Strange how people tend to hurt the ones they love. It’s even stranger how people hurt themselves, often blindly. We all do it. We think we’re getting something we want when we’re really getting a twofer: the object of our desire and a headache to deal with in the future.
A classic example is buying the new house with a monster mortgage you have to shoehorn into your budget with a crowbar, or the fancy new car. You get the big ticket item, and a metric buttload of stress comes at no extra charge.
It’s as if our own alter-egos knavishly conspire to end us. So it’s in this vein that I present five self-destructive traps we fall prey to, and how we can prevent it.
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The Trap: Strutting proudly into the pit of personal debt. It’s the feeling we’ve got to have it right this second, regardless of whether we have the cake to pay for it.
The Thwart: Before you go ahead and buy, ask yourself if you’ve wanted or needed it on three separate occasions. If the answer’s no, walk away.
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The Trap: Publishing incriminating, unsavoury content about yourself on the internet, for anyone to google up and laugh at derisively.
The Thwart: Get some morals. Make good choices. And if you’ve made bad choices in the past, you can always hire an online reputation specialist to scrub the internet clean of your sins.
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The Trap: You find yourself becoming distracted, forgetful and restless.
The Thwart: Distraction is one of the worst plagues of the modern age, and MP3 players, portable game systems and other personal electronic devices are partly to blame. Why are we so afraid to be alone with our own thoughts? Surgically remove yourself from your iPod, Nintendo DS, and yes, even the cell phone for at least a week and you’ll win back your mind.
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The Trap: Tormenting yourself over past mistakes and relationships, or worry obsessively about the future.
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The Thwart: In an insightful Wall Street Journal article, psychologist Robert L. Leahy, director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy in New York City, recommends allotting 20 minutes a day - and only 20 minutes - to worry and lament. By shelving the worrying to a later time, you are flexing control over the problem instead of it controlling you. I recommend this 20 minutes of sufferance be during vigorous exercise, to effectively channel the negative energy into motivation and positive action.
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The Trap: Your sloppy web surfing leaves you vulnerable to joe-jobbers, stalkers and identity thieves.
The Thwart: Proxify yourself, and hide your IP address from prying eyes. Better yet is the xB Browser, which disguises your cyber-trail and encrypts data at every relay point.
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