Failure to Launch

[allislove]

@Raptorsin7

I would suggest starting from scratch. Forget about enlightenment/self-development work. 

Start really-really small. Build one healthy habit. I would suggest fitness activity. Choose any fitness activity, even like for 10-15 minutes and do it consistently every day for at least half a year. One more thing to try: every day as the first thing in the morning write 5 things which you are grateful for in your life. It can be anything, just don't blame anyone and don't use "no" in your sentences. 

E.g. I am grateful that I am not fat [BAD] 
I am grateful that I have a nice body figure [GOOD]

[Nahm]

@Raptorsin7

Life (suffering) is teaching you. You’re not listening, you’re thinking / talking. Always up to you. 

Listen to it, and be the answer to it. Let it help you see who you really are, what you’re really made of. 

Rise to the challenges without expectation. Counterintuitive maybe for now, but you will feel amazing. 

?

[LarryW]

3 hours ago, Raptorsin7 said:

I don't have a job, I've been looking but I've been just dragging my heels. Part shame/embarrassment, part fear that i cant do it, and just a sense of I'm miserable and getting a job won't solve that so whats the point 

I know how being unemployed can sap your energy and enthusiasm over time. Do you have any spare time to take on a little bit of responsibility, nothing major maybe just organising a night out with friends, or helping out an elderly or disabled neighbour with some gardening, shopping or taking the bins out etc? Something where you can help others and be missed if you don't turn up. Where you need to put in some effort and get a bit more involved in other people's lives and build connections and friendships. Little things like that can spread happiness and improve your confidence. Is your social life affected as well?

Edited September 24, 2020 by LarryW

[Mu_]

@Raptorsin7   Just take steps, now, doesnt matter what you feel or think.  You won't want to do it, but you can still run, eat less shitty stuff and lift weights even when you don't feel like it or think you want to.  Just do the action.  If you wait for the feeling or thought to do it, or for that resistant voice to go away before you take action, you could be waiting the rest of your life, sometimes you just gotta act despite all those things.

[communitybuilder]

@ Nahm - Thanks for the response. Appreciate it!

[mandyjw]

@Raptorsin7 You know the cliché rags to riches story everyone loves so much? The whole purpose of improvement is to grow, transform, become and have the pleasure of incrementally doing so. You absolutely fascinate me because while almost everyone here' story follows this rags to riches theme, this is NOT your story, at least outwardly. You were born with privilege. Your actual rags to riches story is the realization that that story doesn't mean shit. I mean, really, it's so overdone, everyone is bored with it. 

What exactly IS your story? How do you want to tell it? Are you still searching for the kind of success you were born with? It'll never fulfill you because you already have it. What DO you want to experience? 

I've had two women mentors who had a HUGE impact on my life when I was a kid. Both were born to rich privileged families and gave that way of living up and moved to the middle of nowhere where the people are poor and uneducated. They were here exploring an aspect of living and giving entirely different from most people's American dream, because to them that was old hat, their parents already achieved it. When my parents couldn't give me the tools I needed to dream a better life for myself, they did. 

Throw away your ideas of success, the ideas of success other people have fed to you with a silver spoon in your mouth. Write your own. 

[Leo Gura]

On 9/23/2020 at 7:37 PM, communitybuilder said:

@Leo Gura How do you take full responsibility for your life if you have no free will? Genuinely confused on this point. 

Just do it.

[DianaFr]

@Raptorsin7

Clean you room! Seriously  Watch this video to find out why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGuow4yRtn8

I would also like to add a few things.  

I really resent my parents for how i turned out Your parents can be blamed for the way you turned out, at least partly. But from this point on you can blame only yourself for choosing to stay the person your parents raised.

My thought process is completely toxic, and my habits are toxic as well  Are they really? Every single thought that comes into your mind is toxic? Is wanting to change a toxic thought? Is wanting to be happy a toxic thought? Your own words… I guess you also have some good and healthy habits, too. You do brush your teeth every day, or drink water, or sleep? My point is – if only you wanted, you could notice how only a fraction of your thought process is toxic and the same goes for habits. That may be a lot still, but it’s probably not true that absolutely everything about your thoughts is toxic. If I’m right, how do you discard the evidence of the opposite?

I take no responsibility for my life, and i'm a perpetual victim as well What do you get out of it? How does it serve you to be a victim?

