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Oliver Burkeman
“Why is it so hard to take your own advice?” the psychology writer Melissa Dahl asked in a New York magazine essay some months ago, and the question’s been bugging me ever since. I have the arrogance to imagine that if you followed some of the suggestions made each week in this column, you might be a little happier or more productive, with a little less relationship drama, a little more inner calm. (From my email inbox, I know this happens at least occasionally.) But were you to infer from this that I follow such advice flawlessly myself, you’d be mistaken. When friends mention their difficulties with partners or bosses, Dahl wrote, she always tells them to talk to the person involved. Just say something! “And probably, this is good advice,” she mused. “I wouldn’t know, as it’s something I rarely do myself.” I can understand. I suspect most of us can. As the old wisecrack has it: “Take my advice – I’m not using it.”
The cynical take on this is that we ignore our own advice because it’s rubbish: we give it to seem wise, when in fact it’s nonsense. (All advice to “try harder” or “snap out of it” or “look on the bright side” fall into this category: if the recipient could do so, he or she already would have, without your so-called help.)
But a more interesting notion is that the advice is often good – yet something prevents us applying it to ourselves. One such obstacle is simply too much information: inside our own heads, we have access to all manner of details, making us believe that this relationship problem, this job dilemma, is special, so the advice doesn’t apply. Dahl cites work by the psychologist Dan Ariely, showing that when a friend gets a serious medical diagnosis, most people would urge them to get a second opinion. But were it to happen to themselves, they’d be more likely not to do so, for fear of offending their doctor. The fear of offence is something you’d think of only in your own case – and it’s totally unhelpful.
But there’s another big reason I don’t follow my own advice: the huge gulf between grasping something intellectually and really feeling it in your bones. For example, it was years ago that I first encountered the insight that anxiety and insecurity aren’t reduced by trying to exert more control over the world; in fact, that usually makes them worse. I know this. But apparently I have to keep learning it, over and over. Its correctness isn’t sufficient for it to get into my brain once and for all; that takes repeated experience. As a result, I continue to “suddenly realise” things I already wrote an entire book about.
If nothing else, this should be a caution against getting too frustrated with that one friend of yours who keeps getting into the same kind of pickle, time and again, deaf to the obviously good advice that everyone keeps offering. You know the type. We’ve all got a friend like that. The scary thought is that, for some of your friends, it’s probably you.
Adapted from http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/sep/11/ taking-your-own-advice-oliver-burkeman. Accessed on: 22 out. 2015.
Glossary
Oliver Burkeman
“Why is it so hard to take your own advice?” the psychology writer Melissa Dahl asked in a New York magazine essay some months ago, and the question’s been bugging me ever since. I have the arrogance to imagine that if you followed some of the suggestions made each week in this column, you might be a little happier or more productive, with a little less relationship drama, a little more inner calm. (From my email inbox, I know this happens at least occasionally.) But were you to infer from this that I follow such advice flawlessly myself, you’d be mistaken. When friends mention their difficulties with partners or bosses, Dahl wrote, she always tells them to talk to the person involved. Just say something! “And probably, this is good advice,” she mused. “I wouldn’t know, as it’s something I rarely do myself.” I can understand. I suspect most of us can. As the old wisecrack has it: “Take my advice – I’m not using it.”
The cynical take on this is that we ignore our own advice because it’s rubbish: we give it to seem wise, when in fact it’s nonsense. (All advice to “try harder” or “snap out of it” or “look on the bright side” fall into this category: if the recipient could do so, he or she already would have, without your so-called help.)
But a more interesting notion is that the advice is often good – yet something prevents us applying it to ourselves. One such obstacle is simply too much information: inside our own heads, we have access to all manner of details, making us believe that this relationship problem, this job dilemma, is special, so the advice doesn’t apply. Dahl cites work by the psychologist Dan Ariely, showing that when a friend gets a serious medical diagnosis, most people would urge them to get a second opinion. But were it to happen to themselves, they’d be more likely not to do so, for fear of offending their doctor. The fear of offence is something you’d think of only in your own case – and it’s totally unhelpful.
But there’s another big reason I don’t follow my own advice: the huge gulf between grasping something intellectually and really feeling it in your bones. For example, it was years ago that I first encountered the insight that anxiety and insecurity aren’t reduced by trying to exert more control over the world; in fact, that usually makes them worse. I know this. But apparently I have to keep learning it, over and over. Its correctness isn’t sufficient for it to get into my brain once and for all; that takes repeated experience. As a result, I continue to “suddenly realise” things I already wrote an entire book about.
If nothing else, this should be a caution against getting too frustrated with that one friend of yours who keeps getting into the same kind of pickle, time and again, deaf to the obviously good advice that everyone keeps offering. You know the type. We’ve all got a friend like that. The scary thought is that, for some of your friends, it’s probably you.
