Re:I am the healthiest person I know, and I got cancer
by stared on Tuesday March 08, 2022 @11:37AM
(#30601899)
> The thought may be freeing to you, but many others become paralysed by it, obsessing about “the right choices” at every moment.
I had been struggling with the same issue. The opposite (“our choices don’t matter”) is depressing.
However, two things help me:
The first is “Optimistic Nihilism” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBRqu0YOH14) - a view very close to Zen/stoicism. The second is that ALL choices matter, but their impact is finite and subject to randomness. I used to think that all of my choices were forever and set in stone. While technically correct, it misses that the future changes only a bit. We might be tempted to think that “the grass is greener”, or “I should have bought Bitcoins”, but it is like “I miss I didn’t join my friends when they went to a cassino”. Moreover, it is FAIR that a finite effort results in a finite result.
I had been struggling with the same issue. The opposite (“our choices don’t matter”) is depressing.
However, two things help me:
The first is “Optimistic Nihilism” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBRqu0YOH14) - a view very close to Zen/stoicism. The second is that ALL choices matter, but their impact is finite and subject to randomness. I used to think that all of my choices were forever and set in stone. While technically correct, it misses that the future changes only a bit. We might be tempted to think that “the grass is greener”, or “I should have bought Bitcoins”, but it is like “I miss I didn’t join my friends when they went to a cassino”. Moreover, it is FAIR that a finite effort results in a finite result.