Positive expectations, unexpected damage

[YourSelf]

Have you ever experienced a situation in which you expected a positive outcome, a positive change, as a result of a decision, but the actual result made you worse-off than you were before?

I'm talking especially about the sphere of self-help and personal development, but general decisions that bring great changes into your life.

My idea is that for some people, some "methods" might work, whereas for others the same methods might actually be detrimental - and you can realize it only after you tried. The same can probably be said for any wisdom or life philosophy.

An alternative question would be:
Have you experienced a positive result you expected, which was, however, accompanied by negative "side-effects"?

An example from my own life would be that I followed certain personal decisions I realized after thorough thinking to make one area of my life better - at the expense of another:
I used to feel charged by racism in certain environments as a teenager; however, after changing I become much more open and social also with people whom I thought to be racist.
The drawback was that I became so social and involved with more people that I started lacking time for other things such as reading long novels or... playing videogames.

OK, maybe it sounds a bit silly. But what I'm saying is that if more and more opportunities arise, the less time you have to do all of them.

Perhaps the following statement will enrage some people but... what if I finally find the woman of my life... and then she starts taking away all the time and energy I used to devote to my friends, projects, businesses, and... videogames :P ?

[ZHereford]

Originally Posted by YourSelf

.. what if I finally find the woman of my life... and then she starts taking away all the time and energy I used to devote to my friends, projects, businesses, and... videogames :P ?

The key, Yourself, is always balance!

At different times in your life you will have different priorities. I suspect when you find the woman of your life, you will not put video games at the top of the list. Likewise, you will still want to do other things, however, in the beginning they will take a back seat to getting to know your woman and establishing a good relationship. Once that settles down, other activities will become more prominent again.

[Ak47]

it's called "latent" function.. or in this case perhaps, dysfunction. "manifest" function = intended result, "latent" function = unintended side effect.

this happens with essentially anything on a social level, but the idea most certainly applies to many different things. i don't think there is always much you can do, because the latent function of something is often unforseen.

i know exactly what you mean though. when i quit drugs a while ago i lost a lot of friends. contrary to popular belief, many of them WERE good friends actually, and wanted to hang out with me even though i was clean. i, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with them because i didn't want to risk getting into trouble, and i didn't want the drug influence (even though it would've been indirect).

but, what can you do? not much, just try to make the best of what you've got and move on. at least with your situation, you have a bit of a choice. you COULD read if you wanted to, etc. really what it all comes down to though is you do what's best for you; whatever makes you happy. if you're happy being highly social, etc, then screw reading!

[YourSelf]

Originally Posted by AK47

You COULD read if you wanted to, etc. really what it all comes down to though is you do what's best for you; whatever makes you happy. if you're happy being highly social, etc, then screw reading!

My problem is that I'm not sure which part will give me more happiness.
Or better, I think I need both forms of happiness in order to feel completely happy:
I need both the thrill of reading a good novel and the exploratory feeling of learning more and more new interesting people.

However, for some reason (I GUESS that it's a time management reason...), the two types of activity have started excluding each other after the change...

When I'm right in the middle of a highly social situation, rarely thoughts occur such as "Oh, now's the right time to read a good book!"

I kind of become a bit too immersed in the social situation that I forget everything else.

Originally Posted by ZHereford

[...]
in the beginning they will take a back seat to getting to know your woman and establishing a good relationship. Once that settles down, other activities will become more prominent again.

Hehe, OK, but
1) isn't that a bit... double standard-ish?
2) How do you decide which aspect of your life needs most priority? What if you have numerous priorities at the same time...?

[JimOfferman]

Originally Posted by YourSelf

How do you decide which aspect of your life needs most priority?

By asking yourself what is most important to you right now.

If, faced with the choice between dating the girl and playing a video game, you feel that the latter is more important to you right now then fire up that console!

Whether a panel of morality judges would make that same choice is not important - they are not living your life, they are not feeling your (un)happiness.

What if you have numerous priorities at the same time...?

Multi-task!

Or just go for your highest priority first...

[sheffy4]

I kind of become a bit too immersed in the social situation that I forget everything else.

