Saarah

Not the snappiest of titles but anyway I'd just like to know, when you wake up in the morning, do you have a drive to do anything in particular, what is it that fills you with meaning to get up? I'm not necessarily talking about life purpose, just about your enjoyment for living. Like when a kid wakes up and thinks about that little project of building something out of their toys because they decided it was a fun thing to do today. Most of the time in my life I never questioned existence, waking up was about doing 'stuff' and that stuff was meaningful to me because I didn't know anything more. Now I've learnt about all this deeper stuff about humans existentially and how all the success we strive for like living a rich life is absolutely meaningless in the bigger sense of life. So now when I wake up I think about how everything I'm about to do in my day holds no inherent meaning. It's just stuff for stuff's sake. Especially since becoming atheist i understand that life is a process and its not about a goal. Before, I could get lost in the process of life but now it's always on my mind. P.S. I'm not depressed, I have plenty of energy and love for life, but it's all inside me and I'm confused as to what I'm supposed to be directing it at and why

@charlie2dogs Thank you, I think I need to stop thinking too hard about it and watch my actions each day, allow myself to be drawn to things and see how I enjoy it without thinking about the bigger purpose of it, maybe that'll help me understand life from the inside out instead of vice versa @Ajax This idea that life has no purpose is what made me feel so lost, because then I thought what's the point? I've tried to simply enjoy the experience but I'm finding it difficult, I think the key is there when you said I'm not creating my own design, maybe I need to unleash my inner artist more, perhaps I need to be more proactive instead of sitting here asking for some meaning to be handed to me, or the ability to create meaning handed to me. It is a habit of highly effective people to be proactive, so I need to strive to create meaning however, whenever, with whatever resonates with me. Thanks! @Corte Wow, that was very poetic indeed! I think that's what we also feel as children, not thinking about our societal duties, but just being with the body as it emerges from sleep and enjoying everything it has to offer that first moment. I've been struggling to find gratitude and appreciation for these little things, because I feel so rushed and worried in my mind, full of dread to face my responsibilities, I wish to cultivate that complete innocence of being. Would you say this was mindfulness, or some other attitude you carry everyday about life? I guess regarding my atheism even though I understand post-rationalism for example there's perhaps another facet to explore in terms of the meaning of living @Nameless Thank you, i shall try to do this and get lost while being aware of the everyday! It's gonna be tough to quieten my mind

@Murtaza I think a useful video to look at is the false prophets one, he talks about this topic in it, not really an experiment but it shows how people react to these 'personalities' and how we can avoid the traps

@Elton It'll be crazy to see what happens to us all, hopefully we'll still be on this forum and on this journey to somewhere that is nowhere!

@Kern Kapoor Yes he does, for example he has an email list and that's an online marketing technique. An email list is a very good way to build up an online business from the 'backend', it gives you followers so that even if someone stops viewing your content, sending email reminders helps keep people in touch with you The thing about email lists is it can open up new avenues, for example, when you release new products, you can send it in an email and even give a discount to people on your email list and it entices them to buy your products, you can also do affiliate marketing to your email list where it's relevant to their interests and an important point is that you shouldn't bombard your email list with products but you should break it up with sending them lots of free content like an article about something you wrote so they feel like they're getting some value from being on your email list and that you're not just pushing business onto them I don't know much about online marketing but i feel it's very interesting, so like I'm planning on I recommend you pick up a book about this because the techniques will really help you

@ButlerMr Gleeson Hey I'd just like to ask what is it you're trying to invest in, is it anything like a personal or online business? If so, while you're doing your jobs and saving capital think of that time as an opportunity to start doing your research and learning about how to be successful in your area so by the time you've saved up a lot of money you know exactly where to go

@foninja the zenhabits blog has a focus on creating personal development related habits where it focuses on making small steps over the long term and through mindfulness so it makes it less painstaking and more enjoyable but you still need to have the focus

@DrMatthewsausage I think the best place to look is on the YouTube help pages for this, it's pretty irrelevant for this forum don't ya think? You may have set up an alternate email for when you forget your email I'd recommend you report all the videos multiple times though or pretend they have some kind of copyright infringement and YouTube might just take them down in response, read about how to get a channel taken down and what's against the rules and frame your channel for it

