And when everything seems to go wrong?

Hello friends!

A while ago I wrote this text – And when is it better to give up? – and today I would like to talk to you about a feeling that we often encounter in the psychology office. The feeling that everything is going wrong. And, perhaps, worse: that there is no hope, that it is better not to fight. The aim is not to talk about depression or melancholy (or any other diagnostic label), but to discuss what we can think and do when we face such situations.

First, it is important to note that we make generalizations. When we say: “everything is going wrong” we are creating a total, general idea that is not true. It may even seem real or true, but if we analyze it closely, in detail, we will see that it is a lie.

Let’s say we are having problems in a relationship and problems at work. Problems in more than one area can trigger the general idea. Now, however, we can see that other areas are not affected: we continue to breathe, the heart continues to beat, the senses are available, etc.

The analysis we arrive at, then, is that we exaggerate. What is not working, what is in trouble is just a part of our experiences. Extrapolating and saying that’s all is hyperbole, therefore. It’s common to feel the lack, feel the inadequacy, the problem and get discouraged.

A simple way to change this discouragement is to look at it from another angle. We don’t value until we lose, right? If we’re healthy, we’re healthy, but we don’t celebrate this every morning. If we lose health, we will complain that we are sick…

It is not a question of pessimism or optimism, but of seeing things as they are. Sure, something can go wrong here and there, but what about the rest? It is not alright?

learned helplessness

There is a concept in behavioral psychology called Learned Helplessness. I’m not an expert in the field, so I’ll give a brief description and you can dig deeper later. The idea behind learned helplessness is when an organism, through successive responses from its environment, learns that, regardless of the behavior it has, the response, the result obtained will be insufficient or negative.

Although we think of learned helplessness in serious situations of abandonment, for example, in street minors, it is common to observe learned helplessness in one or another behavior of the people we live with.

Imagine a person who, at school, regardless of studying or not, making an effort or not, trying in different ways, always had negative responses from teachers and always received low grades. That is, no matter what he did, this person always had negative, punitive, stressful consequences for him. In time, he learns that no matter what he does, he will not get any positive, constructive, reinforcing responses. With this, he begins to stop doing and abandons any and all attempts.

Although the concept of being more complex and broader than explained above, it is a very useful concept to understand the discouragement that can result in adverse situations. In the office, we hear a lot of phrases like: “What’s the use of trying”?

Well, giving up, as I say in the other text, is not always a bad thing. However, it is necessary to carefully evaluate the options.

See the text – And when is it better to give up?

The sowing and reaping metaphor

Imagine two large farms run by two different people. In one of them, regardless of external conditions, sun or rain, plagues or pests, the farmer always continues to work. It doesn’t matter if the previous harvest was weaker than expected or if everything was lost. He continues because, if he stops, he knows he won’t have anything to reap. The other farmer, on the other hand, is discouraged by the poor results and stops. He doesn’t plant anymore. He leaves everything as it is, stopped. The result is obvious: if you don’t plant anything, you won’t have any results…

This is a simple story, but with it we can see that even if we have bad moments, of tiredness, discouragement or results that are not as good as expected, we have to continue. We have to keep going unless we find a better way.

In the example, if the farmer sees no chance of continuing to plant on that land, he can sell the farm and do something else. It’s okay to try, make mistakes and change fields. The mistake is to stand still, looking and letting time pass…

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