Keep in mind that the definition of a sociopath is more or less "one who treats other people as low-level NPCs".

It's a hard decision, I feel for you.

Having observed several people in a similar situation, I saw them go through the reasoning you describe. If you discard the virtue-ethics non-consequentialist reasons, like "One should love one's relatives" (regardless of how bad they are), or "You owe them, for their past good deeds " (despite all the poisonous and mean stuff they inflicted on you), you are left with enumerating options and calculating utilities.

At least one person I know had decided that the emotional damage of maintaining contact outweighs any potential financial benefits and severed her connections with one part of the family entirely, instead relying on her friends for socializing and emotional support. When her parents passed away some years later, they left their millions to some church charity and nothing to her, but that was already factored in her decision and so was not a big upset.

Another managed to learn to detach himself emotionally from whatever is going on at the meetings, by treating his family as low-level NPCs who simply follow their faulty programming and are no more worthy of being upset at than a wordprocessor program with a bug in it. I think nurses go through this kind of training.

If you are not sure that you can implement the second option (and you clearly have trouble ignoring at least one overly critical LW regular, who is not even your relative), then maybe finding some convenient excuses to avoid family gatherings is a better approach.

Oh, another approach I have seen was to build an alliance/support network out of the less bigoted part of the family. YMMV.

There is also a number of decent self-help books on the subject, like Toxic Parents.

Good luck!

My wife has constant pain. She describes most if it as "joint pain" and some in her right arm as "nerve pain". The joint pain has been around for about a decade and the right arm pain for about 3 years, ever since what certainly looked like a repetitive stress injury at work (lots of mousing with a desk that was too high).

Doctors have checked her out and haven't found a cause for either. Our possible next steps are:

• Get 2nd (actually 3rd-4th) opinions from local doctors. This feels futile but may still be helpful.
• Hire a doctor whose job it is to actually track down a cause and treatment, not just check for the common, easily detectable possibilities and then effectively give up. I'm not sure how to go about this but it feels like it should be possible for some price.
• Find plausible non-harmful self-treatment options and try them. Possible examples have recently been posted here on NancyLebovitz's Two angle's on RSI.

Suggestions, recommendations, places to look?

My problem is that I have basically run out of life goals. My goals used to be: 1. Get rich 2. Get married 3. Have children + be a good father

I did 2 a number of years ago. 3 is ongoing though I've made it past the hump of actually having 1 child, and so far consensus is that I am being a good father. I'm not rich yet but progress on that is also steady and I've made it past the major hurdles such that if I continue on the path I am on I'll be rich in a few years. I've already been "high income" for awhile and that is much like being rich except a bit more stressful.

Unless life throws me a curve ball I don't have much uncertainty about achieving my major goals. I just have to keep doing what I am doing. It's unbearably boring! So now my new goal is to figure out how to actually get excited about something again without interfering with the ongoing achievement of my previous goals. So far I haven't made much progress. Any thoughts?

Hi LWers!

I'm a 37 year old male. I work from home as an engineer, primarily focusing on FPGA digital logic work and related C++, with a smattering of other things. I'm a father to two young children, and I live with my little family on a small farm in central Delaware. I've always been a cerebral sort of guy.

I can't remember exactly how I came to LW - I may have heard it mentioned in a YouTube video - but finding it felt somehow like coming home. The core sequences have become some of my favorite reading material. LW was my first exposure to many of the disciplines discussed here: cognitive psychology, evolutionary psychology, Bayesian reasoning, and so on.

I feel like I've discovered a treasure. I'd like to thank everyone who has participated in building this content - it has been extremely enriching to me. Thank you.

My kids are still very young, but I am already starting to think about how I can help them learn to think rationally. I see it as part of my job to help them become better than I am, and I can't help but think I would have benefited quite a lot if I had been exposed to the concepts that are discussed here much earlier in life. I'd like to figure out how to help, say, a five-year-old start on the path. This is something I expect to be putting a lot of thought and research into, and if I come up with something post-worthy I would be delighted to share it here.

I'm also a novice meditator. I have found Chade-Meng Tan's treatment in Search Inside Yourself to be a good fit for me. It seems to me that building mindfulness is likely to be very useful in improving my agency, among other things. Thus far I have been only marginally successful, with the largest gains coming in parenting, and particularly in the area of self-control.

I have been lurking for quite a while, but I hope to participate more in the conversation.