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Comment by deisteve | Hacker News Reader

While the article has some good points about the importance of emotional intelligence and awareness, I'm skeptical about the idea that we can simply "choose" to be thermostats. Humans are complex and emotional creatures, and our emotions can be triggered by a multitude of factors beyond our control. The article's suggestions, while well-intentioned, feel like a form of emotional labor that can be exhausting and unsustainable. Can we really expect people to be constantly "on" and aware of their emotional impact on others?

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> I'm skeptical about the idea that we can simply "choose" to be thermostats.

Well, it’s like most things, it takes practice and time to be good at it if natural talent isn’t there.

Sure, things out of our control can trigger emotions, but one incredible ability of humans is to rationalize those emotions and act in more constructive ways than to immediate react back.

It can be quite liberating and fun to understand and process these things, much like understanding code and data structures in order to recombine them into things you want to achieve.

Completely agree with you. I think (like you) it is about VERY deliberate action. My phrase: a conscious turn in the other direction.

The more I practice changing or revamping my reactions/approaches to situations, the more those things improve.

Not everyone will agree but IMO - the skeptic is simply not that willing to try. That's ok. But it's the reality.

> It can be quite liberating and fun to understand and process these things, much like understanding code and data structures in order to recombine them into things you want to achieve.

This thread actually made me realize it's much easier to express this in code vs words since it deals with state and logic:

https://gist.github.com/TheUltDev/fc8386e42205504c55d1cf2127...

This is the my process of rationalization and resolution. The flow is the same for all scenarios, but I only coded logic for one scenario I described in another comment:

Let's say someone close to you is unusually quiet and short with you. You irrationally think they are mad at you or ignoring you because they are being short. That makes you feel mad because you didn't do anything to them! Upon receiving the feeling you start rationalizing the response and realize that you have no evidence that they are mad at you and there are many times you don't want to talk. You then simply ask them if anything's wrong and they say they have a headache! Whew, it wasn't about you at all, it was just a headache! You then empathize with them and want to help so you ask if you can get them some advil and know not to be loud or talk too much until they start feeling better (acting normally)

As a topical extension, there are entire therapeutic modalities (like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) that assist people in doing this kind of in-the-moment emotional reflection and recontextualization. If this sort of thing is difficult, seeking out a therapist that specializes in these modalities can be helpful (and seeking the support of a therapist does not require a person to be ‘mentally ill’).

What's the best book on CBT technique that you would recommend?

> Can we really expect people to be constantly "on" and aware of their emotional impact on others?

Of course we can and should. Emotional regulation is a sign of maturity and being an adult. Children should be practicing emotional control.

Can you be mentally and emotionally wrung out and grace given for emotional outbursts? Sometimes. I also have punched a wall when I stubbed my toe. We should expect me to not lash out at the door and it can still be understandable why I did. I have also sat stewing in a mood and it affects those around me. I can fix my attitude or I can remove myself for a spell.

It's less emotional labor and less exhausting the more you are aware of your emotions.

You can recognize the stimuli and rationalize it before becoming upset.

The more you do it, the easier it becomes and the less stressed you become.

totally understand where you're coming from, but I think there's a difference between being aware of your emotions and trying to suppress or fake them. The article isn't suggesting that we should be constantly 'on' and pretending to be someone we're not. Rather, it's about developing self-awareness and learning to manage our emotions in a way that's authentic and sustainable.

Recognizing the stimuli that trigger our emotions is a great first step, but it's not just about rationalizing it away. It's about understanding what's driving our emotions and learning to respond in a way that's healthy and constructive. This takes practice, patience tho

I didn't say suppress or fake your emotions, I said to rationalize them.

If they are irrational you prevent the emotional knee-jerk response in the first place.

If they are rational then you know the root cause to work through so you can fix the issue.

For those rational emotional responses, recognizing the stimuli can still be helpful. It's still stressing, but you know the exact problem and can work to resolve it, the opposite of suppressing it.

you're advocating for a proactive approach to emotions, where we acknowledge and rationalize them to prevent irrational responses, while still allowing ourselves to feel and work through rational emotions. This approach seems to strike a balance between emotional awareness and emotional regulation.

I think this is a great way to approach emotions, and it's refreshing to see a nuanced discussion about emotional intelligence.

