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심리학자들이 밝힌 인생에서 가장 부질없는 행동 6가지 — Transcript

by 토닥교수의 심리학 · 2,948 words · 458 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00According to comprehensive
0:01psychological research, the average
0:03modern person spends about two hours a
0:05day worrying. That means we waste 14
0:07hours a week, and nearly 60 hours a
0:10month, wandering between a future that
0:12hasn't arrived and a past we cannot
0:14change. But here is the truly shocking
0:17part. Most of those worries never
0:19actually happen. Most of the scenarios
0:21we toss and turn over every night are
0:23just ghosts created by our brains. So,
0:25why is it that even when we know this,
0:28we can't stop? Is it because we lack
0:29willpower? Is it because we are too
0:31timid? No, it is not. This is not your
0:34fault. It is simply because human
0:36brains were built that way. Today, I
0:38want to talk about six futile efforts
0:41in life—things we pour the most
0:43energy into, yet never change the
0:46outcome. Once you understand these six
0:48things, you will realize that the
0:51worries keeping you up at night are
0:53essentially like pouring water into a
0:55bottomless jar. And in that moment,
0:57your shoulders will feel surprisingly
1:00light. So, what exactly are these
1:02futile efforts? Let’s examine them
1:05one by one. The first futile effort.
1:07First, trying to get 100%of people to
1:09understand your true intentions. This
1:12is biologically impossible. Wait, if I
1:15can't even convey my sincerity properly
1:17, how am I supposed to live without
1:18feeling frustrated? Hold on a moment. I
1:20perfectly understand your feelings of
1:22frustration. But after you hear what I
1:24have to say next, the focus of that
1:26frustration will change completely. Our
1:29brains have something like a spam
1:31filter. In psychology, this is called
1:33confirmation bias. To put it simply, it
1:35works like this. Out of the thousands
1:37of emails in your inbox, your brain
1:39only opens messages from senders it
1:40already recognizes. It automatically
1:42sends the rest to the spam folder, no
1:44matter how important the content may be
1:45. The exact same thing happens when
1:48people judge one another. The other
1:50person does not take your words or
1:52actions exactly as they are. They
1:54re-interpret them with completely
1:56different meanings through filters like
1:58their own life experience, past
2:00emotional wounds, and current mood. In
2:02psychology, this is also called
2:04projection. It’s like using a
2:05projector to cast one's own internal
2:07emotions or experiences onto the other
2:09person. For example, a compliment you
2:11give out of genuine kindness might
2:13sound like "What do they want from me?"
2:16to someone who was previously
2:17manipulated by fake flattery. Your
2:19honest feedback can also be transformed
2:21into "they are looking down on me" for
2:23someone with very low self-esteem. From
2:25an evolutionary psychology perspective,
2:27the human brain is designed to
2:29categorize people to conserve energy.
2:31That is why the brain has evolved to
2:33quickly sort things into categories. Is
2:35this person safe? Are they dangerous?
2:38Is this person on my side? Or an enemy?
2:40All we had to do was quickly judge
2:41these two things. Everyone, have you
2:43had an experience like this? Sending
2:44the same text message, but one friend
2:46replies with "thanks," while another
2:48asks, "What does this mean?" Your
2:50message is singular, but the versions
2:51interpreted by the recipients 'brains
2:53are all different. Just like how people
2:55watch the same movie, but one feels
2:57moved while another feels bored. My
3:00intent cannot be delivered 100%
3:02accurately. Try accepting this as the
3:04default value instead. My sincerity can
3:06be misinterpreted. The moment you do,
3:09you can finally be released from the
3:11impossible task of needing to be
3:12understood by everyone. But let's take
3:15it a step further. If it's impossible
3:17to have my sincerity understood, what
3:19about the attempt to force a change in
3:20the heart of someone who has already
3:22reached a conclusion about me? A second
3:24futile effort. Trying to overturn the
3:27mind of someone who has already made up
3:28their conclusion with logic. This is
3:30arrogance. It’s because it’s not
3:32that the other person's logic is wrong,
3:34but that the brain perceives changing
3:36its own conclusion as an attack.
