A lot of people find themselves at a dead end in life. Despair falls like a dark mass and presses harder every day. A person is left alone with his demons. Why is this happening? Who is guilty? How to escape?
First you need to figure out what a dead end is and how real it is. This problem can be divided into two main areas. In the first case, a person really finds himself in a difficult life situation. This could be illness, death of loved ones, debts, prosecution and other real problems. In another case, a life impasse exists only in a person’s imagination. He is depressed, everything begins to irritate him, desires disappear. But there are no serious reasons for this. Although it seems to him that he is on the very edge of the abyss. Both conditions are very serious and can have devastating effects on both mental and physical health.
Is it possible to fight? It is possible and necessary. A prolonged life “at a dead end” threatens to result in disastrous consequences, including suicide and a psychiatric clinic. It is worth noting: strong and confident people rarely find themselves in a dead end. This condition affects the weaker, which is very dangerous.
How to find a way out of life's impasse? First of all, we need to remember that the old proverb, no matter how trite it may sound, is true. You can find a way out of everything. Truth, truth, but doing this is far from easy, and the most difficult thing is the first step. First you need to try to assess the situation: is it possible to cope with the problem yourself. Some require professional psychological help. Under no circumstances should you be ashamed of this. In Russia, going to a psychoanalyst’s office is still viewed with suspicion. However, there are situations when it is impossible to do without it.
When deciding on your own, the first step is to get out of the stressful state. This might help:
- breathing exercises;
- yoga;
- walks in the open air;
- communication with animals.
Is it worth putting all your efforts into solving the problem?
Desperate attempts to resolve the situation, and to do it as quickly as possible, are usually the first reaction to serious difficulties. In reality, this approach is not always productive.
Probably, the reader can remember a moment from the past when he had to defend his honor near the blackboard, frantically solving a mathematical problem or telling a rule. The life difficulties of adults sometimes require even greater ingenuity. In particular, intelligence is needed by those who regard their situation as a dead end. Like a difficult school task, these circumstances cause anger, a feeling of powerlessness, and irritation. Meanwhile, without a creative approach it is very, very difficult to get out of a dead end.
Where can I find a way out of the deadlock?
Understand that “good” and “bad” situations are just labels. And these labels were invented by the man himself. When trying to understand how to get out of an impasse, it is worth taking a closer look at the impasse itself. And then notice that perhaps what you see in front of you is not a wall at all, but a new turn leading to new exciting places. Stop running in circles, “chewing” your problems and discussing the impasse that has arisen in life. If necessary, take a step back, sometimes this is a great opportunity to turn onto another road.
Barbara Oakley's approach
There are parents who tell their children: mathematics is a completely useless subject for practical life. “You won’t need these cotangents in life,” they say. In fact, the ability to use logical thinking correctly can be very useful when faced with any difficulty in life. After all, some “surprises” of fate will easily give odds to any algebraic equation.
American professor Barbara Oakley, author of a book with the enticing title “Think Like a Mathematician,” claims that when solving a complex problem, it is extremely useful to pause. The fact is that the human brain works in two main modes: concentrated and distracted. People use the first one when they are intensely concentrating on a task. For example, when you need to learn a new grammatical rule in a foreign language, or multiply numbers in your head.
The diffuse mode is comparable to the autopilot mode. The nervous system is relaxed. The focus of attention is not concentrated on one subject, but covers the whole picture. It is this mode of brain activity that allows you to find creative solutions to complex problems and learn new information. Barbara Oakley, who herself worked her way up from a humanities scholar to an engineering teacher, recommends alternating between these two modes. Periods of intense concentration should be interspersed with periods of rest and relaxation.
The features of these two modes of brain functioning are well known to coaches and business trainers. Taking a short break is often a great solution. Employees who systematically take breaks from intense activities work many times more productively.
When a person finds himself in a dead-end life situation, this means that something in his life causes persistent rejection. In other words, he resists any phenomena or events. There is no need to focus all your attention on them - this will not help get rid of hopelessness. If you feel stuck, it may be helpful to refrain from:
- Grasp the solution to a problem, trying to explore its nature and root causes.
- Concentrate on difficulties until you lose consciousness.