I know my life's a mess and i want to be happy and functional You’re aiming way too high… Becoming happy and functional from a place you’re at currently would be the same as to ask somebody with broken legs to win a marathon. What if you can never attain this goal? What if no matter how hard you try you can never be happy and functional? If that’s the case, you condemn yourself to live a life of constant failure. If you have broken legs, you don’t think about winning marathons, especially if you have never run one before. You focus on healing your legs, you move on to learning to walk without aid again, you keep on building muscle strength, you get your normal basic walking ability back, then you perhaps decide to go jogging for some 15 mins, maybe it goes well and you make it a daily practice. You find a way to enjoy this process and have gratitude for how far you’ve come. And there may come a day when you decide to take your practice to the next level and develop your skills further. And perhaps one day you enter a marathon, and perhaps you finish it and eventually win. However, the main issue is not about having big goals. The issue is that those big goals make your current self look and feel miserable by comparison. You will become resistant towards that goal and self-sabotage to avoid becoming an even bigger failure. If the goal actually feels attainable, there’s a bigger chance you will achieve it, since why not?

 

[vinc3nc]

@Raptorsin7 If you want to change your life, change the things you do daily. You have 0 discipline right now. You need to build healthy habits - exercise, eating healtier, meditation, reading, practice some skills, learn new things, etc. But the key here is to only start with 1 habit, because if you try to do too much, you won't be able to sustain any of it. Start with 5 min of exercise for example and then try to build on that. After 6 months or 1 year, orhowever long it takes you to make it a habit, start building other habits as well.

You need to make slow changes in your life. Don't rush anything. To fix your life, you need months, and eventually years. Don't try to fix everything in a few days or weeks. Otherwise you'll fall off track because you're not disciplined yet. Discipline is built over months and years, and in the process you need to change as a person. You need to become a new person, a more disciplined version and a more confident version of yourself.

[Raptorsin7]

@LarryW I know the next thing i have to do is to find a job so i get some experience and some semblance of a routine, but there's just this apathy towards life and no real desire to do anything, i basically am responsible for nothing at the moment. As far as my social life, i still talk to my friends sometimes on what's app, and i went to help a friend move today, but over th past few months i've basically become a hermit.

@Mu_ Yeah i've been waiting for a spark for a while now and it's not coming. I yo-yo with habits like that though, i'll eat healthy for a day and the next day i have bad day then i eat junk food for comfort. I mean nothing will change until i change, but at this point it's a question of when and idk if the spirit to improve and get my shit together is any closer to coming. The way i'm going it's going to be another few years of just doing nothing and the hole will just get deeper.

 

[Raptorsin7]

On 9/25/2020 at 3:24 AM, mandyjw said:

You know the cliché rags to riches story everyone loves so much? The whole purpose of improvement is to grow, transform, become and have the pleasure of incrementally doing so. You absolutely fascinate me because while almost everyone here' story follows this rags to riches theme, this is NOT your story, at least outwardly.

I think the rags to riches story is my story though, just minus the drive to be financially secure i guess. The problem, at least from my view, is that i'm an undeveloped ego. SD wise, i have a huge red shadow of personal issues, and i haven't gotten close to mastering blue or orange, combined with the fact that I thought i was going to live a green/yellow/turqoise life you get this shit storm of a life i'm in right now.

The thing is i think i project a story of my life that's somewhat distorted. My parents are hard working and made some money, but i'm just a lazy kid who spends his mom's money. I want to a bruce wayne type person who's incredibly well developed and awesome, and who also happens to well off, but it's just delusional compared to who i am.

On 9/25/2020 at 3:24 AM, mandyjw said:

What exactly IS your story? How do you want to tell it? Are you still searching for the kind of success you were born with? It'll never fulfill you because you already have it. What DO you want to experience? 

I'm not searching for money, but i don't really know what i want tbh. In highschool and the first few years of college i was incredibly motivated to do well and become a somebody. I have low self esteem and i'm insecure so i thought i could earn my way into being a better person with academic achievement. In my mind i always wanted to be a great person, someone who was respectable, talented, effective, succesful etc.

I worshipped movie scenes like these. But now i have no idea what i want or what to do. It was fun at 18 to dream of being a great man, and it was even incredibly inspiring and motivating. But i was anti-social, shy, narcissistic then and i am still that way now. Only it's not so fun at 25 to hold onto these delusions of grandeur.

I guess at a minimum i want to feel good about myself, i want to stop feeling so inferior and insecure, i want to have the weight of my own existence lifted off my shoulders and just relax and feel good. I actually tapped into what i thought was all of the above on a few lsd trips. It's like when the tension in my head is able to be released, and i can just let go of whatever i'm holding onto there, then i become like a difference person. The way the world looked, and how i felt were completely different. 

I wanted to be stage yellow/turqoise in my abilities, character, and achievement, but I can't overcome stage red haha. It looks like i'll be lucky if i can get to blue and find some balance with discipline, work ethic etc. But the high hopes and dreams i had ask a kid seem like a ccrap shoot given how my life is going.

