Upgrading To The Maximum Level In Life

[JKG]

Beautiful.

[Extreme Z7]

@quantum LOL, I actually wanted it to be disturbing. Looks like I need more practice.

[Extreme Z7]

<10-07-2016>
Pretty Satisfying Break
 

Today wasn't very intense stress-wise. I learned to keep my day relatively simple and in flow rather than chaotic. I've made good progress in my indie game for the past few days and I think I deserve a good break from it. I could use more time to study and work on college projects instead. On another note, I also want to focus more on making music for the game for a while. I've been working on level design for almost the entire game's production so far and it's been over almost a year.

I've been meditating pretty comfortably over the past month. Nothing too intense or focused. Instead, I have a more sleep-like trance in meditation because I deliberately try to keep my body as relaxed as possible. I may go back to doing more harsh and hardcore meditation but this is what works for me right now and I'm not prepared to take on more difficult meditation challenges what with all the stresses I'm currently experiencing in my daily routine.

I've been building a pretty good learning habit over the past months too. Been very interested in reading books and watching documentaries. There is so much information that big chunk doesn't sink in but overall it's expanding my view of life inches by inches.

Lastly my drawing habit has, well. . . improved. I'm still not fully confident in my drawing skills but my inch my way out of this rut. Below are some doodles I made in my sketchbook today. You be the judge.

[JKG]

On 6.10.2016 at 4:30 PM, Extreme Z7 said:

@quantum LOL, I actually wanted it to be disturbing. Looks like I need more practice.

I have meant that it's beautiful because looking at this picture brings me more in touch with my true being.

[Extreme Z7]

@quantum Well, I don't know what you see in it but I do find your reaction to be beautiful on its own.

[Extreme Z7]

<10-08-2016>
Straying From The Common Path Of Society
 

I argued with person who is not interested in personal development today. I am currently a very isolated person so this interaction was obviously online. I will not reveal the identity of this person for obvious reasons. But long story short, I've argued with this same person before in a completely different forum and it's usually when I went and posted personal development material that he/she disagrees with and gets offended by. I don't want to give too much detail but today I came to the agreement not only with him/her but also with myself (my ego) to never ever even bother him again, it's not worth it. Based on the stuff I've learned so far on this actualization journey and also the psychological transformations I've experienced, I arrived with the perception that this guy/gal is extremely delusional. The reason for this is when he/she described his/her life and why he/she shouldn't bother to even consider the self-improvement material I presented, he/she basically described one of the most average run-of-the-mill life I've ever read from someone and all the justifications he/she had to how this life is actually great and how he/she has true knowledge of reality were all just plain stupid. This person kept denying his/her closed-mindedness even when the emotions that filled their words made it blatantly obvious that he/she does not know the first thing about open-mindedness. This person also never hesitated to label me as a troll or a bully repeatedly even though my intentions were never anywhere near provoking another person, it was just pure psychological projection. This person kept referring to other people for justification for his/her behavior as if that will somehow solve the issue of his/her neurosis. And finally, this person held anti-spiritual dogma and held strong opinions against spirituality, what he/she doesn't realize that he/she's basically criticizing the very thing that would save him from his/her miserable lifestyle.

But that's not the important part, instead what I actually want to remember from the experience was when the argument was over and I swore never to engage with this person again. I felt some emotional baggage lift from my mind and I got a realization that the entire argument was just a distraction and nothing of what was said to each other actually mattered regardless of how true we thought it was. In fact, during the entire argument, I kept a mindset that the person I'm talking to is not the enemy, I'm the enemy. Heck, even me writing about this right now is still ego. It's still ego distracting myself from the deep and difficult work that is necessary to grow one's psyche. If I remember the lesson from Leo's video "Exploiting Others For Personal Growth" video correctly, then I can use this experience as a guide on what actions and behaviors I should avoid so I don't end up like this person. The default paths in modern society don't seem very favorable to me so its important for me to recognize deeply the actions and behaviors a certain individual has who has ended up with a mediocre path in life.