- Try to come up with several backup strategies of behavior.
For example, if a relationship with a loved one has come to an end, and the whole life around appears in black tones, you should not spend days on end thinking only about restoring the lost connection. Perhaps today is the day when it is more useful to watch an interesting movie, play sports or plunge headlong into work matters. The principle works well here: when you don’t know what to do next, it’s better not to take any action at all.
Other people's negative reactions are not your problem.
Be confident when bad things surround you. Smile when others try to defeat you. This is an easy way to maintain your own enthusiasm. When other people talk bad about you, continue to be yourself. Never let someone else's conversations change you. You can't take things too personally, even if it seems personal. Don't think that people do things for you. They do things for themselves.
Above all, never change to impress someone who says you are not good enough. Change if it makes you better and leads you to a brighter future.
People will talk no matter what you do or how well you do it. Worry about yourself, not about the opinions of others. If you believe in something, don't be afraid to fight for it. Great strength comes from overcoming the impossible.
Attempts to survive - do they always lead to success?
A similar principle is embedded in one of the special army exercises. It is performed by recruits of the elite American Navy SEAL unit. Beginners' limbs are tied and thrown into a pool or pond, which is 3 meters deep. The goal of a soldier is to survive.
More often than not, the poor souls fail. They panic and scream, making the situation even worse. Others try to swim, but by doing so they sink themselves to the bottom. Throughout the existence of this unit, there have been deaths.
But there were also employees who successfully completed the task. In this they were helped by the knowledge of two simple, but at the same time contradictory principles.
The first one is this. The more a tied person tries to stay on the surface of the water, the higher the risk of drowning. After all, it is impossible to be on the surface, much less swim, with your hands and ankles tied. And erratic movements only drag you to the bottom faster. The point of the task is to relax and sink to the bottom of the reservoir. Then you need to push off from the bottom with all your strength. Once on the surface, you need to quickly inhale. Then the process is repeated until the soldier ends up on the shore.
Surprisingly, performing this exercise does not require any supernatural strength or special endurance from the employee. Moreover, he does not need to be able to swim to complete the task.
The second rule is a little more obvious: the more a person twitches and panics, the more his activity requires oxygen. And, therefore, the greater his risk of losing consciousness and drowning.
This is not a test of physical fitness or willpower. Its goal is to develop self-control in a difficult situation. Will a person succumb to the instincts inherent in him, which in this case will play a cruel joke on him? Will he be able to remain truly calm in the face of mortal danger? Mastering your instincts is a good skill. It is useful not only in the navy, but also in any difficult situation.
Just start doing
It must be said that many people do everything I wrote about above, but never move on to real action, unable to move themselves at all. This happens because your thoughts are still negative. Subconsciously, you do not yet believe in yourself and feel that you are unworthy of change.
What to do about it? It will take time for you to develop the habit of replacing each of your negative thoughts with 2-3 positive ones. For example: “I won’t succeed” you can replace with “I am God’s beloved child, and all his blessings are created for me”, “if God is for me, then who is against me?”, “I always succeed because that God directs all my actions.”
For atheists and representatives of other religions, I note that the word God here means the Creator of all things, the Universe, which exists independently of any beliefs and religions created by man. This is the Absolute, which is above everything and which is the most powerful energy of unconditional love from which we all came.
In addition to cleansing your thoughts, you will also need to cleanse your body, which is also accustomed to experiencing suffering. Slags and toxins accumulate in the body not only from alcohol, nicotine and junk food, which we all consume, especially in moments of psychological stress and melancholy. Negativity from corresponding mental thought forms also gets stuck in the body. We feel it in tense muscles, a distorted and gloomy face, and chronic diseases. That is why massage, releasing body blocks and physical exercises must be made your constant companions on the path to a brighter future.
What else should you remember in circumstances that seem hopeless?
Removing yourself from the situation is a good move. It is often quite sufficient, if not for a complete resolution, then for a significant transformation of the situation. Having distanced himself from the problem, a person has the opportunity to ask himself: is the devil as terrible as he is painted? At some distance it is easier to reassess the circumstances and look at them from a different angle. The following points will help you do this. They will be useful to anyone who wants to maintain peace of mind:
A person is not a “prisoner” of the current situation.
