bazera

I am not sure that I've fully expressed what I wanted to say with the title but, anyways.. I have a friend, with whom I had a little conversation the other day. We were talking about the importance of reading books (mostly self-help and positive psychology books), and he was telling me that he was afraid. He said that in the past he has read something, that he didn't know before about himself, and knowing that caused him a trouble in some situations. He described himself as two persons, and said that in some cases, his "evil" self would use the knowledge from the books in a bad way, and he would harm himself. So in short, what he was telling me, was that it is bad for him to read too much, or think too much, because what he finds out about himself, turns out to be damaging in some cases. I was a bit confused, because he wasn't able to give an example of that thing he has read, and he got angry when I asked him to give an example. The other thing is, he says that he knows too much, and that the knowledge is dangerous for him, so he has decided to stop reading about those topics and learning about himself (because again, he things that it's somehow dangerous, and his "evil" self will use the knowledge as some kind of a "weapon"). The other thing is that, we are quite young, both of us are 20 years old, and he has barely read 3-4 books, and he is telling me that he doesn't want other people's theories, and he can find out everything on his own and that he knows too much, I mean, wtf, It's so hard to talk to such kind of people. So, what would you tell him, if you were me?

@murray prince Thanks, I hope that too. @Pinocchio Yup, I won't. I am not going to interfere in his life in any way. He should live his life as he wants, he may learn anything from his experience, or from books or from whatever he wants, but It's not really nice of him to tell me that I am on a wrong path and I am doing some kind of a fairy-tale things that this guy is talking about in his videos (Leo). But why should his opinion be important to me? There is no reason for that, so I will let him be as he wants, because I do have a lot of work to do for myself, I don't really have time to think about others too (yet), when they don't even want to listen to me. And yes, he was talking about ego, and he is afraid of his lower self (educated lower self )

@Pinocchio Yes, I couldn't agree more, but again, I was asking him to communicate something that he said he has READ. How could he read something that can not be captured in symbols? We can only read symbols, can't we? I agree with everything you say, and I am not trying to advice my friend or anything like that. The fact is that he was not just talking about reading, he was talking about thinking too, and generally, what we call "self-help" here, cause he finds that distracting and damaging in some cases, because again, he thinks that it is dangerous when you know something about yourself. Anyways, thanks a lot for the reply.

@Pinocchio This thread was also intended for me to understand if I was doing something wrong, and your post somehow made me understand that, thanks. I am behaving in a very wrong way too, but tell me honestly, what would you say to a person, that hasn't even read 3-4 books on a subject, and is arguing with you that he knows what he is talking about. Maybe he does know right? But when I ask him what does he know, I mean, specifically, to share a bit of his knowledge to me, he says that he doesn't remember I was really intrigued, because he was so convincingly telling me that he knew he had read something in the past that he found it dangerous, and decided to not read anymore after that, but he can't even recall or say what that "thing" was. I mean, what is the proper reaction to this, in your opinion? I opened this thread just to know how other people would think about this, because I didn't like the feeling I was feeling. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that I am better then he in some way, just I want to know what is the best way to approach him, to talk to him. I didn't even know there was such kind of thing as "self-help" 3-4 months ago, so naturally I lack a self-development a lot, but that doesn't mean I don't have my opinion about what I am discussing with my friends, and when I heard the friend I am talking about, I really got confused, because talking about how books can be beneficial for a person wasn't enough :\

@Mooders Yup, he likes being in his comfort zone but he doesn't know what is waiting for him outside of it. And doesn't want to know, because he has cut himself from the sources from where he can actually feel what is possible. Even when I showed him Leo's videos, he said that he already knew that "theory" and methods that he was telling him, that's exactly the approach that will cause a lot damage to him, without even realizing it. And he was being quite ironic to me, when he was looking at me watching Leo talking about lots of things, so, this ironic approach won't be useful for him in his future and even in his present time I guess.

@Pinocchio Yes I agree, we must all learn to be independent thinkers, but we are so overwhelmed by today's social life that it's kind of not easy. We are surrounded by dogmas and beliefs which we believe but aren't sure why and etc. The problem I think is that he thinks he knows something, and that's the danger. He just lost the change of knowing more, and getting to know with a different perspectives of the matter. He just says that he knows something with reading 1 book and that's all. He doesn't want to explore and discover so much things that needs to be discovered, because he just says that he KNOWS! I think that's a huge problem, isn't it?

@JeffR1 Thanks for the reply and yeah, I won't let him hurt himself in any way I will try at least. @Leo Gura Haha lool That's kind of what I said Leo, I was being sarcastic and that made him very very angry, because deep down he believes that the information what he just googled and found, or read in 3 books is enough to say that he somehow knows the subject well enough, to advice others. And he believes that he discovered lots of things that he founds dangerous, and that's why he prefers to not read anymore. @Shubham That's what I am telling him. @Tom Beast He definitely isn't Yes, that's why there are trusted people like Leo, to tell you which books you should and shouldn't read.

