Why do people manufacture stress for themselves?

[Ori21]

Surely life is hard enough without voluntarily doing any of the following:

Affairs (they're not fun, they don't provide escapism & you can't run away from the person you've become by having one)

Sacrificing too much to pursue stressful, demanding careers that put £££'s in the bank but ultimately give them no real quality of life

Taking on relationships/friendships they know are going to be trouble.

Just why? It's quite obvious these things are self-destructive. They don't lead to happiness, or peace.

Money is money, beyond having enough for the basics it's an obvious slippery slope of constant comparison and resentment. Not worth literally selling your life for surely?!

Affairs..........people run from things, not to things. It's just a physical manifestation of your own inadequacies that you've failed to deal with. Always ends in tears or nearly always.

And doggedly remaining in/seeking out destructive, shit relationships or remaining in broken marriages, most often "for the sake of the children." Children are astute, and will model what they see.

Is it just a human flaw to knowingly seek out attachments that will increase our suffering? We have free will, and the ability to make our lives simple and thus, happier, - but not many people choose it. Why?

A simple quiet life would bore and, ironically, stress me. I like a busy, varied, challenging, stimulating life. The busier I am with stuff I find meaningful, the happier I am.

Also the financial rewards that I receive give me a huge number of options as I get older and will provide options, stability, and a safety net to my DC in turn. The idea that once you've covered very basic needs it's just a "slippery slope" of keeping-up-with-the-Joneses is bizarre.

TL;Dr: fuck off.

@NameChangedForThisFeb21

You sound like you know my parents

I don’t know. I’ve wondered the same thing.

They can’t cope with being alone and having to actually look at themselves? Constantly emotionally distracting themselves? Live for the excitement/drama? Some sort of mental illness? Running away from reality? God knows.

But being the child in the middle of it all...I’m fucking exhausted

Oh dear Run far away. I am not joking. Your parents are not your responsibility.

@ScarfaceCwaw

A simple quiet life would bore and, ironically, stress me. I like a busy, varied, challenging, stimulating life. The busier I am with stuff I find meaningful, the happier I am.

Also the financial rewards that I receive give me a huge number of options as I get older and will provide options, stability, and a safety net to my DC in turn. The idea that once you've covered very basic needs it's just a "slippery slope" of keeping-up-with-the-Joneses is bizarre.

TL;Dr: fuck off.

This.

I totally understand why people are suspicious of the rat race and the mindless pursuit of more and more money purely for its own sake.

But the idea that the solution to this is to take as mindless and low paid a job as possible is a complete fallacy.

A lot of minimum wage jobs are soul destroying, give you no control or autonomy whatsoever and no stimulation or job satisfaction, yet are just as physically and mentally taxing as a well-paid job.

Obviously not everyone is ambitious and not everyone is cut out for high-stress jobs. And fair enough.

But I wish people would stop pushing the idea that the secret to gaining personal zen is to do as little as possible for work. It's not true and a damaging example to set our own children.

Short but unsatisfying answer: because of the way in which the individual's character has adapted to their environment.

There are zillions of books on psychology and psychotherapy out there - these are likely to give you a much better understanding than a MN thread.

OP, you (not you personally, in case that is not clear) would be living off the toil of others because you are relying on others to step up to take on stressful jobs like doctors and social workers so that you (hypothetically) can enjoy your simple stressless life.

Have a rethink? Loving your one liners.

You can question the validity of a stressful career in terms of lifestyle vs. £££ as a topic for discussion.

It's not a "stressful lifestyle" just for money, though. That's where your logic is flawed. Many, many highly driven, ambitious, intelligent people pursue vocations that appear to others to be stressful, because they are mentally stimulated and rewarded by these challenges and life decisions. That explains my career choice far better than the reward of my 50k salary does.

@ScarfaceCwaw

A simple quiet life would bore and, ironically, stress me. I like a busy, varied, challenging, stimulating life. The busier I am with stuff I find meaningful, the happier I am.

Also the financial rewards that I receive give me a huge number of options as I get older and will provide options, stability, and a safety net to my DC in turn. The idea that once you've covered very basic needs it's just a "slippery slope" of keeping-up-with-the-Joneses is bizarre.

TL;Dr: fuck off.

All of this.

I also find your title a little odd, too, to be honest (i.e. the concept of creating stress for yourself for the sake of it). People don't "manufacture" stress for themselves; they accept some degree of stress as inevitable in their pursuit of something of value in life. Temporary sacrifice for long term gain. In terms of the psychology behind it, it's about as straightforward as it gets really. The rewards are tangible and there for the taking - but many people accept that reaping them requires some form of hard work initially.

I have a friend who always goes for the most stressful, most complex route. If she chose anything else then her life would be SO much easier (and happier!). But she's so stubborn. It's honestly exhausting.

I absolutely agree that there is nothing inherently 'wrong' with making a conscious choice to lead a busy, active, high pressure lifestyle - but what is strange is when people complain about it without acknowledging that they have made a choice .. and yes I understand that for many it is a luxury of choice - but then don't complain that you are so busy/stressed etc.

I know kind of what you mean OP. I know a woman who is constantly moaning about how busy she is (even though she’s a sahm). She volunteers for everything - on the PTA, baking cakes or whatever. She has elaborate parties for her dc’s, is very over-invested in her dc’s “school careers” - runs for miles every day.
I mean good for her, but it’s the fact that she complains about how busy she is all the bloody time!
She came up to me once and was bemoaning the fact she had been roped into being class PTA contact or whatever again and asked me if I’d take over instead. I said no and she looked at me incredulously and said “why not”? “I don’t want to” I replied. You could see the shock and confusion on her face - it was like she literally couldn’t compute someone being asked to do something and saying “no” and not even really having a reason