Living It

The stress of life's ontological experiment

by Matthew Shanahan, M.Sc.

Hurtin'—APPIC Match Is a Disappointment to Many This Year

Recently, the matching process for pre-doctoral psychology internships ended. With this, so too did the hopes of many for an internship experience next year. As one who is in this boat, I share some reflections about getting through this difficult personal and professional experience. Read More

Valentine's Day for the True Romantic

How hard is it to buy a box of chocolates these days? Try something 'outside the box'. Lovers: let her know she makes you so much more than you are, let him know he makes you feel so alive. Read More

The Gaming Guy, the Clumsy Christian, and the Funky Smell --- a Train Story

Recently, I was travelling home by train for Christmas. Many students were travelling, and older persons, too. The trains were largely full, and there was a great deal of 'people-watching' to do. I took my seat near the front of the railcar, and I started to notice a strong, unpleasant smell. Read More

Out of My Shell: Glimpses of the Unselfish

Often, people will say to one another: "You're being selfish." What do they mean by this? I propose a personal reflection herein, as one who has tried, and usually failed, not to think of himself first. The secret to the conundrum is this ... you can't be unselfish on your own. Read More

A Gift to My Peers, Ceteris Paribus ...

Attention clinical graduate students: Here's how to custom-map your pre-doctoral internship application site list's statistical landscape. Chip away at the undifferentiated anxiety. Tailor your list a more informed way. Impress your friends! Read More

The Impossibility Zone

Do you get placed under demands greater than your resources can meet? Or do you, conversely, place others in an 'impossibility zone'? Read More

All-Nighter? No Way, I Decided to Do an All-Day-er

All-nighters are done in the dark; All-day-ers are done in the light ... Read More

Give Today a Chance: Have Breakfast

Have breakfast—fill up on your day's self-regulatory "staying power." Read More

A Measure of Joy: An Index of Hope Part 2

Using disaster prediction techniques, could we also predict chances of something good happening? For next week's charity fundraiser, I forecast a 60% probability of participation ... Read More

A Measure of Joy: An Index of Hope Part 1

Using the developed mathematics of disaster prediction, I suggest a conceptual change to approach the measurement of hope and the likelihood of joy Read More

Life among the fragments

The French writer, Charles Baudelaire, observed through his writings that modernity is the experience of life lived in fragments. This experience, the human experience, is even more fragmented today than it was when Baudelaire wrote in the mid-1800's. Read More

Do what you are doing: The value of non-symbolic experience

Do you have a favourite thing you do to unwind? Exercise? Knitting? A favourite instrument? We are so swallowed up by symbol-based experience today, that it's time we remembered what we are: timeless awareness in a physical body. Read More

Repairing the Rifts

I have observed that in the daily transactions of a married couple, what is even more important than "never making them angry", or "doing what she wants", or "leave him alone when he gets like this" is the ability to repair the relationship. Oh, this is so important! Read More

Between the Impossible and the Inevitable -- Maturity Means Managing Unpredictability

We provide a mathematical explanation for the phenomena of all-or-none thinking. People often gravitate to end points of probability, either impossibility or inevitability, in order to reduce the worrying they do over a potentially more accurate, but unpredictable, likelihood "somewhere in the middle". It may be prudent seldom to say "never", and rarely to say "always". Read More

The way out of the busyness Catch-22...

We often create the very situations we are trying to escape.

Thank you, Dr. Pychyl, for that reminder with a nice cultural allusion to the "Catch-22". Read More

Good Kirk and Bad Kirk - We need them both

Light or dark jerseys - what do they each bring out? A Classic Star Trek episode exemplifies the conflict and connection between primal needs and enlightened virtue. Read More

"Decisional control": Mathematical model highlights impact of decision-making structures on threat reduction

When facing a stressful situation with a possible negative outcome, such as a battle with cancer, our human ability to use our own decision-making to put the odds in our favour is an important way to reduce the stress we face. Read More

The Logic Cube

As a stress researcher, I developed the notion of the Logic Cube as a way of assessing how individuals deal with a stressful situation. The Logic Cube identifies 4 types of responses to stress: Intrepid, Timorous, Prudent, and Foolhardy. Which describes you best? Read More

Matthew Shanahan, M.Sc., is a doctoral student in clinical psychology at the University of Western Ontario.

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About Living It

I love to learn and ponder, and share. "The stress of life's ontological experiment" is described in the song Riders on the Storm -- "... into this world we're thrown". We make decisions everyday that develop our identity, knowledge, wisdom, friendships -- so that life's ontological experiment, the chance to be "real" for a few years on this Earth, turns out the way we hope.