Thank you, these are things I developed to manage my emotions and it's the first time to put them in words, I tried my best to serialize it.

The cool thing is, if you do this enough, you can always recognize the stimuli.

There's one exception, hormonal imbalance (bipolar, seasonal depression, etc.), because there is no stimuli.

But once you realize there is no external stimuli, you know it's hormonal. It is then classified as a irrational reaction. The difference of an internal irrational reaction is it takes more investigation and sometimes a few emotional knee-jerk reactions slip through before the hormonal cause is detected.

Also the irrational brain can misattribute the imbalance and attribute it to an external stimuli, but you can immediately correct it with evaluation and communication if the misattributed stimuli is a person. (ask for clarification, if it's not what you assumed, apologize after snapping and solve the conflict immediately).

My wife and I can tell when she's nearing her time of the month because it effects both of us. The hormone change unbalances us a week or so before sometimes causing fatigue or snippiness. It's nice to recognize it as to not contribute it the fatigue to burnout or take the snapping to heart.

We just overcompensate in communication and directly ask what the other person meant to not take something the wrong way once we recognize we're in this temporary state.

I don't see how recognizing an emotion as irrational gives you certainty of calming it. Generally speaking, emotions don't arise from a conveniently rational level of consciousness. If they did they would be referred to with terms ofther than "emotion".

> I don't see how recognizing an emotion as irrational gives you certainty of calming it

When you realize it's an irrational reaction you automatically reprocess the stimuli and get a rational reaction.

> Generally speaking, emotions don't arise from a conveniently rational level of consciousness.

What makes you say that? Emotions commonly arise from rational thought. There are rational reasons to be mad/happy/sad/etc.

But what I'm suggesting though is the opposite, to make it a habit upon receiving every powerful emotional to verify it with rational thought.

I don’t believe in this theory and my experience with therapy suggests it just makes little sense. Emotional outbursts (like being startled/angered/in pain) may be temporarily irrational your own logic-wise, but your regular emotional background absolutely reflects what you actually believe is happening and the way you think. So unless you’re doing emotional logging and are really managing your beliefs, deep settings, etc afterwards, this is simply impossible. I mean you can learn therapy, but it’s not a knowledge you’re born with as a regular guy and it’s a whole “learn C++ in 21 days” thing.

There is a level of being still not broken enough, but then emotions aren’t a problem in the first place. You usually end up trying to manage them when you’re already lost and what people do is simple suppressing, thinking that’s how “adults” do.

To be clear, I provide no answer to this thread, only a comment.

> Emotional outbursts (like being startled/angered/in pain) may be temporarily irrational your own logic-wise, but your regular emotional background absolutely reflects what you actually believe is happening and the way you think.

Yes your emotional background reflects what you believe is happening, but you can correct your belief if you analyze and rationalize the emotional response when you feel it, which then updates your emotional background.

> So unless you’re doing emotional logging and are really managing your beliefs, deep settings, etc afterwards, this is simply impossible.

That's exactly what I'm suggesting you do.

Upon receiving every major emotional reaction you make it a habit to analyze it immediately afterwards.

I find it very hard to impossible to do immediately afterwards. I can detect it, which is somewhat obvious, and write down the situation, but finding the source of it immediately I find unrealistic.

Either we talk about different things here, or I lack some Sherlock Holmes level skills that you have.

Anyway, if something bothers me that hard, making it unbother me is an improvement to work in a stupid situation, not self-normalization.

For example, recently I got frustrated when an inexperienced relative wrongly measured airport hand baggage (pure geometric cluelessness) and insisted airport will do it that way too. I find this frustration absolutely normal and don’t really want to get rid of it, cause it’s immediately actionable and the response is correct-ish.

Otoh, I successfully defeated my non-actionable fear of being late, but it took me a couple of advanced techniques I didn’t even know existed, some movie-level talk to your childhood stuff.

So there’s so much to it that I just don’t see how to “just do afterwards” (at least it sounds like that).

Again, feels we are talking different things here, not sure. And sorry for the stream of consciousness.

I coded my thought process of a specific example if it helps clarify what I'm talking about:

https://gist.github.com/TheUltDev/fc8386e42205504c55d1cf2127...

