Why do I feel that my past was a lot better when it was filled with distractions?

[7thLetter]

I honestly could say that I had a beautiful life in the past. Even though it seemed like the typical life of an American/Canadian kid, I feel so appreciative that I got to experience it all.

What I'm talking about is growing up in the 90's in my closely-knit neighborhood with my family, doing what 90's kids do. Playing with Yugi-oh and Pokemon cards. Hanging out, biking, playing Super-Nintendo and the Gameboy color. Watching all the amazing cartoons, anime shows, and other TV shows. Eating all the junk food, pizza for dinner, ice-cream in the hot summer days. Going swimming at an aquatic center, playing arcade-games and watching movies on the big-screen right after. Even in elementary-school, it was just so fun going on all the field-trips, visiting places I would never think of going to. Such as bird-watching, water-parks, zoos, museums, camping, going to the beach, wow.. it was all just so incredible. Even though I was somewhat of a loner in school, I loved my past. In high-school I had a group of friends that I would just hangout with after school and just smoke weed all day. After high-school, I went through the typical young-adult phase of drinking and partying every weekend for months, meeting new people. And even that was amazing.

Nowadays I really miss those times. Even though today I would say that I wouldn't engage in 90% of those activities anymore, I would still they were all great experiences. These days my life is made up of what the self-help and spiritual theory talks about. Do nothing, cut off the negative people, and minimize your life-style. Today I have no friends, I don't do a lot, I meditate, I gym, listen to self-help, and I don't connect with my family as much anymore. But why do all this? I don't feel as much joy in life as I used to, but I don't understand why. Maybe because I lost connection with my family and other people? I thought the meditation and self-help would make it all better? Sometimes I just doubt what the theory says. Why do I feel that all those lower-consciousness activities in the past has brought me so much excitement in life? And replacing it with these better habits hasn't made it any better? I'm probably just not where I need to be in my development.

But I still don't understand it fully.

[Gili Trawangan]

@7thLetter I see where you're coming from. I could say the same thing, except that together with all that joy in the past there was also a lot of suffering. Yes, a lot of joy and excitement when things are "going well" and a lot of suffering when for some reason things don't go your way. Nowadays things are more balanced, less spikes in excitement but also less negative spikes.

One way to look at it is that you are attached to certain experiences and all experience is impermanent. So we have to learn to appreciate every moment regardless of what is happening, whether there is joy, excitement, peace, or whatever emotion. Accept where you are now, and see that it most likely will change as well, everything is impermanent.

Having said that, remember that you can create the life you want. If spending too much time alone doesn't give you joy, then perhaps you can try to meet people. Is that what you really want?

This isn't coming from someone who has it figured out, I relate with what you wrote in many ways... I used to have a very social and exciting life. Nowadays I spend much time in solitude, and there is much joy and happiness but not much excitement. It's a phase, it's impermanent like everything else, and at the moment it seems to be what I want, because I'm not taking any steps to change it. So I keep doing spiritual practices and going to work, there is no pull whatsoever to doing more social activities.

Figure out what you want  I know, easier said than done...

[Shin]

20 minutes ago, 7thLetter said:

• Even though today I would say that I wouldn't engage in 90% of those activities anymore
  Do nothing, cut off the negative people, and minimize your life-style.
  Today I have no friends, I don't do a lot, I meditate, I gym, listen to self-help, and I don't connect with my family as much anymore. But why do all this?
• I don't feel as much joy in life as I used to, but I don't understand why. Maybe because I lost connection with my family and other people? 
• Why do I feel that all those lower-consciousness activities in the past has brought me so much excitement in life? And replacing it with these better habits hasn't made it any better? I'm probably just not where I need to be in my development.

Are you cutting off those activities because you aren't enjoying them anymore, or because you think they are "low-consciousness" ?
Are you sure you don't enjoy them anymore, or are you not enjoying them because you judge them as "low-consciousness" ?
In the same way, are you doing all those self-help things because you think you need to, because they are "high-consciousness" activities ?

How did you lost your connection with your family and old friends ? What do you mean by that exactly ?
Also, in the first few years of self-developement and spiritual work, you tend to feel less happy, but this is simply because you are adjusting yourself to an another stage of your life, which always incorporate a period of adujstment and letting go of certain old habits/people that you were attached to.
You will always feel sad when you let go of something you were attached too, and you do that a lot in the first few years.

At that point of your life, those activities were all you knew about, but also, there was nothing wrong with doing only those things back then, because you were a child/young and just lived life.
Now that you are an adult, you have to find your place in the world, and this means you can't just only do those things anymore, it can't be fulfilling anymore, you have to grow.
Does that means you should let go of everything that is so called "low consciousness" ?
No it only means letting go of the ones you only took part on because of society and family/friends pressure.
The activities you genuinely enjoy should stay, but yes, you have to limit them to focus (way) more on what really matters to you.

 

What are you passionated about ?

 

Edited May 28, 2019 by Shin

[Shadowraix]

Life appears way more magical and amazing when we are younger. We were like giant sponges jus taking in raw information. And as you get older it starts to dull out. The brains plasticity goes down. 

You are changing, that's all. Embrace it. It's not the distractions themselves but your development at that point in time. 

