THE WORLD FRIENDLY HUMANITARIAN PEACE AND ECOLOGY MOVEMENT.

Monday, October 10, 2022

From Eric Barker

The *Secret* Way To An Awesome Life: 4 Insights Backed By Research

(Click here to read on the blog)

I’ve got a secret.

In fact, I’ve got 13 of them. So do you. That’s the average number of secrets people say they have when surveyed. Five of them are “complete secrets” – you’ve never told anybody. And eight more are “confided secrets” – you’ve told at least one other person but won’t be going public with it anytime soon.

A study of 2000 people in the US revealed the most common types of secrets. 92% of the time secrets fit into these categories:

Hurt another person (emotionally or physically)
Illegal drug use, or abuse of a legal drug
Habit or addiction (but not involving drugs)
Theft
Something illegal (other than drugs or theft).
Physical self-harm
Abortion
A traumatic experience (other than the above)
A lie
A violation of someone’s trust (other than by a lie)
Romantic desire (while single)
Romantic discontent
Extra-relational thoughts
Emotional infidelity
Infidelity
A relationship with someone who is cheating on someone else to be with you
Social discontent (unhappy with a friend, or unhappy with current social life)
Physical discontent (dislike of appearance or something physical about yourself)
Mental health struggles
Inappropriate behavior at work or school (or lying to get hired or accepted)
Poor performance at work or school
Profession/work discontent (unhappy with your situation at work or school)
A planned marriage proposal
A planned surprise for someone (other than a marriage proposal)
A hidden hobby or possession
A hidden current (or past) relationship
A family secret
Pregnancy
Orientation or gender identity
Not having sex
A hidden preference (or non-preference) for something
A hidden belief (e.g., political, religious, views about social groups, prejudices)
Finances (e.g., spending, amount of money you have)
A hidden current (or past) employment or school activity
An ambition, plan, or goal for yourself
A specific story you keep secret (unrelated to the above)

Can you relate to any of the above? I’m guessing you can. (With apologies to Nietzsche, “When you stare into the internet, the internet stares also into you.”)

Here’s the thing: often, keeping secrets isn’t good for us. Especially the ones that nag at you. We don’t need to announce them on an LCD billboard in Times Square but we’d be better off if we opened up to someone. That’s not always an easy thing to do – so let’s find a way to make it easier.

We’re going to dive into the hidden world of secrets and get a better idea of how they work, how they make us feel, how we can cope and who we should talk to.

We’re going to get some help from the work of Michael Slepian. He’s a professor of leadership and ethics at Columbia University. He’s done an enormous amount of research on secrets (a Starbucks employee once confided in him that she gives decaf to customers that are rude to her.) His book is “The Secret Life of Secrets.”

Let’s get to it...

The Downside Of Not Opening Up

More than a hundred studies have shown a consistent pattern: if your go-to way of dealing with issues is bottling them up, you’re gonna have problems. Not talking about your difficulties is correlated with health issues and lower life satisfaction. But that’s not all...

Keeping secrets harms your relationships. Study subjects who kept secrets from their spouse reported being less comfortable accepting kindness from their partner, got less enjoyment out of social activities and were more interested in self-punishing activities like isolation, receiving criticism and even lab tasks that caused physical pain. Yeesh.

And if that’s not enough, keeping secrets makes you dumber. Monitoring what you say so you don’t spill the beans is cognitively draining. Researcher Clayton Critcher told subjects not to use the words “breakfast” or “therefore” and then asked them a series of questions. Cognitive performance on a series of subsequent tasks plummeted. It was like playing a mental version of “the floor is lava.” When we have to choose every word we say with a pair of tweezers, we get stupid real fast.

But the worst part wasn’t talking with others – it was how secret-keepers felt when they were alone. Conversations are a limited part of your day, but guilty rumination can be limitless. The more unresolved an issue was, the more shame, guilt and anxiety we feel.

