Book: 20221212 to 20230211, "Option B" by Sheryl Sandberg, Adam Grant

20221212 - Introduction

How to handle tragedy? I believe Elon Musk gave us better solution: keep busy, look forward.

But I agree that resilience is muscle, not bone. We can make it stronger.

20221213 - 1 Breathing Again

"Children and adults recover more quickly when they realize that hardships aren't entirely their fault, don't affect every aspect of their lives, and won't follow them everywhere forever" p16

People are looking for narratives to explain everything, good or bad. Most of those narratives are wrong, like what Guy De Maupassan said:" Things are not as good we think, and they are not as bad as we think."

"You don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer." p23

Well said! If we stop thinking about the suffer, the suffer would be much reduced.

Unnecessary pain comes from subconsciousness. It comes from our mind. That's why zen suggests "Put it all down": let go of your opinion, your condition and your situation. Focus on the first principle. Think ahead. Let consciousness control our mind and our behaviour.

20221227 - 2 Kicking the Elephant Out of the Room

How to comfort people with tragedy? Acknowledge their stress and pain. Genuinely offer support.

The most painful feeling comes from loneliness. If no one understand and no one acknowledge it, then we feel lonely.

20221228 - 3 The Platinum Rule of Friendship

Golden Rule: treat others as you want to be treated.

Platinum Rule: treat others as they want to be treated.

The Platinum Rule is BS, in my opinion. It's dangerous to apply our willingness to others. From the God's viewpoint, people need to be able of asking for help.

The chapter reminds me of the movie "Avator (I, II)". It's not right. Where is the natural selection? Should we let the one with the weakest mind get most support? We should help each other, but I think we should follow Golden Rule rather ran Platinum Rule.

20230112 - 4 Self-Compassion and Self-Confidence

Guilt is not shame.

We are all human, so we make mistakes. That's not big deal.

We can correct errors, and improve our choices next time.

We need to accept the fact that we are not perfect. And it's normal. Not matter what regretful things we did.

Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said that life can only be understood backward but it must be lived forward. p67

Is this our understanding of time?

Counting our blessings doesn't boost our confidence or our effort, but counting our contributions can. p68

The former gives us happiness, and the latter gives us strength.

Yes, I am going to try this one. Write down three achievements every day.

20230114 - 5 Bouncing Forward

Is Gene our ultimate meaning of life? When we help others, our gene get better chance to survive and grow, which satisfy our own gene no matter how much we(ourselves and our relatives) lost by lethal disease or other unexpected issues.

Why community and relationship make us happy? Same.

Weird.

20230124 - 6 Taking Back Joy

Write down three moments of joy every day. p100

Joy comes from attention. Sadness also comes from attention. If we can control our attention, we can control our emotion.

Where does joy and resilience come from? Our gene needs them to survive and grow, and it can trick us to believe/imagine that we have it, that's why we can get it from imaginary stuff. Can we feel joy even in jail? I believe so. At least we can feel it from time to time. That stops us from committing suicide.

20230125 - 7 Raising Resilient Kids

We use narratives to explain our behaviours. Those narratives are part of our subconscious/habits.

To beat this problem, we need to follow the first principle: asking ourselves whether the narratives are true.

With help of Internet/Google/ChatGPT, we know how to do almost anything. If we don't to do something, it's not because we can't do it, but because we don't want to do it, or we don't believe we can do it.

Young people have advantages about this problem. They don't have much experiences, so they are less confined by past experiences.

The problem of growth mindset is about how to prove it? Yes, someone else who succeeded in some area may tell us that the success comes from growth mindset. But how do we know whether that's based on Survivorship bias? I think the only way to approve it is through peers. If other kids/people that we believe who are similar to ourselves succeed through growth mindset, then we can do it too.

Kids are easier to adapt to changes. They know how to put attention to happy activities and avoid hurting self emotionally. Adults should learn from them. When we feel terrible, we need to do something to change our mood.

20230203 - 8 Finding Strength Together

Can we utilize Meme to find strength? Meme could be positive, but it could also be negative. We just need to choose the correct one.

However, if someone has the ability to choose the right one, he/she is more likely to be resilient enough.

Wechat group and Twitter etc. are all teams that we can find strength together. How do we know whether they brings us benefit or harm? Most of the teams are neutral. We need to keep our mind open.

20230204 - 9 Failing and Learning at Work

Need to record JAR(Joys, Achievements and Regrets) events everyday.

Joys: live in the moment. Enjoy our lives.

Achievements: step out of comfort zone. Grow.

Regrets: learn from our failure, shame, afraid, unfortunate, etc.

PS: I am wondering when I can get rid of screen addiction, and enjoy meditation more.

Even when you get an F for the situation itself, you can still earn an A+ for how you deal with it. p151
Then we can use our conscious to solve the problem. Our mood and subconscious would not get involved.
The situation could have long term impact. For example, serious car accident.

20230211 - 10 To Love and Laugh Again

The whole book is about attention, in my eyes.

Achievements = Time * Attention

The achievement could be anything, including career, study, relationship, health, money, etc.

How to fulfil our lives? Don't let our subconsciousness take control. JAR is actually calling for our consciousness!