psychology

“I’ve never had a goal”

I found the blog post “I’ve never had a goal” over at Jason Kottke blog interesting. There is a quote from Jason Fried, the founder of Basecamep (aka 37signals):

I can’t remember having a goal. An actual goal.

There are things I’ve wanted to do, but if I didn’t do them I’d be fine with that too. There are targets that would have been nice to hit, but if I didn’t hit them I wouldn’t look back and say I missed them.

I don’t aim for things that way.

I do things, I try things, I build things, I want to make progress, I want to make things better for me, my company, my family, my neighborhood, etc. But I’ve never set a goal. It’s just not how I approach things.

Also, Jason Kottke’s therapist advice:

For the longest time, I thought I was wrong to not have goals. Setting goals is the only way of achieving things, right? When I was criticizing my goalless approach to my therapist a few years ago, he looked at me and said, “It seems like you’ve done pretty well for yourself so far without worrying about goals. That’s just the way you are and it’s working for you. You don’t have to change.”

I myself don’t set goals either. But I’m yet to reach that “you’ve done pretty well for yourself” part. Wink.

Self-driving cars’ unexpected side effect …

Slashdot links to a rather unexpected prediction for the time when we are all driven by the robot cars:

“At least one expert is anticipating that, as the so-called ‘smart’ cars get smarter, there will eventually be an increase in an unusual form of distracted driving: hanky-panky behind the wheel.”

Money vs. happiness

It’s been said many times that you can’t buy happiness with money. The Washington Post runs the article about the research that begs to differ:

Not only did the extra income appear to lower the instance of behavioral and emotional disorders among the children, but, perhaps even more important, it also boosted two key personality traits that tend to go hand in hand with long-term positive life outcomes.

The first is conscientiousness. People who lack it tend to lie, break rules and have trouble paying attention. The second is agreeableness, which leads to a comfort around people and aptness for teamwork. And both are strongly correlated with various forms of later life success and happiness.

On dental fear

Apparently, both dental fear and dental phobia are a thing, and not something I made up in my head:

It is estimated that as many as 75% of US adults experience some degree of dental fear, from mild to severe. Approximately 5 to 10 percent of U.S. adults are considered to experience dental phobia; that is, they are so fearful of receiving dental treatment that they avoid dental care at all costs. Many dentally fearful people will only seek dental care when they have a dental emergency, such as a toothache or dental abscess.

There’s a questionnaire in existence (Corah’s Dental Anxiety Scale) to diagnose it. I scored 17 out of 20, so, yeah – severe anxiety of phobia, but could be slightly worse. Treatment, interestingly, can combine both behavioral techniques, such as positive reinforcement, and pharmacological solutions such as sedation and anesthesia.

And, for those who want to explore this even further, Dental Fear Central is a good place to start.

The trolley problem

The trolley problem is an ethical and psychological thought experiment. In its most basic formulation, you’re the driver of a runaway trolley about to hit and certainly kill five people on the track ahead, but you have the option of switching to a second track at the last minute, killing only a single person. What do you do?

Kottke has some thought-provoking variations. I’m sure this has been turned into a drinking game somewhere.