I think this is exactly what you want. When you are doing something (social or otherwise), you want to be totally immersed. It's called living in the present. If you are thinking about other things while you are with your friends, you won't get as much pleasure or benefit from being with them, and they won't get the full benefit of your presence because you are off daydreaming about novels.
I think you probably need to work on your time management. I have a feeling that you could find time for friends, and novels, and video games, but you don't plan out your time well enough.

[colonel]

I think some wise man once said that for every new thing one incorporates into one's life, he must give up another.
And he didn't say it would be easy or easy to decide. I think that's a key problem we're facing today... we're making far more decisions than any generation before us, especially about our priorities, because there is just so much we could do that would feel good... and sure, we tend to think that we need all of it to be happy. Far too often, I'm guilty of that myself

Don't know whether this gives you an idea, just my 2 cents

[Chado2423]

Without delving into much psycho-babble... the answer is yes. I have experienced that positive thinking can sometimes danger you if you have too high expectations for what you hope to occur (i.e a grandiosity mind-set.) When the expectation is greater than the reality of the result it can only produce a negative outcome. But on the other spectrum is when you have too low expectations and something produces a positive result in spite of your negative expectation. The key is finding the medium between the two, in my opinion.

[YourSelf]

Originally Posted by JimOfferman

By asking yourself what is most important to you right now.

As I said, my problem is that I am often very immersed wherever I am - which means that whatever I'm doing right now automatically gives me immediate happiness - and becomes what is most important at this moment.

The consequence is that I forget everything else.

For example, if I stay with my girlfriend - I could probably stay with her for ages without thinking about anything else... thereby forgetting that also videogames exist!

Conversely, if I start enjoying a videogame I won't get off of it even if my girlfriend keeps ringing - it's not because I want to be bad towards her. I literally FORGET her since my mind is focused on the videogame :P (I've witnessed this also when my father watches soccer matches and completely forgets my mother...)

Obviously, [fortunately] the bodily constraints prevent me from doing the same thing for 24 hours a day. I get up, sleep, eat, and other daily routine things which provide me some distraction and allow me to detach a bit from what I'm doing.

I sometimes create schedules that I commit to. But if on one day I find something that gives me immediate enjoyment in that moment, I completely forget the schedule and do what I enjoy - even if there are very crucial appointments (recently I stayed hours making music with some co-musicians instead of going to an important appointment at the doctors'...)

Perhaps I can summarize everything I said with this phrase:
When I am immersed and enjoy something right now, I forget what is important/urgent.

And that is what often happened when I changed. I was sooo involved in the new things that my mind completely ignored tasks and duties I had since before.

I'm not sure whether that's healthy.

[YourSelf]

Originally Posted by sheffy4

It's called living in the present. If you are thinking about other things while you are with your friends, you won't get as much pleasure or benefit from being with them, and they won't get the full benefit of your presence because you are off daydreaming about novels.

The fact is that when I live too much in the present I tend to miss appointments :P

Something typical that happens to me is that I plan an afternoon more or less this way:
- lunch
- work a bit on project for an hour
- get ready and go out with friends for 2-3 hours
- get back home and finish the project by night
- start the new project

And then I end up being around with the friends till early morning the next day... thereby having double work on the project!

How do I detach myself from the immersion at the right time?
How do I "wake up" from the immersion so that I can stick to my schedule without procrastinating?

[colonel]

Originally Posted by YourSelf

How do I detach myself from the immersion at the right time?
How do I "wake up" from the immersion so that I can stick to my schedule without procrastinating?

1. Become more aware so you become aware of the current situation and when to stop and what else to do. (The way it works for me: Journaling, meditation)
2. Build up self-discipline so you can actually stop doing what you do right now and go do something else. Steve posted a few articles on this subject, you might wanna check them out if you don't know them yet.

Personally, I also suffer from the symptoms you describe One gets immersed in what's really creating lots of fun *right now* (like girlfriends.. boy, did (and do) I spend hours and days with them..) and ignoring the other stuff that we "should" do or "wanted" to do and use the current joyful activity to distract us and provide an easy hook for procrastination.

You sound like you're pretty young, too, maybe even younger than me... And I think it's fine to struggle with stuff like this... Come on, who on earth wants to be disciplined and do what they must, really