Sta Hungry Stay Foolish

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

A blog by Leon Oudejans

The unpleasantness of thinking

Recently, the Psychological Bulletin published a “meta-analytic review of the association between mental effort and negative affect”. That review was entitled as “The unpleasantness of thinking”.

I agree that “critical thinking is not just hard work but also mentally draining”. I disagree that it’s “often unpleasant”. Source: The Debrief, covering the recent Psychological Bulletin article.

After my daily writing, a feeling of exhaustion usually hits me. However, a 20-30 minute power nap usually revitalises me. Given the results of my writing, I’m often quite pleased.

I fail to experience the unpleasantness of critical thinking. Sometimes, my thinking takes a long time producing results. In such cases, it’s somewhat unpleasant to experience the “limits” of my thinking. Using analogies often helps overcoming such “limits” and boosting my inspiration.

I suppose my audit background is responsible for my analogy tools, being:

I suppose that the real unpleasantness of our thinking is twofold:

  1. the pressure of time (eg, deadlines, time is money), and
  2. the absence of silence and solitude (eg, colleagues talking).

Both result in making mistakes, which is – indeed – (very) unpleasant.

“Mistakes and pressure are inevitable; the secret to getting past them is to stay calm.”
A quote by Dr. Travis Bradberry, “Author of Emotional Intelligence Habits”

I lack all of that. Moreover, my writing is my mission; not my job.

The Sound of Silence (2015) by Disturbed
band, lyrics, video, Wiki-band, Wiki-song

Note: all markings (bolditalicunderlining) by LO unless in quotes or stated otherwise.

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