3:38Everyone, you've had this experience,
3:39right? The experience where the more
3:41you push facts on a friend, the more
3:43stubborn they become. This is a truly
3:45strange thing. Logically speaking,
3:47since I said the right thing, they
3:49should say, "Oh, you're right," and
3:50change their opinion. But reality is
3:52the exact opposite. The more you throw
3:55facts at them, the higher they build
3:56their defensive wall. To understand
3:58this, we need to look at the ego
4:00defense mechanisms mentioned in
4:01psychoanalysis. To put it simply as an
4:04analogy. Inside a person's heart, there
4:06is a castle. And the master of that
4:08castle is the ego. The ego sustains
4:10this castle by using the belief that "I
4:12am right" as a pillar. However, if
4:14someone pushes facts at me saying, "
4:16You're wrong," the ego takes this not
4:18as a logical counterargument, but as an
4:20attack to tear down my castle. So,
4:21naturally, what do they do? They build
4:24a thicker wall. This is the true nature
4:26of the defense mechanism called
4:27rationalization. From the perspective
4:29of behavioral psychology, another
4:30reason appears. When people stick to
4:33their existing beliefs, they receive a
4:35reward of inner relief. The moment we
4:38feel, "My decision was right," a small
4:40sense of pleasure is released in the
4:42brain. Conversely, the moment I admit I
4:44was wrong, the brain sends a danger
4:46signal. If what I have believed in
4:48until now collapses, what should I
4:49believe in next? This uncertainty
4:51itself is a huge threat to the brain.
4:54There is a known phenomenon here. There
4:57are paradoxical studies suggesting that
4:59fact-checking can actually reinforce
5:01false beliefs. In one study, when
5:03accurate information was provided to
5:05people holding false beliefs, some
5:07participants actually showed a tendency
5:09to cling more strongly to their
5:11original misconceptions. You might have
5:13a question rising up inside you at this
5:15point. So, are you saying I should live
5:16the rest of my life being misunderstood
5:17? Should I just stay quiet even when
5:19the other person is saying something
5:21wrong? Yes. Let it be. If you step back
5:24without saying anything, the other
5:25person's ego won't feel threatened. And
5:28only when they don't feel threatened do
5:30people have the space to doubt their
5:32own conclusions. A person’s heart is
5:35not a door that opens by pushing. It is
5:37a door that opens by pulling. And it
5:38only opens when they pull it from the
5:40inside themselves. The third futile
5:43effort. The expectation that the other
5:45person will remember the favor I did
5:46for a long time. This is impossible due
5:48to the most selfish flaw in the human
5:51memory system. You secretly helped a
5:53junior colleague with their work for
5:54three years at your job. You covered
5:56their overtime, hid their mistakes, and
5:58even wrote them a recommendation for a
6:00promotion. But one day, that junior
6:03leaves for a new job without even
6:05saying goodbye. What rises up inside
6:07you? A sense of betrayal. "After
6:08everything I did for them back then."
6:11However. Let's try thinking about it in
6:12reverse for a moment. Try to recall an
6:14experience where you received
6:15significant help from someone. Who
6:18helped you three years ago? Do you
6:20remember it exactly? Strangely enough,
6:22it isn't very clear, is it? But what
6:24about the memory of you helping someone
6:25three years ago? You will likely
6:27remember it with surprising clarity,
6:29down to the date, place, and what you
6:31did. This is not because you are a bad
6:33person. It is a phenomenon called "
6:35egocentric bias" in cognitive
6:37psychology. Simply put, our memory
6:39storage is designed to be distorted in
6:42a way that favors ourselves. We
6:44over-store what we gave and minimize or
6:47quickly delete what we received from
6:50others. Why does this happen? It is
6:52related to how the brain handles the
6:54feeling of psychological debt. When you
6:56receive help from someone, an
6:57uncomfortable feeling arises
6:59unconsciously that you owe this person
7:01a debt. Psychology calls this "
7:02indebtedness," and the brain wants to
7:04get rid of this discomfort as quickly
7:06as possible. So what it does is blur
7:10the memory itself. Something like, "
7:13Well, wasn't that something anyone
7:14would have done back then?" On the
7:16other hand, there is no reason to
7:17delete the favors I have given. Instead
7:19, it reinforces my self-image of being
7:21a good person, so it is stored more
7:23vividly. There is research on this. I
7:25asked members of a team who worked on a
7:27joint project to write down their own
7:30contribution percentage. Surprisingly,
7:32the sum of the contribution percentages
7:34written by all team members almost
7:36always far exceeded 100%. In a
7:38four-person team, each person felt they
7:40had contributed 40%. That adds up to
7:43160%. Everyone genuinely believed they
7:46had done more than the others. When you
7:49offer a kindness, let go completely of
7:50the expectation of receiving something
7:52back at that moment. Only then will
7:54your kindness not leave you feeling
7:56drained. Now, let's keep going. So far,
7:58I have talked about how efforts
8:00directed toward others can be futile.
