Worst thing to ever happen to my general mood/personality (probably): Getting together with a hypercritical person.
Best thing to ever happen to my general mood/personality (again, probably):
Flipping the question from "what's wrong, why", to "what needs to improve, how".
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(P.S. This is not about analytical work, where you do have to ask the former sets of questions, but rather general life stuff.)
Sometimes, I drop the question completely for "oh, that's that," but that tends to flow naturally from not bothering much about what's wrong or why.
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We are all pretty much completely dependent on some level of social interaction. Behaviors get mirrored all the time.
We're always susceptible to that, but you really can mitigate some of the worst side-effects with the appropriate approach.
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A solid percentage of the time, the "appropriate approach" is to just cut your losses. Don't throw good effort after bad, etc.
This can cut some of the feedback loops where you start self-amplifying behaviors without input, even if the input still hits you when it's there.
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Unfortunately, discussing this in the "West" tends to land you in really inane discussions about personal responsibility & choice.
A good many of these behaviors are not choices - they don't route through executive function. Do you choose to draw breath? What happens if you try?
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In fact, think about the sort of behavior you can get into in certain situations.
If walking through a dark alley full of barking dogs and poorly mended fences, how do you act?
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This sort of automatic response can sometimes be de-/re-conditioned to the point where your behavior stops resembling a baseline.
Sometimes, this is a good thing. Often, it's a terrible thing. For example, desensitization to violence (real violence, not BS fictional violence.)
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We can't always avoid these circumstances. Hence, the best thing we can do is often to change ourselves for the better in other ways.
This is behind very many forms of, e.g., so-called "spiritual" disciplines. It can also be as simple as going to the pub with some friends.
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Finding the moments in your life when you can actually exercise meaningful choices (whatever that may mean) is a fairly challenging skill.
But it is a skill. You can train it. And you probably should.
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