What I learned:
There are ignorant people out there who are desperately trying to prevent themselves from examining themselves deeply and will fight anyone and anything that threatens their current perception of reality. These people are generally unaware of this and constantly deny that they are these things. These people should be avoided at all costs. Any engagement with them is a distraction. If you're a passionate personal development junkie then revealing to them their mistakes can be very tempting because their mistakes are very obvious. But these people are better off being left to see for themselves the hole they have dug for themselves and never seeing the psychological traps they have unwittingly fallen into. Nobody can ever escape their own psychology. Like Leo once said, if you try to go against reality, you always lose. It's only a matter of time.

[Extreme Z7]

<10-09-2016>
Accepting My Flaws + A Model For An Artist's Main Values
 

Today was all about trying to accept all my imperfections and seeing in a conscious level how I create all sorts of fake narratives as to how I am and how the stuff I create is. I've been using a lot of my free time lately to chase learning. I've seen some magnificent life-changing content just over the past week and I've seen more improvement in myself in a shorter span of time than I usually do. It's making me realize that I can never be happy by staying in any specific level of growth and that growth itself is where the satisfaction lies. And so if one ever wants satisfaction on a daily basis, they just have to keep learning daily and with relatively higher quality material than what is commonly provided. If one can have this mindset, one can have great power over their level of self-acceptance. But hey, that's just a theory.

Speaking of theories, I've also developed a model for how an artist finds joy in their work which can be used to help focus their attention on the areas of the work that brings them the most joy. Basically, in my model there are 5 main values and generally speaking, you should find joy in at least one of these values. Not all 5 values should necessarily be fulfilled and focused on and not all artists are able to recognize which values will actually bring them the most joy and this can lead them to trouble especially when they work so hard to achieve a value that doesn't even make them happy. So an artist's goal is to be able to pinpoint the values that fulfills their particular individuality for greater satisfaction with their work,

So what are the 5 values in this model? Well, here they are: (And remember, I could change aspects of this model in the future)

• Originality - The ability to create based on one's authentic self.
• Creativity - The desire to explore 'uncharted territory'.
• Skill - A pursuing of gradual mastery.
• Playfulness - An inherent enjoyment of creating the art itself.
• Community - A willingness to use art to bond with other people.

What I found in myself, based on this model, is that I've been pursuing Skill for quite some time and it never actually gave me that much joy. I actually end up feeling more negative emotions whenever my goal is to try to impress people with the quality of my art especially with the knowledge that there so many artists out there who are way better than me. Now, this does not mean I will no longer try to improve my skills, I still do but I don't want it to be my main focus anymore. My main focus should have been Playfulness! I feel much better about my art habit whenever I just focus on the creative process itself and not get caught up about being worrying about making mistakes. Secondary for me is probably Community, I love to share my artwork with other people but I still have a problem with shyness and insecurity that's holding me back slightly from pursuing this value.

When I think about it again. You can also place numbered ranks unto the values to see which value should take more significance over others. So mine will be:

1. Playfulness
2. Community
3. Creativity
4. Originality
5. Skill

The overall assessment of one's values using this model varies from artist to artist. I believe that artists who are not able to recognize their own personal hierarchy of values and views them as all equal are more likely to encounter difficulties and motivation problems involving their work. Note that this is only a model I alone created, I have no idea how this model would fare in the real world and among artistic communities but I found that it definitely worked for me so why not give it a shot if you're also a creative type?
 
That's it for today. I'm going to bed because it's almost 10pm. Nighty night. . . .

[Extreme Z7]

<10-10-2016>
So Focused That I Tire Myself Out

I worked on every single habit I've currently gotten installed today and I feel neutral. Not particularly bad, not particularly good, just balanced. My meditation sessions are starting to have more and more of a feeling of "merging" with my direct experience. It feels like I'm slowly losing a physical body that needs to feel a certain way. It still feels things though, now it feels tired and I need to sleep.

[Extreme Z7]

<10-11-2016>
I Think I Need To Sleep More
 

I've been noticing a decrease in my level of energy and focus during the day for the past couple days. I think it's because I've been sleeping late consistently for about a week. Should be a pretty easy thing to offset and fix. I sure hope that is the problem, though. I'll get back to it in the future.

