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I never thought I was anxious, but my sister pointed out I have structured my life to an unusual degree to avoid stimuli that could create anxiety: I don't drive, I worked from home my entire career even before it was cool and at a dev job at a company of the ideal size to allow me to avoid office politics or excessive meetings, I spend most my time reading alone, my life is highly routine, I often eat the same foods day after day until I tire and move on to the next thing, and I travel rarely.
I have no idea if she is right or not. And if true, I am unsure if it matters if such things grant me some peace. But the idea that the shape of one's life may be, in part, an unconscious treatment for mental flaws is a disquieting one. And it may be worth asking yourself: looking at the structure of my life, what symptoms might I be unconsciously treating?
It's one of the patterns mentioned in "Games People Play". For example, a socially shy woman could marry a controlling man who will keep her at home. Then it becomes "I don't have a problem with social situations, actually I would love to have a party, but... you know my husband".
Based on which stimuli provoke anxiety, sounds autism-adjacent? E.g. for me, eating varied foods doesn't provoke anxiety (which I think is pretty normal)
6Gunnar_Zarncke
Describes me decently well:
* don't drive ✅
* work from home or close to home ✅
* avoid office politics ✅
* lots of reading alone ✅
* only eat a few selected foods ✅
* travel rarely ✅
I'd agree to a description of being "risk averse," but "anxious" doesn't feel fitting. I have a relatively high openness to experience. For example, on the last item, I didn't travel, estimating it to provide relatively little value of information per effort (or per negative stimuli?). Friends pointed out that I might be very wrong in my evaluation if I didn't travel even once. I accepted the challenge and visited India (for a friend's wedding; long story).
I guess people can be seen as imperfect Thompson samplers with different priors and weights.