WHY YOU SHOULD STOP TURNING LEMONS INTO

LEMONADE

CODY MCLAIN

Life can be full of lemons sometimes. It seems we all have moments in our lives where they all seem to hit us all at once, and other times when we’re lemon free.

We like to point to external forces to blame for events that occur in our lives. While this is not all bad, the danger is in realizing when this does occur so that we can avoid making the same mistake in the future.

SO WHERE DO OUR EMOTIONS COME FROM?

It’s not always cause and effect when it comes to our emotions. If you have plans to hang out with friends later tonight, you might be a little excited to do so.

Your excitement comes from a direct result of what we think we will feel, and not the actual event itself. The issue is that they often create a slanted perception of our thoughts and feelings.

In psychology, this kind of thinking is known as the agency- detection system, and it comes in every one of us. Apart from the investigative side of our mind which analyses current situations, we also tend to predict future events and how they will play out.

It’s been shown in multiple studies, that our happiness is generally not caused by the events that happen to us. This ability to return to a relatively stable level of happiness shortly after a major event is called the hedonic treadmill.

SO WHAT DOES SUBJECTIVE FORECASTING, AND HEDONIC TREADMILL HAVE TO DO WITH LEMONS?

Now that you understand the base concept, understand that both of these are part of a larger concept called the psychological immune system. If you feel hurt, upset or frustrated, you categorize this as a negative emotional state.

This brings me to the part called subjective optimization. It’s really a form of self-delusion and we all do it.

In the unconscious part of our mind it tends to prefer the optimistic situation in the past, over the cold truth over the present situation.

SO WHAT DOES SUBJECTIVE FORECASTING, AND HEDONIC TREADMILL HAVE TO DO WITH LEMONS?

A good example of this might be of that cousin of yours. Remember how she got pregnant after getting accepted into college?

Why do we do this though? We all have a tendency to look at the positive side of any bad situation, a tendency to … turn lemons into lemonade.

Now this isn’t all bad, after all it’s always better to look at the bright side of a shitty situation instead of being a cynical ass all the time.

However, there are certainly times when it can be a disadvantage, and cause us more problems in the long-term.

THE PHOTOGRAPHY STUDY

This was demonstrated in a 1999 study by psychologists Daniel Gilbert and Jane Jenkins. They created a photography course at a college and asked students to take pictures of things they thought was meaningful to them and their experience there. 

The majority of students chose the group which would allow them to change their decision.

Therefore the researchers concluded that you are more likely to make lemonade out of a situation for which is out of your control, and therefore unchangeable.

THE PHOTOGRAPHY STUDY

Technology and the Internet today cause more unhappiness and psychological problems in our generation than any previous corporation, historical event, war, product, or person – in the history of civilization.

Imagine being somebody back in the 1940’s going to buy a car. Chances are you would simply be grateful to have a car, and would be more satisfied with that car than if you didn’t have it.

Regardless of the problems you have with that car, the lack of choices internalized a greater amount of happiness in the people who bought it. Today you might be grateful to just have a car too, but deep down inside you really want a BMW.

THE FAKE DEBRIEFING STUDYBack in 2000, a number of psychologists were able to show that subjective optimization can be controlled through external, and often invisible forces. They hypothesized that they could control your happiness if they could control your fate, and thereby misdirecting blame to an external source.

Later they used a “fake debriefing” trick to tell them that the flashes of light were actually subliminal messages

designed to influence their decision of their partner.

Despite every participant in the study being responsible for their own level of happiness,

they felt the decision was out of their control, and therefore created what psychologists refer to as the illusion of external agency.

SO WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?

The studies do an important point in showing that we point to an external agency (or force) as the cause for the situation or place we are in. The externalization happens unconsciously, so it’s hard for us to even understand that this invisible force is acting on our thoughts and actions.

You may argue with a friend, family, or historian for that matter, over the outcome of an event and how it could have been different. However they may see that event or thing as a good, positive occurrence that led to something better

So ask yourself, how many things in your life did you initially hate or enjoy the most, that you simply came to accept over time? What if you could go back and do things differently? How much happier might you have been?

By: Cody McLainBlog site: www.mindhack.comFollow me: @codymclain