How To Deal With (And Get OVER) The Roughest Times In Your Life

Life is not a bowl of cherries…it's more like the box of chocolates Forrest Gump's mother told him about…you never know what you're going to get.

Those chocolates you'd rather not be eating, they're what drive people to therapy. When I consider the issues people often bring to therapy…coping with a loss, a personal failure, an empty nest, a divorce…it seems like some bounce back much more quickly than others. What's the magic ingredient?

A new theory of adaptability suggests that diversifying your personal portfolio is a sustainable method of boosting your resilience to the ups and downs of life.

Do you know how your investment portfolio is supposed to be diversified? You have stocks, bonds, mutual funds, property and the like, some riskier than others. While you probably won't get rich quick, you will avoid taking a hard fall that totally wipes you out. A diversified portfolio makes your financial well-being more resilient to the ups and downs of the market.

There is evidence that expanding the number of roles, relationships and experiences in your life provides a kind of personal diversification that increases emotional resilience, that ability to bounce back, along with happiness and self-esteem.

Read more here...

Electronic Anthropomorphism

Someone actually studied how anthropomorphism toward computer terminals affected loyalty to the terminal .

How did I learn this, you ask? I was wondering if anyone studied electronic anthropomorphism.

You see, when I returned from my two weeks away from my computer, it started misbehaving. The screen would go black, or blue. It was very unresponsive at times. I started getting pretty peeved with it. I decided it was time for a replacement. Normally, I’m quite monogamous. But it had, after all, lived a full life. Five years for a laptop in daily use is about what we’d expect. Less than a marriage, but more than a fling.

There’s an interesting article, if you’re interested in this sort of thing, which attempts to explain the conditions under which we are more or less like to anthropomorphize. On the basis of the article, I might conclude that I’m lacking in adequate human relationships or that my relative novice status vis-à-vis machines enables me to react as if the machine was intentionally willing me harm.

Now the replacement machine is almost completely functional for my purposes, I’m wondering is the Vista system is, in fact, plotting my demise. Really, it’s not bad I told a friend earlier this evening. But now, as the night wears on, I’m beginning to wonder. Multiple internet explorer screens appearing unbidden. Outlook address book that is clearly my new bad boy.

But am I going to let it get in my way? Heck no. It’s just another bounce back opportunity. I’m working, very slowly at this point, on my next newsletter which I think will be about resilience. One way to look at resilience is to think of the ability to bounce back, which I have in exceptional abundance I’m told.

You see even with this computer snafu, I’m still working on ideas that I’m sure will come in handy at some point. After all, there was R2-D2, the i-Cybie and Blade Runner’s replicant, Rachael; and was Deckard a replicant after all? Who knows, maybe I’ll write the next 2001.

What Strengths?

It's a tough one for most people. What are you good at? What do you love? What are you good at that you love? Herein lie your strengths.

In "Now, Discover your Strengths," Buckingham and Clifton say the following: "Our talents come so easily to us that we acquire a false sense of security...Doesn't everyone want to avoid conflict...Can't everyone see the obstacles lying in wait..."

No, not everyone wants to avoid conflict. No, everyone cannot see the obstacles lying in wait.

My son says stuff like this all the time. How was the test, I ask? I did really well...it was easy. I ask, did everyone do really well? No, he says. Well, then it couldn't have been that easy, could it?
I explain, it was easy because you knew it by way of your natural abilities, understood it through your history of hard work on the subject, or studied and learned it by putting in a lot of sweat and perseverance.

This propensity of many of us to explain away our successes--it was easy, they were just being nice to me--takes away our power. But a failure...it's a whole different story. Then we're stupid, will never get it or can never do it. It's a lose-lose analysis.

It's not conceited or narcissistic to acknowledge our strengths and consciously try to use those strengths. It's undermining and self-sabotaging when we minimize our abilities and fail to capitalize on our strengths.

Just try it. Relish your success. Savor it like a great piece of chocolate (okay, or a fine wine or cigar). Milk it for all it's worth.

Yeah, we fail too. Analyze it, learn from it and move on. Take divorce, one of the great equalizers and most humbling of experiences. Speaking as an expert in this matter, I know more women (moi included), who have taken the divorce experience and moved their lives forward in remarkable ways. The ability to bounce back is a personal strength. If you've got it, bravo. If not, figure out what you can use to move yourself ahead. It's worth the trip.