and the tragedy of the mind-body connection. Somatic symptoms, like butterflies in our stomach or shaking hands, can trigger thoughts about a possible panic attack, which can cause us to reach for the Xanax or repeatedly call our husband for reassurance. That same pounding heart we accept as normal during a mile-run time trial suddenly becomes problematic when we’re in a supposed state of relaxation. The context in which we experience symptoms certainly plays a role in why they continue to occur, even more so than factors like genetics or our upbringings. Unfortunately and largely because of our culture, we tend to attribute struggles to more profound meanings: childhood, parenting, genetic dispositions to mental illness. In doing so, we actively dismiss the direct environmental factors largely within our control.

While I suppose telling ourselves we’re in a “slower season of life” fares emotionally better off than reminding ourselves we’re a pathetic loser with hypocritical tendencies, at the end of the day, the compassionate reminder still tends not to result in behavior change. We can remind ourselves we’re pathetic losers with hypocritical tendencies, or we can gently remind ourselves we’re simply in a slower season of life… but our behavior suggests that the reframe didn’t do much other than leave us with a fleeting sense of relief. It’s the same reason why people leave motivational speeches feeling inspired only to return to their everyday habits and routines, or relocate across the country for a “fresh start” only to find that their problems have followed them there. Because the issue was never their hometown or their house.

It’s imperative we recognize this: feeling better momentarily or even acutely does not imply any growth has occurred.Individuals with anxiety, for example, rely on their own series of crutches to help relieve discomfort of their symptoms. Relief from uncomfortable symptoms, which sometimes function as compelling evidence that our tactics are “working”, is what reinforces the idea that we’re in danger.

There are a few forms of avoidance that we all engage in from time to time, none of which require professional intervention or even much of a change. For the sake of this piece, though, we’ll focus on those repeated rituals that impair an individual’s quality of life. Below are the most common forms of avoidance I see that are inadvertently taught by professionals, parents, and educators.

1. SITUATIONAL AVOIDANCE

* Definition: Avoiding specific situations or places that trigger anxiety.

* Examples:

* Avoiding social situations, like work gatherings, public speaking events, parties.

* Not going to a certain store or restaurant.

2. COGNITIVE AVOIDANCE

* Definition: Avoiding thoughts or memories that cause distress.

* Examples:

* Rehashing negative events and dwelling on negative thoughts instead of addressing the thoughts.

* Avoiding talking about, reading about, or listening to topics that trigger anxiety.

3. PROTECTIVE AVOIDANCE

* Definition: Using actions to create a sense of safety or security in the environment.

* Examples:

* Excessively cleaning or organizing to feel in control.

* Seeking constant reassurance from others.

* Micromanaging others’ behavior.

4. SOMATIC AVOIDANCE

* Definition:

Avoiding situations that elicit physical sensations associated with anxiety, like a pounding heart, tightening of the chest, or shaking of the hands.

* Examples:

* Avoiding exercise or activities that can increase heart rate.

* Avoiding situations/places that trigger a panic attack.

* Avoiding specific foods or drinks that might cause a physical reaction.

5. SUBSTITUTION AVOIDANCE

* Definition:

Replacing uncomfortable feelings with other, more acceptable feelings or behaviors.

* Examples:

* Substituting anger, sadness, or negative emotions with “positive spins”.

* Using alcohol, drugs, or prescription pills to “numb out” anxiety.

* Engaging in excessive social media use to avoid addressing uncomfortable feelings.

6. SOCIAL AVOIDANCE

* Definition:

Avoiding social situations and interactions out of fear of negative evaluation or rejection.

* Examples:

* Refusing to initiate conversations.

* Only sharing thoughts and ideas publicly if they fall in line with a specific, acceptable narrative.

* Withdrawing from social activities and relationships.

7. SAFETY BEHAVIORS

* Definition: Engaging in specific behaviors to reduce or avoid anxiety in a situation.

* Examples:

* Taking a Xanax before you’re about to go into a potentially nerve-wracking situation.

* Sitting in the back of a classroom so you’re not called on.

