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:
- comparing behaviour (eg, animal vs human),
- comparing our brain and the Universe,
- comparing growth (eg, multicellular vs unicellular life-forms),
- comparing time because history is repeating (eg, ancient history and history, legends & myths).
I suppose that the real unpleasantness of our thinking is twofold:
- the pressure of time (eg, deadlines, time is money), and
- 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 (bold, italic, underlining) by LO unless in quotes or stated otherwise.
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