That's all I want to talk about for today. I want to talk more about my drawing habit but I'm so damn sleepy.

[Extreme Z7]

<10-12-2016>

College Getting Tense, I've Been Here Before. . .
 

I've just realized that it's already the middle of my current college semester. I'm experiencing stress and a workload that's all too familiar with me. I've been here before, I can handle it and it's not going to last forever. I have a much clearer mind than I used to and I've also learned to reject a lot of ideas that pop into my head to do this and do that to make sure I don't compromise whatever tasks I've accepted now.

Every habit I have is going pretty smoothly. The more I do them, the more they feel smoother and more effortless. I don't expend as much brainpower as I used to in drawing, I just kind of do it now especially with simple wacky cartoons. My meditation habit is less about struggle and more about. .  well. . . just doing it. My game work feels pretty much the same but I've learned to control work in my indie game project so I don't obsess over the tiniest things too much. If there's any habit at all that I'm still working to remain consistent, it's a reading habit. I'm still stuck reading Robert Greene's "33 Strategies of War" but I'm also done with it.

If I can persist and remain good consistency on what I'm doing, I'll be fine. I still need to broaden my horizons, though, and keep looking for stuff outside what I presently know that could help me. It's by doing that that I discovered Actualized.org, and I haven't stopped doing it since. (That's actually only partially true, I actually feel too lazy to seek out new material most of the time. But hey, it's better than remaining perfectly rigid and self-protective.)

[Extreme Z7]

<10-13-2016>

Sadhguru
 

I re-listened to Leo's "Lifestyle Minimalism" episode on mp3 today. I haven't listened to the episode in a long time and I thought it was appropriate considering that my schedule is getting pretty cramped up again. It's middle of the school semester and I'm going to need all the peace of mind I can get.

On the flipside, I've been into watching and listening to various Sadhguru videos for the past 3 days. They have a lot of really profound wisdom some of which I think even topped some of Leo's advice especially when it comes to peace of mind. I remember months ago I was thinking about peace of mind and just great my life would be if I had it. Now I seem to be developing one and I've found that it's not an end in itself. Peace of mind only makes it easier to handle the challenges of life but it does not mean one has reached the highest point in life at all. It was pretty much explained clearly in one of Sadhguru's very profound videos.
 

I would recommend to anyone who follows spirituality to spend time listening to Sadhguru's teachings because he's so direct in his approach in regards to living life. He also talks about a wide variety of significant issues in modern society like the education system and the scientific enterprise in very deep and insightful ways. It's a joy listening to him whether directly or as I'm doing some work. There is a ton of content on YouTube involving him so he shouldn't be hard to look for.

[Extreme Z7]

<10-14-2016>
Loving Life Despite The Hardship
 

Entering this personal development journey has since given me the biggest struggle I've ever had in my life. No other time have I ever felt this challenged and pressured and at the same time been given stakes so high that everything else just feels like distraction. There so much to love and value and life and so far, being in this path seems to be the best way I know to nurture and value them.

Today I took a Math test that I've been studying about a week for and to my dismay, I still was not prepared for the majority of the questions that came up. I felt really shitty afterward and I still feel a little bit of it as I write this because I was really looking forward to acing this test yet I feel it's likely that I failed. But then I remembered Leo's "You're Not Happy Because You Don't Want To Be" video and it's main lesson, you keep giving yourself arbitrary rules for happiness and it makes you miserable. Remembering that instantly made me more conscious of my situation and removed a huge chunk of my negative emotions but some feelings of disappointment still remain.

It doesn't matter, though, this will just be another temporary passing in experience and if there's anything I should be keeping permanent, it's my vision and intuition for what's possible in life and also what's already to love in the present moment regardless of all the suffering. I want to keep going, I have no choice. Like I said, the stakes are too high.