Meanwhile, opening up helps. Michael found, in general, the more people disclose, the healthier and happier their relationships were.

Now I’m not saying all secrets will be well received but research shows that those close to you are much more charitable than you’d expect. Rarely does one fact overturn everything they feel about you. They’re probably not going to hate you and they’re probably not going to double up on the floor and laugh like a hyena. They’re much more likely to say, “I’ve had an experience like that too.”

As I talked about in my book, vulnerability often makes people like us more. Through a complicated system of emotional ropes and pulleys, it makes people feel closer to us and builds trust. When deciding whether or not to open up, treat the issue of “What will people think?” as a real question, rather than a scary rhetorical one.

But what if this is something you really, really, reallycan’t tell anyone?

If You Must Keep It A Secret

I don’t want to come off as naïve. Some secrets, if shared, could be devastating. (It’s more than a little disconcerting to realize you could blow your life up in less than 5 text messages.)

Some secrets may feel shameful and embarrassing but don’t really impact anyone other than you (“I wet myself in front of my fourth-grade class and still have nightmares about it”) but other secrets directly impact others and could deeply hurt them.

Michael found that the more immoral a secret is, the more shame you feel. The more solitary and personal it is, the more isolated a secret makes you. And the more a secret is emotional vs logical, the less insight you have into it. This points to the three ways that secrets often hurt us: shame, loneliness and lack of insight. But that also points to three angles that can help us cope.

Ask yourself:

Is anyone harmed by this secret? If no one is harmed by your secret, remember that past mistakes are in the past. You just need to give yourself permission to move on.
Does the secret protect anyone you know? If the secret protects or benefits someone else, you can find solace in knowing that however bad it may be, this action isn’t purely selfish.
Do you have any insight into it? Just understanding why you are keeping a secret can help you feel more in control of the issue and better able to deal with it.

Studies show that considering these things notably increases people’s ability to cope and improves their well-being when the secret was something they couldn’t share.

But there is another solution… maybe you can talk to someone about it. However, this raises yet another question – who?

Who To Talk To

Michael surveyed thousands of people and found that most of us would prefer to share our secrets with someone compassionate. No surprise there. But we also like the idea of talking to someone who is assertive and decisive – someone who will push us to explore solutions and do something about it.

He also learned what we do not want in confidantes: blabbermouths and moral judgment. (Michael also found people who are morally judgmental are more likely to blab your secret, so make sure to open up to someone who has a similar moral code.)

More often than not, sharing secrets doesn’t burden the other person. In a study of 200 subjects, Michael found that listeners were happy to learn the other person’s secret. It conveyed trust and intimacy.

And the big question – do the people we talk to keep our secrets confidential? 70% of the time, they do. You know what? That number doesn’t exactly thrill me. Probably doesn’t thrill you either.

So there’s another alternative to explore – opening up to someone unconnected to you. If you’re afraid that someone spreading your secret would absolutely kill you to death, telling a stranger, a therapist, or a wise Uber driver can be a good way to have your cake and eat it too. You get the secret off your chest, but the risks are minimized.

And opening up really did help people. Michael’s work showed the more someone was worried about a secret, the better they felt after discussing it. On our own we often dwell on the most catastrophic result. Talking to someone else can give us a more positive and realistic perspective as opposed to just cycling the doom loop faster.

But what if there is absolutely no one you would feel comfortable talking to? Well, there’s a solution for that too...

If You Can't Talk To Anyone

If you feel that opening up to anyone would put bullet holes in your soul, then write about your secret.

University of Texas at Austin professor James Pennebaker has found that writing about our problems can have effects similar to therapy. And it can help you avoid those negative health issues associated with bottling things up. (More details about Pennebaker’s writing method here.)

This a good option and very safe – but you don’t get all the benefits of opening up to a real person. If you’re the type who catastrophizes issues into some apocalyptic End of Days scenario, writing isn’t the best way to soothe yourself. It doesn’t give the emotional support a friend can. Other people can challenge your negative assumptions in ways that Microsoft Word cannot. But if talking to someone doesn’t seem like a realistic option, writing can be a helpful mental disinfectant.

