HII

What exactly do you see in society in these two contexts that made you think about changing it? If you can pinpoint this, then you have actually something where you can ask what you can do as an individual.

I sometimes find it difficult to relax. For example on free days when I'm half or 2/3 or 3/4 in my day and got a chunk of work done and got a fair bit of time left for doing more, but I feel like I need a break first. Or when I get home from work and feel like I need to regain some energy first to do something for myself. Or right now I'm tired and exhausted and a bit sick after spending two days in the woods at a climate activist camp. Sometimes light exercise and/or meditation works wonders for me, but sometimes I'm too low in energy for that and feel like I don't want to do anything and just really shut off for a while. How do you go about this?

He said it elsewhere. I didn't make this as a general argument, I said it because I felt like it was the right thing to say in this particular case. Then they have other issues with themselves. That doesn't mean that being able to have a job at all is irrelevant for everybody. It's not about the job, it's about sefl-esteem. This has nothing to do with status or "society's brain-wash ideas" or something like that. It's about one's confidence in the own competence of coping with the basic challenges you will have to face in your life. And acquiring that happens by learning the necessary skills. In my experience they have. With independence comes trust and therefore faith in own one's own abilities. I don't see this analogy working. Handleing these 5 problems gives you very good reason to handle similar problems of equal calibre in the future. And probably at some point even one that is a little bit harder. True, but you can be prepared for some things and you can develop confidence in your capabilities of handleing whatever comes next, or even of handleing not handleing it, if you will.

How can you put a link to a Sigur Rós song right under such a load of bullshit? Have you studied them at all? Go watch some interviews and read some articles and find out about their background and their approach. Do you think they are successful because they went to a song-writing workshop and followed some advice of writing songs about made-up characters because their stuff was "too cryptic"? The whole album featuring the song you posted consists of 100% gibberish, for christ's sake. If you have performance anxiety that's another story, but that doesn't mean you cannot create music. Free your mind from the idea that certain people have to approve of what you're doing. Get curious about the sounds that come out of your instrument.

Can you write down some of the goals here? Have you still not taken a single action on any of them after four days?

Thanks for your review. It got me curious and I downloaded the ebook and read the introduction. Not sure if I will read through the whole book though. Not because I'm not interested enough, but because I got so many other things I want to do (including books to read) and my attention and actions are already very fragmented. Can you talk a bit about what changes it brought to your life, if any?

@Elisabeth Have you tried finding a specific aspect of society you would like to be different? And then working towards changing it in the direction you want? I just read your original post again and you talk about changing society, but there is no talk about what to change about it and why to change it at all. Maybe you need to get more specific on this and also ask yourself where your urge comes from, if you want to move forward with this.

No you haven't. You didn't get yourself a job and you live with your parents. Now you have it written right above. You could develop some faith in yourself by starting to live a more independent life. Ask yourself this: What woman would want a man that cannot take care of himself and needs his mom to get him out of bed every morning?

@Socrates So what has your post lead to so far? Have you set a tangible goal, did you take action to work towards it?

@CruellerSloth Can you post a link to your book?

Why don't you just accept the next offer? If you don't like working there, you can look for another job which fits more of your criteria. But you have the advantage of already living in said country and got used to it, having learnt the language, and you can use the job you quit as reference. Maybe you're just not ready yet to jump all the way up and need a step in between? At least that's what seems sensible to me, if you sent away 400 applications...

Hahahahaha Okay sorry, let's be serious: You can write stories which convey your visions of how the world could be a better place; or dangers of how it might become a worse place. Or any story about any protagonist that solves any specific problem. As long as the protagonists find themselves in situations which people can relate to and find solutions to problems which can be applied by people, then people will read your stuff (given that it's good). People don't know how to live and they are hungry for stories to show them the way. Make your writing relevant to them and I'm sure you can find ways to monetize it. It's not on the world to decide that your craft is not needed. It's on you to offer something which is so useful that it will be used. But if you yourself really think books and novels are kind of outdated, then get creative with new media and new formats.

(bottom line: get a healthy diet and an overdose of every micronutrient and also omega-3)

How did you acquire this narrative about yourself? Since when do you have it and what was the initial cause? You say you've been bullied and already did some work in that area, but did you write down the specific events? And how did the bullying even start in the first place? Was there something before in your family maybe? Another thing I can think of is to get used to use your voice. Practicing reading out loud might help.

What would happen if you looked everybody in the eyes and if you could bring yourself to do so, smiled at them? I'd like to go on a bus ride with you and show you that not everyone is malevolent However, this sounds like a more serious issue. Maybe it would help to be more in contact with friends or people in general, like talk with them and interact with them and focus on that, rather than sitting there and making up stories in your thoughts. But if you want a long-term solution for your bodily reactions, you probably have to uncover some repressed unconscious stuff. Have you looked into shadow work?

