[felixyz]

Your information diet. Social media. Gossipy and negative people. Mulling over old failures/regrets/slights etc. The mind is easily pulled along by negativity and outrage... as can be observed in our current global psychological state.

[embedding-shape]

All those are fine, as long as you're able to process it in a healthy way after. I guess personally I focused more on bettering that processing, as sometimes you don't get to control what information you get served, so at least it works in all cases.

[K0balt]

Idk, I find that carefully tending the garden of the mind , sowing the seeds I want to harvest later, eradicating the weeds with prejudice, and in general not entertaining things which are not useful to my purposes is, for me, a highly beneficial practice.

This does not mean to ignore things that are unpleasant, but rather to not allow things that do not benefit your diverse goals to occupy your productive potential, focusing instead on things that inform your path, actionable and relevant information, tools rather than distractions.

[embedding-shape]

> in general not entertaining things which are not useful to my purposes is

Yeah, I think I do more or less the same as you describe, except my barrier to figuring out what is "not useful to my purposes" requires it to first exist in my mind for a while, before I can discard it as not applicable, as sometimes seemingly random things in one context somehow relates to completely different things.

I've chosen to do stuff sometimes that made no sense besides "It's fun but a waste of time" and it ended up leading me to realizations and experiences I wouldn't have had otherwise. But if I focused too much on avoiding things and optimizing "what I let in", I'd never be open enough to learn what I didn't know I could learn from it.

[K0balt]

That is a danger, but at least for me, intense curiosity with a decent instinct for things that -might- be useful usually saves me from excessive tunnel vision.

[scrollaway]

Don’t be so optimistic about your ability to “process information healthily”. You are more of a slave to your instincts than you think and can’t always know whether you’re actually doing a good job at this— literally, it’s not possible to faithfully introspectively this.

[a_small1]

The belief that you have control over your actions leads to better outcomes either way, no matter how true that is in reality. This has been found mostly with the idea of free will and internal locus of control.

[embedding-shape]

> Don’t be so optimistic about your ability to “process information healthily”.

Don't be so pessimistic about your own ability to control how you process information, you can control this a lot more than you think, apparently.

[scrollaway]

I wonder who will fare better: the fools who don’t know their limits, or the ones who underestimate theirs?

[embedding-shape]

Considering I'm pretty much as content I could be in life, and I know others who live their life pretty much opposite from what I do, and they're also content with their life, I think there is room for both types of people to be happy and fare OK :)

[Fricken]

All glory is fleeting. Death is the great equalizer.

[p2detar]

> as sometimes you don't get to control what information you get served

You actually do most of the times. It can be a conscious choice with surprisingly positive outcome. Choosing not to use social media, read news, disable push notifications and so on, go on information diet and this may not only make you a happier person but also increase your ability to filter useful information.