As we all know, you can't trust all the big institutions these days because everything is about business. Science is also a business and specifically medicine I'm focusing on because we trust GPs and other health professionals to provide us with the best advice for us. But even in the uk where the NHS isn't about insurance etc. the problem is still there where the most cheap and convenient way to get you on your merry way is provided. Take for example this recent thing that happened to me. I was at my GPs for iron stuff and she saw that I have acne, a cream she previously gave me didn't work so she gave me some pills. Of course before you put anything in your system you research it, I just quickly googled it to find out it was an antibiotic. After a few weeks I started feeling like my system felt a little messed up and I researched the prescribing of antibiotics for acne and found that there's a ton of research out there which points to deeper causes of acne, where there are possible better more natural ways to heal it (I can't say for sure as I've never tried it) and how antibiotics kill the good bacteria in your gut so it's damaging for the long term I stopped taking them because if you weigh up acne vs gut health, I choose gut health. It annoys me that health care professionals don't care about being thorough with treatments. I understand it's the paradigm which everything works under, it's all about biased research, I don't think your typical ear syringe patient realises that science doesn't have all or the best answers, or that the GP realises that health probably has alternative models to work from, some of which supercede the current model This was just a tiny example but I'm sure there's deeper issues to discuss regarding this. Anyway, i find it quite uneasy about the whole thing, that we don't have better models surrounding health. What do you think? Do you trust your doctor to give you the best treatment and advice? Or are you like me, being wary of everything that's handed to you? Edit: it reminds me of when the four humours and Hippocrates were the standard in ancient medicine, just the same thing going on just a level higher

That's the most concise way you've put it all year! Lol ?

@charlie2dogs I'm pretty sure in 95% of the posts I've seen from you you've always mentioned something surrounding the 'identity' or 'consciousness'. Stop repeating the same stuff I'm getting dizzy every time I read your stuff!! :'D

The way to understand it all is through more and more exposure of the material, sometimes there are gaps and you're confused and then you watch another few videos and certain concepts start coming together and fitting an overall theme and pattern of understanding Ive been watching the videos for 2 years and I'm a long way from understanding everything but just watching the videos weekly without jumping to conclusions, I start finding out the basic level of the pathway to go so that when a model or belief or idea is presented I can pick apart and analyse the components of it to see if it's elements are congruent with what I've learnt through constant exposure of the channel And yes all these models and beliefs are just all conceptions of the mind but it's the way we work and the tools we use to communicate within this matrix of traps to get out of it But it doesn't make a difference if we stopped being on this forum because all those things those beliefs and models will still be stuck with you because they're all in your mind already so it's good to have a place to discuss them and acknowledge them more directly, gives a sort of empowering effect to move beyond then with time and work

@Kenya The entire world is an egoic playground everywhere you go the only difference is this place is more aware about it than others

@mathieu Ive had that feeling before where I've felt other people have progressed so much and I'm not getting anywhere far in life or I don't have as much fun in my life This is due to the problem of social comparison and Leo has a video Stop comparing yourself to others Its about how human beings are so complex and non-simplistic that it's impossible to compare us, with different people having different circumstances etc

Intention: (see post 1) Addiction: Junk food Meditation method: Do Nothing for 1 hour *************** Day 7: 24/04/16 Levels of motivation upon waking: Didnt have desires to engage in all the distractions I'd been engaging in the past week thought it'd be a productive day Meditation time (complete?): 1 hour around half 10 to half 11pm Super surprised I got through the 7 days, I thought I'd be really rubbish at this even though I felt super motivated after watching the video at the beginning of the week. Ive only gone one day where I felt like meditating at the beginning of the day other than that it's just been pushed away. Although I don't actively choose meditation over my distractions just yet, I do feel much more comfortable than I ever have before with sitting for an hour doing nothing! Up until now I've only consistently managed to meditate 10 mins every day so I really jumped a giant leap with this challenge. I'm happy I avoided all the sugary type junk foods and snacks etc for an entire week, and I feel a lot healthier in my body, it's a bittersweet kind of feeling because the last two days I have been thinking more about it and whether or not I should break the trend or just continue it. I'm definitely going to be working on more addictions every week as this is a very basic and tangible thing to tackle for the journey of self actualisation, when something so basic is holding you back from progress that we do on a daily basis, all my addictions are just staring me in the face everyday and I can't ignore that and carry on back to normal. I certainly feel myself growing in emotional maturity from this! Well done to @Truth and hopefully @Argue! It's super cool to see the first steps in the journey of addictions. Good luck @Allison and anyone else attempting!

