Dark mental state: Sulking
Channel: Quest for a Meaningful Life
Date: 2019-12-01

It seems like at the heart of a negative mindset is this kind of state of sulking, this idea that I am not happy with this situation. 
Not in the sense of I'm in a bad situation, therefore I must work to improve the situation. 
That seems like a reasonable thing. 
Because sometimes, some people like to be overly positive. 
Everything has to be positive, and if there's any kind of a negative appraisal of the situation, then that's being too negative, no good. 
You have to stay on the positive, think of the bright side. 
Hey, the boat is sinking. 
On the bright side, you really need a bath. 
Always a bright side. 
But sulking is not just noticing the negative. 
It's not necessarily a negative mindset just to be aware of all the bad things that are going on. 
But the positive reaction, the useful, helpful reaction, is to then come up with something to do to fix it. 
Now, it could be a full plan to fix the situation, or it could simply be one simple step in the direction of slightly improving the situation. 
But it's useful often to be completely open and aware of everything that's wrong in the situation. 
That's not, in itself, a negative mindset. 
But the idea of sulking is this kind of sense that it's dwelling on the negatives of the situation, but not in a way that is connected to somehow eventually improving them. 
It's just this idea of wishing it wasn't how it was. 
Just wishing. 
Not as the basis for some kind of change, but simply I don't want to be here, I don't want my life to be this, I want something different. 
It's like a sense of I don't deserve this. 
I deserve better. 
I don't deserve to have to deal with these problems right now. 
I deserve something easier. 
It's connected to that love of ease, being addicted to the easy way, that I talked about before. 
It's so nice to have things be easy, and it's very easy to get used to things being easy, or at least imagining that things can go easily, that when things get hard, it's easy to just want nothing to do with the situation. 
It's like sulking is like rebelling against the situation. 
It's like I don't want to accept this. 
I refuse to accept this situation. 
I just want it to go away. 
I don't deserve to be subjected to this situation. 
I deserve something better. 
Then again, it's really a fine line between a useful appraisal of this is a really bad situation. 
Okay, that is simply a reminder that I need to consider what I'm doing about it and take steps to do something to improve my situation. 
So when it really crosses over into the bad mindset is when there's this sense of I don't want to work on it. 
It's like if you're complaining about something and then somebody tells you, oh, why don't you do ABC to improve your situation, sometimes the reaction is no, I don't want to think- no, it's not about me being able to improve the situation. 
I'm complaining that I'm in this situation at all. 
This isn't fair. 
Why do I have to deal with this? I use the word "sulking" to capture this kind of mindset. 
And I don't know if it's fair to say that this is really the heart of a negative mindset, but it does seem to me to be very close to a purely bad mindset. 
Whenever I have this kind of feeling, it seems to be this is connected with having a bad day, and having a bad mindset in that day. 
And sometimes, I mean, these feelings can pop up at any time. 
I even had that today. 
I did a lot of work outside today, or in the city, I come back home, and I'm thinking, wow, you know, it's already evening, and then I have work to do tomorrow at a set time, so I can't do any more work today, and  there's no more time, and I just have to, like, oh, I don't have any freedom, I have to go to sleep so I can get up and do more work tomorrow, and oh, I don't want this to be my situation. 
Just this feeling of I don't want to deal with this; I wish my situation was different. 
Those feelings can pop up at any time. 
But in this case, I simply have to remind myself, oh, I got myself into this situation. 
I set my schedule back a few days ago. 
When it was an open possibility, you know, what I could do with my time, I chose to assign this with my time. 
And if I think about it reasonably, I'm glad I was able to get all this work done today, I'm glad I'll be able to do work tomorrow, and I'm glad I'll be able to get a good night's sleep tonight. 
So in fact, everything's great. 
But it's so easy to just want to have everything right away with no effort. 
It's sort of a default mindset. 
And it certainly has its advantages, in that that desire to want everything right away for no effort can lead to a lot of clever problem-solving. 
We can come up with a lot of tricks to try to get things easier. 
So, you know, "laziness is the mother of invention" sometimes applies. 
But overall, it seems like the way to a healthy, positive, and useful mindset is to absolutely accept my situation, no matter what it is. [...]