I think I've figured out what my problem is with the whole imperative "Be Happy" imperative.
If you open up Dalai Lama's book "The Art of Living" the first line in the book says. "The Purpose of Life is to be happy." That's it, no discussion, no debate.
Okay, I agree. Well, rather, the answer to the question "what are we to do" is to follow whatever makes us feel good or makes us happy. Why would you do otherwise? "Well what about self-sacrifice." But the reason you would self-sacrifice is because the notion of sacrificing yourself for another cause makes you feel good. If it made you feel bad, then that means you didn't endorse it, and then that's not a value you like. Or, if you felt bad sacrificing but had the intuitive feeling that this was a wrong approach, that you "should" sacrifice and then if following your "should"s makes you happy, then you SHOULD do that... but it's not even a matter of SHOULD it's a matter of WOULD... you WOULD do that. Why wouldn't you do what makes you happy.
So it's like, just a observation of life. We follow how we feel, and try to maximize the positive feelings.
Okay, THIS is in essence the existentialist observation and the same thing that I push for in my the thing "to do" is Emotional Intelligence." The ego IS the only thing that exists and that's where we get all of our data.
The counter, like the communists make the counter like, well what if you extend your ego to the whole system then through the system you can exist and live through.
True, but you still have to feel or believe or get to the conclusion that you should do that, it's not automatic. You could be instilled with it, but you still somehow have to within yourself be either weakened to other ideas, but they're still your ideas. Now, there's a difference of choice here, but somehow you're responding to your own inclinations.
That's all we do, respond to our own inclinations.
Now, why is my "thing" or "imperative" or suggestion on a should-generating task is meditating on the notion of "emotional intelligence" is that well, it's pretty open, it relies on the egocentric thing, it's sufficiently vague, and it puts the burden on you trying to manage yourself correctly.
But, I'm finding the flaws in this as time goes on. It's just an extension of my problems with the "be happy" imperative.
Theoreticalyl they're exactly the same just different terminology.
My original problem was that the word happiness has been abused by society and therefore didn't truly capture the gist of what I was trying to get at. Like, "happy" is like to be this sort of free-flowing wave new age thingy where you do yoga on Sex in the City... foofy stuff.
Other ppl have other stuff like "spiral out" etc... but those are just wrong because those are outside of the self imperatives, why should you spiral out if it doesn't make you happy? Then you become a slave to it. well, you could like to be a slave, or myabe you don't, either way if you make a mistake then you're managingin unintelligently, so then my "be emotionally intelligent" emphasizes the intelligence part.
Which is precisely the problem. The emphasis. The wording determines the emphasis. If you told everybody, your goal is to be happy, they may not necessarily find them happiness.
Like if you just made it your goal everyday to "be happy" the goal-setting itself may be a barrier to your happiness.
Because the attention is too much placed on the bigger picture that you could become a model of a greedy algorithm let's say, like where you just try to stoically meditate into happiness every day, which would prevent you from focusing on the longer-term things that require daily sacrifice for bigger gains.
(althoguh, those are usually instilled by institutions, why shouldn't you "carpe diem")
This is the same thing with running companies as well. You could have your solution generating perspective be "what's best for the company" or it could be "what's the best utility of our product" or then it could be "what's best for me" or "what's best for the team"
Ideally you joined the company because that's what's best fory ou. And so everything you should do would be to furthery our best interest of which helping the team, help the product, help the company would be a part of that plan.
But if that's where your attention is, first on yourself, then on everything else, you could just in practice not see the bigger picture of how it all relates.
On a practical note, I think you're more likely to suceed if you focus on the product because that's the other seem to be the death of most companies while as the product saves them.
Likewise, Emotional Intelligence may just cause you to focus on the management side, or to just become "self-absorbed" and what a post I made a few posts down is that there are many ohter modes out there that don't require self-absorbed attention to your emotions to be happy.
i.e. emotional intelligence is not necessarily a prerequisite to being happy but could potentially be an emergent phenomena of emotional planning that appears intelligent.
EITHER WAY
The point is, that the Observe, Analyze, Apply loop should emphasize the distinctnees and importance of all three things. If Observe is empirical data, analyze is the theory, and apply is the application, then one should note that theory is VERY different than application, as is the data, etc.... I feel like I've been making the mistake for sometime believing so hard core in theories of living or theories on business practices without realizing that in that theory doesn't always translate to practice, in fact, in many cases it rarely does.
Anyways, continuing where I left off earlier on the "Imperative-Based Life"...
Here's a interesting model. Well, basically, it deals with our response to stimuli or emotions that bubble up.
Here's the spectrum of our responses:
- Act on it
- Put up with it
- Ignore it
- Remove it
where it is the stimuli or impulse.
