Comments on: Preparation Prevents Piss-Poor Performance

By: Stupid Fights « Happiness in this World

Stupid Fights « Happiness in this World — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 23:02:42 +0000

[...] Surmountable, even. We may even worry less (preparation, as I wrote in a previous post, prevents poor performance). But when we come up against an obstacle we didn’t anticipate and become annoyed, we [...]

By: 10 Principles Of First Aid You Need To Know « Happiness in this World

10 Principles Of First Aid You Need To Know « Happiness in this World — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 22:01:40 +0000

[...] Of course, this is only a partial list, but Preparation Prevents Piss-Poor Performance. [...]

By: Kathy

Kathy — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 17:17:08 +0000

I stumbled across your site and am glad I did. This post and the thoughtful replies to it are deeply meaningful to me. I am definitely one of those people who rehearses worst case scenarios. I think it does cause me more stress and negativity than I would like to have. I would like to change my own hardwiring (I was brought up by an overly anxious and narcissistic mother) but don’t know where to begin. I love the idea of rehearsing “best case scenarios” instead. It gives my mind something to do as I’m waiting to make that left turn and hoping that someone doesn’t run the red light and smash into me.

By: Lynne

Lynne — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:50:33 +0000

Domestic violence. Why doesn’t she just leave him, why doesn’t she stand up for herself, why doesn’t she kill him in his sleep? Because she can’t.

This reminds me very much of the question—why don’t fat people eat less? Answer? Because, from where they’re sitting right now, they can’t. And why don’t diets do much good? Because they don’t address the actual cause of the problem, namely, why does overeating and inactivity feel like the right thing to do to a person who is obviously suffering from obesity? The diet books leave this question entirely to the sufferer.

Just as it’s really easy to see what chronically fat people should do to be thin—eat less, get more exercise—it’s really easy for an outside observer to see what targets of domestic violence should do to solve their problems; leave him, get help, go to a shelter, stand up for herself, or whatever. Duh!

What’s harder, and a lot more interesting, is to see what the barriers might actually be that are standing between the sufferer and the obvious solution.

The sufferer might be too shy to tell you the truth about it, of course, but we might be able to win her trust through careful, courageous, non-judgmental listening to the sufferer in order to discover the barriers, and then wholehearted commitment to lower or remove the barriers to the best of our ability, even if it means going way outside our comfort zone for somebody else’s problem.

By: Beth L. Gainer

Beth L. Gainer — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:01:10 +0000

A really excellent posting. I agree that it's important to plan for "what-ifs," especially in preparation for potential life crises. I'm very interested in Buddhism; I think I've sort of been into Zen, but every book I've tried to get on Buddhism confuses me. Any recommendations?

Beth: Here's one and here's another. Alex