The Math of Motivation – and Some Mental Health Consequences

Thursday, June 16, 2016

So, about that depression thing…and the motivation thing, and the Frustration thing, and the sorts of things that pet the damn black dog on the head…(that neatly brings in all the blogs written so far if you’ve not been following…).  This is my effort to bring any new readers up to date and to draw the various threads I’ve been laying down into a whole(ish).  I’ve left so many threads in place that I’ll probably not succeed perfectly, but for the most part the earlier stuff comes together here…I’ll wait here for anyone who hasn’t read the previous 6 to catch up…or to notice how much reading that is and figure you’ll just use this as a summary and join the ride from here…whatev, but you’ll miss a bunch of amusing reads and some of the (now insider) jokes below…

Professional Ponderings

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

So, inspired by a comment about Joyce and thinking of Molly Bloom’s soliloquy in Ulysses, I started this in the style of Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age by Hrabal, and realized that a single sentence is a difficult way to try communicate effectively for one without Hrabal or Joyce’s brilliance, so gave up.  I also promised some math, but am not, at this early juncture, certain about where it might turn up…and I don’t want to pretend I’ve read Hrabal, as he wrote in Czech (the title above is a translation), but the book is reported to be one long sentence.

Anyway, the topic is “Professionalism” and what the heck that means.   I have been expertly and non-biasedly sampling whatever people I run across, if I think of it just then, about the definition.  I usually don’t remember to think about it unless somebody else uses the word, but in those instances, I’ve asked people what it means. Continue reading “Professional Ponderings” →

Insults and Anger

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

So, we’ve Persuaded our way past Hassles without triggering Frustration events and actually got people to do stuff!! Hopefully we didn’t use much Threat and wisely picked people whose Interests mostly aligned with the tasks and are well on our way to success and happiness and joyful fulfillment in life – or completed a task with others and got to a marginally positive endpoint…(whatev) – Except that one guy who took your careful advice on report formats as a mortal insult and now isn’t talking to you…how did that happen?? Turns out the guy had a “thing” about report formats, and you totally harshed his mellow.

Frustration – Less dog, but you want to howl!!

Thursday, March 17, 2016

So for no particular reason, I’ve decided to take on Frustration as my topic this time.  It rolls out of the previous discussions in that, although while “being” frustrated is anti-depressional, the tendency to “well screw it all then” that follows, totally feeds into it.

Frustration has nothing at all to do with any particular piece of work or situation that happening now any more than usual, so even if you recognize yourself in any of this, it wasn’t you…all names and situations are changed to protect the guilty and are total acts of fancy, and while realistic and perhaps similar to real events…it probably wasn’t that one…really…

Continue reading “Frustration – Less dog, but you want to howl!!” →