[7thLetter]

14 minutes ago, Gili Trawangan said:

@7thLetter I see where you're coming from. I could say the same thing, except that together with all that joy in the past there was also a lot of suffering. Yes, a lot of joy and excitement when things are "going well" and a lot of suffering when for some reason things don't go your way. Nowadays things are more balanced, less spikes in excitement but also less negative spikes.

@Gili Trawangan Definitely a lot of suffering in my past as well, especially being a loner in school I hated lunch-break. I had a couple friends but I never hung out with them for some reason. So I always found ways to stall time so that we could get back to class. But still, aside from that, life was great.

And definitely a lot more balanced for me as well. I guess it makes a huge difference when you slow down and back up a bit from the fast-paced fun and social lifestyle.

18 minutes ago, Gili Trawangan said:

Having said that, remember that you can create the life you want. If spending too much time alone doesn't give you joy, then perhaps you can try to meet people. Is that what you really want?

I've been through many phases of getting out of my comfort zone to meet people. I always thought I had social anxiety, so that's how I got into self-help so I can try to undo it. I've been through many phases of meeting and approaching strangers on the streets for 1-2 years, working in highly-social environments, going to social events, and no I wouldn't really say that I want that anymore. These days I feel that I'm faking it when I'm social. But I still think that I had a lot of fun when I had some of those social experiences.

 

[7thLetter]

@Shin You're right, after reading your post I'm probably just letting the theory determine where my life has to go. Meditate because the theory says so, minimize your lifestyle because the theory said so, cut this activity off, and so on. But not to say that I haven't grown, I've definitely grown quite a bit over the years.

46 minutes ago, Shin said:

How did you lost your connection with your family and old friends ? What do you mean by that exactly ?
Also, in the first few years of self-developement and spiritual work, you tend to feel less happy, but this is simply because you are adjusting yourself to an another stage of your life, which always incorporate a period of adujstment and letting go of certain old habits/people that you were attached to.
You will always feel sad when you let go of something you were attached too, and you do that a lot in the first few years.

I lost connection with family and friends because I felt that they were somewhat "negative" and bringing me down. I felt like they were just a distraction, and they don't share the same goals that I have.

Hmm. You're probably right, I'm still 23 years old, I'll see how it is a couple years from now.

Edited May 28, 2019 by 7thLetter

[Rilles]

Spirituality is supposed to be fun. Who is forcing you to cut off being with friends? Every single thing you do is spiritual, even the most low consciousness thing. Be careful to not fall into the New Age trap of saying ”this is spiritual, this is not”

[7thLetter]

23 minutes ago, Shiva said:

So, maybe the issues you are having are primarily related to simply growing up?

And perhaps take it a little bit easier with self-help. Because it's like medicine: it can help you with a particular problem, but too much is actually counter-productive.

@Shiva Yeah, being an adult sucks sometimes.

I definitely listen to a lot of self-help. And funny thing is that, one of my new years resolutions was to slow down on the self-help theory and focus on my finances. I posted a thread that I was supposed to take a break from these forums, now I'm back. But the thing is that, while I was focusing on my financial success, all these issues related to life keep popping up so I keep having these questions.. It's not easy to ignore.

[7thLetter]

@Rilles Hmm, its probably because the friends I were around seemed to be toxic. I probably just need to find higher-quality friends, but I've found that they're quite rare so I haven't been searching.

And get your Mario Bros. 3 avatar out of here, its bringing back good old memories ):

jk

[7thLetter]

@Shiva Interesting, I will definitely try and take this approach to life from now on and compare how I feel now to after taking this approach.

Currently I am focused on my finances and my fitness, but I dropped a lot of the relationships I had, and a lot of the activities I was doing. I'd say my current approach is more 50% focused on fitness and finances, and the other 50% is "spirituality". And by spirituality meaning, meditation, contemplation, minimizing activities, sitting in solitude and in nature.

But what about Leo's video on lifestyle minimalism? He talks about minimizing your lifestyle and "do less". I took that approach and that's exactly what I'm questioning right now, and something that is bringing me some doubts. At the moment I can say that it hasn't brought me a lot of fulfillment or joy, although I can say that it definitely trains me to learn to let go of things.

[Leo Gura]

Everything looks nice in retrospect. Even the shittiest things. Because you conveniently ignore the suffering and egoic restlessness which was present.

Nostalgia is a great trick of the mind.

Also, as a child and teen you didn't have to worry about your survival as much. Which meant you could just BE. Now as an adult you live in the conceptual future all the time, constantly worrying about and strategizing about how to survive. This entire cycle of survival is inherently unfulfilling and disconnects you from BEing.

Be careful not to whitewash how neurotic and unconscious you used to be. How much you used to suffer. It's easy to forget after lots of consciousness work. You literally cannot remember what it was like to be you 10-20 years ago.

[Yahya]

I think maybe this is because your brain tricks you into regretting your past. You have made excellent changes which will be sustainable inthelong run so I think you feel regret because the devil is planting fear and sadness in your heart. 

[CuteCornDog]

I know that my past had bad things in it too but like Leo said, it definitely looks like nice in retrospect.

I trusted people more and was completely unaware of a lot of things. I was happier though and people who remember me from my past think so too.