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    Question General Question Concerning Human Insanity

    What does it say about a person when they refuse to take action to remove themselves from a situation that causes them discomfort?

    Is it low self-worth? Fear of being disagreeable? Confidence that the situation will end well despite the discomfort? Is it a non-issue? Am I missing something? Please add to the list of possibilities.

    My quest is to understand the depths of human psychological misery. In my view, not doing something to remove yourself from an uncomfortable situation is making a choice to accept the burden of more suffering, though maybe there is something else to it. It just seems unnecessary given that life contains the potential for a great deal of suffering already. Serious replies desired.

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    I think sadly they hate/despise the thing so much they are only really ever happy if most people feel the same way about it it as they do, so the thing they loathe gets destroyed. That's why they can't just simply move on and let people that do enjoy it, enjoy it. The discomfort is so great, it needs to become externally objective to others around them.

    This annoys me too, because I find it childish and irresponsible, like we have to cater things to them and baby them all the time. Like external reality needs to always be changed around their pwecious widdle fweeings. I think people who act too much like this in serious creepy ways have a hard time separating their own personal feelings from external reality.

    But let's not be self-righteous, I understand it too on a very deep level- if you are indeed seriously repulsed by something *that* much, wouldn't you also feel great joy in seeing it burned down while you smugly sip wine safely from a quarter mile away? This is why it can be an uphill battle trying to impart forgiveness or even basic compassion on others... you can see how they need it so much, but they're out for blood and it will only be quenched once it's spilled. They can't just remove themselves, they need to be the one that removes IT. We are still in many ways in the lesson of understanding 'I can exist, and you can exist too.'

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    When people don't like something and don't get away from it, it's probably because they're not able to, or they think they aren't able to.

    A lot of people are guilty of assuming people can just get away from something if they want to. It doesn't always work like that.

    The free will myth is very persistent in the human psyche.
    Last edited by Aramas; 11-16-2018 at 07:50 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Aramas View Post
    When people don't like something and don't get away from it, it's probably because they're not able to, or they think they aren't able to.

    A lot of people are guilty of assuming people can just get away from something if they want to. It doesn't always work like that.

    The free will myth is very persistent in the human psyche.
    This. It is because they can't and are stuck. It is possible to get out of most bad situations, but it is definitely difficult and not an easy task. Eventually they do get out though through dumb luck or their own will, but only after suffering for months or even years.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Raver View Post
    This. It is because they can't and are stuck. It is possible to get out of most bad situations, but it is definitely difficult and not an easy task. Eventually they do get out though through dumb luck or their own will, but only after suffering for months or even years.
    Idk about most. Maybe some. It really just depends on circumstances. If you were a Jew in Nazi Germany, your chances would not have been good. People underestimate the strength it takes to survive in hard situations because they haven't lived in them themselves, or they've quickly forgotten what it was like to go through what they went through. A lot of blame and pointless advice could be dispensed with if people understood this.

    Until you've been another person, and that will most likely never happen, you don't know what it's like to live in that person's body or feel that person's experiences. It's really fucking easy to say, "Why don't they just ....?" The reason why people ask themselves questions like this one is that they are still looking at that person's situation from within their own perspective.

    I know a lot of people "know" stuff like this in their heads, but they don't really understand it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Aramas View Post
    Idk about most. Maybe some. It really just depends on circumstances. If you were a Jew in Nazi Germany, your chances would not have been good. People underestimate the strength it takes to survive in hard situations because they haven't lived in them themselves, or they've quickly forgotten what it was like to go through what they went through. A lot of blame and pointless advice could be dispensed with if people understood this.
    I'm a huge fan of the whole 'free will' principle, and I think it's important to focus on that because that encourages one to focus on responsibility and controlling what they can, rather than getting mired in feelings of victimization (woe is me). But I do really like this point you made, from the perspective that understanding this can help people be a lot more compassionate towards others, when they tend not to see everything they're going through.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Xaiviay View Post
    I'm a huge fan of the whole 'free will' principle, and I think it's important to focus on that because that encourages one to focus on responsibility and controlling what they can, rather than getting mired in feelings of victimization (woe is me). But I do really like this point you made, from the perspective that understanding this can help people be a lot more compassionate towards others, when they tend not to see everything they're going through.
    I have heard a lot of people use the word responsibility. For some reason, none of those people has ever bothered saying what it means. I'm curious to see how you might define it without looking up the word in a dictionary.

    I do agree that sometimes a positive attitude can be helpful, and that having a certain perspective can be helpful in certain situations.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Aramas View Post
    Idk about most. Maybe some. It really just depends on circumstances. If you were a Jew in Nazi Germany, your chances would not have been good. People underestimate the strength it takes to survive in hard situations because they haven't lived in them themselves, or they've quickly forgotten what it was like to go through what they went through. A lot of blame and pointless advice could be dispensed with if people understood this.

    Until you've been another person, and that will most likely never happen, you don't know what it's like to live in that person's body or feel that person's experiences. It's really fucking easy to say, "Why don't they just ....?" The reason why people ask themselves questions like this one is that they are still looking at that person's situation from within their own perspective.

