Tag: t_resilience

stress prevent^ reduce^protect #buffering

Posted on by tiger40490

 

k_X_power_descriptor ,,, k_office_sanctuary

Each time, when I pay attention to these words and their differences, i become more tuned into the subtle characteristics of (my reactions to) various stressors. Good exercise in my experience.

Most of the stressors in my life are harmful, but a few are positive [stress in eq-investing, recreational^burdensome complexities], to be embraced. You can find many examples explained online. It is a matter of attitude. Many stressors are inevitable. Reduction/prevention can be ineffective. That’s when we need protection.

Note: In (American and other) movies, cashflow stress is often depicted as extreme. In terms of livelihood stress, cashflow is usually a smaller stress than health or family.

— Reduction … means (minor/major) strength reduction of usually _unavoidable_ stressors; in contrast Prevention means reducing towards zero, or wipe-out.

As such, Prevention is often the smart strategy when applicable.

Disambiguation: reducing strength of the stressor is real reduction and direct reduction; reducing the sustained damage-due-to-the-stressor is actually protection, not “reduction” per se.

— protection.. Also known as “stress /coping/” and “stress /resilience/”, implying no further reduction possible.

Prootection can also imply that an external threat is unavoidable and not something to be reduced.

Protection is often the final layer of defense. Includes biological , mental wellness protection , family bond protection,,,

Disambiguation: protection is what we do after minimizing stress. Therefore, in our context, protection excludes reduction. In everyday English, “protect” has wider (vague) meaning including reduction and prevention.

— 3 layers of defense. Think of a bunch of meteors heading to our planet:

  1. prevent (i.e. avoid, deflect, break, pre-empt, shield) if possible
  2. reduce the strength of the meteors at every stage, if /impact/ is unavoidable
    1. relief .. more immediate, more short-term
  3. protect our most vulnerable, most vital systems against impact.

(In everyday English, each term can be so broad as to cover all other terms. )

In each stressful period of our lives, we might select one of the 3 to focus on, even though we need more than one strategy. For example,

  • — half ranked by effectiveness and stressor severity
  • [s=specific. Less specific items to be removed. This bpost is for disambiguation.]
  • [s] blogg and other therapeutic hobbies .. including QQ/coding, stock picking .. can reduce (or sometimes prevent) stress
  • .. blogg on parenting .. esp. after a crisis event can (prevent and) reduce the magnitude of stress
  • WStC: absence of annual appraisal .. preventive and protects my self-esteem.
  • [s] the office as a sanctury.. is a prevention shield of stress
  • quiet idle time .. is hopefully protective , comparable to but fundamentally different from sleep.
  • [s] BMI deep-green zone .. is protective when I face many stressors and increase stress-eating.
  • better sleep .. protective but not really reduces the stressor
  • [s] jogg.. (more effective than swimm or cycling) can protect against stress. Among other things, jogging generates a temporary boost to inner confidence and energy level.
  • [s] MLP severance + 3M NC + 3M NP… feels like protective of family livelihood. Classic example of protection when “meteor” impact is inevitable. Also a stress relief.
  • [s] active and cooperative (no 100% perfection) intimacy .. protective. Additionally, it can reduce (even prevent) some types of spousal conflicts .
  • — unsorted
  • choosing car-less or rental lifestyle .. can prevent some stressors, but staying rented also comes with its share of stressors.
  • [s] more paid leaves .. seem to reduce and prevent stress, but I guess in the U.S. my contractor job was somehow less stressful.
  • Staying relevant on U.S. job market [IV body-building] .. can prevent a lot of stresses. If you restrict yourself to Singapore, then more stress.
  • [s] mtg preparation and plann .. can prevent  and reduce  stress, esp. last-minute … See also “slack resources”
  • [s] spare of keys (and everything important .. slack resources) can prevent  and reduce stress
  • [s] exp recon and annual snap .. takes huge amounts of time bue feels like satisfying (therapeutic) deep work… The clarity/insight/confidence might prevent some pff stress. In a stress_test (PIP, khm downturn), this data analysis and evicence might reduce my stress level. I would feel protected by these valuable pff resources.
  • [s] My anti-inflation assets .. are protective of family livelihood. HDB home, SP500, SGX bluechips and very few other assets.
  • To protect against the inevitable professional decline, I try to plan ahead for second career, develop r-ikigai. Ineffective? Unsure.
  • [s] In every job, I seek chitchat partners for stress relief and reduction… sometimes even stress protection, after a “meteor hit”
  • MOETF firewall .. reduces stress from volatility
  • [s] yoga .. supposed to be stress reduction in many practitioners, but I tend to focus on the wrong thing — the gap between me vs other students, the gap between the instruction vs my limits. Those necessary modifications are supposed to be gentle, and better than no practice, but they (modifications) tend to create stress.
  • [s] health screening .. (and other periodic “tire checks”) can prevent/reduce stress
  • .. similar: https://btv-open.dreamhosters.com/18807/reduce-annoyances-before-stress-spike/
  • ##[21] current coping strategies: 困扰 #R.Teo lists many examples

