The Power of NO

Trying to live a life that matters through mindfulness cognitive behaviour therapy

Do you feel stuck?  Over whelmed? Anxious or depressed? Unable to change, even though you are trying hard to change? I most certainly have, in fact, I was recently prescribed anti-anxiety meds. Worse, I found myself teaching some young teenagers and being overly “truthful”, meaning I was harsh and negative. Bad news. Not the me I think I am. What happened? Well, I think modern life is making me sick. Is that happening to you too? If so, welcome to the boat.  What’s all this got to do with humanities destruction of our planet?  I think that only when we are less stress will we be able to actually do something about our environmental disasters. Let’s see what you and I can do to take positive actions by changing our framing of the problems we all face – whether that be as individuals or societies. Let’s start with a story from Canada’s #1 over-whelmed airport: Toronto.

Last week when I was returning from my seeing my pregnant daughter in Kelowna, B.C., the plane was 30 min. late arriving in Toronto. That meant that I had missed my connecting flight to Ottawa, but life being what it is these days, I, and 4 others from the same flight, found out from the Westjet information desk that our connecting flight was also late so, if we ran, we could make it. Boy were we happy! We were all not looking forward to waiting for a few more hours in Toronto, as our day had started around 4 a.m. When we arrived at the gate the plane was there and had not yet started boarding. We told the lady at the counter that we were from the late Calgary flight and asked if we would be able to board the plane. She said yes. Good news, right? Well, you’ll now see how good news turns to bad when you allow computer algorithms and bots to control our lives and remove human initiative. When we handed in our boarding passes the machine made a horrible “bleep” sound and the lady said: “Sorry, you cannot enter this flight. The computer algorithm has already transferred you to a flight that leaves in 4 hours so I cannot let you on.” To say that I & the others were “flummoxed” would be an understatement. “You mean”, we said” “Our plane is right there. Our seat is now flying empty. We have a boarding pass but because the computer does not know your plane is late but does know our plane was late it “knows” that we cannot be on that flight – albeit incorrectly – and YOU, as the human being, have no ability to allow reality to let us on the plane?” “No”, she said: “I am not allowed to let you board.” You leave for Ottawa in 4 hours.

Welcome to the Brave New World of bots and algorithms and big data controlling your life. Of course, it sort of works, when there is correct data, but as we all know data is ALWAYS incomplete for life is more like a war than we would care to admit to and the #1 problem [besides logistics] in war is “the fog of war”. We, as humans, are constantly forced to make decisions, to take the initiative, based on incomplete data. But that is not what our Brave New World of metadata wants. It wants sheep. People who are cogs in the wheel. Whether its anger towards China’s zero covid policy [that resulted in a bus load of people dying as they were being ferried to a quarantine zone] or Americas’ google and face book influencing elections and policy [and thus NONE of my well educated friends in the USA vote], or Iran’s revolution currently underway because a young girl DARED to have a bit of her hair showing from underneath her hijab or the 2 guys, friends of my daughter, the Nurse in BC [not the pregnant one, another], who live THE VAN LIFE – that is, they live in their van and find enough part time work to just survive… all of this is just people revolting against being made to feel like they don’t matter. . We people HATE being made to feel like cogs in a machine. We NEED to MATTER. Our cerebral cortex, at its highest level, evolved to do just hat – to mind meaning! And now, the forces of the world do everything possible to remove human initiative, to control us so much that we cannot even allow people to get on a plane that is ½ empty because an algorithm says so? Do you think I am exaggerating? Just how stressed out are we? How much distress are our societies really in? More than a quarter of people say they can’t function anymore. More than a quarter. 1 in 4 people. That is a breathtaking, ruinous figure. Check out this graph:

27% of adults say that most days they are so stressed they can’t function

 

Yes, welcome to the Brave New World. And how did some people, the “exiles” in Aldous Huxley’s novel respond? By opting out. By fleeing/being sent to a part of the world where the “good things of civilization” don’t exist. Today, just like in the novel, many are doing the same. Thus, in China, many youth are “lying flat” – their term for opting out. Here is what one Chinese girl said:

When asked whether the outlook of an intense working life with low pay has made her rethink her career path, Ying Feng falls silent. “Sorry,” she apologises and gives an exhausted laugh. “Twelve hours of internship work has drained my brain. What was the question again?” On hearing the question once more, Ying Feng sighs.

