
I had a particularly gnarly 9 month stretch of depression in 2021. I felt overwhelmed a lot. I can recall a time where I cried 4-5 days in a row. Self harm was abundant. I remember my voice being horse from screaming "F#%$ YOU!" to myself. I threw my phone and put a hole in the wall (phone was ok somehow! Wall was not...). In short, I was in a new position at work, a new manager and tackling my first big, dynamic project.
It went sideways.
My ego ruined me. I felt so personally responsible for all of the mess and had a "captain goes down with the ship" attitude. I didn't want to quit. I wanted to see it through. I was absolutely miserable. The hours were long and the project was incessant. I also had abysmal boundaries at this stage in my career. I was convinced that I could grit my way through it. I was constantly haunted by the question
Should I change my perception or change my environment?
THE CASE FOR PERCEPTION
I was just starting to get into stoicism at the time. Perception is a key idea. The idea is that there is no good or bad without our perception. Things just are. We assign meaning to them, and we have control over how we assign that meaning. One of the great stoic philosophers, Epictetus, spent a good portion of his life in slavery. Nelson Mandela, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter and Mike Tyson made the most out of their time in prison.
THE PROBLEM WITH PERCEPTION
I'm a big fan of David Goggins, and my feed was filled with him yelling at me to seek suffering. I was for sure seeking (hanging on to?) suffering, and I was depressed beyond belief, wanting to end my life.
What if someone is in an abusive relationship and depressed? I'd wager we could all agree that removing them from that environment is the best thing we could do for their mental health.
Stoicism paints a picture that we can essentially exist in any environment, no matter how stressful, and focus on what we can control. If we choose to see things as good, they are good. I think this theoretically can be the solution. If you were able to completely max out your stoicism skills, you could find happiness in any situation purely internally. But is this actually possible? And if it is, if your environment is terrible, will you thrive?
THE CASE FOR CHANGING YOUR ENVIRONMENT
In Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about how willpower is a short term solution, not a long term one when it comes to habits. We're far better off changing our environment to remove ourselves from temptations. Seems simple enough. Good environment, good mental health.
THE PROBLEM WITH CHANGING YOUR ENVIRONMENT
Our current world is more comfortable than ever but more depressed than ever. Whether proverbially or literally, Man fell in the Garden of Eden. Jim Carrey talked about richness and fame. He wishes everyone could experience it, so they would know it's not the answer. You can be depressed in paradise. Even in paradise, we'll still lose the ones we love. So does our environment not matter?
What about a stressful job? Is the job itself the main cause of stress? If you change your environment but don't build the willpower, what happens in the next job? Do you just keep hopping jobs? Isn't there some stress in all jobs?
THE SOLUTION
As I have now come to learn, and is the case with nearly everything, it's both. Balance. In the context of mental wellbeing, it has to be both. I have to consistently remind myself that David Goggins is trying to be the toughest man on Earth, not the happiest. I do truly believe he has found a tremendous amount of meaning and contentment through that pain and suffering, but I'm not sure it's the solution for mental illness.
Quickly before we land this plane, I'm a big fan of the Stress Bucket analogy. The bucket is your capacity to handle stress. The water in the bucket is your stress level. Improving your ability to handle stress comes from either dumping water out of the bucket, or getting a bigger bucket.
Here is what I have concluded:
Bad environments are an opportunity to build stress resiliency. They give you a bigger bucket.
Good environments give you a better capacity to handle stress. They dump water out of your bucket.
Both are levers we can pull. We want our bucket to be as big as possible. This builds our capacity to handle stress comfortably. But we can't be pedal to the metal, running with a millimeter of headspace, or we will constantly be spilling over. We need to dump some water out.
Let's go back to the abusive relationship example. This person has a completely full bucket. It is theoretically possible to grind out a slightly bigger and bigger bucket to eventually be able to endure it. But again, will they thrive? They will get far better results by changing their environment.
Now, let's do the stressful job example. If someone has a tiny bucket, any job will push them over the edge. Changing their environment is effectively useless. They would be better off changing their perception.
HOW TO CHANGE YOUR PERCEPTION
Changing your perception is a long, slow road. It takes tons of practice and years to develop. A great book to start with is The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday.
Telling someone who is suffering from major depression and suicidal thinking to just "change their attitude" is almost offensive. This is why the CINDERS approach is so biased toward physical tools. Physical tools are the foundation that you build mental tools on top of. With all of this said, here are a few posts on the topic of perception.
HOW TO DESIGN YOUR ENVIRONMENT FOR MENTAL HEALTH
Our modern environment isn't necessarily out to get us, it just lends itself to creating terrible habits that can trash your mental health. We can change our environment to make a massive difference in the decisions we make and the outcomes those decisions have on our mental health.
Back to Atomic Habits, Clear told the story of British Cycling hiring a new performance director, Dave Brailsford, in 2003. He's famous for "the aggregation of marginal gains." They made hundreds of micro improvements, from bike seats and aerodynamics to washing their hands to avoid getting sick and testing new massage gels for recovery. After a 100 year slump, they crushed it at the 2008 olympics. All of these micro improvements compounded into something profound.
We can apply this same approach to our environments to get marginal improvements in our mental health that compound into something profound.
My environment has many positive things
My wife works early, so she wakes up early. Therefore I wake up early.
I have a dog that requires me to be moving outside a lot. He keeps me on a schedule and in a routine.
I live near a regional nature preserve.
I have a nice deck and trees in my backyard.
My environment also has many negative things.
I work from home in a very dark room. There's not really a good way to get natural light anywhere in our house.
I work on a computer. This lends itself to being stationary all day.
Here are some ways I've made micro adjustments:
I put an extension cord outside so I can easily plug my work computer in. My computer dies quickly. I found I'd sit outside and work, but need to come back inside to get my charger. Often, I'd never make it back out.
I invested in a happy lamp. It's not a replacement for sun exposure, but it helps. It's quick and easy to flip on when I wake up and start working
I invested in a standing desk and a WalkingPad.
I invested in home gym and dumbbells to make exercise super easy and accessible
I invested in a sauna to make that a regular part of my life
I keep an exercise band at my desk to throw down some pullaparts and external rotations to help keep my shoulders healthy and get a little mental boost throughout the day.
At the end of the day, both changes in perception and changes to your environment are tools in your tool belt. Select the right tool for the job.
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