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If we are constantly hurt and disappointed by the world, if our system of understanding how we should be treated by others keeps failing, we need to admit that the problem is not in the world but in ourselves.
Our reactions, wants, and pains are based upon expectations not met. Our idealism sets us up for failure, which is to be hurt and victimized.
Bad things happen in the world, but our purposeful obtusity provokes repeated failure.
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Cycles of stress present themselves as waves in which we must surf rather than be pulled under.
Judging the swell of the peaking bundle of energetic stressors determines if they are personal, interpersonal, corporate, or global anxiety. Discernment requires a paradoxical release: holistic subjectivity is available only when you release intellectualization.
The right brain feels and gauges, recognizing patterns, while the left focuses, which blots out the ability for meta-awareness. To cope with stressors, you must release to acknowledge the wave you must ride.
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You have to find happiness every day in order to be happy.
It is sitting there waiting for you but not given. It requires awareness, which is usually occupied and distracted by attempting to build or buy happiness.
This means happiness is a choice of where we focus.
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Look over your shoulder to ensure a slip, trip, or fumble today.
Naturally, we consider the past to do better in the future. (Do this when you are alone.)
When you are with others, remain in the present: with one foot in the past (fretting about a former fumble) and the other in the future (envisioning a repaired reputation), we sabotage the present.
Straddling ensures stumbling, providing us with a new awkward encounter we can never rectify.
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What is something you believe in so firmly you’re willing to look ridiculous?
Once you’ve answered that, and live it, people will begin respecting you.
From Mark Manson
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We have notions about who we are and what we would like to be.
To become requires being adamant and being championed by others around you.
You must constantly remind yourself (who you want to be) and be grateful that others allow your being, that is your agency to produce yourself in the way you wish.
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Let’s define our terms: the “I” is the core you, the “me” is your reactionary ego, the conditioned self.
The “me” gets offended and overrides the “I.” The “me” is protectionist and a liar and tells you it is “I”… to protect you.
The problem: if we claim all strong reactions arise from “me,” it implies we would cease to react.
The core self (the “I”) must react clearly and without blinding negativity.
However, the problem remains that we must distinguish between the “me” and the “I” as we leap into action.
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There is joy in discovering your body to be functional.
Productive movement is also termed “labor,” often negatively associated with “work.” However, the system that has captured natural joy (movement as an accomplishment) has replaced it (or displaced it) with an abstracted fulfillment: intellectual insight.
Yet, academic pleasure offers me less joy than utilitarian physicality.
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To understand something you must be in it, and of it. It is bodily, emotive, and flowing.
When we judge we shift from the Right brain (open and holistic) to the Left brain (rational and linear).
To judge is to articulate and file, to create a snapshot so you can categorize.
It is not that judgement is not useful, it is that it leaves us incomplete.
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When you know you are right punishment is not rehabilatory, it is fate.
If you know who you are, and what you love, then you know what you must do: there is no choice.
Others may profess righteousness and attempt to drown you in punishment and exile, but this cannot be punishment since you knew the rules (accepted them) and (knowingly) accepted your fate.
This is how Sisyphus can smile: he knows himself and the world without illusion.
“He achieves a knowledge without illusions which negates everything they profess.” ~ Albert Camus.
