[wruza]

In my case it lead to secretly accumulating anxiety until it blew up in my face after 35. I believe OP is similar.

Sticking to the process of struggle has its own benefits, but it also may make you wake up one day and realize it was 10 years of struggling nowhere while everyone around enjoyed life and achieved at least the same. Worst case is when you’re 50+ at that realization.

Maybe gym is not a good target for my criticism, as it changes the chemistry in a positive way. But I doubt that psychological struggle does any good, unless you’re regularly seeing a therapist or have a great self-reflection ability.

[atomicnature]

Why don't we see "psychological struggle" (or stress) as an indicator of skill/resource deficit?

Whenever there is struggle, we notice our own deficiencies. The point is not to continue with the same struggle forever, but to graduate into more sophisticated struggles - just like we graduate into higher grades in school.

That was my overall message. That we have to continually solve the problems. And there's never an end to the process..

Another perspective: The 1st grader is stressed by 1st grade problems, but the 10th grader is not stressed by 1st grade problems. This clearly demonstrates stress is related to capability. And also provides hope that through effort and time, one can graduate to higher levels.

[wruza]

Speaking for myself, I just didn’t know how minds work. Iow, I didn’t see it and there was no good source suggested by anyone to learn from. Ironically, the solution to job-related anxiety turned out to be somewhat incompatible with “having a job” (in a sense I always had of it, not in general).

You’re right from the general point of view, from overlook. The thing I’d add is that self-development may and often is completely out of your scope, according to my observations at least. It’s akin to a businessman asking poor what the hell they’re struggling with when the world is full of opportunities. Well, they look and can’t see it. They struggle in a wrong direction (added:) and it consumes all their attention.

[atomicnature]

Re: self-development

One of my observations in HN, and in most places I have been to is a strong preference for "comfort-orientation". People simply dislike when I propose that - taking on a challenge, working on a problem in a persistent/consistent way is needed, and that there is a price to pay. I feel the problem is truly at the philosophical level of their minds (not at a practical level). Therefore, instead of "self-development", I'm performing the "assumption-destroying" job here. It is an unpleasant affair overall, but I'm simply interested in the psychology & dynamics of the phenomenon.

The people who get into trouble usually buy the assumption that there is a formulaic solution, where they don't have to pay some serious price to get a real solution. They want something that takes less time, takes very little effort, and still delivers great benefits. I tend to emphasize "challenge-orientation" to counter this inherent bias I've seen in people. Ultimately, I challenge people at this level in the hopes that my strong emphasis on "challenge-orientation" does them some good in the long run :)

PS: You can see my comment history and notice, whenever I bring up the "challenge-orientation" idea, there is, almost without exception, at least one person seriously upset that a significant price may have to be paid to solve significant problems.