— Stress buffering .. a well-defined academic term, very graphical. It is related more to reduction , less to protection .

According to https://what-when-how.com/social-sciences/stress-buffering-model-social-science/ , stress-buffering model hypothesizes that certain psychosocial resources help to reduce the impact of negative life events on an individual’s health status. An accumulation of adverse occurrences can be related to health problems, but life stress may have less effect among people who have more /psychosocial/ resources. In this sense, the resource serves as an insulating factor, or buffer, between the /stressors/ and the disease outcome, so that people who have more resources are less affected by stress.

So the “buffer” is always a specific psychosocial resource, playing a role between the stressor and the disease outcome. By extension, the buffer can also be adequate sleep, a day off, a long walk,,,

optimism, faith #illustrat`abstract concept #XR

Posted on by tiger40490

boy’s situation
SGD strength
Sgp inflation

k_soul_search .. k_CAD

— resilience, adversities are central to optimism
— optimism after WPress site block
— optimism with sexual difficulties
— optimism with BMI challenges
— optimism with boy…
— optimims with my twilight years
— Hi XR,

Optimism has a rich meaning. When I say a person is optimistic about a difficult endeavor [2] (undertaken by herself or an organization[3]), this person maintains her positive energy, her effort [4], her hope for that endeavor, at least half the time[5]. The hope and the optimistic perception is often based on some evidence[6].

Some pointers:

[2] The endeavor could be personal growth, family bond improvement, anger management .. If something doesn’t involve a long, difficult effort, then optimism is irrelevant. (As an analogy, without resistance, strength is irrelevant.)

[4] In most cases, optimism must translate to action. No action, no change. I am optimistic about U.S. so I proactively plan my career, my children’s education, my housing …

[5] For a difficult struggle like improving body flexibility, I frequently lose heart but at least half the time I am hopeful that my stretch practices would enhance my later life. My attitude on ahboy weakens my confidence and hope but half the time I’m hopeful.

[6] There is positive evidence and negative evidence, about a difficult endeavor. When we are optimistic about something, we tend to notice the positive and filter out the negative evidence. For example, I hear your son’s progress. Sometimes the negative evidence is overwhelming, putting our optimism to the test. I don’t want to describe examples.

In some cases, our optimism is not based on evidence… that would be “faith”. (Blind optimism can be reckless and I seldom see that in myself.) I donated blood a few times because I believe a good deed by a father will bring good luck to himself and his kids. Blood donation generates massive and lasting positive energy.

[3] Most of the time I feel optimistic about Singapore as a nation, despite its inherent limitations and comparative weaknesses. Also, I often feel optimistic about the U.S. economy and U.S. stocks. With my investments in Cambodia, I feel slightly optimistic about Cambodian economy. On the other hand, I’m less optimistic about Philippines where I bought some property.

By my definition of optimism, I don’t think you are all-pessimistic. You do show positive energy on parenting, on tech learning. You clearly prefer U.S. because you see brighter future for your family in this country than any other country.

