Archive for the ‘Psychology’ Category
The “Top 25″ Feedback Loop
Matt’s suffered from this problem as well, but I thought I’d throw it out there for everyone to weight in on. Have you ever played through a couple of songs, say in iTunes, and had them end up on your Top 25 Most Played list? Have you gone back to that list at a later date and continued listening to the same songs over and over again? You say, “Hey, they’re in my Top 25! I must enjoy listening to this!” and you keep listening? Eventually, there’s little chance of anything else ever making its way into the Top 25 because you’ve played them so many times.
I propose a “Smart Playlist” that routinely deletes the Top 25 playlist and forces you to go listen to other music.
A Game of You
I have this problem…
I find myself more or less worrying constantly about things that are either totally unimportant, silly, or whose state/outcome is fixed and can’t be changed. I present the following examples:
The day before I started my two-week winter break job, my primary concern was not the work I’d be doing, being able to see my coworkers again, or waking up at 4:45am to catch the train. No, it was “I hope security knows I’m coming, because it would be really embarrassing to hold up the line while they figured out who I am and what I’m doing here.” Of course, I did end up holding the line up, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d predicted. Even though I know the brain is naturally miserable at predicting outcomes (try reading Dan Gilbert’s “Stumbling on Happiness” for more information) and experience has taught me that it’s usually never as bad as I think it will be, most of my predictions are just as full of doom and gloom as the previous ones.
I know that I have a strong and deep relationship with Katt (my fiancee), both in my heart and my head, but there’s always this nagging feeling in the back of my head that worries constantly about how she’ll feel if I “mess up” somehow or that she thinks I’m boring, etc, etc. I find myself apologizing all the time for mostly “imagined” slights and such. There’s nothing to worry about, but I find myself worrying anyway.
I don’t know why I feel so insecure about everything. Some sort of serious inferiority complex or something…