This is the second of three blogs regarding the concept of something that is, quite simply, “good for me” or “bad for me.” In the first blog on the subject I noted that these terms, while valuable and important, cannot be fully defined. That having been said, you can recognize when something has either been good for you or bad for you. We also discussed the quantification of something that is good or bad for you. In this blog we will discuss primarily (1) things that are bad for you, (2) the quantification of something that is bad for you, (3) how to recognize when something is bad for you, and (5) what you might do about something that is bad for you.
Things that might be “bad for you”
When I use the term “things,” you might think primarily of property or of something that might come into your sphere of life that doesn’t feel right. But there are many things that can be bad for you including:
- Specific people, groups of people, or an individual person
- Geographical location
- Many kinds of food
- Physical property
- Weather
- Smells
- Sights
- Physical touch
- Noise, including people talking
- Silence, including people not talking
- Information, whether from individuals or from media
- Dreams, whether nighttime or daytime
- Your own thoughts
- …and many more
It is not necessary that I elaborate on each of these items, but allow me to comment briefly on some of the ones that I deem less important as a precursor to our later discussion of how these things affect our personal and interpersonal lives. You might find it profitable to list, whether in your mind or on paper, things that you think of, that might be bad for you. For instance, some people are very sensitive to one of the five physical senses and have some kind of immediate reaction to, say, something that might be malodorous to them, while other people are more adversely affected by what they read or see on TV. I want to focus on the times when people are bad for you and situations that are bad for you noting that “things that are bad for you” might be people, places, or certain times of you day or life.
Quantification of “bad for you”
In a review of the previous blog on Good for Me; Bad for Me, I proposed that there is a spectrum of such things, namely
Bad for me / Good for me
(Very bad for me) (Moderately bad for me) (Moderately bad for me) (Very bad for me)
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In this blog we will discuss the “bad for me” side of this spectrum. In the next blog we will discuss the “good for me” side of the spectrum. First, a reminder of the words I have chosen to subcategorize the “bad for me” side of the spectrum. In ascending order of “bad for me,” meaning increasingly bad for me with groups that are very bad for me and only moderately bad for me:
Lethal Toxic Dangerous Aversive Unpleasant Uninteresting
(All in the very bad for me group) (All in the moderately bad for me)
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It is important for you to find an approximate place on this spectrum of how bad something might be in your life. This is sometimes a challenge because something might be very bad for you at one time and not so bad at another time. Or, something might be moderately bad for you at one time and then moderately good for you at another. We will delay this discussion for now as I ask you to consider something in the possible list I noted above that is, roughly, “bad for you” in some way. Maybe eating broccoli is in the moderately bad for you category, as it is for my grandson, or potentially toxic as it is for my wife. It might be valuable for you to consider how an individual person might be bad for you in some way, or perhaps an activity of some sort. If you have some trouble in this endeavor, I might be able to render some help in identifying when something is bad for you and to what degree it might be bad for you.
Recognizing when something is bad for you
We have presented a paradigm of recognition of feelings in I Need to Tell You How I Feel. In this book we propose that “feeling,” however central in life is not a definable element of psychology. Rather, we understand feelings by the process that “feeling something” takes and by the effects of feelings. So, feeling that something is bad for you (or good for you) can be understood and valued but that feeling cannot be adequately defined. Instead of defining feelings in general of the feeling that something is bad for you in particular, you do best to understand the feeling process, which flows a distinct pattern: physical, emotional, cognitive, and active. In other words, when I feel something, I first have a physical feeling, then an emotional feeling, thirdly a cognitive feeling, and finally a feeling that shows itself in physical action. Note that the third process in feeling something is what we call “cognitive feeling,” which might seem a contradiction of terms, but we find that cognition is where many people land when they feel something. Additionally, the “action” that is taken is always physical, but it could be some kind of physical movement, some kind of stationary commitment, speaking or choosing not to speak. So, it is with this paradigm that I suggest you understand how to know when something is bad for you: physically, emotionally, cognitively, or actively. You will note that you probably have a preference for one, or possibly two of these expressions of feelings. You might need to read more about this feelings expression in our book. For our current interest, allow me to suggest how you might recognize that something is bad for you:
- Physically: You feel something in a part of your body, probably determined by your biological heritage and physical awareness. Typical physical symptoms of something that is bad for you include some kind of stomach agitation, chest pain, breathing changes, facial grimaces, or coldness of extremities. Less often people feel actual headaches, or stomachaches, and some people come to tears easily.
