The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
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Notes -
To me the sting of defeat is always worse than the joy of victory. I’m a very non-competitive person, usually the first to turn down any kind of casual tournament or game. I never play PvP. I always concede first where it’s an option, unless I know with great certainty that I’m going to win.
It’s not that I don’t like winning, it’s that to me the joy of it is far more fleeting than defeat Where I Really Tried, which stings and which I think about long after the event. Recalling defeats hurts as if the loss was yesterday, while recalling triumphs doesn’t seem to capture any of the pleasure of the moment of victory. Being a loser in some competition doesn’t make me angry and aggressively motivated the way it seems to do to a lot of people. I can concede and feel no seething jealousy, no particular resentment, and whether I win or lose I usually forget about it quickly, unless it really feels serious in which case, as mentioned, losing is always worse than winning is great.
I don’t mean to sound like one of those depressives for whom every happiness seems temporary and every setback permanent, because I’d say I’m a pretty happy person. It’s more that I think I just don’t get as much out of both victory and defeat as other people do. Neither particularly motivates me, my happiest memories are all things like conversations with friends and loved ones, entertaining experiences, falling in love, that kind of thing. I can’t recall one real moment of personal triumph in the competitive sense that sticks with me, stuff like getting the job I wanted or getting into a good college was ten minutes of happiness (although really more like relief) before I continued with my day.
I think I’d like to become more competitive, but this attitude is holding me back from doing so. Has anyone made themselves more competitive?
I'm wired similarly, not taking much joy from success, but now that my life is in decline and even small victories are behind me, I keep returning to them to warm myself a little at the faint embers of past glories. Once upon a time, I fought. I entered the ring and fenced and wrestled, and though losing mostly, I won at times. I am not a lost cause then, though I sadly turned away from fighting almost entirely. And once upon a time I studied, and studied hard, until I passed the tests and made my degree. I put in the effort and I understood things that would now boggle my mind. I am not truly an idiot, though I may feel thus nowadays. And once I had friends, and did much with them, and they enjoyed my company and I theirs. Now I may be alone, but it is good to recall that I am not beyond friendship. And so I can make believe that if my fortunes turned one day, or I found a way out of my situation, I might again fight, and learn, and be in good company.
So go out there and push yourself, because a time may come when memories of past accomplishments are most of what's left of you, and that's far better than nothing.
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