Damir Elezi

@Eric Tarpall Maybe in the big picture it does kill both of you

@Eric Tarpall If you desire a flower, you rip it out of the earth, call it your own, put it into a vase and throw it away after it dies a few days later. If you love a flower, you come there every day and water it, watching it grow. Owning somebody is considered cute, as it appeals to the romantic ideal of passionate love. Passion is intoxicating and quite beautiful. But it also tears apart and burns out. No wonder most relationships are filled with jealousy. If you love someone, you will want to see that person happy. This will make you happy. Regardless if you "own" that person or not.

It's interesting that you consider humbleness to be the same as "bowing down to something". No, you don't bow down to humans, you don't bow down to anything. You yourself are the only thing you're responsible to. You have rights which are irrefutable and you can do whatever you want, as long as you don't actively hurt others. The focus here is on yourself. Since there is no god and no higher order, all it comes down to is YOU. The individual. This is the stage orange mindset. Humbleness here is not a very central term or value. I understand that you don't get how it can come without god, since stage orange is really not that concerned about being humble. It would maybe mean not boasting about what you have achieved and not being arrogant, because that may hurt and turn off other people and make you less-likeable, which is bad for YOURSELF again. I wouldn't focus on it too much right now, though. When you reach stage green, being humble gets a bit more important again, as your focus switches towards the community and the welfare of the planet, which you want to "serve". If you come from blue right now moving into orange, try to focus on yourself and first get rid of your religious dogma. Why does Islam want you to be humble towards Allah? How do you know what Allah even is? How do you know he exists? Because someone told you? Because it's written in a book? What if someone managed to tell you a story that is not true and then convinced you that you should be humble and obedient towards the story? You would be much easier to control wouldn't you? Now what if this somebody convinced you to bow down to NOTHING except for this story? How would you feel about other possibilites then? Could it be that what you were taught actually isn't true? Don't listen to other teachings and wait for solutions, actually think about it and consider it. I'm not trying to attack you, I came from the same place (from a Christian perspective). These thoughts moved me up the spiral towards orange which I'm struggling to overcome right now.

@Fairy Isn't this a philosophical thought Experiment as well?

@Knock I get that, but it's not mainly the time-aspect that turns me off. What turns me off is being empoyed by somebody else, doing stuff I don't really enjoy doing

The following is an extract from my journal entry in the journal section today. I thought I'd post this here again to maybe start a discussion. I started my day with another one of Leo's older videos (I noticed that the ones from 2014-2015 help me out the most at this point of my life. They really resonate with me), which I'll post down below again. It was about unleashing ambition and that everybody who feels a sense of ambition within himself/herself MUST find a way to channel this ambition and these talents into something good and contribute to the world. I have always felt this sense of ambition. Since 14 I wanted to become a rapper. Not just the regular rapper, rapping about cars, girls and jewelry, but a kind of conscious rapper, educating people in my songs and showing different perspectives, raising consciousness for important topics, as well as express my own feelings and inner demons in my music. I did start actually making and releasing music which didn't get me much success yet, but that's another story. But it doesn't even have to be rap any more. I do want to write something and express myself with that though. I also feel like I can not simply live the regular cushy lifestyle with a 9 to 5 well-paying job, a nice family and safety all around. I feel like my life would be very empty then. I tried to write down what exactly my strengths and talents are, then I thought about what the world needs the most at the time, or what I would wish for the world the most right now. This is what I came up with: My strengths and talents: -Writing. I'm very good with languages. -I always had a talent for music. Not like extraordinarily talented, but enough to become a good musician with some practice. -A tendency for deep philosophical and big picture thinking. -A strong drive -I'm pretty open minded to new ideas and concepts. What does the world need? -More consciousness. Ecologically, morally and spiritually. On an individual and collective level. -A fairer distribution of basic material goods, so that everybody in the world could at least get his material needs met. -Solutions or coping strategies for the climate crisis. -Love, compassion, equality and collective well-being replacing progress, growth, personal freedom and fairness as core values of the world (Moving from stage orange to stage green on the spiral). What carreer can I pursue to contribute to that? -Writer/poet -Philosopher -Rapper/Poetry slammer -Musician working with children and teenagers on social project -... I don't know much yet. I just know that I want to write stuff and that I want to change the world to the better and have as much fun as I can while doing that. What would I do with my life if not that? Considering buying the Life Purpose course. What do you think? What does the world need the most? What are your strenghts and talents? Do you guys also feel a drive towards creating something meaningful? Do you, as people who don't really know me, see other carreer options in these properties? Are you working on your life purpose?