* Over-preparing on a task that should take a short amount of time to avoid making a mistake.

* Not asking for feedback because of fear of criticism.

Some of these examples may resonate with you, and it’s possible you find yourself engaging in multiple forms of avoidance. This is acceptable--- you needn’t avoid this truth. We all employ a series of avoidance rituals from time to time, often times without conscious awareness. The key to overcoming such escapism is quite simple: it is to repeatedly expose yourself to that which you’re afraid of. There is literally no other way around it. You will never, and I repeat, never overcome feelings of nervousness or anxiety if you refuse to confront the very symptoms, locations, situations, or thoughts that trigger it in the first place.

Below, I’ve outlined strategies for each form of avoidance that I give as “homework assignments” to all of my students. You don’t need a professional behaviorist or psychologist to stand alongside you during these assignments. You only need to arm yourself with the belief that you’re capable of handling difficulty, and that nobody ever died from having a panic attack.

SITUATIONAL AVOIDANCE

* Definition: Avoiding specific situations or places that trigger anxiety.

* YOUR ANTIDOTE:

* Identify what sort of situation you’re avoiding, and immerse yourself in that situation. Breathe and do not leave: breathe in for 4 counts through your nose, hold for 4 counts, and exhale out of pursed lips for 4. Leave the situation only after your symptoms of anxiety have subsided.

COGNITIVE AVOIDANCE

* Definition: Avoiding thoughts or memories that cause distress.

* YOUR ANTIDOTE:

* Find a topic that interests you, and read an article written by someone whose stance you find repugnant. Yes, repugnant. As you listen, only highlight those points which you find common ground with.

SOMATIC AVOIDANCE

* Definition:

Avoiding situations that elicit physical sensations associated with anxiety, like a pounding heart, tightening of the chest, or shaking of the hands.

* YOUR ANTIDOTE:

* If you’re a current exerciser, run, bike, row, or do burpees for 45 seconds at a vigorous effort. Try to only inhale and exhale through your nose during your recovery. Repeat.

SOCIAL AVOIDANCE

* Definition:

Avoiding social situations and interactions out of fear of negative evaluation or rejection.

* YOUR ANTIDOTE:

* Write down your honest thoughts on a topic or contentious issue, and repeat them out loud in the privacy of your own home. Find one person to share them with, and share them without throat-clearing statements like, “I know you may not agree with this, but…” or “Okay so this may be an unpopular opinion, but…”.

SAFETY BEHAVIORS

* Definition: Engaging in specific behaviors to reduce or avoid anxiety in a situation.

* YOUR ANTIDOTE:

* Ask for constructive criticism from people who will give you objective, honest feedback. Not your best friend or your Mom.

* If you rely on notes because you’re scared of sharing your thoughts publicly, force yourself to give an impromptu speech for 3 minutes on a random topic. No starting over. Record yourself and critique it.

These only serve as a small portion of the interventions I’ve used with myself and with past clients. Exposure therapy via “opposite action” strategies like the ones I’ve outlined are how I weaned myself off of Klonopin without any sort of medical guidance, and how I overcame panic disorder without a psychotherapist, psychiatrist, or psychologist. To be clear, I do not recommend anyone detox or wean themselves from psychiatric medications without professional consult and ongoing supervision. Many of these drugs are prescribed with little to no explanation as to their addictiveness and the danger in weaning, and the taper needs to be painfully gradual.

All in all, it's time we bring back the Bad News Bears. We can simply tell children “no” without redirecting them to 75 different distractors or changing our language so they don’t feel rejection. Life is rife with rejection. We can also stick to our routines despite feeling angry, exhausted, overwhelmed, or stressed. Such is life. And for God’s sake, you can understand that you behave the way you do because Mom and Dad ignored you as a kid, but it is still entirely your responsibility and your moral duty to behave like a self-composed adult. As mentioned earlier, the context in which we behave in the annoying ways we do matters more than the reasons why.

So get out there and put your irrational bullshit to the test.

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestlyunorthodox.substack.com