“Well, sometimes I just want to lie down flat and let it all rot.”

“To lie flat” (tang ping) and “let it rot” (bai lan) are two terms that have become rallying cries for Chinese youths exasperated by the Chinese job market as well as the larger expectations of Chinese society.

Since the spring of 2021, users on Chinese social media like Douban, WeChat and Weibo have shared their own stories about how they have left behind careers and ambitions to instead embrace a minimalistic lifestyle with space for free time and self-exploration.

When many of the youth choose the same path around the world I do not see them as lazy – I see them as sending a message to us old farts. We are not only consumers. Being a workaholic is not living.  We matter. We want to do work that matters. We want our opinions and thoughts and dreams to matter. I agree.  I have been going through a rough path recently of panic attacks, feeling anxious and over whelmed and then acting in ways that I just don’t like. I ask myself: what happened to me?  Well, according to the clinical psychologist I met and shared dinner with at the Toronto airport who had to wait an extra 4 hours with me the problem is that I am in a reactive mode. I need to do mindfulness cognitive behaviour therapy. And he is right. I have done meditation and prayer and other paths to “saying NO” to the rat race and they were effective until now. But it seems that the power of the world to overwhelm me is more than ever and I need more: I need a more disciplined, rigorous and healing therapy, thus the popularity, all over the world, of mindfulness cognitive behaviour therapy [MCBT]. Here is a bit about this approach to making your life matter so that you are strong enough to say NO to this crazy world.

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy builds upon the principles of cognitive therapy by using techniques such as mindfulness meditation to teach people to consciously pay attention to their thoughts and feelings without placing any judgments upon them. A primary assumption of cognitive therapy is that thoughts precede moods and that false self-beliefs lead to negative emotions such as depression. MBCT utilizes elements of cognitive therapy to help you recognize and reassess your patterns of negative thoughts and replace them with positive thoughts that more closely reflect reality. This approach helps people review their thoughts without getting caught up in what could have been or might occur in the future. MBCT encourages clarity of thought and provides you the tools needed to more easily let go of negative thoughts instead of letting them feed your depression.

 Here is an example of a MCBT technique called Change Your Perspective:

For example, let’s go back to our unfortunate kid at school who’s bullied at school and flunking exams. He starts to think he’s a failure. What can he do? He can write all the evidence that he is a failure. And then he can write all the evidence that he is a success. This gives our kid a better perspective. He is now aware of his shortcomings, but he’s also aware of his strengths too.

In other words, when I was in the airport in Toronto and could not get into my plane I should not have got angry and use a few choice words – I should have paused, taken a few deep breaths, and realized that there was nothing I could to and enjoy my meal with Rob, the clinical psychologist who told me that I would benefit from mindfulness cognitive behaviour therapy. The good news is that I did just that. The good news is that I am starting a course on MCBT. However, it ALSO means that there are things in life that I need to recognize will overwhelm me, no matter my good intentions and self control. In other words, I must invoke our favourite Club of Rome word: LIMITS. I need to know my limits and live within them. I just say no. The good news is that MCBT will help you and I to say NO. And if you think that saying NO will mean less success in life check out this video of Steve Jobs entitled “the power of NO” where he makes the case that you can never achieve great things without the focus that saying NO gives you. Enjoy, and next time the rat race over whelms you – pause, take a deep breath and say NO.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8eP99neOVs

Let’s repeat our punchline: I think that only when we are less stress will we be able to actually do something about our environmental disasters.

References

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/27/chinese-youth-opt-out-of-the-rat-race-in-search-of-personal-peace

https://www.verywellmind.com/mindfulness-based-cognitive-therapy-1067396

https://www.thedailymeditation.com/cbt-exercises