@Noah Didn't you come across lots of talk in Leo's videos about how mastery of a skill/craft and career are important in personal development and self-actualization? I don't get where you see the conflict. This is a good chunk of stuff. If I were you, I'd rather focus on not doing unnecessary things and doing what you do properly and consistently and letting it become a habit first, before moving on to new things. Feeling overwhelmed is a symptom from doing too many different things. So if you start doing even more different things because you think you have to do all that, you'll only make it worse. Leo has also talked about how important focus is. Without that, you won't ever get anywhere with anything. You don't have to do every single personal development technique out there. That's practically impossible. And that's not what these techniques were developed for. Pick specific problems you wanna solve or specific areas where you wanna improve and then find one specific technique for this problem or area and try it out. After a while, you can make an evaluation and then drop it or keep it and maybe try something new. Feeling overwhelmed is also a symptom from too much theory and too little practice. Watch less videos for a while

Is reading any one of those articles ever relevant to any of your actions? Does it change your behavior? Does acquiring this information contribute to your life in a positive way? Does anyone ever benefit from you reading those articles? I'd recommend writing down the answers to these questions right here and then make an evaluation if it's really worthwhile. My guess would be that it's actually just a form of entertainment for you, a distraction that doesn't really benefit you, and if that's the case, it's probably best to stop it.

Thanks for the reminder! Any tips on how to avoid getting into this narrative when one is in that state?

What kind of nonsense? Whenever you buy something or feel the urge to buy something, you can write it into this thread. This way you would probably gain more awareness of the whole process and it might fade over time.

@MiracleMan I recently experimented with intermittent fasting and at the moment I'm trying out to eat all my meals in the first few hours of the day (after a few cups of tea). But since you asked for something quick, here's one meal I'm having pretty much everyday, which should fit this criterion: - Oat bran/rye flakes/millet flakes as slow carb base - flaxseeds/sesame seeds/sunflower seeds/hemp flour as protein and fat source - cocoa/maca for mood boost - chopped up dates/honey for some sweetness and quick energy from the sugar I'm kind of spontaneously switching between the different options or sometimes use all of them. You can mix everything the night before and in the morning just pour hot water on it, stir, let it sit for 1-2mins and enjoy. But I'd try out a large fruit meal first and see how that goes, since it's probably the healthier option. Also, it very much depends on whether you want to gain or lose weight. Can you say something about what your "goal" is with your breakfast? And what experiences you've had with different foods (or lack thereof), since you mentioned it?

I was kind of reluctant to bring this up, because I didn't feel qualified to "give you advice" And because it seems like an obvious suggestion. I guess any kind of awareness training which brings you more into the present moment would be beneficial. I don't have much experience or knowledge about this, so I'm more just making things up which make sense to me. You can do formal sessions where you set a time, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever, where you take an object and look at it, touch it, feel it, smell it, throw it around... Or you can do that with your surrounding in general. Or focus on just sight or just sound or just touch. And then notice how much or how little you find yourself rambling about anxieties or plans or memories or future projections in your thoughts. Or you can go about your day and try to keep an awareness of that, while focusing on what's happening around you and your sensory inputs. Instead of worrying about things in your head, look at the people around you and try to take in what they're doing and focus on them instead of you in the interaction. Just basic stuff like this might already lead to great improvements. After all, rambling in thoughts about "bad" things is just a habit. I tried it yesterday: instead of putting on ear buds and reading something on my phone while sittin in the bus, I listened to all the noise and to people talking. Instead of thinking my regular thoughts and focusing on my emotions, I looked at people's faces and gestures and tried to read their emotions. When I performed an action, I tried focusing on that action. It went quite well and only in the meantime I realized how I was rambling in my thoughts again about things which bared zero importance to the situation I was in. I found that the more I directed my attention outwards, the easier it became to talk to people, because I wasn't busy all the time imposing negative judgments on myself from their imaginary perspectives, which only by that would have become true! I ended up spontaneously joining my friends going to a climate demonstration at a coal mine near the city I live, which ended up being one of the most powerful experiences I recently had. I had a camera with me and took some footage and now I want to do more things like this and talk to people about all the background information. I will also join a camp in the woods next to the coal mine for a few days when the next clearing starts in two weeks. I guess all this fills me with a "sense of purpose". I'm going with a completely different set of emotions through my day. So THAT'S what happened for me, after I simply decided to direct my attention to the outside.

@starsofclay Glad you appreciate it That's good to hear I'm sure you can move towards even more good days. I wondered that too about myself and once got half a diagnose like this. I also was not exactly manic on my good days, at least not in a dangerous way. Looking back, I'm glad I didn't start taking medication, which I probably would have done back then if it had been prescribed to me. I think medication is nonsense with many psychological disorders. At least cases like you and me are better off working out their inner and outer lives without. Many people find comfort in the story that there's a "genetically determined imbalance in their brain chemistry", because then it's no one's fault that they feel shitty about their lives. But it's never a solution to the problem at its root, because it makes it impossible for people to learn how to work with their real emotions. Spiritual and personal development practices seem much more powerful to me. It makes sense that good and bad days become less extreme and therefore average mood rises when you get more routine in your days for example. Anyways, I'd be curious to hear about a few instances, in case you decide to try and show your emotions more openly to customers.

@Alexo45 I've just been sitting here for the last 5 minutes trying to find out and I can't I want to do this more often now, this is tons of fun Thank you!

Sounds to me like your doubt is an ideologically religion-like bullshit thought. How about designing some amazing games which are not addictive and actually raise the player's consciousness? If that later turns out to be a dead end for you, fine, do something else then. But don't abandon your passion because you think videogames are supposed to be considered bad.