The Power of Positive Experiences Part 3 - positive experience in practice

Over the last two parts of this extended post, I sorted through why we need positive experiences and some of the qualities that make them what they are. I'm going to round out by suggesting a few activities that don't involve input from other people that one can do to gain the benefits that I've described in previous posts. I considered graphing up a bunch of stuff according to how they corresponded to the concepts that I've discussed in the last two posts - immediate versus delayed benefits, immediate versus sustained timeframes, and initially positive versus initially negative experiences. I decided against that though, because I realized everything is subjective and I'm not here to tell anyone how to live their lives - what I might look forward to might not be everyones' cup of tea. This post is meant more as a jumping off point for those at a bit of a loss with what to do with a spare afternoon, or it might help get you out of a rut if you've suddenly found yourself with a lot of free time.

One of the great things about being happy with your own company is that your free time really is freedom. You can:

Go for a long walk and really take the time to appreciate your surroundings. Take note of little things like street names and what sorts of plants and animals are around. If you live in a rural area, going for a walk and noting what sort of wildlife is around can be a really interesting experience.

In the same vein, going for a nice long drive can also be pretty therapeutic and give you time to think. Getting onto the highway and hitting the speed limit for an hour or two can help move things around in your mind without you giving them too much conscious thought. You can also plan to head to a new destination and see what's what when you get there.

It might be a bit 'people' oriented, but just heading out and seeing a band or people-watching without engaging anyone else is also something that can help the lonely feel a bit more connected without giving up that insulation that introverts cherish. It can also be stimulating for creative types (it is for me).

If you're strapped for cash, taking an afternoon to yourself around the house without doing any housework is usually quite affirming and has an immediate benefit. I usually start with a bit of light housework and then take a shower before getting into something just for me - reading a book or even a bit of writing.

In our era of modern technology, grabbing the right computer game can yield up hours of enjoyment without any strenuous physical activity. They're usually so immersive and huge in scope these days that it's not hard to make an extended project out of one. This could probably merit a post on its' own, but for the time being I'll stick to a couple of simple recommendations here -

•     In all honesty, getting a decent emulator of some kind and going retro offers the most bang for the buck in my opinion. It's cheap, very spec-light on computers these days, and you get a sense of the sort of story-telling that todays' light-and-sound fests are missing. Try loading up Genesis Plus and grabbing Shining Force 2 or Landstalker, for example You can thank me later.

•     Skyrim, of everything on offer recently, seems to be the go-to game for large-scale, non-MMORPG gaming these days. It's not easy on the wallet, but it does give a hell of a lot back for the outlay.

•     My final suggestion here is between totally retro and present-2013 cutting edge - give Baldurs Gate or one of the older computer-based RPGs a shot. They also do really well on any decent platform, and the story and characters are pretty entertaining. If you're the sort of person who enjoys gaming culture, you owe it to yourself to check these sorts of titles out (or revisit them, if you already have).

   
If you've got a really extended period of time off - like a week or more - taking a trip away can be one of the best things to do. Travelling alone is a strangely dense undertaking (it's something that I've got slated for a future post), but it is doable. Camping is one of the most excellent things that you can do to get away from the grind - it really reconnects you with nature and gives you time to think, to say nothing of the freedom you get with literally having no one within shouting distance of you. I will caution, however, that camping holds certain concerns for loners that you've got to think about. You don't want to end up on the missing persons roster because you went for a hike and fell off a cliff in the middle of nowhere. I'll cover this in more detail in another post as well.

When I was doing the graph that I mentioned and scrapped earlier, there was one big positive that started out as intially negative (something that you don't look forward to at the start), was a sustained action, and had a delayed benefit - in other words, something that seemed completely unpleasant that ended up having a good payoff at the end. That thing was quitting something. Cigarettes and alcohol came to mind, but other addictions or could also be lumped in here. From chewing ones' nails to procastinating and even excessive masturbation(SFW), there are a lot of things out there that seem like a total chore to get started in, but have huge payoffs if you stick with them. Again, the key for those 'going it alone' is knowing that it'll be a sustained action and it'll come with drawbacks at the start will go a long way to helping your resolve in the long run. Or at least, it helps me with my bad habits.

I could go on and on about things that introverts can do to introduce some indulgence and difference into their lives, but I'll finish off by suggesting that another perfectly legitimate way of having a positive experience can be found in 'slumming it' - sleeping, sitting around thinking, or just letting it all hang loose and doing nothing. It's a great way to recharge after periods of stress and forced extroversion, however as always you don't want this to become the primary mode of relaxation - it's all too easy to become a lazy cellar dweller that way. Save it for special occasions.

