{"id":4230,"date":"2022-07-20T22:49:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-20T10:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/?p=4230"},"modified":"2022-08-31T22:52:28","modified_gmt":"2022-08-31T10:52:28","slug":"the-situation-is-hopeless-but-not-serious-paul-watzlawick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/2022\/07\/20\/the-situation-is-hopeless-but-not-serious-paul-watzlawick\/","title":{"rendered":"The Situation is Hopeless, But Not Serious \u2013 Paul Watzlawick"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"704\" height=\"1012\" src=\"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/situation-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4232\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/situation-1.jpg 704w, https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/situation-1-209x300.jpg 209w, https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/situation-1-104x150.jpg 104w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 704px) 100vw, 704px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The situation is hopeless \u2013 but not serious.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I just love this phrase. It does seem true to me that it applies to many situations in life, big and small. Sometimes yes, the situation you are faced with is hopeless. But often, it doesn\u2019t really matter that much. I find it helpful to remember that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unfortunately, this book doesn\u2019t really explore that phrase very much \u2013 the author uses it as an illustration of the Austro-Hungarian psyche, by way of explaining his own mindset. The actual book is better described by its subtitle: <em>The Pursuit of Unhappiness<\/em>. It\u2019s presented as a self-help book showing you how to be unhappy: if you would actually rather be happy then the book might be useful in telling you what not to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The book is fairly short and has the sort of wry humour you might expect from its title and subtitle. Quite a fun read, but also profound. Remember:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>The situation is hopeless!<\/p><p>(But not serious.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<!-- wpsso rrssb get buttons: buttons on archive option not enabled -->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The situation is hopeless \u2013 but not serious. I just love this phrase. It does seem true to me that it applies to many situations in life, big and small. Sometimes yes, the situation you are faced with is hopeless. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/2022\/07\/20\/the-situation-is-hopeless-but-not-serious-paul-watzlawick\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,26,218,45],"class_list":["post-4230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-books","tag-life","tag-paul-watzlawick","tag-psychology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4233,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4230\/revisions\/4233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}