Adapted from http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/sep/11/ taking-your-own-advice-oliver-burkeman. Accessed on: 22 out. 2015.
Glossary
GM wheat no more
pest-resistant than ordinary crops, trial shows
GM wheat designed to repel aphids is no more effective at repelling the bugs than standard varieties a major field trial has revealed
Ian Sample
June 25, 2015
A major field trial of GM wheat that is designed to repel aphids (small insects) has found the crop is no better protected against the pests than conventional wheat. The results come from two years of trials that compared aphid attacks on standard wheat plants with those suffered by a GM version modified to release a natural aphid repellent.
Scientists created the GM wheat strain in the hope that it would deter aphids, which devour the crops and can leave them with infections. They modified the wheat to produce a natural pheromone which aphids release when under attack from predators. The “aphid alarm” makes the bugs flee to safety. Aphids are not the only organisms that release the odour though. More than 400 plants have evolved to secrete the same substance, called E-betafarnesene, or EBF, including peppermint. The chemical doubles up as an attractant for some insects that kill aphids, such as parasitic wasps.
Prior to the field trial, lab tests at Rothamsted found that the pheromone worked as a highly-effective aphid repellent. The work bolstered researchers’ hopes that the trial would demonstrate the crop’s resilience against aphids in the wild. An aphid-resistant wheat crop could have huge benefits for farmers and the environment because the plants would no longer need to be sprayed with insecticides.
“The disappointing thing is that when we tested it in the field, we didn’t find any significant reduction in aphid settlement in the test plots,” said Toby Bruce, who worked on the trial. Details of the trial are published in the journal Scientific Reports.
(www.theguardian.com. Adaptado.)
GM wheat no more
pest-resistant than ordinary crops, trial shows
GM wheat designed to repel aphids is no more effective at repelling the bugs than standard varieties a major field trial has revealed
Ian Sample
June 25, 2015
A major field trial of GM wheat that is designed to repel aphids (small insects) has found the crop is no better protected against the pests than conventional wheat. The results come from two years of trials that compared aphid attacks on standard wheat plants with those suffered by a GM version modified to release a natural aphid repellent.
Scientists created the GM wheat strain in the hope that it would deter aphids, which devour the crops and can leave them with infections. They modified the wheat to produce a natural pheromone which aphids release when under attack from predators. The “aphid alarm” makes the bugs flee to safety. Aphids are not the only organisms that release the odour though. More than 400 plants have evolved to secrete the same substance, called E-betafarnesene, or EBF, including peppermint. The chemical doubles up as an attractant for some insects that kill aphids, such as parasitic wasps.
Prior to the field trial, lab tests at Rothamsted found that the pheromone worked as a highly-effective aphid repellent. The work bolstered researchers’ hopes that the trial would demonstrate the crop’s resilience against aphids in the wild. An aphid-resistant wheat crop could have huge benefits for farmers and the environment because the plants would no longer need to be sprayed with insecticides.
“The disappointing thing is that when we tested it in the field, we didn’t find any significant reduction in aphid settlement in the test plots,” said Toby Bruce, who worked on the trial. Details of the trial are published in the journal Scientific Reports.
(www.theguardian.com. Adaptado.)
GM wheat no more
pest-resistant than ordinary crops, trial shows
GM wheat designed to repel aphids is no more effective at repelling the bugs than standard varieties a major field trial has revealed
Ian Sample
June 25, 2015
A major field trial of GM wheat that is designed to repel aphids (small insects) has found the crop is no better protected against the pests than conventional wheat. The results come from two years of trials that compared aphid attacks on standard wheat plants with those suffered by a GM version modified to release a natural aphid repellent.
Scientists created the GM wheat strain in the hope that it would deter aphids, which devour the crops and can leave them with infections. They modified the wheat to produce a natural pheromone which aphids release when under attack from predators. The “aphid alarm” makes the bugs flee to safety. Aphids are not the only organisms that release the odour though. More than 400 plants have evolved to secrete the same substance, called E-betafarnesene, or EBF, including peppermint. The chemical doubles up as an attractant for some insects that kill aphids, such as parasitic wasps.
Prior to the field trial, lab tests at Rothamsted found that the pheromone worked as a highly-effective aphid repellent. The work bolstered researchers’ hopes that the trial would demonstrate the crop’s resilience against aphids in the wild. An aphid-resistant wheat crop could have huge benefits for farmers and the environment because the plants would no longer need to be sprayed with insecticides.
“The disappointing thing is that when we tested it in the field, we didn’t find any significant reduction in aphid settlement in the test plots,” said Toby Bruce, who worked on the trial. Details of the trial are published in the journal Scientific Reports.
(www.theguardian.com. Adaptado.)