@ChimpBrain @SkyPanther Thanks for your input guys, that's quite interesting!

@Huz88 ah thanks that's very helpful! I remember Alan Watts saying along the lines of how people think of nature as trees and birds but the human world such as houses and pavements are just as much nature I mean we built it from anything available by nature I just need to work on seeing it that way for real

@Pia that's what he mentions, he says the root cause is that you're afraid to face emptiness through being and so you use something to fill that emptiness which is the addiction, so he says to meditate to face the emptiness Bu challenging that root cause then you will end up overcoming your addictions as a by-product

@Scarecrow I mean a read a funny thing once where someone asks "master, what changes after enlightenment?" And the enlightened one said "nothing much, you still have to do the laundry" my guess is they would enjoy it but they probably wouldn't engage in it as much or they simply wouldn't want to because being enlightened itself doesn't bring any desire to do stuff all the time but just to 'be' more and they enjoy that more

@Huz88 Yes what @Mat Pav said, I think it's about seeing the concept of an object as a man made thing, which from that concept it only presents one form of egoic vision of the objects whereas when you're actualised you see the egoic concept but also the millions of other connections of the object and that have nothing to do with you as a user of the object or language and hence you see the fuller picture of something thereby developing a 'being' cognition Its very difficult to do this beyond just talking about it though, when I look at my coat I just see a coat and when I look at my phone I see the phone, even though I know in my mind it's full off other connections I simply see objects from my perspective The thing I find very confusing and difficult about this is how man has made and crafted objects like cars and so I don't understand how a car can be seen from a perspective other than the ego, whereas I feel like with nature and language (as language is built into us, there's just different versions) it's easier to think of seeing that as something not an object because it existed without the projection of the ego, but ego was what created the car

@Hardik jain mindfulness and awareness, you'll have other feelings but just being mindful of them can stop you from acting in an un-calm manner

@Gustav I'm 19 also, I would suggest doing this as a poll so it's easy to see the ages!

Intention: (see post 1) Addiction: Junk food Meditation method: Mindfulness meditation for 1 hour *************** Day 6: 23/04/16 Levels of motivation upon waking: lazy Meditation time (complete?): 1 hour from 6:40 to 7:40pm Feelings during and after meditation: Switching to mindfulness has made it more difficult but that's why I decided to do it, my focus goes down in the second half. While Im sat there, the whole day's busy-ness is just halted and I think why can't I just be like this more, why is it only when I set this time I can focus, why can't this be my norm, I hear all the cars on the main road and think about how everyone is still constantly moving and doing something, and how crazy it is that we can constantly do stuff and never break from it. I'm a long way from the point where i could do nothing more often. During meditation as before I got confused about this whole thing, it feels so nourishing one moment and the next I'm stuck in a dilemma cos I'm like, what am I facing here? How much am I 'supposed' to do this, is this supposed to be the norm, what is in human nature, and yet I feel that this could greatly benefit me, right now I'm keeping going for the hope that I notice my addictions withering away week after week and more so noticing improvements in my being. Thoughts/struggles throughout the day: I didn't struggle with junk except a few moments I was hungry and was thinking of how I just have to wait for a day, but I felt like I don't want to eat it after this week because I don't want it to become an addiction again, I may end up avoiding it after this week is over as I move onto other addictions, my biggest struggle is all my other distractions I keep turning to because I'm having a hard time focusing on my work, the more I engaged in my distractions I noticed a feeling of frustration in me Triggers for addiction: frustration (unless it's a reciprocal effect) ***************

@JevinR go for it, I like the big flow of ideas and enthusiasm, don't get in the way of that, it's the best time for creativity to flourish, when you let it all go without thinking too hard or being a perfectionist, even if it doesnt work out, that's just cos you're getting started, creative ideas are few in the midst of a giant list of all the one's you spouted out from a place of not caring!

@Augustin ask them if they'd like to meditate for an hour with you they will probably say no and then you can show them how it is silly to make someone feel bad for not partaking in the same activities as you