— (realistic) Optimism in Leadership
Leadership in any organization always requires optimism. I see that in Lee Kuan Yew, in Obama. In my family, I can see it in my dad at a few junctures. He chose to focus on the positive evidence when other people see the negative. As leader of my family, I have a duty to hold up the optimism in the family. Can I choose pessimism in some cases? I would say rarely, and it would usually affect our energy level.

— optimism in competitive endeavors
Optimism in health, career longevity, family bonding … are non-competitive and less tricky. But some endeavors are fundamentally competitive, like getting into Facebook or enrolling my son into a top college. What if all other students are bright, motivated and optimistic? Not everyone can get into the top 10%. Tricky. In those cases, I choose to rephrase my goals. My dad had the wisdom and audacity of hope to tell me “I would be satisfied if my grandson graduates from a Singapore polytechnic or a U.S. community college”

harmony[def]^t_mellow #aging

Posted on by tiger40490

k_mellow

Motivation: the concept and category of “stress” is too broad. Some blogposts are not exactly about stress. ParentingAnxiety is similar case. So I found “harmony” a related concept.

Harmony is about coexistence of two (or multiple ) conflicting parts, without removing/suppressing one of them. This concept can include

  • harmony in family [和睦] .. parentingAnxiety
  • harmony within .. similar to stress relief
  • harmony with the environment
  • harmony with the systems and their rules such as .. aging
  • resilience .. when harmony is lost or under threat
  • patience

— patience, and mellow-up .. personal-efficiency is a worthwhile goal, but to maintain inter-personal harmony , we want to avoid giving pressure on other people. It’s good to shield our friends from whatever pressure. I used to create pressure on my friends.. impatience.

— Mellow.. Mellow-up is about growing wisdom. It’s harder to become mellow than to achieve some local harmony. Deep harmony is usually achieved after mellow-up.

mellow and Emperor’s new clothes .. Many mis-perceptions are age-old bubbles to be poked when we mellow up.

mellow is often a personal growth against FOLB and other negative forces

— harmony is related to passive acceptance. Reconciliation and balance are required.

## effi^Dependency #weakening

Posted on by tiger40490

Now I think most of my efficiencies, my peers’ efficiencies, organizational and government efficiencies are built on (“dependency”) some technologies. Dependency and efficiency might be the two sides of a coin.  In economics, another team for efficiency is productivity, largely correlated with technology. In this blogpost, I choose to focus on a specific theme “efficiency^dependency”, to avoid creating a vague, boundless blogpost.

Economics is about choices. If a /resource/ provides a new choice to achieve a goal, vs an older choice, then we compare the two choices in cost and benefits. I propose an acid test — A dependency is an _unhealthy_ choice if either
– costly .. more costly than alternatives, in t$
– or not dependable .. [including unavailable] in some important contexts

Q2: does it matter if no one else depends on this thing?
A: not much beyond my 2 criteria. The self-learning endeavor is slightly resource intensive.
.. Jolt: Most people in my community are not serious about this endeavor so they make do with a tiny screen ! This is similar to my attitude on cooking — I make do with simple healthy food as I don’t care about taste.

Q3: does it matter that the dependency tends to weaken our self-resilience? Walking stick is low-cost but not always available.
A: Yes I have seen it throughout my life and I try to reduce the weakness. But ..
.. Jolt: Consider King’s speech.. his dependency on his speech therapist makes him resilient rather than weak. The King is a symbol of fortitude. Costly and imperfect availability, but he has no better choice.

