#49 Reality - Optimal Pacing vs Avoidance

     Some of us avoid newscasts because it's mostly bad news; many of us avoid keeping tabs on how much we can afford to spend; and most of us take great pains to avoid thinking of our own mortality. We'll deal with these ... "when the time comes." Our culture places a very high priority on avoiding discomfort now, pretty much as if there were no tomorrow (personal & national debt crises, climate change etc). We tend to postpone dealing with life's challenging realities. Gradual exposure is necessary and adaptive, however, avoidant behaviour is problematic.
      “early, familial life narrows and heavily mediates the world for the child without ever being completely impermeable ... adult life, too, still requires powerful forms of insulation from the demands of worldliness. Some have more stomach for complexity and difficulty than others, but all of us have myriad ways of simplifying and sweetening reality. Adult life is never perfectly worldly: at best, it amounts to an ongoing increase in our understanding of how to remove various sorts of blinkers & filters and in our capacity to tolerate their removal.”
        Higgins C. Human conditions for teaching: The place of pedagogy in Arendt's Vita Activa. Teachers College Record 2010; 112(2): 407-445.

     Identity style theory suggests that people who prefer to use a diffuse-avoidant identity style are ‘‘reluctant to face up to and confront personal problems & decisions’’. This has been found to predict problematic qualities (eg neuroticism), coping & decisional strategies (e.g., disengagement), and mental health outcomes (eg depression).
        Beaumont SL. Identity styles and wisdom during emerging adulthood: Relationships with mindfulness and savoring. Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research 2011; 11(2): 155-180.

 

Painting: Mark Brennan at: www.argylefineart.com