Okay, we’ve covered a lot. Let’s round it all up – and we’ll find out the best way to deal with the good secrets we might be keeping...

Sum Up

Here’s how to deal with secrets:

The Downside Of Not Opening Up: Not opening up hurts your health, your relationships and makes you dumber. No bueno. For most secrets, talking to someone is the best way to go and others rarely judge us as much as we think they will.
If You Must Keep It A Secret: Asking yourself if anyone is harmed, if the secret protects someone, and knowing why you’re keeping the secret can help you cope.
Who To Talk To: Pick someone compassionate and decisive who is not a morally judgmental blabbermouth. If you’re afraid they won’t keep things confidential, you can open up to someone unconnected to the situation.
If You Can’t Talk To Anyone: Write about it. Writing can act like therapy. (This may say a lot more about my career choice than I’m comfortable sharing.)

So what should you do with your good secrets?

The opposite: keep them to yourself, at least for now. Uncertainty magnifies emotions -- bad and good. So don’t ruin Aunt Marge’s surprise party by blabbing. You’ll enjoy it more and she’ll enjoy it more if you keep it to yourself.

We think that stopping to smell the roses is a good thing because positive events are rare. But that’s not true. Studies show positive things are more common than negative. The issue is that positive events are more predictable -- so we take them for granted. Negative events are less predictable, so they hit harder.

This makes it a very good idea to keep positive things a surprise. It makes them less predictable for others and gives them the greater impact usually reserved for the bad. Make the great moments as unique as the sad moments usually are and you have a prescription for joy.

We need to hold on to those good secrets just like we need to open up about the negative ones. The times I’ve spent dwelling on my own negative secrets have been some of the most painful and pointless moments of my life. (Which is really saying something.)

There are some good things in store for you. And they will feel all that much better when they happen because you don’t know what they are yet. So stay optimistic. The world keeps secrets from you...

And some of them will turn out to be very, very good.

***If you are one of those lovely people who bought "Plays Well With Others" please leave a review on Amazon here. Thanks!***

Email Extras

Findings from around the internet...

+ Want to know the healthiest way to reduce your social media use? Click here.

+ Want to know if that midnight snack is a good idea? Click here.

+ Want to know whether coffee or tea is healthier? Click here.

+ Miss my prior post? Here you go: This Is The #1 Ritual You Need To Do Every Day.

+ Want to know how to be more persuasive when discussing politics? Click here.

+ You read to the end of the email. Your secret is safe with me. (And I thank you.) Okay, Crackerjack time: if you've had enough reading for the day but want to keep learning, I've been on a number of fantastic podcasts lately discussing my new book. You can pump useful info into your earholes by listening to these episodes of The Psychology Podcast, Finding Mastery, and Lewis Howes.

Thanks for reading!
Eric

PS: If a friend forwarded this to you, you can sign up to get the weekly email yourself here.

Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Enough with the doom and gloom. My friend the great Blue Heron is about to catch a fish!

He may, however, be simply scratching his neck.

Dear Mr. Garon,

CC: The Honourable Steven Guilbeault, The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos

I am writing to you make sure that the Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act(Bill S-5) that will modernize the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) remains a top priority for you and members of your party this fall.

It has been more than 21 years since CEPA was last updated, leaving people in Canada exposed to toxic chemicals and harmful pollution. This reality — amid the climate emergency, plastic pollution crisis, and inequitable distribution of environmental risk — make strengthening CEPA an urgent priority.

It is essential that political leaders work together to strengthen Bill S-5 and pass this legislation into a law that better protects the environment and the health of all people in Canada — particularly the Indigenous, Black, and racialized people, workers, and people with disabilities marginalized by successive Canadian governments.