  • eg: 5-laptop set-up .. (all active). It sounds like over-dependency, but I would argue that the incremental benefit/cost is favorable at each acquisition. Cost and dependability both acceptable.
  • eg: dependency on office/McDonald/MRT as /harbors/ .. enhance my self-care, well-being. Cost tolerable. When unavailable, I was coping with some difficulty.
  • — blogging, learning .. See Q2
  • eg: printout for work/learning .. (in general). It does enhance my efficiency, proven over 20Y. When availability is a non-issue, this dependency is tolerable.
  • eg: 2-printer home set-up… does enhance my efficiency. See separate blogpost
  • eg: printout for paper-blogging .. does enhance my efficiency. (In this example, I want to focus on printout for _blogging_.) Consider the cost and reliability of basic printers, I feel this dependency is lower than the online-blogger’s dependency or the offline blogger’s dependency.
  • eg: my dependency on books .. inexpensive but not always available. I functioned well without books.
  • — wellness, where (jolt –> ) the “cost” of managing ill health is much higher
  • eg: yoga studio. See separate blogpost likes [21] 3M$450 PlatinumYoga reboot
  • eg: see the blogpost on $7.50 salad
  • eg: With dental hygiene, I rely on frequent dental scaling to compensate for flossing. The t$cost@scaling is tolerable in SG but will someday become less available, and resemble the yoga situation.
  • eg: The jogger backpack enhances convenience at a small cost. The purist can say it is an unnecessary convenience, but I disagree. See also Q2.
  • — economies
  • eg: SG and many governments rely on e-gov technologies .. efficient. Not costly when you consider the efficiency benefits.
  • eg: many economies have a serious dependendency on fossil fuel. Questionable Dependability. However, the alternative solutions are often more costly and less dependable.

— eg: tuition centers… Many say “unreliable” because sooner or later we must become self-motivated. Well, how about dependency on school?
Many adults still choose to go back to school and learn something, including me, Rahul, 金庸. The alternative of self-learning is neither efficient or effective.

[13]success hinges on resilience; success+!setback

Posted on by tiger40490

I didn’t read this [[ScientificAmerican Mind]] article, but it looks promising and worth reading:

  • Resilience is the ability to modulate and constructively harness the stress response, a capacity essential to both physical and mental health.
  • Success can hinge on resilience. Setbacks (serious or minor) are part of any endeavor, and those who react to them productively will make the most progress

However, I can think of many real success experiences without serious setbacks (though resilience is like the protective rope on a rock climber — you need it sooner or later.)

  • Case: I feel my wife went through the diploma training without serious setbacks.
    • However, I think she had serious setbacks at year-end in MindChamps.
  • Case: after leaving Chartered, I had an easy ascent in LAMP and increased earning power quickly.
  • Case: I switched from LAMP to unix admin without major difficulties I can recall.
  • Case: I got into quant dev without a fight. I impressed my Barcap colleagues with my quant knowledge. I didn’t have a major struggle.
    • However, I had insurmountable setbacks with the quant complexities of Stirt
  • Case: I picked up c# easily. The major setbacks were mostly in the boss criticism. Besides that, my c# learning had minor setbacks.
  • Case: I picked up swing and passed some swing interviews, all without a lot of major setbacks
  • Case: after GS, I became quite popular with Wall St recruiters.
    • My failed java interviews were minor setbacks, in contrast to serious setbacks in other job seekers’ experience. In this respect, my resilience was outstanding.
    • However, I had multiple serious setback with c++ interviews, before I started passing them

I had serious setbacks on many fronts, not the least on the corporate ladder i.e. the most visible yardstick of “success”, but ultimately income, cashflow, health and family (all livelihood components) are the truly important things. In terms of income, I had a relatively easy success to reach my middle-class level without serious setbacks.

— some of my setbacks that tested my resilience

  • minor: job instabilities at GS, q3SG etc
  • serious: tech churn. I coped well.
  • serious: age discrimination. I coped very well.
  • minor interview setbacks
  • serious: BMI setbacks
  • serious: yoga
  • serious: academic parenting setbacks
  • minor: spouse communications [even conflicts]
  • minor: coding drill
  • — other setbacks .. less about resilience

nannyState: prevention+support 4divorcing parents

Posted on by tiger40490

k_counsellor  k_divorce

In my experience, SG gov + nonprofits provide effective counselling including legal. I don’t think any local governments in U.S. or China offer this level of “care” to their citizens, or I don’t know where to find such help. U.S. legal issues are exp. complex and frequent.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/online-portal-support-couples-divorce-counselling-12505660 is an illustration of the Singapore nanny state government —

There are currently six Divorce Support Specialist Agencies in Singapore offering specialized programs for /divorcing/ and divorced families. Currently, couples with minor children who are unable to reach an agreement on divorce are required to attend a Mandatory Parenting Program (MPP), where counselors from Divorce Support Specialist Agencies help them better understand the practical issues of divorce. New *online* counselling sessions under the two-year pilot with Community Psychology Hub will be provided free of charge.