This feeling is illusory. In a dead end, you can feel like a hostage, but in reality this is only a feeling, not a real fact. Finding himself in a difficult situation, a person begins to look for the culprits. But it’s better not to waste energy on this, which is already so little. It is more useful to throw them into searching for the true causes of the problem and possible solutions.
How a person’s life turns out is his personal responsibility, purely his decisions and actions. If it is impossible to change the situation, then you should change your view of it. The most interesting thing is that often when a person’s attitude changes, the problem itself is solved or significantly transformed over time.
Yesterday's bad news does not mean that tomorrow will be problematic.
If you think about what happened all day today, it will not make the situation any easier. Self-recrimination like “if I had done this, then...” only distracts from the real problems of today. Letting go of difficulties is hard, but this is what allows you to find freedom. This is what allows you to switch to constructive activity.
A dead end in life is a sign of the need for change.
In some cases it is about transforming your lifestyle, in others it is about acquiring new healthy habits. At this turning point, the person realizes that old patterns of behavior no longer work. The faster a person accepts this fact, the greater his chances of success.
Example: A woman is financially dependent on her husband, but he behaves inappropriately towards her. The situation may seem dead end: you need to get a divorce, but money does not allow you to live separately. The faster our heroine realizes the need for change, to work on her financial self-sufficiency, the greater her chances of avoiding difficulties and rebuilding her life.
A personality is stronger than it can imagine.
Much worse things have happened to other people. But even in them, many turned out to be lucky and talented enough to survive these situations with dignity. The most significant breakthroughs usually occurred after a long period of stagnation, when it seemed that nothing in the current circumstances could be changed. If it is difficult to take a serious step forward, you should start with small actions. Everyone can take small steps. When summed up, they ultimately lead to the desired breakthrough, although today this is not so obvious.
You should not let the opinions of others influence your choices.
When a person spends energy thinking about other people and what they might think of him, he feels even more like a victim of circumstances. You can listen for a long time to what others have to say on this matter. But this does not allow you to set specific goals for the future. This means that we will have to spend a lot of time in a dead end. Sometimes a person frees himself from the shackles of someone else’s opinion and sees that a dead end as such does not exist. Its walls are just an illusion, masterfully created by someone's evil genius.
Getting out of difficult situations is never easy. But changes cannot be avoided. If a person asks himself the same question for months or even years, this clearly indicates a dead end in life. It takes enormous courage to radically change your reality. Change is often painful, but it is worth accepting.
What needs to happen will happen
You gain strength when you stop yelling and complaining and start smiling and appreciating your life. There are blessings hidden in every struggle you face, but you must be willing to open your heart and mind to see them. You can't make things happen. You can only try.
At a certain point, you have to let go and allow what is meant to happen.
Love your life, trust your intuition, take risks, lose and find happiness, learn through experience. It's a long trip. You must stop worrying, questioning and doubting at any moment. Laugh, enjoy every moment of your life. You may not know exactly where you intended to go, but you will eventually arrive where you are supposed to be.
Case of Ronald Opus
todayifoundout.com
Not exactly a logical paradox, but this story deserves to be on this list. It was created by Don Harper Mills, former president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, to demonstrate how further developments in the case could distort a murder investigation.
One day, the body of Ronald Opus was brought to the morgue - the man died from a shot in the head from a shotgun. Strange circumstance: Opus was shot and killed while falling from the top of a 10-story building. In fact, Opus intended to commit suicide by jumping out of a window and leaving a note announcing his intentions.
Neither the shooter nor Opus knew that a safety net had been installed at the bottom of the building for the safety of industrial climbers. So, if Opus hadn't been shot, he most likely would have survived the fall.
If Opus had intended to commit suicide and suffered fatal injuries, his death would have been ruled a suicide. However, the fact that Opus' suicide attempt would have failed if not for the shotgun blast led investigators to classify the case as a homicide.
As the investigation progressed, the situation became even stranger.
