I want to share my idea that is kinda about all psychological issues, but it works for me very well in the field of dating, so I decided to post it here.

We all know about empowerment, how it is important, how women like it - there are many cool videos about this topic. But I found that the common ways that are taught - "find good aspects of this problem", "what if this awful situation is the best thing in your life", that kind of stuff - did not work for me. Period.

The reason it does not works for me is because this mindset both implicitly and explicitly devalues your pain and suffering from this problem. Of course, you can say something like "many great achievements require pain and suffering, ask every athlete that won the Olympics" - but the feeling, the feeling is still here. How can this shit that is happening to you be good, if it is obviously bad?

There is a solution to this paradox. I call it "The Hacker's Mindset".

Imagine this. You are locked in a room with a malfunctioning combat robot. He is crazy, periodically shooting lasers, bullets and chainsaws in random directions. He hurt you several times, you tried to bandage yourself, but it still painful.

You can try to live with this. To predict when and where he will make a shot, and dodge the bullet. Or to ignore him and hope that it will run out of energy and shut down.

Or you can try to hack him. Pull out your phone, install a terminal emulator, connect with nearby wifi, and scan for open ports. Maybe the robot has an outdated firmware that has a bug. Maybe somebody forgot to forbid a SSH access from outside. Maybe it has an USB port, and you have a charging cable - you could plug it in and try to send something.

Maybe it will not work. Maybe the developers were not that stupid. But would you prefer to passively wait for your death, or would you prefer to be an actor in your life? Maybe you can force the shutdown, it's worth a try. Or, hell, maybe you can receive a control of its admin account and not only survive, but receive your personal combat robot! Pretty cool, eh?

If you are trying to hack the robot, then you are empowered. But do you believe that "there are positive aspects in this problem"? Of course not! Your wounds still hurt. Your toe is still torn out. Your leg muscles are injured, and will never be able to run. You would much prefer not being in this situation - you could gain a combat robot in other ways, that do not include this pain and suffering.

If somebody would give you the choice to cancel out from reality this event, you would gladly agree. But there is nobody who can do it - after all, this is sci-fi, not fantasy. You will live with those wounds, and you will not devalue them. Your pain is not less valuable because you gained something from this situation.

You are empowered despite the pain, because you have a hacker's mindset. You do not seel the "positive sides" of a situation - you seek vunerabilities in the situation. How can I make this shitty situation slightly less shitty? What can I think of that my enemies - or cold and harsh reality - did not think of?

And, fast-forward thirty years, and you may be a millionaire, owner of the combat robot manufacturing corporation. And maybe then you will think that this lockdown with a crazy robot really was the best event in your life.

Probably not.

But even then, your pain will be valuable. You are allowed to feel it, and you do not need to hide it, "toughen up" and look for positive sides - it is too hard to find positive sides in something that hurts you.

You need just to find vulerabilities in the problem.