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I'm also very interested to know if anyone changed their environment during their teens because they were in this dead end situation, and eventually found their true passion. Coming from an Asian family, I was basically forced to either become a doctor or lawyer during my teens which were totally not suitable jobs for me. I was this very mediocre Asian, which in my parents' eyes was a huge problem. And unfortunately I didn't know better, so I eventually banged my head against the wall enough times to pull myself into college, get a degree, and become a software engineer. My current job pays very well, and so I do have the financial freedom that I sort of enjoy today. But during my student years, I can tell you I was NOT happy. I also consider my current job to be a mediocre one, a job I do just to get paid. I don't have a lot of friends, and most of the time I just keep to myself. I think the idea of doing what I should be doing instead of what I truly want to do over the years has eroded my ability to enjoy life and just be myself. It might have also limited my social abilities, as I had certain ideologies and false narratives growing up, and so I couldn't relate to people as a normal person could. Thankfully I found Leo and identified a lot of the issues that I had. I hope you find a way out, could you share what your dream is?

In Leo's videos, I remembered he said that the process of understanding our emotions is sort of like peeling an onion. At first, there are some very deep emotions that we have which we may not fully understand. We can allow these types of emotions to flow out freely and allow ourselves to feel the emotion fully, even when the emotion is really negative. This frees us from the judgement and suffering within when we try very hard to fight these negative emotions, because our ego doesn't like itself to identify with these negative emotions. During the process of understanding our emotions, we gradually get more and more conscious of why we have certain negative thoughts, and which internal beliefs they stem from within us. When we're able to gradually identify these internal beliefs that are producing emotions, we get the choice to see if we want to change the rules of the filter. This is usually the time we do training work to change and get a new set of filter to produce a healthier belief system.

Unfortunately China needs them. There are some provinces within China that wants to defect from China. So if Taiwan is allowed to declare independence, many more provinces and minority groups will see this as a possible way forward. There are other reasons China needs Taiwan, as the sea surrounding Taiwan controls a very strategic trade route in Asia which Korea and Japan heavily relies on. Taiwan is also mountainous and contains several natural sea ports, which is an excellent place to load up on military forces to counter forces from the Pacific (namely the US), sort of like a huge aircraft carrier. China doesn't give a shit about the people of Taiwan, they will burn Taiwan down to ashes if they have to control the island. China is currently sort of using the hundred years of humiliation where Taiwan was stolen by the Japanese before being taken over by the previous very corrupt government of China, which the communists eventually overthrew, to convince their people that regaining Taiwan is one of the keys to end the humiliation the Chinese suffered between the 19th and early 20th Century. And unfortunately this narrative is working quite well within China.

Hi Farnaby, I agree with your observation! Sometimes our ego wants to preserve a certain form of self-image. In this process, the ego tells the self that it has to do this or fix that, and is sort of placing a judgement on the self. Under these judgements, the self is not able to express its true emotion and is therefore hurting itself in some way by not fully accepting itself. We all need to just be what we are, instead of forcing ourselves to get out of a current state that we're in which we very much do not like.

There's no point debating here, Bobby's definition of God is different from Leo's.

Well, this is a world where there are humans experiencing life in a relative state of unconsciousness, and so we experience all sorts of dualities (which is all good). In being able to experience joy, harmony, and all kinds of thrills, there has to be a downside to those emotions, which is the suffering category of feelings. The two sides cannot exist without one another unfortunately, and people tend to remember only the pain more than the joyful experiences sometimes. Most people cannot jump out (via enlightenment), so we just have to play the game.

@Someone here It's hard to surrender, everyone has tons of stuff they cannot surrender. Even enlightened people need to survive somehow. If you are trying to overcome an obstacle you've been "failing" over and over again. I think you should try to stop trying in situations like these, when you've tried for a long time already. Stop trying to become better, fix yourself, or get out of some muck. Try to stop first and realize that if you cannot let yourself stop trying, then the real issue is not overcoming the obstacle, but rather the NEED to overcome the obstacle. It's hard to even stop actually. When I was still in church trying to spread the "gospel" and build this righteous self-image, giving up was sometimes a horrific idea, as if Satan would get a hold of me if I swayed away from the path. But once you're able to stop gradually and get some real rest, the space for creativity comes and allows you to observe the situation from different angles. Leo's videos will give you tons of examples on how to do multiple perspective practices. Life is not two dimensional, there are many ways to grow and develop. Giving up the current path is sometimes THE solution. I don't want to rant too much, hope this helps a little

Meditation would be a very long term solution. I think there is a more direct method, though it would also take time to implement. The direct method is just to be spontaneous to the world, meaning you should just simply be yourself most of the time. Don't worry about "failing", just let the fail happen. And when you fail, you can just be emotional and feel bad about it. Feel in the pain of failing very consciously, and from time to time when you pause to think about the failure, perhaps you'll be able to see that the fail is not a failure at all. Maybe the fail was just based on some goddamn should requirement that you could get rid of all along. Forcing yourself to meet some should statement is just like banging your head on a wall, a total zero-sum game. It might be what you have to do in certain situations (for survival), but I think you know it doesn't work in the end. Of course this method is not easy and very scary. But only when you can love/embrace and feel totally OK with exactly what you are right now can you really move forward.

@Zigzag Idiot I'll check these out, many thanks!

@Zigzag Idiot Unfortunately the Jews didn't really grasp what Jesus was doing either for long. It was probably very hard to break free from the ideology in the culture of that time. The Gospel of Thomas is quite hard to understand. Do you know any website that explains its contents in detail?

