The opposite of distress
I love when the English language has a word for something that I’m trying to describe that isn’t in the popular vernacular. Today's word is "eustress," which means beneficial stress. This kind of experience that is difficult but ultimately does you good.
Eustress is the opposite of distress, which is harmful. It motivates and enhances performance.
How can we build resilience and personal sovereignty in a world that is more chaotic and unpredictable than any time in the last few hundred years? Eustress amy be part of the answer.
On the shortness of life
I’m reading the Clan of the Cave Bear series, which is the fictionalized telling of a prehistoric hunter-gathering Cro Magnon society during the last ice age. Throughout these books, life is fleeting and impermanent. At any moment a main character might be killed by a predator, trapped in a blizzard and frozen, or swept downstream in a flood and drowned.
Life is fleeting, but in our modern world we’ve gotten comfortable. I can order food to my door in minutes and travel to the furthest regions of the Earth in days. In our abundant, anything-you-want-at-the-click-of-a-button world, we’ve forgotten how fragile we are.
What doesn’t kill you…
We say that “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” That's wrong.
I’ve always been good at listening and asking questions, but not carrying the weight of other people’s challenges. Perhaps as a result, I’ve listened to personal anecdotes of some of the most horrific personal acts of violence and violation that a single human can inflict on another. That kind of horror isn’t just stressful; it leaves the victims in distressed, traumatized.
What doesn’t kill you doesn't make you stronger. It leaves most people weaker. There’s survivorship bias; we hear stories of people who come out of difficult situations stronger. Most people who undergo intense trauma end up homeless, depressed, or mentally ill.
Complicating the issue, the right amount of stress for one person will kill someone else. I can do a backflip, but most people attempting a backflip for the first time will land on their head! How much stress is the right amount specific to each individual, and what’s most beneficial for them.
The only thing each person can do is attempt to add some amount of difficulty – eustress – to their daily lives by evaluating what you are capable of today and then doing something slightly more difficult tomorrow.
Tactics to try
I run 6 miles several days a week. If you ordinarily don’t get outside, perhaps you might go for a walk.
I try to get into my cold plunge for 3 minutes every day. (I don't make it as often as not.) Maybe your equivalent is a moment of cold water at the end of a hot shower.
Eustress is whatever amount of stress is beneficial for you today. It isn't the amount of stress useful to somebody else, but the amount you can handle and get stronger through the experience.
The next question is how to get started. Here are two great books about behavior change to get you started:
- The mega-bestseller Atomic Habits by James Clear provides a framework for changing behavior and adopting new habits. James advocates for changing your environment to make change easier.
- The New York Times bestseller Tiny Habits by my old professor BJ Fogg, PhD is a gem. Among other overlooked aspects of the book, BJ teaches deliberate celebration as a mechanism for reinforcing behaviors.
The practice of resilience
Our world today is stressful. Between global conflicts, wildfires, political unrest and global climate change, societies are more rife, challenged, and problematic than most of us have ever seen.
The way forward is through preparing against the worst, while still hoping for the best. The way forward is to practice difficult things before you need to.
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3 things I’ve loved this week
I stumbled on this book earlier this week on Twitter/X, and it fits with a lot of my approaches to working with children, back to when I worked with kids with autism.
The basic premise is that children ought to be treated with the same respect as adults. Let kids figure things out for themselves. Or in the words of The Morning Star Company, which I wrote about in my Responsive - don’t use force.
I probably won’t give my future kids unlimited junk food and unlimited screen time, but I agree with a lot of principles in the book.
The author was just interviewed on the Tim Ferriss Show.
I’ve read The 48 Laws of Power and The Art of Seduction, but I haven’t paid much attention to Robert’s more mundane work like his weekly newsletter and YouTube channel.
I just dug into his last several blog posts and have been enjoying his perspective on power and politics.
Neil Strauss is the New York Times bestselling author of seven books including The Game and Emergency.
While he's best known for his books about seduction and mating, I'm more interested in his ability to capture the imagination about any subject whatsoever.
Neil lives in LA and shared an article about how to prepare against wild fires evacuations. Even I have evacuated my family from fires in California in the past and think a lot about emergency preparedness, this article has pointers I'd not considered like tracing your evacuation routes in advance.
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Until next week,
Robin