I agree that the idea of being the fault in yourself is true. We all can have a social media, the other thing is, if we are addicted on it or not. I, myself, am hugely addicted on it :\ I have my Facebook account deactivated for like a month now and, sometimes my hands are literally shaking from the need of scrolling Facebook. That is no fault of Mark Zuckerberg, the core reason is in me, and in my addictive nature. That is what I should work on, If that even takes full elimination of social media from my life. But the fact is, there are couple of nice things that you can get from social media like Facebook. I have attended couple of events, about which I wouldn't know without Facebook. I have made couple of great friends with it, and I was communicating my friends via fb. Friends, which I am not able to meet daily, but have something to say everyday. But the negative side was so huge, that I had to sacrifice the positive side, because it's negativeness was killing my energy, and I was wasting a lot of my time in scrolling. So, the best solution for me would be having a Facebook account just for communicating with my friends.

That's exactly what I do

Greetings from Tbilisi, Georgia (a small country in europe, not state of USA ) It's so nice to hear different thoughts about different things that are important to me, from all across the globe Thanks for the forum Leo

This is such a hard thing for me too. It's been 8 days since I deactivated my Facebook account, and I finally feel free literally, I was scrolling it all day long and it was such a time wasting thing.. The thing about socializing though, I keep in touch with friends, whom I talked with on Facebook, without having a Facebook account. You may not be able to meet your every friend every day, or every week or even every months, but there are so many things you can use to keep in touch with them, if that's the problem. You must look at Facebook as a tool for keeping in touch with your friends, that you are not able to meet everyday. Just that.. Gossiping, looking at who liked what, who shared what and worrying that you don't have many likes on profile picture, I think that is far beyond the thinking of a rational mind, and is childish and foolish thing to do. But meeting people with same interests, getting news about upcoming interesting events, and so on.. that makes a Facebook a useful thing, but if it becomes an addiction, and if it creates psychological issues in you (like in me), and if it wastes your precious time, you must eliminate it, regardless of it's positive sides, but if you feel alone after that, remember that there are a lot of ways of communicating with your friends

Hmm, this is a quite touchy thing to talk about for me, but nevermind The thing is, I am trying to break the porn addiction and masturbation habbit for the last 4-5 years, but I failed and failed and failed.. I couldn't even stop myself from masturbation for 2 weeks, and watching porn and masturbation was like a daily thing for me, so, what did it cause? It got me depressed, so I was feeling so bad after every fapping, that I wasn't able to socialize, or do my daily things, I was just thinking about it all the time, how weak I was and so on. I had bad grades, bad relationships with friends or family members, nothing to say about intimate relationships (I haven't had any). I didn't care if masturbation cause any physical ilness, or if watching porn was the best thing in the world, I didn't care because my psychological state was miserable, I was just everyday fight with my higher and lower self, literally I have tried so many fucking things to get that addiction off of me, but the habit was well build in me over the years. So, why did I told you all of that, because I managed (don't ask me how, it's a different topic) and haven't masturbated for 3 months now, and I am not going to fall in the same pit again. I haven't watched porn for 3 months too, and I am not going to, because the state I was for the last couple of years because of watching porn and jerking off, was so bad, that I don't want to even remember it. And the best part is, there is a huge change in me during these 3 months, I've started exercising, relationships are much better, I've started working on new projects and so much more.. So I don't know, maybe you will say that masturbation once a week is not a bad thing to do, or even once a month, but to me, if I do it even once, I think that I will have to go the same road to breaking this habit once more, and I don't really want that. Do you agree with me or not? And tell me please, if you think that I am wrong with anything.

You are just 15 years old, and you realize what video games or even scrolling Facebook with your smartphone every morning does to you, awesome man Pretty awesome.. I wish I realized that when I was your age, even though I am not that old yet (20 years), but those 5 years would be a life changing to me. I would be living with a completely different life now, if I thought about the ideas you are talking about in your post. So keep it up, and don't change your orientation

Thanks for your opinion mate, and yes, I am forcing myself from time to time to accomplish some things that I want to accomplish. That is what I have to do in order to change my working discipline from the shitty level to a good level. If I won't do that, my mind will come with a lot of excuses (It does that every day though ,I can't help it yet, and often times I fall in it's traps..) that will prevent me from doing the work that needs to be done. I have to just force myself to develop to the point where forcing won't be necessary. And when I don't do something from the daily list, I feel kind of guilty, and I add the item that I haven't accomplished into the next day's list, that way I see clearly, after like 1 week or so, If my list is 1 kilometre in length (:D), that means that I have to work on something in order to do my daily goals more efficiently. And yeah, if 2 months gave me this kind of improvement (not that huge, but it's something, I hadn't even thought that journaling would be helpful, I didn't even know that journaling was the thing and people were doing it on a daily basis, 2 months ago) another 2 months will be greater, and in couple of months or in couple of years, when I look back, I hope to feel a bit proud of myself, and will be proud of having my everyday life written in a notebook, and seeing my mistakes very vividly.

Hey guys, So, I've been journaling for the last 2 months, every day, and what I've been doing is that I am writing a little list of what I am going to do (or at least try to do) on the next day, and when I wake up the next morning, I don't lose my time into thinking of what I must do today or with what I have to begin my day, I have everything pre-planned. This helps me breaking my bad habits (actually I have broken 2 of them already) and developing new habits. And If I think of myself 2 months ago (wasn't journaling, and hadn't heard of your website Leo ) I think there has been a little bit of an improvement in my personal discipline. So, that pre-planning thing is working for me quite well, even though I can't accomplish everything every day, that are on my list, but just trying my best to do that is already a nice thing for me (everything is ahead). Tell me, are you doing this kind of thing yourself on daily basis to? If you have something better to suggest, please let me know