@Chase Ellfeldt Well, it's very noble that you take society's needs first and don't consider your own desires. Could work, however some problems come to mind. 1. It is very hard to determine what the world really needs. The things I listed in my post were just my point of view, other people might see it very differently. 2. Even if we knew what the world is desperate for, we still didn't know how to channel it properly, so it would actually become a successful business. 3. Forcing yourself to do something you don't have a natural passion for can be very soul-robbing. If I forced myself to become a programmer and deal with IT stuff all day every day, I would be pretty miserable, even if it was for a good cause. Because I don't have any talent or passion about it. A work like this is very intense and it takes a lot of time that has to go into it. For me that means that it should actually be connected to your deepest desires, passions and talents, so that you experience a lot of flow-moments and can practice your signature strengths in your daily life (read about positive psychology to find out more about those terms. A book I can recommend is "authentic happiness" by Martin Seligman). This way you're not only doing something good for the world, but you actually feel fulfilled, happy and on the peek of your performance while working.

@xoxoxwillxoxox Thanks for your reply and your support! You're right, I might be a little too judgemental about the 9-5 work life and everybody following it. Thank you for pointing that out!

To me it seems like this whirlwind is constantly inside your head, you just learned to suppress it and not notice it. The weed "loosens up" your brain and there are less boundaries, some thoughts from the subconscious mind can become conscious. As you may know, some artists use that to lose their inhibitions and create beautiful art. Not a scientific answer but I'm not a psychiatrist. I'd be careful with using drugs to treat anything. You should only try that if you're guided by a professional, who actually knows what he's talking about. I think weed could potentially even make this condition worse for you in the long run. Instead, try finding that whirlwind in your everyday life. Does it ever really go away or does it stay? In which situations do you notice it in your everyday life? Don't numb your mind, don't hide from it, experience it fully, then you can start to heal.

If you are an extrovert, it is only natural that you crave contact to other people, even if it's just surface-level relationships. Hell, every person wants companions he can interact with, we are social creatures after all. However, don't look at social media posts and think this is how your life should be like. These posts portray the reality of the relationships and friendships most people have in a very distorted way. Do not look for friends just to bitch and moan with them. You should have friends who you can grow with, who help your in your aspirations, who inspire you. And you should do the same for them. Friendships and deep bondings of this kind can be very fulfilling and beneficial for your life, especially if you're a stage-orange type of guy, moving into stage green in spiral dynamics. There are those toxic friendships though, which only aim towards killing time together and bullshitting. Leo calls those people "victim companions" in one of his videos lol. Get rid of those.

I honestly experience the exact same thing. I found that the underlying problem to this for me is my dependency on the opinions of others in general. I'm always holding back and worrying about others people's opinions, so that if I actually let go of that, it's a freeing feeling of happiness. I think the next step woul be not taking our daily tasks, obligations and others people so serious. We can care about everything and still realize that it's just a game. That takes some balance and work though

@Joseph Maynor So you're implying that Leo is trying to defend his philosophy at all costs, thus being arrogant?

Where I can agree with you, is that I also think some people might follow him in a cult-like manner, believing anything he says. Blind following is dangerous with every kind of philosophy. But that's why he encourages people to read and investigate stuff for themselves. I get that he can come off a bit arrogant sometimes, like he KNOWS that all the things everybody else KNOWS are wrong. But hey, we don't have to believe anything, right? To be honest all this enlightenment stuff has been going over my head lately. I can't quite wrap my head around it (as you would expect with an a-logical thing right?) and I don't quite "believe" in it, but I'm open to the possibility. At the moment I have other, more materialistic concerns though. I liked his series about spiral dynamics, made me see the world in a different way and made me a more understanding and empathic person for sure. What I can say though, is that this man, maybe more than anybody else on this planet, has given me insights, stuff to think about and motivation when I needed it most. Some of his videos have been so helpful that they pulled me out of a minor depressive episode and pushed me towards acting and following whatever I thought was right at that time. I don't agree with all of his videos, but I like the character he shows on youtube and some of his stuff is really eye-opening. I don't know where I would get such topics on a regular basis. I don't know what kind of person he is in real life, but the person he is on youtube definitely changed my life for the better. Calling him a schizophrenic narcicisstic psychopath is a little far-fetched I think, but what do I know? It's a youtube channel after all guys. Don't make a cult out of it, don't demonize, don't make him a kind of political person, if you can get some value out of his videos and if you find them helpful then watch them and go on with your life independently. Just keep an open mind and think critically. Nuff said.

Even though this page has evolved past the need of earning money (:D) I wanted to ask you guys (and girls) what are good, PRACTICAL books about earning money and financial literacy? I already started reading "The 4 hour work-week" by Tim Ferris, but it seems to me like it's first and foremost written for people who already work in well-paying office jobs and who are financially stable, but want to have more time to enjoy life. I am a student of Social Work, living mainly off of welfare money and earning a little money on the side by working at a children's home on minimum wage and delivering food for a Sushi restaurant once a week. I'm looking for practical tips and quick methods of earning a little bit of extra money online, through stocks or crypto-currencies etc. and/or passive income, as well as some methods to build a mini-business of buying stuff and selling it again. I don't want to become rich off of that, I just wanna earn like 300-400 dollars more per month. Secondly, I also want to understand the financial system better, but it seems like it's pretty hard to find simple-written but informative books on that topic. I already consider reading "Think and grow rich", "Rich dad poor dad" and "The richest man of Babylon". Can you recommend a book that's full of practical tips and insights? I'd love to hear your recommendations.