    I know a lot of people "know" stuff like this in their heads, but they don't really understand it.
    Well, I agree that some people's circumstances are near impossible to get out of, but I think they are the exception rather than the norm due to their extreme situation. Most situations are seemingly benign, but pretty awful nonetheless. Like people stuck in a bad job with bad co-workers and/or bad boss, people stuck in a bad marriage with kids being abused by their significant other.

    Of course, I am not going to trivialize these situations, they are still bad situations that are hard to get out of, but they are the more common situations nonetheless. Extreme situations like being kidnapped, imprisoned or in some isolated society are far less common, but of course do happen to unfortunate people.

    Without going into detail though, I have been in bad situations before that seem benign from the outside, but aren't so I empathize with those that are in them and of course I feel even worse for those that are in the worst possible situations like women as sex slaves, etc...
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    On some level it seems that if one were to reach a place where suffering was absent, they would want suffering. But, conversely, by going through the entire spectrum of suffering, they could potentially reach such a place. In any case it doesn't matter, because no one is reaching nirvana in this life, and it's more than a psychoanalytic precept that part of being human is the pursuit of pleasure and minimization of pain. So, to me it's mostly that some form of an obstacle is always inevitable/necessary—that suffering should be accepted and integrated.
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    Ive been looking for my own words and it's hard so I'll be lazy and share links: this and this are what came to mind when I saw the thread.

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    It could be that the level of discomfort is more manageable than the level of discomfort if they changed, so they stay in the local minimum.

    Throwing off situations that have become strongly enmeshed with your life is difficult and often painful to navigate.

    I do think that if there is an obvious and relatively easy way to fix the problem, and you don't take it, you should at least accept that you're choosing to shoulder a burden and are an unnecessary victim. But there is a lot built into that "relatively easy".

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    Without specifics it's hard to say. Some times it could be mental health / low self worth (they don't see themselves as deserving or just straight up can't see a way out). Another option might be that they get secondary benefits from it.

    For example, you might be in a less than good relationship, but being in a bad relationship means not having to go through the pain of being single / moving out / dating / tinder etc. You might hate your job but it's easy and close to home. Maybe you hate your body but all your friends like eating junk food so you'll be isolated from them if you start working out. You don't have any money but you think all people who worry about finances are boring and you get to be 'fun' if you keep spending all your money.

    And, just more generally, it's easier to not move than to move so if something is bearable and there's no clear better option (or you're gaining secondary benefits from the bad option) you might as well stay put.
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    @ashlesha @Aramas Yeah, I can't think of any time where someone told me to take responsibility and it helped. I can think of some times where I had no choice but to willpower myself into tough situations (or lose something important if i didn't), and so then, it was kind of like "I just took responsibility" where before it was too painful/difficult to be worth it.

    Other times, I've had people listen and understand my problem, give me a shoulder to lean on, and those people helped me more than I can fully express...like, more than helping me feel better, they somehow helped me face the problem with a renewed perspective and vigor/confidence.

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    I dunno but I don't think it's that easy for people to see their own situations. Usually if you're in trouble your perception is messed up? And how can you see the big picture. Maybe sometimes there's no solution, or maybe you decide on one but it sucks, so there's too much inertia to even get going. Changing your situation requires optimism and optimism is also some kind of defense (lying to yourself until things get better?) Changing requires energy that you already don't have, b/c you've put all your energy into maintaining your thin shred of a status quo. Or if there's something to lose, maybe you've tricked yourself into believing that things will change on their own.

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    People don't move at the same pace and our expectations should be structured according to everyone's needs, not just the minority of rational actors. Not everyone is a steely-eyed robot with total command over their sense of agency, nor should they be.

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    Quote Originally Posted by lemontrees View Post
    I dunno but I don't think it's that easy for people to see their own situations. Usually if you're in trouble your perception is messed up? And how can you see the big picture. Maybe sometimes there's no solution, or maybe you decide on one but it sucks, so there's too much inertia to even get going. Changing your situation requires optimism and optimism is also some kind of defense (lying to yourself until things get better?) Changing requires energy that you already don't have, b/c you've put all your energy into maintaining your thin shred of a status quo. Or if there's something to lose, maybe you've tricked yourself into believing that things will change on their own.
    It's always possible to go back and doubt your choices and see if they were right or wrong. But there's no real way to know if your choices were right or wrong, because you don't know if there was a better choice to make. I think every human does what's best for themselves at the time given their experience and understanding of life. There is no real thing called "self-sabotage." Each situation is its own universe. From that situation, every other often seems impossible. Sometimes, people provoke change. Change always happens on its own. It might be change you want or don't want, but change happens.

    People sometimes try to persuade others that, "Things will get better." Sometimes this is true, and sometimes it isn't. But you can't really know until you wait and find out.

    I once had a dream that seemed impossible. Now it seems trivial. On to the next thing, I guess.

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