- Emotionally. An emotional experience is one that includes one or more of the four basic emotions: joy, sorrow, fear, and anger. By the way, these emotions come in that order: joy first (you like something); sadness next (you lose something); fear next (you are afraid of losing more), and finally anger (you react against the force that took something away from you). In the “bad for you” category, you will have the last three of these emotions, but note that you have these only because you have loved something. So, when something is bad for you, you will first feel sad, then afraid, and the anger although the transition from sad to fear to anger may take a split second. Note how you feel emotionally.
- Cognitively. It may seem odd to refer to cognitive action as a “feeling,” but it is, and it is predominant with some people. When something is bad for you, you will usually be in the fear/anger range thinking of what this person did or didn’t do, how some situation is bad for you, or what is wrong with the universe in some way. Then…
- Actively. In this category of “feelings” you will do something or say something. People tend to be say-ers or doers, but this part of feelings is always the end place of feelings. When something or someone is bad for you in some way, you will want to bark back at that person or throw the hammer at the wall because the hammer hit your finger and not the nail.
Read more about this feeling process in I Want to Tell You How I Feel. After you have recognized the feelings that erupt in you when something is bad for you, you will then see the effects of this thing (or person).
The effects of something that is “bad for me”
There is an important principal in economics that I find helpful in deciding what to do about if and when to do something. This is the concept of marginal utility. Economists use the created denomination of utils in order to formulate an equation for the proper action to take in business. I will not belabor the point of marginal utility and utils at this point, but you might look the terms up and see how economists’ idea of marginal utility to suggest how people should make business decisions. I find it equally valuable to use the concept of marginal utility when deciding “go” or “no go” with something in your life. While it is dreadfully important to “do something,” whether that means stay the course or change course, you have to count the cost of the staying or the leaving. When you do that, you will be looking at the effects of staying or leaving. Then, if you can create a kind of equation according to the principals of marginal utility, you will be able to honestly and fruitfully think clearly to yourself, talk clearly to someone else, and take definitive action. Instead of discussing the equation of marginal utility, I suggest simply that you examine the effects of something in your life in order to know whether you should work to enhance something that is largely good for you, or how you might examine the deleterious effects of something that is largely bad for you.
In order to adequately examine both the “good for you” phenomena (situation, person, or thing) as well as such things that are “bad for you,” you need to see how far you are on the spectrum of good or bad. If for instance, you are on the “bad for you” side of the spectrum, you have to see how bad this thing is, namely whether it is in the:
- Mild category of uninteresting, unpleasant, aversive or
- Strong category of dangerous, toxic, or lethal
In making this decision, you will notice that you might want to push something that is not good for you towards the mild side of the spectrum or push it towards the strong side of the spectrum. You will need to be honest with yourself as to how strong the “not good for you” might be. Let me explain how you might make that determination:
- Roughly speaking, the three categories of mildly not good for you do not cause lasting or permanent harm, whereas the strongly not good for you categories do.
- You can live with uninteresting pretty easily; unpleasant is…well…unpleasant, and aversive experiences can be tolerated, but not forever
- Strong “not good for you” things need careful attention because you cannot sustain a life with something in the strong categories, e.g.:
- If something is dangerous, you live in some kind of fear, which in the long run will be deleterious for you, certainly psychologically and ultimately physically
- If something is toxic, you can figuratively hold your breath, i.e. survive for a time under toxicity but not for long
- If something is lethal, you need to move away from it as soon as possible.
- The problem, as you certainly see, if how to discover where you are on the “bad for you” side of the spectrum. There is a danger of staying too long with something that is dangerous, toxic, or lethal, and there is an equal danger of “pushing” something that is just mildly not good for you into the totally bad for you side of the spectrum.
- People want this decision of “go” or “no go” to be easy but it is no such thing. It is hard, it is painful, and it is always sad. But sad does not make it wrong.
Once you have discerned that something is bad for you, have determined just how bad it is, noted your feeling reaction, and seen the effects of this thing, you are ready to do something. If something is simply sad, you can profit from the sadness, but if something chronically makes you sad, you might need to do something about it.
Doing something about the “bad for you” element in your life.
There are people who delay doing something about things that are bad for them forever. They tend to get stuck in the previous stages of the process and end up tolerating, complaining, or dreaming of some magic solution to get them out of the “bad for you” situation. There are an equal number of people who jump right into doing something before they have understood how bad the thing is, what they feel, and the actual bad effects this thing has on them. We might call such people “intolerant” and the other folks “tolerating,” but neither operation is sufficient in all circumstances. Making an adjustment to life sometimes means we need to tolerate and sometimes we need to do something that is bad for us. Consider which side of the do something/do nothing spectrum you tend to be on. I suggest the following process, which reflects the process of noting what is bad for you:
1. Note what you feel: physical, emotional, cognitive, or active.
2. Determine the severity of the “bad for you” experience (mild to severe)
3. Note the effects on you, namely how you have been hurt or damaged in some way. You will see that you have lost something that is important to you and this loss has created sadness in you.
