(Christmas carols celebrate the Nativity as being, above all else, an event that brings hope to mankind. “O Holy Night,” one of the most beautiful carols, makes the point explicitly: “a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.” But I suspect that Christmas is not unique among … Continue reading "The Habit of Hope"| Marsha Familaro Enright
Estimated reading time: 12 minutes Hi Doc, I’ve been reading this blog for years, and I have some questions.See, I’m an autistic 27 year old virgin university dropout (Years ago by this time) that worked a string of crappy jobs, with my most recent being not-so-crappy, so an advancement.I work from home, and am terribly lonely in my personal life.I have good friends, and different circles of friends but this post isn’t about that.I keep sabotaging any chance of a relationship, even a da...| Paging Dr. NerdLove
Our human default is to feel stuck, hopeless, like a victim, self-pitying. We might get passive in response, we might get angry, we might vent. But the ‘stuck’ feeling is natural. What isn’t natural is what we have to do to overcome it: we learn a healthy sense of control. We learn that there is always something we can do, even if there are also things we need to accept. We are not helpless. We can train ourselves out of helplessness in the particular area where we are tempted to give up.| Shaunti Feldhahn
Learned helplessness is basically handling things with a sense of futility in the face of difficulty, because we don’t think we can bring about change. It may mean quitting, checking out, getting angry, feeling sorry for ourselves, becoming passive, or dozens of other responses – but the underlying feeling is a sense of helplessness and futility.| Shaunti Feldhahn
