Constantly ask what you're currently doing that is irrational

Why reposition the table if it's circular?

Ok, so it is time for an altogether-too-personal story, but there's a chance it will help, and it is relevant to the thread:

I spent most of my life since high school struggling with bouts of depression. They lasted long, long periods of time. I think the longest was around two years, with only a month or two before the next one that lasted over a year. These gradually got worse, from constant thoughts of "I hate life" to constant thoughts of "I want to die. How do I go about dying?"

This went on for a long time. Then I managed to get in a successful relationship, and for a couple of years, it mostly faded. I told her about it, and she suggested I get help. I figured it was basically in the past and I could get over it without it. But of course it came back.

Here's the thing. My mother has the same condition: chronic depression, with no easily identifiable cause. She's on medication for it, and she claims it saved her life. I knew it had a strong genetic component, I knew I probably had the same condition, and after I deconverted from Christianity, I knew the brain was essentially a biological machine that could easily malfunction.

Yet I persisted in not seeking help. I was worried about side effects from medication, among other things. I saw other people zombied out and thought it would happen to me too.

It didn't even occur to me to research the drugs and find out that they worked in lots of different ways.

When it was finally too much, I convinced myself to use my school's (FREE!) psychologica/psychiatric services. They put me on Prozac.

Relevant to the thread: The ENTIRE TIME, from high school to the third year of grad school of being miserable and suicidal, I was being completely and totally irrational. Worse yet, it was the kind of irrationality that you can't just recognize and fix immediately. It took a big push and the help of professionals.

Relevant to your comment: After about 4 weeks on Prozac, the strangest thing happened to me. I went into the bathroom for whatever reason, looked in the mirror, and saw staring back. . . a downright handsome guy.

I didn't even know I had problems with thinking myself unattractive, but I realized at that moment that, while I accepted other people thought me attractive, I had never at any point thought of myself as an attractive man. Well, now I do.

Anyway. I don't know if you've been through anything like that. I know that you think you're ugly. I've seen your OKC profile (I just looked at it again, actually; hi) and you are attractive. But it's probably not enough for other people to tell you. Learn from my irrationality.

Didn't spend much time around you (yet) but I can (surprisingly, given my terrible memory) remember your face and I'm reasonably sure you weren't ugly. But then you listed this as a known irrationality, so you know that, right?

I used to think a line in Simon & Garfunkel's "I Am A Rock" was "I have my looks and my poetry to protect me" [from human interaction]. I thought this was a deep and wise insight; being ugly could be a great way to shield oneself from the world.

I was disappointed to learn it's actually "books".

It's a known irrationality. Also, just "obsessing" over problems, even real ones, is usually irrational.

You're not ugly

A car accident, of course. Cars are so obviously risky, it's amazing that they aren't illegal.

Naturally if the Gub'ment thought statistically, various foods would be illegal first.

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I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world, and, a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. — EB White

The quote appears in a number of slightly different phrasings, and I have no convenient way to check on which one is correct.

I have been attempting to free myself of almost any goal that I can, on the basis that far too many have turned out to be intermediate goals I wanted for some other reason, such as to appease someone else.

The idea is to work out what I actually want, not just what I or someone else thinks I should want. Make life more of an adventure and less of an obligation.

At present I'm actually attaining the blissful state of boredom on occasions, when in a position to actually appreciate what a wonderful problem that is to have.

This frees me up for the things that actually seem to be compellingly important to me (mostly, raising my daughter and improving and enjoying my relationship with my girlfriend), with the occasional hobby dabbling (making music no-one has any reason to care about) and basic mental and physical maintenance (eat properly, exercise, go out and meet up with other people about once a week).

I wouldn't recommend it to everyone, but it's working for me.

I try to be more ambitious than lazy. But I'm fine with lazing around on days that I don't feel like I can do anything.

I figure that I'm more likely to regret being lazy than being ambitious. Its probably easier to get lots of utility, then be lazy than to be lazy and somehow amass a lot of utility.

I'd like a positive singularity to occur in my lifetime, or for medicine to advance to the point that I get to live that long. I think I might be able to do some stuff to make that more likely, but in the meantime I'm trying to figure out how to do that, and build skills so that when I know how to, I'll be able to carry it out.

Akrasia is a big topic here because it seems to be a common problem. However, excessive impulsiveness can also be a problem.

It's possible to think of impulsiveness as a sort of akrasia-- it's habitually insufficient effort put into self-regulation. However, doing something without thought has a different feel than low-energy time-killing, and probably requires a somewhat different approach to deal with it.

And there are sorts of irrationality which aren't very much like either. There's lost goals, and there's insufficient research-- doing something because you'd heard somewhere that it was a good idea without checking on how well-founded the theory was or whether your life is getting improved.

I have no reason to think this is a complete typology.

No, I'm suggesting that you do focus on the short-term stuff, like sitting in a way that strains your thigh. Try it. See what happens.