4. Reflect on your feelings, the degree of hurt you have sustained, and the effects that something has had on you.
5. Then take action
Taking action, most importantly, requires that you know the degree of suffering you have encountered by this thing (or person) that has been bad for you. Roughly speaking, you might take the following actions under the following degrees of “bad for you.”
- Uninterested. Probably take no action. You can’t be interested in everything, and you need to have a life where things that are uninteresting might profit you sometime, some day.
- Unpleasant. Not much different from uninterested. Note that something is unpleasant and allow this to be bad for you for a short period of time. Don’t jump to action. Don’t complain. Just suffer the unpleasant experience
- Aversive. While still in the “moderate” realm of “bad for you,” you might just need to be in this aversive condition for a while before you take any kind of action. It depends on how long the aversive element lasts. Roughly speaking, you can do with something aversive for minutes, perhaps for hours, but not for days.
- Dangerous. This is where you need to be hyper aware of your feelings, namely your physical and emotional feelings. “Dangerous” is theoretical, but not real. You see that the situation or element is potentially harmful to you, possibly permanently. To live with something dangerous is sometimes necessary, but it always takes a toll. So, if you have to live with it, do so realizing the cost on your body, mind, and relationships. Take action after hours or days, not weeks or years.
- Toxic. This is much worse than dangerous because this element is currently causing damage for you. You feel it in your stomach, in your mind, and in your soul. You need to get out and you need to get out soon. The only thing that keeps you here is your own inability to move quickly enough. But know, the longer you stay with something toxic, the more you will deteriorate.
- Lethal. Not much option here. Get out, get out immediately. You will die if you don’t. Don’t count the cost of staying with something lethal. Whatever it is, whoever it is, whatever you like about the situation, you are beyond danger. You are dying. Get out and get out now. You can cope with the loss later. If you truly can’t get out of a lethal situation, note the deterioration that occurs to you and plan to find a time of restoration.
An example
Deb and I recently had our 14-year old grandson living with us for three months, an experience I now see as the hardest thing I have ever done. This has been a very interesting experience because it was almost entirely “bad for me” for these three months, and I still have the effects of this experience. Having Gavin here was interesting partly because he is a good kid, a “lover” and “player” by nature, quite bright, and fun to be with. My best connection, perhaps my only real connection was in the realm of play, usually around table games, which he adored. (Deb connected with him on their shared value of nature.) The difficulty I had with him was that his player temperament had been indulged by his parents to such an extent that he had almost no understanding of the care of property. I won’t indulge myself in explaining the challenges that deficiency brought to me but to note that my primary temperament (read the blogs on temperaments) is “caretaker,” namely a person who values property as sacred. So during the months he was with us, I ranged from unpleasant to toxic on the “bad for me” scale. I found myself complaining about his lack of responsibility, and complaining is something that I rarely do. But I found myself caught in the commitment we had made to Gavin’s father to keep him, home school him, and live with him until his dad got settled in their new home in Los Angeles. This put me in a very difficult situation because I started to notice physical changes in my body, most specifically my heart “talking to me” with a mild pain, particularly as I ran. So, here I was in the situation of taking care of someone whom I dearly love, and someone who had only 8 months ago lost his mother, and now had temporarily lost his dad as well. But this person was increasingly “bad for me” despite his need of my care and my love for him. Due to my biological heritage of heart disease, I was aware of the potential lethal nature of my caring for Gavin and I considered ending the time of care within a month of his being here. But there was a cost to me, first the tendency to complain, which I deplore in anyone, particularly me, but also in the feeling that I could die in the process of taking care of someone whom I love. There is a substantial amount of literature related to how people fare in the caretaking of an impaired person, or situations that are otherwise stressful: you die earlier. Such was the case with my brother who died at 59 having cared for my Alzheimer’s impaired mother for 5 years as well as other stressful circumstances. He died of a heart attack. I could feel this potential heart attack during these months with Gavin…this kind, loving, playful, bright kid whom I loved.
Such is the nature of the “bad for me” situations that people have: not all good, not all bad; love and dislike together; sometimes good, sometimes bad; good person bad for you; necessary situation that is potentially lethal. Consider the difficult situations you are in, whether property, person, geography, vocation, interpersonal, or just what you eat or drink. Consider the nature, the effects, what you feel, and what you might do. Take care of yourself first so you can take care of people and property as you need to do.
I look forward to writing about things and people that are “good for me.”