It might, yeah. I remember that one part of it was about taking pride and being comfortable in yourself, which leads to not "needing" another human being in your life. Definitely worth a read

I think you should do a little more research into this topic. Merkel did not decide to take them in because she wanted to help them and she is such a compassionate human being. The problem in a nutshell is just that taking refugees is a German, European and pretty much humanitarian duty by law and countries like Italy, Spain and Greece, where refugees first arrive are at the brink of collapsing, so Germany had to take some too. Merkel keeping the borders open is an effort to keep the European Union alive, unlike Austria, Hungary or Britain who actively act against the EU as a unity of countries. Merkel is not some leftist politician who stands for political correctness and love for everybody. I'd say Merkel is definitely partially green, but mostly orange, strategic and practically oriented. She probably has a fair amount of blue as well, as she belongs to a conservative party and subscribes to "Christian" values. Green politicians (like people from the Green Party or the Left in Germany) would have thrown these values over board long ago.

I was contemplating this question a bit today. Why is it that every other life-form seemingly realizes its potential and lives as nature intended it to live, while human beings have all forms of diseases and psychological dysfunctions, making it a life long journey just to become "healthy" and "natural"? What are your opinions on that?

@Charlotte Actually, I don't think your body is craving protein. Protein deficiency is very rare and almost only exists among people who are starving in third world countries or among people with anorexia. The body does not really need a lot of protein and it generally doesn't crave it. If you eat enough and you're not hungry all the time, your body is probably not craving protein. What you can crave however is fat and salt. Meat is usually very high fat and the body literally craves for it, because just like sugar, it is ESSENTIAL to the functioning of the body, and the body needs relatively much of it, yet it is not very present in the food that would be easy to get in nature (like fruit or herbs). Also, meat today is full of spices and other substances which have a slighty addictive effect. If you have eaten this stuff for your whole life, it's natural that you have cravings. Even more if you found it really tasty. My advice to you is to not hate yourself for it and call the mind a "bastard". I know that feeling but actually the mind functions very well in this case. It does what it's designed to do: Provide stability and a sense of coherence. The decision to cut something out that was part of your life for many years is unsettling and scary to the mind, so of course it doesn't accept it at first. I eat mostly vegetarian right now and I didn't go "I'm going to stop eating meat now" and never touched it again. I ate meat a lot of times in between and it took me a while to actually make that decision. What I needed was a kind of shock moment, where I couldn't align eating (or rather: Buying) meat and fish with my personal values. At this moment, being a meat eater was not a part of my self concept any more and I could overcome it pretty easily. Maybe it helps you to find such a point. Otherwise, cook some REALLY TASTY vegetarian dishes, so you don't miss the taste of meat so much. You can do it!

Have you actually found your values? How did you find them? Did you dig deep? To me it seems like the things you mentioned (girlfriend, millions of dollars, great experiences) are pretty much the things everyone is going for. They don't represent your true nature, they are just things that are considered good by society. I also know that these things tend to not be very motivating. What is it that you really want? Deep inside you. Another thing could be that you simply don't see the connection between your goals and your everyday actions. In this case, maybe you could try visualizing your goals more or asking yourself every day how exactly you are going towards these goals with your work/actions. Though, I think that the ideal will never be completely met. The ideal is only there to pull you out of bed. Reaching your goals may improve your life but I don't think they will make it perfect. Be aware of that.

I don't think you will find any Trump lovers on this forum never heard of the other guy though.

As I understand it, we are all inherently selfish creatures by nature. If all these things really "work" for you, I don't see a need to change them fundamentally. But then again, you wouldn't want to change, if you didn't feel some kind of need to do so. So what exactly is it you want? Why do you consider selfishness a bad thing? What would you like to change exactly? At this point in my life, I am striving towards designing a life like yours, but I understand that I probably won't be completely fulfilled by that. Maybe this is the time to take spirituality serious and get into that field? I heard that Leo has made a lot of videos about that stuff lately

@blazed I'd love to agree with you, but at the time I'm still sceptical about this infinite reality notion. Interesting perspective though

@Samra So you see it as a necessity? Like in order to evolve to a higher being, this suffering is necessary for the human being? Very interesting view

@Eden Lol you serious? it is amazing though, you're a good singer. Ever thought about singing the chorus in a rap song?

Leaving the spiritual stuff out, I think you're right. It's optional. However, your choice has to be well made. Is throwing something interesting like your life away just because of momentarily suffering really worth it? What if there is something more to life than it seems? When you're alive, you have an opportunity to find that out. To me, killing oneself seems like a cop-out. Somebody being so scared, so overwhelmed, that they don't even bother to look further. This life can be beautiful and I think we all know that. Also, our whole organism is literally made to protect us from harm. If one's mind is so twisted that it would rather go against human most basic instinct than put up with challenge, I think there is something deeply dysfunctional in his/her mind that should be resolved before making any quick decisions.