8:01This time, I will shift the perspective
8:04to see how helplessly we are consumed
8:06by the gaze others direct at us. Futile
8:08efforts. The fourth pattern is losing
8:10one's own life while being conscious of
8:13others' gaze. This phenomenon occurs
8:15because the primitive emergency bell
8:17installed in the human brain is
8:18malfunctioning in modern society. Why
8:21do we care so much about what others
8:23think? To understand this, we must go
8:25back tens of thousands of years. In
8:27primitive times, humans could not
8:29survive alone. Being cast out from the
8:32tribe meant death. So, the brain
8:34developed a system to constantly
8:36monitor how people around us were
8:39evaluating us. If someone else's
8:41expression darkened even slightly, an
8:42emergency bell would ring. "If this
8:44person dislikes me or rejects me, I
8:46could be pushed out of the group.""If
8:49I'm pushed out, it's over." The problem
8:51is that this emergency bell has not
8:53turned off in modern society. Today, we
8:55don't die just because we are cast out
8:57of a group. Getting fired from work,
8:59leaving a friend group, or being
9:01insulted online doesn't affect our
9:04physical survival at all. But the brain
9:07doesn't know that. The alarm system
9:09created tens of thousands of years ago
9:10still operates the same way, wondering,
9:12"How do they see me at work?""What will
9:14people say if I wear this?""Since I
9:17said this, they must think I'm strange.
9:19" It is incessantly ringing these
9:22phantom warnings. But there is
9:24something truly ironic here. Do you
9:26remember the color of the clothes worn
9:28by someone you met three days ago? Is
9:29there anything a colleague said in a
9:31meeting a week ago that you still
9:33remember? Almost nothing, right? There
9:35is a famous experiment in psychology
9:37called the spotlight effect.
9:38Researchers had participants wear an
9:40embarrassing T-shirt and walk through a
9:42crowded place. Participants thought
9:45everyone must have seen their T-shirt,
9:47but when they actually asked others,
9:49the percentage of people who noticed
9:51was very low. It didn't even reach half
9:54of what the participants felt. The
9:55moment you feel like you are on stage
9:58under the spotlight, the audience seats
10:00are actually empty. Everyone is busy
10:02worrying about their own spotlight on
10:04their own stage. Once you are free from
10:06the subject of others 'opinions, the
10:09next subject you face is relationships.
10:11Especially when someone who was once
10:13precious drifts away, our brains react
10:15in a very strange way. The fifth futile
10:18effort is the illusion and obsession
10:20that relationships will last forever.
10:22All relationships have an expiration
10:24date, but our brains simply cannot
10:26accept that fact. We organize our
10:28closets when the seasons change. No one
10:30tries to force themselves to wear short
10:32sleeves from summer in the winter. Yet,
10:34strangely, when it comes to human
10:35relationships, we try to force
10:36ourselves to wear clothes from a past
10:38season. We think we should still be as
10:40close to a college friend from 10 years
10:42ago as we were then, and after breaking
10:44up with an ex, we spend all night
10:46agonizing over why we changed. But the
10:48reality is this. People change. The
10:51person I was five years ago is not the
10:53same person as I am now. Interests,
10:55values, and the direction of life all
10:58change. So, there is no guarantee that
11:00a relationship that was right five
11:01years ago will still be right today.