The passing of Bill S-5 by the Senate this past June was an important milestone that has put us one step closer to recognizing the human right to a healthy environment. While recognition of the right to a healthy environment in CEPA is a significant step forward for environmental justice in Canada, and although Senators made important amendments to Bill S-5, Members of Parliament also have an opportunity to make critical improvements.

Bill S-5 offers a workable starting point for many much-needed improvements to the Act that ensure that a 21st-century law protects Canadians from 21st-century threats. The bill should be amended to provide further support of the right to a healthy environment by entrenching the principles of environmental justice, non-regression, intergenerational equity, and protection of vulnerable populations.

I urge you to work with your colleagues in the House of Commons to prioritize Bill S-5, and move to quickly to strengthen the bill and pass it into law. We cannot wait another 21 years for this important law to be up to the task of protecting us from everyday threats.

--------------------------

IF YOU NEED SOME GOOD IDEAS FOR CONFRONTING CLIMATE CHANGE...

HERE THEY ARE!

THE INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY VERSUS A CHANGING CLIMATE...

PROBLEMS.

1. Who is going to win this combat to the death?

2. Can mass extinction of life be avoided?

3. How fast can we transition to a non-polluting Green economy?

4. Will a Green economy be possible?

5. Why was human population growth never honestly

regulated with better education and birth control methods?

6. How can we deliver clean air and water to cities in trouble?

7. How do we explain to millions of industrial companies that they have to stop creating products that pollute the environment and transition to products that enhance nature.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

ANSWERS.

1. A mass extinction of life is possible. Our current political and industrial paths are creating dangerous climate change today, as I write these words. The evidence is absolute.

2. It may be possible to reverse and avoid climate change with tremendous effort on the part of governments and world industrial companies. Presently the process is extremely slow.

3. If Two Billion people plant one Tree each tomorrow, that will be Two Billion trees more for the planet. Early education is important towards this goal and world schools should prioritize Nature and Botany and Biology. In other words...how to grow and plant Trees inside and outside school buildings. Fruit trees are fun to grow!

4. A Green economy is possible with government incentives. Paying people to plant Fruit Trees and Vegetable Gardens and Flowers everywhere will help redirect our present out-of-control industrially polluting economy. It is also possible to recycle office buildings into Hydroponic vertical Gardens and to remove Salt from Ocean water.

5. Religious beliefs based on traditions and not on science has sadly blocked scientific progress for centuries. Birth control remains a controversial subject and that does not bode well for our Homo Sapient species. Education is the key. If you begin to feel sick, whom do you visit first, a priest or a doctor? Answer: A Doctor.

6. We have to pump water from our Oceans to our cities and also to irrigate our farm lands. Pumping water to irrigate forests will help to clean the air we breath as larger forests will provide more Oxygen. To do this governments must create incentives to build large pumping stations, preferably powered with Solar Panels or Wind and/or Water powered turbines. Stations that have the duel purpose of pumping water from our Oceans and removing Salt from the water are desperately needed in places like Ethiopia.

7. We explain to world companies that they no longer have a choice. Life has priority over money. Companies can transition from making useless products to creating life enhancing products. They can also make a profit by producing life enhancing products. Go Green or go broke!

8. Recycling Bio waste is good business for farmers and gardeners, however, recycling plastic and metal and paper is more difficult even if it is absolutely necessary. With government incentives, recycling metal and plastic and Biomass will become profitable businesses.

Sending clean H2O into our cities and towards our farm lands and forests has now become a priority for governments around the world. We should transition much faster away from Oil and towards the production and delivery of clean water from our Oceans to the most arid parts of our planet.

We should have started producing Salt removing pumping stations long ago.

N.J.R.

Kind regards,

Nelson Joseph Raglione

The World Friendly Peace and Ecology Movement.

human4us2.blogspot.com

human4usbillions@gmail.com

Sunday, September 4, 2022

THE INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY VERSUS A CHANGING CLIMATE...

PROBLEMS.

