I Don’T Like You: I Don’T Like Asparagus Either

By James Bard

This is a book about the relationship between how we think and how we feel. Based on the old Stoic premise that men are not disturbed by things but by the views they take of things, this book focuses on several of the more common false beliefs (views) that lead to emotional anguish of one kind or another unnecessarily. For example, if you think there is something wrong with asparagus because I dont happen to like it, you may also believe something is wrong with you if I dont happen to like you. And you will feel lousy about yourself. There follows a set of guidelines for uncovering errant ideas and faulty thinking and how to get rid of the unhappiness they cause. In short, this is a book about the benefits of rational thinking.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524592400

James Bard

James Bard, now retired, is professor emeritus of psychology at Cleveland State University where he taught for many years. His career in psychology began with his admission to the graduate program in clinical psychology at Case Western Reserve University and achieving a doctorate in that specialty. He then joined the faculty at Cleveland State and opened an office to practice psychotherapy privately. After some years of teaching and practice Dr. Bard was asked to develop a graduate program in clinical psychology at CSU, which he did. Dr. Bard is a life member of the American Psychological Association and presently lives in Cleveland. He is always pleased to hear from former students and, especially, the visits. When asked to assess his life's work, he said, "I hope I did more good than harm".

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Copyright © 2017 by James Bard.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2017904104

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5245-9242-4

                Softcover        978-1-5245-9241-7

                eBook             978-1-5245-9240-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 03/16/2017

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

I. Introduction

II. I Don’t Like Asparagus

III. I Love Me—I Love Me Not

IV. A Rose Is Not a Silk Purse

V. Homework

VI. The Problem about the Problem

To Jake and Andy, my favorite rascals.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A ny similarity between the ideas contained in this work and some of the teachings of Albert Ellis is not coincidental. I am happy to acknowledge the priority of his work and pleased to have been associated with him for these many years.

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

A lmost everyone I know is troubled unnecessarily some of the time. That includes me, although I am happy to say that I feel much better more of the time than I used to. It is a fundamental fact of the human condition that we quite naturally tend to think haphazardly some of the time. We overgeneralize and exaggerate. We reason illogically, inferring all kinds of nonsense from what we believe to be true when in fact that truth was only a very dubious assumption to start with. And the price we pay for these failings is misery—emotional suffering. Miscalculation usually leads to unhappiness in one form or another.

So if you overestimate your capacity for alcohol, you wind up with a hangover and heaven knows what kind of grief over all the crazy things you did while drunk. Likewise, if you mistake the number of steps down to the landing, you sprawl on your face, and that hurts for several days. Now it is the first premise of this book that much of your emotional suffering results from similar miscalculation, e.g., believing everyone else thinks you are as stupid as you do or imagining that getting rejected has broken your heart. It is the second premise of this book that if you clean up that kind of sloppy thinking and check out the validity of some of your truths, you will eliminate much of the unnecessary suffering and gain more time for enjoyable experiences. We react emotionally to what we believe to be true, and because our beliefs are subject to distortion, we suffer painful emotional reactions, which are unnecessary and could have been avoided.

Let me hasten to add that some of our beliefs about our experiences are fairly accurate—i.e., the facts are indisputable and those facts are frequently very unpleasant. Friends and loved ones die. We are demoted or fired from the job. The heart’s desire falls in love with someone else. Some of our emotional sufferings are inescapable. These things do happen, and it is a contradiction in terms to say we don’t care about losing something we care about. We are imperfect creatures living in an indifferent world. By that, I mean that we make mistakes, which lead to grief, and the world imposes many other slings and arrows of outrageous fortune no matter what we do. The universe does not suspend gravity or alter the speed of light or change the oxygen content of water to spare us disappointment or aggravation. It seems reasonable to me to say that being alive means suffering some of the time, either physically or emotionally or both.

On the physical side, we usually speak of suffering in one word—pain. And it seems to me that we do a much better job of avoiding it in the short run than we do some of our emotional pain. This is probably due to the fact that the immediate causes of our physical pain are frequently so visible and easily identified. I know why my nose hurts if you punched me there. I may not know the anatomy and physiology of my pain, but I do know that your fist was a big factor, so I can duck the next time. The immediate causes of emotional pain are not so visible, and so we don’t do as good a job of ducking the next time. I may think that you caused my heartache by rejecting me, and so I go through all kinds of shenanigans, trying to keep your favor, and cause myself other pains in the process. I fail to realize that I have caused my own pain by the significance that I attach to your rejection. But again the situation is ripe for such distortions to occur because the cause-effect sequence is obscure. The same thing happens with physical pain when that pain is far removed in time from the cause.

When the bad outcome is long-term (i.e., far removed in time), then we seem to have much more difficulty acquiring avoidance responses that would benefit us. So we continue smoking because we don’t feel the pain of cancer—yet. We go on drinking because we don’t feel the pain of cirrhosis—yet. We go on eating because we don’t feel the pain of the heart attack—yet. All those pains are somewhere down the road, and we don’t seem to notice them when we are busy with the day’s activities, which include smoking, drinking, and eating. My guess is that the more time between action and consequence, the more time we have to think crookedly, and so we act stupidly because we think stupidly.

Not everybody who smokes gets cancer, and the odds are in my favor is a true statement. The conclusion Therefore, it’s OK for me to smoke may seem legitimate at first glance, but what is missing from the equation is the kind and degree of suffering that cancer brings if you lose the bet. However good the odds, it is clearly stupid to ignore the stakes completely. And that seems to be what happens in those cases where we act against our long-range best interests for the sake of some short-range satisfaction. I do not intend to elaborate on these pains in this book, but I did think it is worth mentioning that our physical and emotional well-being are inextricably intertwined and that both kinds of suffering may result from faulty thinking.

By this time, you probably have concluded, quite correctly, that I take a very dim view of pain—any kind of pain—and rejoice in any kind of pleasure that doesn’t cost me greater pain later on. There are two points that I want to emphasize in connection with this hedonic guideline. First, I am the only person in this world who knows exactly what pleasures me and what pains me. I’ll say more about this later. Second, I have decided that it is up to me to determine what is good for me, i.e., what is the best way to live my life. And I have decided to enjoy my life as much and as long as possible, doing those things that are pleasurable and/or fulfilling to me and avoiding as much as possible those things