 

 

 

[Nahm]

1 hour ago, Raptorsin7 said:

It's like when the tension in my head is able to be released, and i can just let go of whatever i'm holding onto there, then i become like a difference person. The way the world looked, and how i felt were completely different. 

The difference is that on lsd you’re more being yourself than thinking about “yourself”. None of these things you think about yourself are true, and believing and repeating negative self talk is self defeating, and world shaping...

1 hour ago, Raptorsin7 said:

i'm an undeveloped ego

 

1 hour ago, Raptorsin7 said:

i have a huge red shadow of personal issues

 

1 hour ago, Raptorsin7 said:

you get this shit storm of a life i'm in right now.

 

1 hour ago, Raptorsin7 said:

i'm just a lazy kid

 

1 hour ago, Raptorsin7 said:

. I want to a bruce wayne type person who's incredibly well developed and awesome, and who also happens to well off, but it's just delusional compared to who i am.

On 9/25/2020 at 6:24 AM, mandyjw said:

 

1 hour ago, Raptorsin7 said:

become a somebody.

 

1 hour ago, Raptorsin7 said:

I have low self esteem and i'm insecure

 

1 hour ago, Raptorsin7 said:

being a better person

 

1 hour ago, Raptorsin7 said:

i always wanted to be a great person, someone who was respectable, talented, effective, succesful etc.

 

1 hour ago, Raptorsin7 said:

to dream of being a great man

 

1 hour ago, Raptorsin7 said:

i was anti-social, shy, narcissistic then and i am still that way now

 

1 hour ago, Raptorsin7 said:

i want to stop feeling so inferior and insecure,

At some point you have to begin to notice you’re doing what you’re saying is the problem. If any of these beliefs about yourself resonated with yourself, they would feel wonderful, like you are (you: that which beliefs, thoughts, and perspectives are, or are not, resonating with.) It is difficult, I will admit that, and I am very sorry to be the one to inform you of this, but to feel good, you have to think well of yourself...literally because of the actuality of your awesomeness, the truth which beliefs aren’t resonating with. You simply must know more love. It does not matter what, just love. Momentum builds. You’ll be feeling like your ‘old self’ in no time. 

[DrewNows]

On 9/24/2020 at 0:08 PM, Raptorsin7 said:

 

@DrewNows I checked it out and it was pretty accurate in describing where I'm at. Theres a lot of people in this generation who are struggling with what I'm doing through now, and I have thought big picture if I solve this I'd likely just try and help others with this 

 

Cool man, just don’t misuse the map, really the whole purpose is coming to terms with your situation so there’s less resistance, change happens but you’ll get to choose how it feels. Just like it’s possible to become comfortable with being uncomfortable, it’s possible to be okay with uncertainty, trust yourself, do what you can, become your best friend. Everything perfectly imperfect 

here’s a beautiful short book for guidance if you’re interested, it’s simple yet powerful, transformative indeed 

 

[Member]

The most straightforward answer would be to stop procrastinating and do something. An imaginary world won't fix things in reality. You need to face your fears and stop behaving like a little boy. I would advice you to begin your journey with small steps, don't just throw yourself in the world of lions. A baby needs to eat soft food before growing up, you can't give it large chunks of food that he can't swallow. You could begin by doing simple things such as go to the gym, talk with various people, make friends or anything that helps you get out of your comfort zone. Staying all day at home and playing video games/eating junk food won't fix anything for you in real life.

Btw, your description reminded me about the Peter Pan syndrome

Quote

A Peter Pan if ever there was one. Hopeless at school. Incapable either of competing or co- operating. Envying all the normally successful boys—and, because he envied, hating them and, to make himself feel better, despising them as inferior beings. Then came the time for puberty. But Adolf was sexually backward. Other boys made advances to girls, and the girls responded. Adolf was too shy, too uncertain of his manhood. And all the time incapable of steady work, at home only in the compensatory Other World of his fancy. There, at the very least, he was Michelangelo. Here, unfortunately, he couldn't draw. His only gifts were hatred, low cunning, a set of indefatigable vocal cords and a talent for nonstop talking at the top of his voice from the depths of his Peter-Panic paranoia. Thirty or forty million deaths and heaven knows how many billions of dollars—that was the price the world had to pay for little Adolf's retarded maturation.