The shot came from an apartment on the 9th floor of the building - an elderly couple was quarreling there. The old man had a habit of waving his gun in front of his wife when he was very angry. This time he was so angry that his hands were shaking and he could not hold the gun straight. When he pulled the trigger, the bullet missed his wife and went through the window and hit Opus, who was falling past the window.
If the old man intended to kill his wife, but killed Ronald Opus instead, then he is responsible for Opus' death. This is murder. But after taking the statements of the old man and the old woman, it became obvious that neither the man nor his wife knew that the gun was loaded. Since the old man had no intention of killing the old woman, the shooting of the gun was accidental, as was the death of Ronald Opus.
Case is closed? No! A witness said that a few weeks ago she saw the old man's son loading a shotgun. The son was furious that his mother had deprived him of financial support. Aware of his father's bizarre habit of threatening his mother with a shotgun, he loaded the weapon, expecting the old man to kill his wife during the next family quarrel. Now the son has become responsible for the death of Ronald Opus.
If you think this is the end of the story, don’t rush. Ronald Opus decided to commit suicide because he was depressed about his failed attempt to get his father to kill his mother. Yes, the son who loaded the shotgun was none other than Ronald Opus himself!
see also
15 Fun Facts About Time Travel That Border on Science Fiction
The Bootstrap Paradox
An example of a diagram for the formation of a cause-and-effect time loop / wikipedia.org
The bootstrap paradox is one of the paradoxes of time travel. He questions how something taken from the future and placed in the past could ever have arisen . This logical problem is often used by science fiction writers and forms the basis of the plot of works of fiction - it is worth recalling, for example, the series Doctor Who and the film series Bill and Ted.
Imagine a time traveler buying a copy of Hamlet from a bookshop, returning to Elizabethan London, and giving the book to Shakespeare. He, in turn, copies the work and claims that it is his own work.
Over the following centuries, Hamlet is reprinted and reproduced countless times, until finally a copy ends up in the same bookstore where the time traveler found it, bought it, and took it back to Shakespeare. Who then wrote Hamlet?
Ship of Theseus
moretothat.com
Theseus is a hero of Greek mythology who performed many noble deeds. According to myth, the ship on which Theseus returned from Crete to Athens was preserved by the Athenians as a monument to his heroism.
Of course, the ship was made of wood, iron and rope - materials that are destroyed by water over time. Since the wooden planks and ropes were rotting and the iron fastenings were rusting, the Greeks replaced them piece by piece. Eventually all parts of the ship were replaced. Now the question is: is this still the ship of Theseus?
If you say yes, then think about this: what if the original parts that were dismantled were reassembled into a new ship? Then there will be two ships: one will be made from completely new parts, and the other will be made from the original parts of Theseus's ship. Will you still claim that the ship made from new parts is the ship of Theseus?
If you say, “No, that's not the ship,” think: at what point does it stop being Theseus's ship?
When will the first part be replaced? Or the last detail? Perhaps when more than half are replaced? After all, the moment must come when the ship will cease to be the ship of Theseus. see also
A moment of philosophy: about the “paradox of choice”, the syndrome of lost profits, decision making and a good life
Card paradox
1Gai.Ru / wikipedia.org
Imagine that you are holding a card in your hand, on one side of which it is written: “The statement on the other side of this card is true.”
Let's call it Statement A. Flip the card over and on the opposite side it will say, “The statement on the other side of this card is false” ( Statement B ). However, trying to attribute "truth" to a statement A or B leads to a paradox: if A is true, then B must also be true . But for B to be true, A must be false. And vice versa - if A is false, then B must also be false, which ultimately should make A true.
Invented by British logician Philip Jourdain in the early 1900s, the card paradox is a simple explanation of the familiar liar paradox, in which assigning truth values to statements that purport to be true or false results in a contradiction.
The hairdresser's paradox
gifer.com
Let's imagine: there is only one hairdresser in the village. He only shaves those who don't know how to shave themselves, which is obvious. But this obvious fact creates a paradox: should a barber shave ?
If he does this, it means he belongs to the group of people who can shave on their own, that is, they do not have to go to a hairdresser. But he goes to the hairdresser - that is, to himself.
On the other hand, if he does not shave, then he belongs to the group of people who do not know how to shave on their own, which means they must go to a barber to shave.
