General

Futility

Next time you feel helpless, just stop. Just try to stop. What is your physical reaction, are you doing anything with your hands? What are you looking at? Do you see it - actually see what you are looking at? Are you aware of the sounds around you? If you are shutting out the world around you, then you are most likely thinking irrational thoughts. Futility makes for stress, and stress causes us to make mistakes, which breed failure. Avoid the irrational thoughts, and it follows you may be more successful.

Try

Tries can be short, or long. Tries can last a second, or years. Anticipation of a short try often takes longer than the try. Anticipation of a long try takes shorter than the try. If the anticipation takes too long, and is stressful, then it's called dread. Oh, back to the try. Tries can be a single effort, like a high jump; tries can be continuous, like attending college; tries can be infinite, like having a child.

Learned Helplessness

"So, there were these rats, see? They were in individual cages, in two groups. Some of the rats pushed a lever, and got food. Call them group A. Some of the rats pushed a lever and got food, sometimes, and got a shock sometimes. Call them group B.

"Then they put the rats in a pool of water and let them swim. Swim and swim, without rest. Yep. Eventually they drowned. Funny thing, though. The rats in Group A swam for days before they gave up, and the other group drowned in hours."

When you control over the smaller things in life, you feel you can control the larger things.

STOP IT!

Theraputic technique for managing emotions, irrational thoughts, and things that go bump in the night. Really doesn't tie to any recognized psychological theory, Jungian, Freudian, cognitive/behavioral, phenomenological. It is the universal technique for intervention. Might be sometimes difficult to self-administer, however. A variation of this theory is known as "Just quit it."

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