Decision-making model:
You act on it:
- if you endorse it
You put up with it:
- if you don't endorse it
- but can't get rid of it
You ignore it
- if you don't endorse it
- but it's not that big of a deal
You remove it
- if you don't endorse it
- and it's killing you or it's easily removed
Now, that's not necessarily complete, but it's a general model for the way we respond to things. The emotional stable, or the emotionally intelligent, or rather those who manage themselves effectively and lead themselves into cycles of or situations that they endorse and enjoy, and give them happiness, tend to have some sort of balance or combination of the above. This is intuitive, they know how to deal with things in a case by case basis. Some things, they can deal with, so they do, some they can ignore, so they do, others they enjoy or believe in, so they follow, others they actively try to fix or change.
Now, there are other versions of the humankind that still manage well without "balance"
"Endorse everything you do" - this involves just acting on everything and then retroactively endorsing it. You'll find this in a LOT of stable and effective ppl. They just "go with the flow" and conveniently the flow matches precisely with their vision about life...
"Endorse nothing" - others don't endorse much at all, so they could go either way. All options are fine to them, and they're liberated by this.
"Minimal Impulse" - the impulses or emotions that are felt by the node are of a low volume so one could also choose from any of the responses with ease.
"Strong Will" - some just have a very robotic like ability to control everything they do, so they just remove everything they dislike about themselves and keep everything they do, and charge forward with that. These are hard to find, but they're out there, and many are very successful. You'll find this among really successful people because what compells someone to remove impulses is someone who desires control, or power, and power and success often go hand in hand.
Unbalanced or poorly managing types... (these are interesting)
"Act on everything" - or the impulsive types. They don't ignore, they don't deal, they can't remove... maybe the volume of their emotions are so consuming or they don't have the will to do anything but just get swept up in the current. These ppl become the Hedonists or imagine anybody else doing everything they want to do.
"Just deal" - these are the most annoying to me. They whine and talk about problems but don't do anything to fix them, don't even act on them, nor do they ignore them, they just sit there on them. These ppl are immobile, and are usually moved around as the environment demands.
"Forced Ignorance" - the ultra religious, or rather not necessarily, but the ostrich head in the ground. These ppl just ignore all their impuless, deny everything, and instead, whatever peeps out becomes the MO.
"Failed Fixers" - those that just keep trying to fix themselves, fix others, solve problems, but never really getting anywhere due to potentially weak will and strong sweeping emotions.. these guys are depressed and usually frustrated with life.
There seems to be some sort of function between your will and your emotions. If your emotional noise is not that loud, then of course, you don't need that much will to conquer them. Too strong a will, imho, doesn't seem to harm ppl, except maybe in the case that it makes someone immoral, but that only harms the victims, not the victimizer.
Which one am I? I'm the act-on-it or failed fixer thingy. I get either swept up with an emotion that I may endorse (or not) or I try really hard to fix my problems. It'd probably be better to ignore or deal, but the volume on my emotions are really high and consume me....
objectively speaking, if this model were taut, it's logically probably better for me to be the "endorse-everything" kind of guy..... this is hard though, because I have high standards for things, and it's hard for me to just "go w/ the flow" esp. given how much control I desire out of this world.
I really wish someone gave or provided a manual for operating the human ship.... now, now, don't be quick to say, that's what psychology is for. Psychology is crap. well, I'm no expert, sorry, but this statistic is unheartening: 1/3rd of ppl become better after seeing a psychiatrist, 1/3rd worse, 1/3rd the same. uuuh. Also, from what little I've read, it models human behavior pretty well, and is good for diagnosing illnesses, but it doesn't deal with the "should" how I operate my life. How should I think in order to get what I want? What is the nature of good living in the brain. What thinking processes are good, are bad. How to I change.
I hoped philosophy would answer questions like that for me, but all I got were some nice cogent phrases.
Usually, the manual comes from the summation of the experiences one goes through... hmmphf.
Most ppl don't like talking about a manual or thinking in terms of that, so they throw out the concept entirely. My feeling si that they just don't want to think about it or rather if somebody were to really reveal that their secret to success was merely a function of topping off or rather a secret to themselves, that would dishearten them. Also, there isn't enough convergence between philosophy, psychology, and systems thinking. I mean, a psychologist would say something like, well, just follow maslow's ladder. You have needs, adress them, and you're happy. But how is one to address them, how should one address them, should I make a list? Will it work? Self-help gurus attempt these things well. Dianetics is the illusion of this but it's just mind control.
OR
Other solutions do exist but they just don't satisfy my notion of a guide.
OR
another wild theory is that division of labor enforces that not everybody have absolute understanding and control of the human. I mean, if everybody had a complete understanding, a lot would just become nihilists or realize that everything is an illusion. Also, there might be too many ppl who could go, "oh wait, I don't have to go to work or go to school, heck I don't even need to do anything"
I mean, does a the EVP need to work so hard and kill himself when even if he did absolutely nothing, he would still survive and live a possibly great life over the next 40 years? No, but that's not how capitilism works.