I went to the gym today.

1.75 mi (9:31 minute pace, lvl 1 incline), walked 0.25.
Squats (on Bosu, then off with weights), planks (60 sec, 2x), burpees w/ Bosu, tricep extensions, lat pull downs.

I don't know why, but I felt really just like... mentally exhausted after running, so I was doing everything else kind of slowly. Probably could have kept running but was getting a bit lightheaded so decided to stop and do other things. I had to keep stopping between exercises to just slowly walk around to try to get rid of the lightheadedness. >_>

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Anyway, while I was running, I was thinking about hasty generalization, which is basically just jumping to conclusions before you have enough information. I've put in effort to not do this so much anymore, but it does sometimes manifest in small, subtle ways.

I don't know if anybody except for Kyle really remembers what I was like as a teenager, but I was pretty moody, irrational, and cynical. To some extent that's just typical for that age (teen angst!), but I have put in specific work to move away from how I was back then. I know Kyle and I had a number of arguments where I got emotional and upset and couldn't effectively argue my points, because... I didn't have points. I had feelings. It's nearly senseless to try to argue with someone who's coming from a position of emotionality, because they're unlikely to be able to absorb what you're saying. You have to take the time to calm them down first and then calmly lay out your argument clearly while explaining where you're coming from. Of course, as teenagers, Kyle and I didn't know this, so we just ended up frustrating each other on a few occasions.

When I'm in a negative highly emotional state I'm more susceptible to making hasty generalizations. This usually takes the form of "this is what I've encountered, so this is all there is." I feel like there's some more specific term for this but I can't for the life of me remember what it is. It's kind of a sampling bias, I suppose? Undue extrapolation based on a limited data set.

Examples of this include:
-Thinking that the only times people think of me are the ones they tell me about
-Thinking that because I've had lame relationships in the past, I'll only have lame relationships in the future (though this line of thought is countered by the uniformity of nature part of the problem of induction somewhat)

There's some negativity bias thrown in there as well, e.g. if I have 10 positive interactions with someone and 4 negative ones, it's easier to remember the negative interactions and fear the person won't like me anymore based on those. Unfortunately this one isn't contained to me; it's possible that the other person's negative memories will be more salient, which really would affect their feelings towards me.

Ways I try to counter this tendency:
-Reminding myself that there's always more to things than I'm seeing
-Holding conclusions very loosely, if at all, until I can get more direct confirmation
-Pushing myself to be open to the unexpected
-Paying extra attention to positive moments (though not at the expense of negative ones; I don't want the bias to swing in the other way)

Gotta have that extra voice in my head reminding me to be reasonable and not rush to action over limited data. I'm pretty cautious and prefer to wait to make decisions as much as possible, but in the heat of the moment those jumping-to-conclusions thoughts still come. At that point I just try to hold them back from affecting my behavior. Even if I can't stop their automatic generation all the time, I can still keep them contained, which I think is important.

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An old favorite song from an old favorite band that came up on iTunes just now.

"I Concentrate On You" by Splitsville.

Words I write down in black and white
Still cannot describe how I feel
My mind's on fire, locked in overdrive
And there's only you at the wheel

Good points about hasty generalizations when emotional. I do I think I could argue better if I remove language that carries emotion, mostly because it creates distractions and changes how people respond. Needa work on how I verbiage.
» watermelon on 2017-08-27 11:59:59

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