@Zigzag Idiot Why Jesus chose to hand himself to the Pharisees and get nailed on the cross, that might be a good question to ask. Did Jesus die for the sins of human being? If you notice, the four gospels say nothing of this. That's the explanation that was provided later in the letters written by fucking Paul. If you ask me, I don't believe in his horseshit anymore. You cannot pay for someone else's crimes, no matter how good you are. Jesus probably chose to die that way because it was an effective method to break the Jews free from the worldview of the Pharisees. So he used the sacrificial lamb analogy to sort of describe what he was doing to pave a way forward, which was unfortunately totally misinterpreted by the later Christians who said that only Jesus's blood could forgive the sins of men. Total cult level BS!

@Zigzag Idiot Thanks for the quote. Problem is, it is very hard to get keep jumping out of your own "selfhood narrative". And most people don't want to do this either. If you're not able to get to the level of God, might as well try to enjoy being human.

My question to God would be when and where would the next Jesus or Buddha level person be born on earth?

@NOTintoxicated Hahahaha! Cool thought, I wonder if that actually works though. @Leo Gura If God were the answer to all questions, it probably is because he accepts everything in the current moment already. He lives in some sort of a higher narrative than ours, and He probably doesn't care at all about our narrative. In this case, I really wonder if he could provide ANY answer to our deepest questions. What we want to know is how to be more human, and not more like God.

You mentioned that you would experience feelings of frustration, anger, annoyance, tiredness. If this occurs often, then I think that your emotions are trapped somewhere within you. Something is blocking you, holding you back from being who you really are. I don't know if any of your past experiences are causing this, but in my experience, I used to try very hard to be this goody goody Christian. In that process along with the very conservative and demonic Christian narrative that was fed to me, I developed many neurotic tendencies. Eventually I couldn't live up to the church's expectations, I broke down and left the church. I wasn't until much later that I learned about the concept of being, just letting myself be. I gradually found the deep emotions I had back at the church and the anger I had towards certain people. Only when I could identify and talk about those emotions, sort of expressing them with a close friend was I finally able to free my emotions and get a part of myself restored. So I feel like if you have deep anger, frustrations, shame, or some other feelings or beliefs that is holding you back, your body has to find a way to express that feeling very truthfully, or else your true emotions will stay locked. Hope you find some way to unlock yourself.

Great, so we're all a part of the Anhedonia family (sarcastically put). To quote from Wikipedia: Anhedonia is a diverse array of deficits in hedonic function, including reduced motivation or ability to experience pleasure.While earlier definitions emphasized the inability to experience pleasure, anhedonia is currently used by researchers to refer to reduced motivation, reduced anticipatory pleasure (wanting), reduced consummatory pleasure (liking), and deficits in reinforcement learning. This means that the way our brain functions might still be the same when we were growing up, used to the toxic and abusive environment we were in. Therefore our brain still gets "attracted" to the insecure and abusive behaviors we've had between family/friends of the past. Getting a therapist should help, though I haven't talked to my therapist about this area yet (what attracts me sexually). I have this problem too, I believe the "answer" is that my neural network is not behaving normally when it comes to accepting love. Therefore somewhere in my mind, a reprogramming is needed.

Slow down man. Try to simply be yourself at the moment, and find someone you could talk about your anger to. Life is not about being right or perfect, but just experiencing what is present before you. You need to be mad and angry right now, your emotions are important signals from your mind and body. There is no need to enter a "higher" state in life (though you sort of will when you're able to let go of what is causing you frustration right now). The only thing you need to do is just to notice the current state of your mind and what your current situation is. List out two or three of the main things you don't like about your current situation. Then just pick the issue you would like to resolve first and find someone who you trust can provide you guidance to talk to. I've learned that sometimes changing doesn't really have to do with overcoming the obstacle (becoming better in some area), but rather observing your narrative through multiple perspectives. The problem might have never needed to exist in the first place.

Revenge is a very straightforward way of expressing and freeing your emotions. Just need to sort of consider the consequences. If I had to choose between revenge or having a trauma for a few years, revenge is definitely my choice! Of course the suggestions above are all good, still better to resolve the problem using other methods. I believe there are many ways to resolve the pain and anger between you and your "enemy". However sometimes the "good" ways just don't work and you'll just have to express your feelings.

Although there are many possible long term solutions above, I don't think any of them can be implemented in a short amount of time, not even within 5 years. Man, you're really in a tough situation. You're mom's insecurities are haunting you every day. I think a simple start would be to have someone you could talk to about this. Maybe a close friend or a senior you could trust. A therapist would be great, though it would cost you a bit. I'm just curious, what kind of a person is your mom like? What are her main beliefs and world views? I'm just curious, you don't have to respond to this question if you don't feel like it.

I think that if you want to bet against the US economy, you shouldn't put in over 10% of your portfolio. Also even when the US economy tanks, people would sell Bitcoin, gold, and other stuff to pay off their debts, and the money would flush back into the US as everyone suddenly tries to save their wealth. The US dollar would go up for a period of time then. If you want to invest seriously, you should probably put most of your money that you're willing to invest into more conservative items, maybe like Amazon or Google. As the pandemic mutates and rages on, tech is still going to be major player in the stock markets.

I'm playing the game, but I think the game is way too over-hyped. The main story is not much better than the first watchdogs game I played years ago.

There are many ways to take care of yourself and stop the spread of the virus. Taking a vaccine is not a necessary path.

Although Bitcoin has huge potential, it is not the most common currency used in any country yet, and it will have many obstacles getting to that position. So if you like Bitcoin, hold on to it. But don't think of Bitcoin as a get rich quick scheme.

@amenX Joe Biden is Catholic. So I believe he says these things from more of a religious(blue stage) standpoint.

@The0Self It is important to feel, understand, and acknowledge/love your lower consciousness part of yourself. However if you just let your ego run rampant, you'll start hitting obstacles or head off a cliff sooner or later.