1. Who is going to win this combat to the death?

2. Can mass extinction of life be avoided?

3. How fast can we transition to a non-polluting Green economy?

4. Will a Green economy be possible?

5. Why was human population growth never honestly

regulated with better education and birth control methods?

6. How can we deliver clean air and water to cities in trouble?

7. How do we explain to millions of industrial companies that they have to stop creating products that pollute the environment and transition to products that enhance nature.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

ANSWERS.

1. A mass extinction of life is possible. Our current political and industrial paths are creating dangerous climate change today, as I write these words. The evidence is absolute.

2. It may be possible to reverse and avoid climate change with tremendous effort on the part of governments and world industrial companies. Presently the process is extremely slow.

5. Religious beliefs based on traditions and not on science has sadly blocked scientific progress for centuries. If you begin to feel sick, who will you visit first, your doctor or your priest? Most educated people will answer, my Doctor.

Birth control remains a controversial subject and that foolish controversy does not bode well for our Homo Sapient species. Education is the key. Biology and Botany must have first priorities within our school systems and Sex should never be treated as a taboo subject. If you are a young and healthy man or woman, ask your doctor about good birth control methods.

8. Recycling Bio waste is good business for farmers and gardeners; however, recycling plastic and metal and paper is exceedingly more difficult even if it is absolutely necessary. With government incentives, recycling everything could become a more efficient business.

We should have started producing salt-removing pumping stations long ago. Today, Solar Panels and off-short Wind Mills can help produce the electricity needed to power pumping stations.

N.J.R.

Monday, August 22, 2022

March 2-6: Wandering in the woods

Filatyev’s exhausted convoy was ordered to push ahead to storm Mykolaiv and Odessa, though the Russian campaign had already begun to stall. Filatyev described how his unit wandered in the woods trying to reach Mykolaiv, about 40 miles away. He recalled asking a senior officer about their next movements. The commander said he had no clue what to do.

The first reinforcements arrived: separatist forces from Donetsk, mostly men over 45 in shabby fatigues. According to Filatyev, they were forced to go to the front lines when many regular Russian army soldiers refused.

A discarded military uniform remains by trenches that Russian soldiers dug to defend their position outside Vynohradivka, Ukraine, in late March. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)

Diary of a Russian soldier.

Feb. 24: Rolling into war with no plan

At about 4 a.m. I opened my eyes again and heard a roar, a rumble, a vibration of the earth. I sensed an acrid smell of gunpowder in the air. I look out of the truck and see that the sky is lit bright from volleys.

It was not clear what is happening, who was shooting from where and at whom, but the weariness from lack of food, water and sleep disappeared. A minute later, I lit up a cigarette to wake up, and realized that the fire is coming 10-20 kilometers ahead of our convoy. Everyone around me also began to wake up and smoke and there was a quiet murmur: ‘It’s started.’ We must have a plan.

Feb. 25: Collecting corpses from the road

Somewhere around 5 in the morning they wake everyone up, telling us to get ready to move out.

I lit a cigarette and walked around. Our principal medical officer was looking for a place to put a wounded soldier. He constantly said that he was cold, and we covered him with our sleeping bags. I was told later that this guy had died.

We drove on terrible roads, through some dachas, greenhouses, villages. In settlements we met occasional civilians who saw us off with a sullen look. Ukrainian flags were fluttering over some houses, evoking mixed feelings of respect for the brave patriotism of these people and a sense that these colors now somehow belong to an enemy.

Diary of a Russian soldier.

Aftermath: Remaining silent no longer

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I survived, unlike many others. My conscience tells me that I must try to stop this madness. … We did not have the moral right to attack another country, especially the people closest to us.

This is an army that bullies its own soldiers, those who have already been in the war, those who do not want to return there and die for something they don’t even understand.

I will tell you a secret. The majority in the army, they are dissatisfied with what is happening there, they are dissatisfied with the government and their command, they are dissatisfied with Putin and his policies, they are dissatisfied with the Minister of Defense who did not serve in the army.