[LarryW]

@Raptorsin7  Let's see if I've got this. You have a great deal of insight and understanding of your problems, and of course you want to be happy. But you have this apathy and laziness etc so your lifestyle is hermit-like. You're going for a short-term easy lifestyle of sitting around at home instead of confronting your difficult feelings and entering a long-term plan to achieve your vision of greatness? This reminds me of an addiction, going for a short-term fix of pleasure instead of the delayed gratification of self-development, like when I wanted to give up smoking but always wanted to put off quitting for just one more day of nicotine. There's lots of great advice from people here on what to do, just like I knew all the theory behind my smoking habit. But turning theory into practice makes us confront our feelings, which may seem like inner demons, but feeling your feelings head on is the way to go, rather than avoiding and procrastinating. Laziness is the ego's way of diverting us from feeling the truth. 

[Raptorsin7]

On 9/25/2020 at 7:28 AM, DianaFr said:

You’re aiming way too high… Becoming happy and functional from a place you’re at currently would be the same as to ask somebody with broken legs to win a marathon. What if you can never attain this goal? What if no matter how hard you try you can never be happy and functional?

This is a big thing keep me stuck I think. When i reflect on where i'm at compared to where I thought i would be, and then think of what it takes to move forward it paralyzes me. I just can't accept what's happening, it's like the house is burning down and i'm still hoping it's a bad dream or something. I feel like when my life was going better, i thought i was trying hard to improve myself and i was still discontent, now i'm completely miserable and my life's falling apart and so i feel like improvement is hopeless and pointless. 

I'm developmentally retarded, I was always kinda off growing up, like i wrote weird, i walked weird, i had trouble tying my shoes etc, but I thought i could overcome it, specifically with academic success. I felt like my entire life i was trying to prove myself and make up for some deficits. I had trouble overcoming it when things were somewhat normal, the thought of trying to get it together now with all that has happened is just fucked. My mind has just checked out, i give up at the first thought of trying to confront this task ahead of me. 

[Raptorsin7]

@LarryW Yeah you got it. I'm aware of this stuff, but i'm lazy and don't listen to advice. Or if i do i listen, i fall off the wagon after a few days or weeks. The longer this goes the further i'm descending into madness and it's kinda fucked being aware of this happening, and just being apathetic and unwilling to do anything about it. 

I just feel like a complete loser, and this is what i spent so many years studying and working to avoid. I did it to myself too, i can see now how at every turn in my life i took the easy road, i have poor character and it was there every step of the way of my life. 

I wish i could be content just living a normal life and making progress from where i'm at. All my problems here are self imposed by the mind, my material conditions are fine. But part of me things my developmental and personality issues are not going to get better, and i just can't accept myself and where i'm at. 

I've been going round and round for months now, i reach out for help like this thread but i don't do anything to resolve the problem. This whole thing is just fucked, I wish i could just reset life and just be done with this nightmare, but it's just more fantasy thinking.

[Nahm]

@Raptorsin7

I’m really seriously curious...do you realize that if I focused on those thoughts about myself, that I would feel exactly like you do when you do?

Sometimes I wonder if maybe you’re repeating the story of you so much that you miss we are all the same in this regard. 

To actually check this, sound weird, but, you could literally say those things to someone else about them, ‘to their face’, and notice how they feel. 

[Raptorsin7]

15 hours ago, Nahm said:

I’m really seriously curious...do you realize that if I focused on those thoughts about myself, that I would feel exactly like you do when you do?

Yeah i can see how toxic my thinking is, i'm harsh, and i focus on all the negative things going on in my life. But to me it seems like it's an accurate reflection of my reality. Also, i don't know how to change it. Like i can "I love you" as a thought, but i don't FEEL the love when i say it. I don't know if i'm just too disconnected from my feelings to feel the subtly or what.

There are times when it seems like i'm not thinking anything, but still i don't feel good. Also, if the focusing on negative thoughts is producing the suffering, how come positive thoughts don't produce good feeling. 

15 hours ago, Nahm said:

Sometimes I wonder if maybe you’re repeating the story of you so much that you miss we are all the same in this regard. 

To actually check this, sound weird, but, you could literally say those things to someone else about them, ‘to their face’, and notice how they feel. 

I am definitely caught up repeating the same old narrative, focusing on all the shit wrong with my life. But it's just automatic at this point, it's like i'm in a hellscape. You always said thoughts arise one a time, but for me no positive thoughts are arising. And if something feels better, like a song or something it doesn't last and eventually it doesn't feel good anymore. 

Do you really think all of this is just the thoughts i'm focusing on. Like being a man child, that's not just focusing on the thoughts i have so much evidence in my reality.

[Arcangelo]

On 9/23/2020 at 0:01 AM, electroBeam said:

there's no bible that says "if I work at mcdonalds I'm a failure!"

True.

 

I had never seen Leo post at this subsection. I thought it was his vow to never ever post here. Things change.

You can change too Rap!

 

I work at McDonald's and I am a success!

 

Arc