crab12

I wanted to clarify that @Nahm is also correct. I just made a rough guess at what is your current level and how I could give you a solution that would be most understandable and useful to you, @Dan502. At some point @Nahm's explanation will make more sense to you, or maybe it already does. But if you're not there yet, you're not. Trying to bypass the low and dirty work will lead you nowhere (spiritual bypassing in other words).

Other people are presenting you documents in a way that you don't like because that's confusing to you and causing you more work. You get angry at this and you want to refuse. This is completely understandable. The solution here is not that you have to bite the bullet, to just accept the documents without saying a word even though it's making you angry. You really do want to tell other people how they should present you the documents and how they should treat you in general. But that's not an easy thing to do, it is very easy to mess up and cause unnecessary conflicts. You may want to learn this skill. The problem here is that other people don't understand you. As you said it yourself you just "refuse bluntly". From their perspective you are just an asshole or lazy or difficult to work with. They need to give you that paper in order to get on with their work and you just bluntly refuse without giving a clear reason. Of course they are going to be frustrated with you. They don't understand that they are causing you confusion and more work with poorly formatted documents. You need to make them understand this. I highly suggest you read this book, because this skill is way too complicated and nuanced to explain in a post: https://www.amazon.com/People-Skills-Yourself-Resolve-Conflicts/dp/067162248X/ref=sr_1_2?crid=NNUHDH8QKKTM&keywords=people+skills&qid=1567506214&s=gateway&sprefix=people+skills%2Caps%2C254&sr=8-2 If you do read it, start from "Part three: assertion skills". The beginning will seem incredibly boring and dry if you don't get the big picture yet. Also, if you are already spiritually advanced, you may want to dismiss my solution as being too "low conscious". Don't get trapped by this line of thinking. Enlightenment / ego death will not solve this problem by itself. If you want to solve this problem then you must solve it directly by doing the low and dirty work necessary. As for the career part, sounds like you are not happy with your current career. You should do something about that. If you don't know yet what you want to do then explore, try a bunch of different jobs. I'm going to suggest you try what I do now for money: trade stocks at Nasdaq / NYSE. You can get away with working 3 hours a day and you can scale it up to earn as much as you want. You get to work from home or wherever there is internet. Since you said you you have IQ around 130 (i have less but that's irrelevant), this might be something you may enjoy because you would be staring at charts all day, very dry stuff, but fascinating to me. But be aware that it's going to take you at least a year before you start making any money and you need some starting capital (~25k) and it's much much more difficult than engineering or whatever 9-5 job.

The way to move past this is, you understand why other people are having that opinion, understand their perspective, what has led them to believe in that opinion, understand how they feel about this. Place yourself in their life as if you were them, empathize with them. Hell, discuss it with them if you just can't fathom it by yourself. This is emotionally the most difficult thing to do in this situation, which is a good indicator that it's the correct thing to do. You want to demonize them. You will be tempted to conclude that "they believe so because they are idiots and evil humans". But that's silly. They are not idiots nor evil, they are just like you, only that their life experience and circumstances have been different from yours. If you are able to do this, you will grow as a person and the hurt will dissolve. I totally understand if you can't, most people can't. The fact that you don't really understand their position and you are trying to resist / fight it is what's causing the hurt, not the opinion itself. PS that's was smart of you not to reveal the opinion itself, then you would have just gotten biased answers.

If everything is love then how do you maximize it? And why even try? Serious question, not trying to be nihilistic.

I used to work as a programmer in 2 start-ups and in 1 medium sized company. I have done some interviews for new programmers. No one cares whether you have a degree or not. Having a Github account with interesting projects that show off your coding skills is far superior than any degree from whatever college. And if your going to freelance, then the same applies. Customers don't give a fuck whether you have a degree or not. They want to see a proven track record of projects / well written software. So if you just want money, don't go to college. You'll waste years and get into debt, if your from the U.S. Learn it from Google and by writing interesting projects yourself. You'll save years. The problem is whether you are disciplined enough to self learn.

You will not cease to exist, you will not die in the sense that you shoot yourself in the head and everything goes black. The guy that is you will continue to exist just like it is now. Only you will realize that you are more than just the guy who is being "you". You are everything, including the guy that used to be you. Yes, you will lose your old motivations that were strictly meant for the guy that was being "you". In that sense you will lose your life. But you will become more than just that guy. You will also discover that enlightenment by itself will not solve any of your old problems (insecurities, money, relationships etc) nor give you special insights in other areas of life and you will probably even be motivates to work on your old issues / your old self. Or at least this has been my experience so far.

Your feelings are right. You posted another thread: Start by fixing this. Women do not find men with these issues attractive.