(as this is a state of mind and logic thing, a program of state and logic is a better way to describe it vs words)

> Otoh, I successfully defeated my non-actionable fear of being late, but it took me a couple of advanced techniques I didn’t even know existed, some movie-level talk to your childhood stuff.

Can you elaborate on these techniques?

The downward arrow (cbt) with elements of self-hypnosis.

You basically log-trace your mind at emotional points, including pulling up automatic thoughts (somewhat difficult, they tend to escape). Datetime, situation, emotion, thoughts, levels. Then intersect it all through time, because different situations disturb different sets of facets of your problem, but only one facet is primary. This discovers intermediate beliefs and coping strategies, makes them explicit. And then you logically realize your core belief. It may happen quickly or slowly (weeks), depends on how conscious you are about it and how often it happens.

In my case it was: unable to do anything 4-5 hours before an appointment or even a friends meeting. Set up a few timers, got ready step by step, doing mostly nothing in time buffers. Check for clean clothes, etc. Afraid of forgetting time and being late. Coping: long preparation, timing processes, checking time in the car. Intermediate belief: if I prepare I’ll be on time. Core belief: being late is atrocious and intolerable.

Realizing is only half the job. To destroy a core belief you have to remember how [irrationally] it formed, that’s where hypnosis kicks in. I couldn’t sleep/relax in a session, but took homework. Basically before you go to sleep you ask yourself “when it was”, as if there was some entity inside you who could answer. Few minutes later it just flashed in pre-sleep in every detail. It’s akin to thinking “I will wake up at 6:30” and doing so, a similar process and feeling.

I was few hours late from school when my grandma waited for me and couldn‘t get to work (strict schedule). She was afraid of giving me the keys. I was tired that everyone plays after classes and I cannot, so decided to just not care. She was very angry and terrified, hit me and went away like I was an enemy.

Next week after therapy, for the first time in 25 years I was being intentionally late to a doctor, said hi, sorry for being late. She said it’s fine, smiled and asked what I came with.

I realize I have serious issues here (like many others probably). But I believe either there’s no easy way to “just reflect afterwards”, or these issues aren’t really that hard to make this process explicit. I, for one, don’t understand how you get an emotion if a logical counter is readily available in your mind. It won’t happen for me in the first place then. Maybe on the contrary, I’m… healthier?

> Can we really expect people to be constantly "on" and aware of their emotional impact on others?

We can expect that of ourselves. It's a skill that can be learned and practiced.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” -- Viktor Frankl

I've found that a meditation practice allows me to find that space more easily in real life situations. At the very least, you'll know when you're being "amygdala hijacked" (per the article).

I have never heard that quote before. Gonna tuck that away for future use because it serves as a great reminder that we are not powerless to our emotional response. Its the difference between a reaction and a reflex.

I think you can consciously learn a skill by practicing it enough. You can choose to project positivity and like most things in life, fake it until you make it.

>feel like a form of emotional labor that can be exhausting and unsustainable

There definitely some wisdom in knowing when to draw back for your own sanity.

On one hand, I completely agree that deliberate practice and intentional positivity can be powerful tools for growth and skill-building. The 'fake it till you make it' approach can be especially helpful for building confidence and momentum.

I think the key is finding that balance between pushing ourselves to grow and being kind to ourselves when we need to rest. It's okay to take a step back, recharge, and prioritize our own well-being. In fact, that's often where the real growth happens - in the moments of quiet reflection and self-care.

I don’t know why and I might be wrong, but (parts of) some of your comments read exactly like an LLM response, while other parts feel like you typing additional stuff “around” the response.

I got the same vibes, fwiw.

If you check their other comments, it's clear that they're using an llm to respond.

I read this article as intended for an HR or management audience whose job is to always be the professional in the room since your voice is interpreted as the company's voice.

"I'm skeptical about the idea that we can simply "choose" to be thermostats."

I agree. Try being thermostat to someone who is on meth or someone who is drunk.There are many reasons someone is raising he temperature in a room.

Not to mention the fact that there might be a good reason some one is angry, like low wages, discrimination, or wage theft. And you coming in being a thermostat is just prolonging everyone's nightmare.

I will tell you, when I saw people doing that BS to me I knew right away they were trying to manipulate me. We all have the right to be angry and you do not have the right to use neurological tricks to manipulate people because you are uncomfortable with "weird vibes".