I hope that this post and the couple before it teased out an increased awareness of what positive experiences can do for you. Maybe this one got you thinking about what you can do to increase the incidence of this sort of thing in your life - it's certainly given me a few ideas for future posts. Thanks for reading!

The Power of Positive Experiences Part 2 - what makes a positive experience positive?

In my last post, I gave a bit of an overview of the benefits of having a positive experience. It was probably a bit of a no-brainer post, but it didn't really hurt to draw an explicit line from the experience to the benefits, especially in regards to the intended audience for this blog. This second part is going to answer the question of what a positive experience in terms of qualities that make something so.

So, what is a 'positive experience'? It's not really a hard one to answer, is it? There is a short and a long answer, though. The short one is:

'Anything that makes you feel good and provides you with a boost'.

The longer one takes into account a few other factors:

'Something either quick or sustained that those taking part in it take something that provides immediate or lasting benefit from, even if on the surface, the experience might seem negative'.

I'll unpack that a bit:

Positive experiences can either be something that happens quickly, or a sustained action that requires conscious effort to carry out. It might not even be sustained in the sense that it's one event that takes a while - it could be something small that is repeated at a regular interval that builds into a reward larger than the sum of its' parts.

A positive experience provides a benefit of some kind - it gratifies you with a reward of some sort, either immediately or over time. It might even be something that has no immediate payoff but you know will in the future. Have you ever laid out the next days' outfit before you went to bed that night, and congratulated yourself when it resulted in an extra couple of minutes sleep in the next morning? That's the sort of thing I mean there.

Finally, a positive experience might not always seem entirely positive at the time - this is a crucial thing to keep in mind for the introvert, owing to the self-powered nature we have. Sometimes, things can seem pretty bad. In my university work, I often run up against concepts and workloads that seem far too much to deal with, especially given that I'm without gainful employ at the moment. What usually gets me through is the idea that it's all building up to something good - something that will be a huge boon to me in the future. It makes the things I have to deal with now - the stress, the tenuous financial situation, the exhaustion - worth it in the long run. It also expands the concept of a positive experience to mean a lot more things than those that just seem good - almost anything can be a positive if you look for the good things that you can take away from it.

These things all combine in different ways when we do things and get into certain situations - from what I've said here, you can see how a lot of different things can be construed as positive. I guess in a way I'm just breaking things down so it's easier to see exactly what makes something a good experience, so maximum benefit can be gained from having them.

We've covered benefits and the qualities of what makes something a good experience now. I think the third and final post will provide some helpful ideas for those of us who don't feel they need to attend a party full of people they don't know to get a buzz. Thanks for reading.

The Power of Positive Experiences Part 1 - effects and importance

In the realm of the self-dependent loner, a couple of strange things happen that aren't in the normal purview of those with a large amount of connection to the outer world. I've touched on these things, particularly in regards to my post on Hypervigilance, where you exercise a high degree of vigilance to threat with a view to avoiding anything that might come up before it does.

The main problem there is that once something does go wrong, it can land you in some really hard territory to get out of. It's hard to haul yourself to the doctor and then back home when you've got no one to take you, for example. Letting the house degenerate into squalor just means a whole lot of work for you, because there's no one but yourself to a)blame for letting it get that bad, and b)clean it up for you.

These sorts of things are part of why positive experiences - especially for introverts - are such powerful tools. Here are some of the ways they can help:

They provide relief from the particular grind that loners deal with day to day. They give you an opportunity to drop your baggage and concerns and just enjoy the ride for a while. Sure, this goes for everyone else too, but when you're running the whole show by yourself, that can be an especially huge boon.

They help reinforce the idea that you are playing the game right and not doing something that is too hard/wrong for your lifestyle. Personally this is something I've noticed after having a good time - I've often wondered if I should give up seeking my own rich inner life and thrusting myself 'out there'. After enjoying something good, I often reflect that I don't have to change anything about my life, because good things do come along.

They help reinvigorate you for getting back into what I've broadly termed 'the grind' (though that's probably a bit of an unhealthy term for it). They help break plateaus and motivate you to change things that have been hanging around for a while. Again, this is a fairly common effect of affirmative experiences for everyone, but it's especially poignant for those who manage their entire lives themselves.

Those are the three main positives that I get when I experience something good in my life and situation. I'm sure there are a lot more, but this isn't meant to be exhaustive - just provide a bit of an idea about what the benefits can be, and to act as a statement for why you should get out there and make an effort to have good things happen to you.

In my next post on Positive Experiences, I'm going to figure out what makes a positive experience in a fairly granulated, concept-y sort of way. I'll round out with a third post about suggestions for what can make a positive experience when you don't want to involve other people and just enjoy yourself.