Your problem sounds very similar to what I went through, I'll share my own journey of overcoming this problem in the hopes that it'll be of some use to you. I have had this problem most of my life. It took me over 2 years of struggle to overcome this, mostly because I had no clue back then and no one guided me in the right direction. I realized that I wasn't able to say "no", I was people pleasing, I needed approval from other people and this was making me miserable and I was unable to develop meaningful intimate relationships with other people. I was googling and stumbled upon my first Actualized.org video: This video was a good place to start but It wasn't enough by itself. The first time I watched it it blew my mind and instantly cured me of people pleasing. But then after a few days I fell back into my old self and started being too nice again. So I watched it again, got rid of my neediness for 1-2 days and then fell back to my old self again. This pattern kept repeating over and over. I have watched this video at least 50 times (and a ton of other resources) but I could never make it stick. This back and forth struggle was extremely frustrating but it led me to discover spirituality. I discovered that people pleasing / being too nice is a complex issue with multiple ego deceptions causing it and I had to chip away at my ego quite a bit before getting rid of people pleasing permanently. I had victim thinking. I believed that I had Aspergers, anxiety disorder, social anxiety, depression etc and that there was nothing really that I could ever do about it. I'm just not good with people and not confident and never will be, my brain is just defective, so I thought. Leo has a video on victim thinking. But it took me tens and tens (hundreds most likely) of hours of contemplation to break free from victim thinking. Ask yourself why is this thing not possible? Okay that's why, but why can't I overcome that thing? Etc until you get to the bottom of it and realize that, in fact, it is possible to overcome your problem. All obstacles have a solution. Nothing has to stop you. Next I discovered I was resisting negative emotions, I thought negative emotions are "bad". I had to learn to not resist negative emotions. Leo yet again has great videos on that. Then I was able to develop a vision for my life. I realized that what I really want is meaningful, deep, intimate relationships with a few people. I don't really care about being popular, well liked, having a "cool" image etc. I don't really care if people think well of me or not, that's irrelevant. That was one of the main things keeping me stuck in people pleasing, I used to think that it was extremely important to be well liked and to present a good image of myself. I wasn't able to develop a vision for my life while I still had victim thinking and resisting negative emotions, I had to get rid of those first. If you are a people pleaser then your first priority in life is to get approval from other people. If you are going to stop needing approval then you need something else to guide you in life - you need to figure out what you want to do and what you think is right. Next I reframed that "value" doesn't exist and all people are equal. You are not "better" or "worse" than anyone else. There is nothing that you can do to make you a "better" person. This was also key because I thought other people are "better" than me, I was not "good" enough etc. Next I reframed that I am not envious if people have something that I do not have but want. Leo has a great video on that: At this point I realized that I want to be authentic around other people, I don't want to leave a better impression than I actually am because that can only create a fake / superficial relationship which I don't want, I'd rather be alone doing my thing. I want deep intimate meaningful relationships in my life. Also I learned about assertion theory and I realized that intimate relationships can only happen when you protect your life space from other people. Meaning I have to stand up for myself, I can't say "yes" when I really want to say "no", I must not let others take advantage of me. Because that only leads to toxic unequal miserable relationships that I do not want. Ah and finally I reframed that there is nothing that you "have" to or "must" or "should" do in your life. You don't "have" to help other people. You don't "have" to agree to things that you don't want to. You don't "have" to be a good person. Other people don't "have" to like you. You might protest that you'll become an egotistical monster asshole this way. But this is baseless fear, at least that what I found in my case, you will actually want to help other people, even though it is detrimental to you, because it will use up your time, money and energy that you could otherwise put into yourself or into self-inquiry or into reaching the Truth. The most tricky one here is that you don't "have" to do things that are beneficial to you either. The only thing I do is what I want, which is my vision / purpose in my life. After I did all of the above I was finally able to break free from people pleasing. Hopefully you already have some or most of these things done. If you do have some of the same issues that I did, try fixing them. I wasted over a year by not starting from victim thinking. Best of luck!

What does optimism and pessimism mean to you? What is the greater good? I'm not trying to be a smartass, these terms have kinda lost their meaning for me and I'm having a hard time relating

Start with the basics of spirituality: Do you believe your disabilities (ugly, autism etc) are stopping you from living a good life (victim thinking)? How do you deal with negative emotions (do you resist negative emotions)? What is your vision for your life? Are you avoiding emotional effort? How do you deal with distractions? Are you afraid of social ostracization / do you want to be popular or well-liked (people pleasing)? Do you know how to handle conflicts with other people / protect your personal boundaries (assertion)? Seems to me you have victim thinking. Leo has great videos on all of these (besides 7), try working down the list. This is will take you at least 3-6 months. EDIT: Psychedelics is a tool you can use if you are stuck with a particiluar spiritual problem. I don't think it's going to help you in your current state.

Probably fiscal stimulus / print dollars / lower interest rates. IMO this will only worsen the problem of malinvestment setting the stage for even worse recession.