11:03This is no one's fault. It is just that
11:05two people have grown in different
11:07directions at their own pace. Looking
11:09at studies, the number of relationships
11:11that humans maintain deep meaning with
11:12throughout their lives is much smaller
11:14than you think. Most relationships are
11:17meant to spend a certain period
11:19together and then naturally drift apart
11:21. And interestingly, there are research
11:23results suggesting that the process of
11:25periodically clearing out relationships
11:27and connecting with new people can
11:29actually have a positive impact on
11:31psychological health. Do not hold onto
11:33a season that has passed. You just need
11:35to cherish the warm memories that the
11:37season left behind. Now, here is the
11:39final sixth one. And this is perhaps
11:41the effort that most people are making
11:43even tonight. Using today's energy to
11:45live through a tomorrow that hasn't
11:47even arrived yet. The sixth futile
11:49effort. Worrying in advance about
11:51things that haven't happened yet. This
11:54is not an act of solving a problem. It
11:56is a kind of mental placebo that
11:58provides yourself with a fake sense of
12:00relief that your brain is controlling
12:02anxiety. When your boss passed by
12:04without acknowledging your greeting on
12:06the way to work, you spent all day
12:08worrying about what you did wrong, but
12:11it turned out the boss was just lost in
12:13thought. A friend who hasn't replied
12:15for hours even after reading your
12:16message. Are they angry with me? You
12:19wrote tens of thousands of scenarios in
12:20your head all night, but the next
12:22morning, you get a reply saying, "Sorry
12:24, I fell asleep early." When you
12:25actually look into it, the worst-case
12:27scenario you worried about didn't
12:29happen. And yet, we worry again. Why is
12:32that? It is because of the negativity
12:34bias that evolutionary psychology talks
12:35about. Simply put, it’s a brain habit
12:37of always imagining the worst-case
12:39scenario first. Tens of thousands of
12:41years ago on the savanna, humans had to
12:44imagine the worst to survive. When
12:46there was a rustling in the grass, it
12:48was usually just the wind, but since it
12:50could be a dangerous animal, they had
12:52to be ready to run. Ancestors who
12:54thought, "It's probably just the wind,"
12:57were sometimes attacked, while those
12:59who reacted by running "just in case"
13:02survived. The problem is that in modern
13:04society, this system is malfunctioning
13:06in completely the wrong direction.
13:09Instead of rustling in the grass, we
13:11worry, "What if my boss says something
13:12at tomorrow's meeting?""What if I don't
13:14hit my performance targets this month?"
13:16"What will become of me in ten years?"
13:19We play these ghost scenarios on a
13:21constant loop. The savanna's survival
13:24alarm has turned into an office anxiety
13:26machine. Repeated results from
13:29psychological studies show that less
13:31than 10%of the things we worry about
13:34actually come true. More than 90%of
13:36them are things that will never happen.
13:38If we apply this to daily life, it
13:40looks like this. Out of the 14 hours
13:42you spend worrying each week, barely an
13:44hour or two are actually spent on
13:46anything meaningful. The other 12 hours
13:48are essentially sacrificing your day to
13:51non-existent ghosts. Nothing is ever
13:53solved by worrying. However, there are
13:56definitely days ruined by worrying. You
13:58have now heard all six points. So, the
14:01most important question remains. Now
14:04that we know this, what should we do?
14:07If you think about it, all six futile
14:09efforts we discussed today started from
14:12one earnest desire. It is the instinct
14:14to want to be in control. We tried to
14:16control how others interpreted us
14:18because we feared our sincerity would
14:20be twisted, and we tried to hold onto
14:21others' opinions and relationships
14:23because we didn't want to get hurt. We
14:25worried about the future in advance
14:27because we wanted to keep even the
14:29uncertain future within our control.
14:31It’s not because you are foolish or
14:32inadequate. You were just trying so
14:35hard because you wanted to keep your
14:38life, your loved ones, and your heart
14:40safe. There is a concept called the "
14:42Circle of Influence" proposed by author
14:44Stephen Covey. It involves drawing a
14:47large circle for our concerns, and a
14:49smaller circle inside it for the things
14:52we can actually influence. All six
14:54things we talked about today belong to
14:55the large circle. In other words, they
14:57are in a realm that grabs our attention
14:59but is beyond our control. Others '
15:01interpretations, beliefs, memories,
15:04perceptions, the flow of relationships,
15:06and future outcomes. These are all
15:09things that are out of my reach. On the
15:11other hand, what is inside the small
15:13circle? What attitude will I take
15:14toward my work today? What will you do
15:16for yourself this evening? What will
15:19you say to the person next to you right
15:21now? These are things you can control
15:24100%. Gracefully let go of the
15:27frustrating and painful efforts toward
15:29things you cannot control. This is not
15:32resignation or giving up. It is the
15:34clever self-preservation of a true
15:36adult focusing energy where it matters
15:38most. You have tried hard enough to
15:41handle things that didn't go your way.
15:44It is okay to put down that heavy
15:46burden now. That is all I have prepared
15:49for today's video. Your likes and
15:50subscriptions are a great support.

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