— resilience through community support
I keep this section in this blogpost (rather than other blogposts) because this particular government social support is a good example to illustrate a point.

I tend to rely on social support network, beyond family and friends. The SG nanny state offers this type of support .. important, valuable to me. Likewise, I also seek counselling support. I feel dependent, vulnerable and sometimes ashamed. However, “True resilience is accepting help” proclaims one resilient African woman in resilience #WhyFactor. For huge blows in my life, I think seeking help can be life-changing , even life-saving.

To survive a tough situation, we need action. Seeking help is action. When we seek help, we first describe[1] our situation. Then we listen with pain, with focus, with an open mind, sometimes with energy (often exhausted), with motivation to relieve the pain or save the ship . This motivation is probably the key factor for the high success rate when resilient individuals seek help.

I feel other victims (i use this word loosely here) may dismiss as ineffective any “social support network” from government, non-profit, community counselling, religious organizations, self-help groups etc. These victims feel the “outsiders” don’t understand the situation in detail, don’t spend enough time. I think these outsiders actually want to help and some of them do have time, but the victims must put in a huge effort as described earlier. The biggest effort is not from the helpers but the victims.

Some victims may rely on family and friends, which may not be more effective than social support. Family and friends may lack experience, and may have their hands full due to their own personal/family difficulties. Sometimes a support network is better /resourced/.

Other victims don’t seek help at all, perhaps due to no-hope. Some victims may feel strong, but actual result is, their failure rate is higher than people like me who readily seek help. They break, they suffer, they sink their ship and they bring down their families with them. No they are not resilient !

Back to the theme of this blogpost. In SG I have sought “social support” several times and I always felt cared for [1]. I don’t feel the same in the U.S. where I can only call local friends and family members overseas.

[1] One early challenge I faced was describing my pains in English. This is one of the biggest challenges for non-English speakers. Even for someone without language barrier, it takes real energy and EQ + IQ to open up, describe in details (soul-search) and engage with a helper, or a “nanny” from the nanny state. I’m long-winded and very chatty, and my counselors often need to interrupt and summarize for me, but that’s much better than the average “victim”.

Americans, Mainland Chinese… receive less support from the state. “You are on your own.” they were told. Such a message is rarely given to SG citizens. Sg citizens are often reliant on the nanny state. I guess this is similar to other small nations like Finland, Norway, Luxemburg,,,

The reliance is evident in many diverse domains.

However, Singaporeans as a whole is a fairly resilient nation, as shown in numerous crises [covid, SARS, 1997AFC…]. We are resilient in spite or because of our reliance on each other.

Same can be said of a family. Kids rely on parents. Siblings lean on each other.

I guess a small school, a small company are also like small nations — tight-knit group.

[[King’s speech]] resilience despite dependencies

Posted on by tiger40490

There are individuals who don’t need to rely on others. They appear to be resilient in the lone wolf sense, but I don’t know how common they are, or how strong they actually are.
I guess in most cases, resilient people tap on a “support network” rather than act as lone wolves.

One of the most intimate illustrations is counselling, like sexual issues, phobias, obsessions, addictions, behavior issues. Optimism (in the Lone-wolf sense) is just a word, often a weak and ineffective word by itself. Positive thinking is .. ditto. In half the non-trivial cases, the individual needs guidance and a helping hand. Dependency yes, but that’s real resilience for real people.

Emotional intelligence and Resilience are two misunderstood concepts.

  • EQ is way more than empathy; its foundation is self-awareness…
  • Resilience is not bulletproof, as explained in resilience #WhyFactor

Today I want to focus on resilience in spite of dependency.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King%27s_Speech#Plot says the King’s speech therapist was always present at King George VI’s speeches during the war… ?! When I look at it with my red hat or black hat on, I would say Bertie was a failure and weakling with a constant need for (permanent dependency on) his therapist.

