“So, Jed,” said Coach. “Let’s summarize the traps we’ve been going through over the last few sessions.

Perfectionism: The tendency to set excessively high performance standards and to be overly critical of oneself.

Imposter Syndrome: The psychological phenomenon where people doubt their achievements and have a persistent fear of being exposed as a “fraud”.

Procrastination: The act of delaying or postponing tasks, often due to avoidance of discomfort or fear of failure.

Busy-ness: Constantly keeping oneself busy, often as a way to avoid addressing underlying issues or priorities.

Comparison: The act of constantly comparing oneself to others, leading to feelings of inadequacy or jealousy.

Commitment Phobia: A fear of making commitments or maintaining long-term relationships, often due to a fear of losing one’s identity or freedom.

Dependency: Over-reliance on others for support, approval, or decision-making.

Excessive Caution: An overly cautious approach to life that results in missed opportunities and experiences.

Fear of Rejection: A deep-seated fear of being rejected by others, often leading to avoidance of relationships or opportunities.

Heroic Independence: A tendency to refuse help from others, believing that one must always be self-sufficient and independent.

Judgment: The tendency to be overly critical and judgmental of others, often as a way to deflect attention from oneself.

Pessimism: The tendency to see the worst aspect of things or believe that the worst will happen; a lack of hope or optimism about the future.

“Coach,” said Jed, “we could probably boil all of that into just one trap: emotional thinking. More precisely, I think that in all these cases, what we are seeing are emotional issues — fear, anxiety, worry — that end up hijacking logic. I imagine that smart people would be particularly prone to having their logic hijacked, because being smart they have been overexercising their strong logical powers to the detriment of their emotional quotient.”

“You are right, go on,” encouraged Coach.

“And so, when one is in one of these traps, one is really just logicizing what is in fact an emotional problem. Therefore, for logic to regain its real rooting in reality, the solution will be to cool down the emotion. How does one do that?”

“The short answer, Jed, is to NAME the problem, to be aware that one is being perfectionist or over dependent. And then after naming the problem, to experience the emotion — and in a sense, to enjoy it! This seems to work because naming a problem, recognizing the emotion, and not fighting it seems to diminish its power over logic. Then, with logic back in the driver’s seat, one can trust it to right things. If one is smart.”

“And if one isn’t?”

“There may be other ways, like counseling. But I think we’re all basically smart in a way. Some people just get the hang of it easier.

“And then, again, none of this implies that it’s easy. Certain habits of thinking, you know, certain events that trigger the emotion into overdrive, could be harder to get rid of. There are specific ways to handle that. I’m thinking specifically of cognitive behavior therapy. We’ll get to that soon enough,” ended Coach.

“Cheers!” And Coach and Jed had a beer.

(Q.C. 230704)