> there might be a good reason some one is angry

Yes! And sometimes it benefits you both to _lean in to that_! Perhaps you feel the same way! So "choosing to be a thermostat" does not need to be a choice you make in every situation or no situation. It's very dependent on context. Sometimes I WANT people to match my energy, it's affirming or comforting. Sometimes I will benefit from either being the thermostat or the... thermostatted...

I absolutely disagree that this is "manipulation tactics". I can see how the sausage is made and still appreciate how they're approaching the situation. It indicates to me that this person is interested in exploring and working on their own emotional intelligence, and are using things they've learned to help problem-solve.

Regarding "weird vibe in room" - my take on the article is not that "being thermostat" is NOT a means to "remove vibe I don't like". "Weird vibe" is indicative that something is wrong and there could be a problem there worth challenging or solving. It doesn't have to come from a place of "toxic positivity" or self-centered "I only want good vibes" thinking. "Weird vibe" can still be there and I think part of growing emotional intelligence is learning you can only do so much and sometimes allowing "weird vibe" is healthy -- and learning to not let it affect you if it's not something you rationally are affected by (ie. someone else's mood due personal reasons).

> Try being thermostat to someone who is on meth or someone who is drunk.There are many reasons someone is raising he temperature in a room.

As a volunteer first aider who's done "night time economy" shifts alongside paramedics - this is absolutely something that is done and is quite helpful. There is a certain degree of patience and customer-service-voice that generally many intoxicated people are receptive to. Doing what you can to de-escalate and calm them down has better (generally, quicker) outcomes for their treatment. If you can calmly convince someone who has hoofed a dangerous amount of cocaine along with their 10 shots of vodka that night and has presented to you aggressive and frightened due to chest pains to sit down in the back of the ambulance, you don't have to deal with them aggressively flailing about the place whilst you hook them up to an ECG. Matching their energy and yelling at them is probably the last thing you wanna do there (even though they ARE fuckin' annoying... never let them know that, if you want to go home ~on time~ only an hour after your shift ends ;))

What is emotional labour?

The effort someone chooses to put in to manage and help the emotions of others.

It ranges from listening to someone talk about their day to driving over at night to a friend who's upset, to organizing an entire intervention.

It is often considered to fall more heavily on women. Notably, as work that often doesn't fully get redistributed when women enter the workforce, much like housekeeping often doesn't.

Some emotions are tiring - anger, frustration, depression, anguish, to name a few.

I can't think of any that involve supporting a colleague at work. I could certainly get tired of shenanigans at work, but that would be from frustration et al, but support?

Like the other comment that's responded, I just don't see the link between the description for the term and the situations in either the blog or a workplace.

I've certainly not noticed a difference in the level of emotional support given in the workplace by women either. Whose emotions are they managing? Men's?

> It is often considered to fall more heavily on women.

Citation needed.

Here you go: https://www.simplypsychology.org/emotional-labor.html

> Hochschild (1983) suggested that jobs requiring more emotional labor are performed primarily by women. These jobs typically involve creating feelings of well-being or affirmation in others – responsibilities usually assigned to women.

Hochschild, A. (1983). 1983 The managed heart. Berkeley: University of California Press.

I've read the outline of Hochschild's work, and it applies to jobs like waitresses, who have to maintain a positive image in order to do their job, not people in meetings in an office talking about a project. Hochschild herself has mentioned the scope-creep of the concept, critically.

Think of it like the difference between idly leafing through a book, versus studying a textbook as if your life depended on it - one is an inconsequential pastime, the other is an exhausting task made all the more stressful by its importance.

Emotional labor is dealing with other people’s emotions, not in the first sense described in the paragraph above, but in the second - paying close attention, thinking critically, interpreting what you see and hear and feel in an effort to help someone in some way. It’s shouldering their emotional burden, to some degree, to support them, as best you can - same as physical labor might be.

I read the blog, and the situations given - which are common in most workplaces - wouldn't lead me to compare them to a life or death situation in any way.

I also can't imagine thinking that concentrating on someone's speech while in conversation with them as taxing, beyond the normal difficulties that attempting concentration can bring.

Perhaps I'm missing something. The only time I could think of such things as laborious would be when faced with intransigence or my own frustration, and that's really about not getting my own way.

Isn't it normal to try to have good, productive conversations, pay attention to others, and give support where needed?

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