The main enemy of all Russians and Ukrainians is propaganda, which just further fuels hatred in people.

I can no longer watch all this happen and remain silent.

Diary of a Russian Soldier.

Feb. 15: Gearing up before the invasion

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I arrived to the training ground [in Stary Krym, Crimea]. Our entire squadron, about 40 people, all lived in one tent with plank boards and one makeshift stove. Even in Chechnya, where we only lived in tents or mud huts, our living conditions were organized better. Here we had nowhere to wash up and the food was horrible. For those who arrived later than the rest, me and about five other people, there was neither a sleeping bag, nor camo, armor, or helmets left.

Feb. 23: Bracing for something serious

The division commander arrived and, congratulating us on the [Defender of the Fatherland] holiday, announced that starting from tomorrow, our salary per day would be $69. It was a clear sign that something serious is about to happen. Rumors began spreading that we are about to go storm Kherson, which seemed to be nonsense to me.

Diary of a Russian Soldier.

Feb. 26-28: Advancing on Kherson

Filatyev’s convoy made its way to Kherson and surrounded the local airport, looting stores in villages along the way. On the third day, the convoy received the order to enter Kherson. Filatyev was told to stay behind and cover the front-line units with mortar fire if necessary. He recounted hearing distant fighting all day. The southern port city would become the first major Ukrainian city that Russia captured in its invasion.

March 1: Acting like savages

We marched to the city on foot … [around 5:30 p.m.] we arrived at the Kherson seaport. It was already dark, the units marching ahead of us had already occupied it. Everyone looked exhausted and ran wild. We searched the buildings for food, water, showers and a place to sleep, someone began to take out computers and anything else of value.

Walking through the building, I found an office with a TV. Several people sat there and watching the news, they found a bottle of champagne in the office. Seeing the cold champagne, I took a few sips from the bottle, sat down with them and began to watch the news intently. The channel was in Ukrainian, I didn’t understand half of it. All I understood there was that Russian troops were advancing from all directions, Odessa, Kharkov, Kyiv were occupied, they began to show footage of broken buildings and injured women and children.

We ate everything like savages, all that was there was, cereal, oatmeal, jam, honey, coffee. … Nobody cared about anything, we were already pushed to the limit.

Diary of a Russian Soldier:

Into mid-April: Holding from front-line trenches

From now on and for more than a month it was Groundhog Day. We were digging in, artillery was shelling us, our aviation was almost nowhere to be seen. We just held positions in the trenches on the front line, we could not shower, eat, or sleep properly. Everyone had overgrown beards and were covered in dirt, uniforms and shoes began to fray.

[Ukrainian forces] could clearly see us from the drones and kept shelling us so almost all of the equipment soon went out of order. We got a couple of boxes with the so-called humanitarian aid, containing cheap socks, T-shirts, shorts and soap.

Some soldiers began to shoot themselves … to get [the government money] and get out of this hell. Our prisoner had his fingers and genitals cut off. Dead Ukrainians at one of the posts were plopped on seats, given names and cigarettes.

Due to artillery shelling, some villages nearby practically ceased to exist. Everyone was getting angrier and angrier. Some grandmother poisoned our pies. Almost everyone got a fungus, someone’s teeth fell out, the skin was peeling off. Many discussed how, when they return, they will hold the command accountable for lack of provision and incompetent leadership. Some began to sleep on duty because of fatigue. Sometimes we managed to catch a wave of the Ukrainian radio, where they poured dirt on us and called us orcs, which only embittered us even more. My legs and back hurt terribly, but an order came not to evacuate anyone due to illness.

I kept saying, “God, I will do everything to change this if I survive.” … I decided that I would describe the last year of my life, so that as many people as possible would know what our army is now.

By mid-April, earth got into my eyes due to artillery shelling. After five days of torment, with the threat of losing an eye looming over me, they evacuated me.