Such a hostile, /derogatory/, pessimistic assessment is unfair to King George, who became known as a symbol of British determination to win the WW2. The King demonstrated tremendous inner strength during WW2 and the post-war /disintegration/ of the British Empire.

It’s not necessarily a sign of weakness to rely on outside help, on a daily basis, as long as the individual is making a real effort, fighting her daily battle.

  • eg: Think of a weak student who needs constant help but also works hard on her own. I was a truly self-reliant student who doesn’t need as much help as my classmates, but that doesn’t make me a resilient student. In fact, those classmates (who depended on help) could come out on top, thanks to their resilience.
  • eg: I think many musicians and creative artists are dependent on drugs, alcohol, smoking… I would say some of them are capable, productive in their creative domains.
  • eg (fictional): Bane with his dependency on pain relief apparatus … is somehow feared as a strongman, but his dependency was proven to be his Archile’s hill when Batman attacked the tubes.
  • eg (specific) : Chairman Mao is a strong man, but also a chain smoker i.e. substance dependency.
  • eg (within my circle): Rahul is a determined, hard-working teammate I observed for a year+.  However, you could say he has a mild addiction to gaming and tobacco.
  • eg (within my family): my sis is a strong, tough, resilient woman. However, she had mild addictions to tobacco, overspending. I know her better than I know the other examples, but I tend to pass heavy judgement on her.
  • optimism and longevity .. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/10/study-optimists-are-more-likely-to-live-past-age-90-heres-why.html says leveraging social support is associated with optimism. These optimist women are less likely to go it alone when facing adversity.

resilience #WhyFactor #to merge

Posted on by tiger40490

See also

  1. the 2013 blogpost [13]success hinges on resilience; success+!setback, a completely unrelated discussion on resilience.
  2. [[[King’s speech]] resilience despite dependency #EQ

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3csyv0l is a WhyFactor production on Resilience

  • top level of resilience is the support network available to an individual.
    • The more supported we feel, the more resilient we tend to become. However, some individuals (children esp.) become dependent on external support and less resilient.
  • middle level — most familiar level of “resilience” is psychological resilience.
  • base level — biological resilience — how in distress you maintain your sleep, fitness, diet, immunity, serenity.

— jolt: resilient people are often those able to articulate and ask for help

Resilience is not bulletproof (invulnerable is another word). I would say everyone goes thorugh fears, pains, stress, setbacks,,,. If you like to be one of those who don’t “break” easily, then I think we first need to stop pretending to be strong, and stop aiming to become stronger. The hardest material tend to be rigid and brittle. SPRaja told me about “bend and sway” — that’s resilience.

“True resilience is accepting help”, proclaims one resilient African women featured in the WhyFactor. I explored in this blogpost on seeking help . When we talk about “true resilience” we often refer to oversized huge blows including covid19. The biggest blows in one’s life is often too big to handle by oneself, when it is crucial to have developed the skills to articulate and seek help.

tough adjustments(US++) build resilience+adaptability

Posted on by tiger40490

This kinda adjustment is tough, really stressful .. on anybody going through it. (Most people would avoid it. They say they avoid unnecessary risk, but subconsciously they also want to avoid the adjustments and stress.)

On the other hand, the stressful adjustment could also, in theory, build our strength, resilience and adaptability. Grandpa reminded me repeatedly — U.S. change is a positive change, a change for the better.

Look at [[who moved my cheese]]. There is a big “change” in the world we live in. I won’t elaborate again – Sg IT job market not right for me long term. Another potentially big driver — boy may do better in the US education system.

Many individuals stick to a comfort zone and become highly efficient and productive therein. I tend to see them as weakened. Can they adjust to a changing world? I would doubt majority of them could.

For illustration, Let me list no more than 8 (unrelated) adjustments in my career:

  • expensive part time Master’s, putting myself to a tough test
  • leaving the Perl comfort zone
  • planning to try West coast
  • taking up the BGC investment
  • the GS pressure cooker
  • taking up windows dev. c# per se is much easier
  • wife taking diploma at her age