_________

On an additional note, Leo Gura temporarily changed his forum signature for a while and it's seems I got lucky enough to notice it! He basically posted a pdf to an enlightenment book he was reading. Here it is: http://www.mediafire.com/file/8ido49ms5k0j3b5/Empty-Cloud_The_Autobiography_of_Xu_Yun.pdf

I wonder why it was only temporarily up? Maybe because he posted a link to a pdf format of a hardcopy book. LOL I hope he doesn't notice.

[Extreme Z7]

<10-15-2016>
Overworking Myself
 

Out of all the problems I've encountered through personal development, I've come to realize that the one I'm struggling with the most is overworking myself to the point where I'm almost constantly agitated and stressed out. It sometimes gets to the point where I deny myself fun or even relaxation just to get some work done. I'm not even getting paid for anything at the moment. It's just hobbies that I want to do and coursework that I need to do to convince my parents that I can continue to stay in their house until I graduate and get a job. I think that's one of the reasons why I've continued to do this to myself for months. It's because I have this idea that I'll be able to finish a lot of the work and THEN I can slow down and take a rest and be mindful of the situation. My meditation and mindfulness habit has given me the power to have moments of calmness and being in the present moment despite my hectic situation. But they're not perfect strategies. I gotta remain mindful, keep calm, and keep going. I've learned to say NO to a lot of unnecessary activities that I used to just take in only to realize that they're a waste of time. I think that if I can keep that up and keep being strategic then the future is going to have a lot more space and time just to be peaceful in existing.

Edited October 15, 2016 by Extreme Z7

[Extreme Z7]

<10-16-2016>
My Problem With Academics
 

I just finished reading Robert Greene's book 'The 33 Strategies of War' yesterday (I forgot to mention that) and with the book finished, I had more time to allocate to something else and the most obvious choice was to replace it with a study habit in relation to my college course. Much to my dismay, though, I found that it was very difficult for me to do because I generally don't like doing academic work. I don't actually enjoy being college or anything academics-related. I don't know why but the things the academic system teaches and the way they teach them bores me a lot. Ever since I've developed a habit of learning through books and the internet, it has stopped making sense to me how academic activities could possible be beneficial to my life. I keep being told that that's what I need in order to get a job and earn a living but I've learned that that's complete hogwash. People care about the results your skills can produce, not about what system of education that you grew up in. There are things to learn from academic life, of course, but it's always going to be far more effective if you take your education into your own hands and what with all the information that is available nowadays through books, seminars, and the internet, you can practically learn anything. So what's still the point of having the traditional system of education we have now? It may have made sense a few hundred years ago but it certainly doesn't make sense today. Heck, I've learned more about life meditating in a quiet room than I have in a campus where they supposedly teach you everything there is to know about life but that's another story.

And don't get me started about grades.

Too ranty? Here's some pixel art I drew today. Triple Simley Face! ()

[Extreme Z7]

<10-17-2016>
Short Entry
 

I did everything I wanted to do today. Procrastinated and wasted time a bit but it's all normal. Nothing more to say.

[Extreme Z7]

<10-18-2016>
Distinguishing Success From Happiness
 

I've gotten very good at maintaining habits to pursue success but I'm still pretty clueless to actually feeling fulfilled. I don't think it's because I'm doing anything wrong, It's just that some things take a very long time and being able to distinguish success from happiness is a very recent thing for me. When I started doing personal development, I didn't make the distinction and so I have a lot of things that I wanted last year but they still haven't made me happy. I still have some distracting worries in my life which I'm still trying to be mindful with so I don't get lost in them but I hope I'm able to get big progress in my level of fulfillment and satisfaction as soon as next year, perhaps.

[Extreme Z7]

<10-20-2016>
Fear, Frustration, and Fun
 

I absolutely pushed my schedule and energy today past my normal daily average today. It's not something that makes me feel good. It's emotionally grueling and I'm still asking myself if it's worth it. I still want to hold on to hope that all this work is going to lead to a far more fulfilling future but right now, it's still work 'til I can work no more, then ponder how I'm going to do much of the same tomorrow. Part of the reason why I work so hard is because of fear. I have not so much a fear of failure as I do a fear of losing (things). I keep imagining in my head all the negative stuff that's going to happen if I don't work hard and that I may even lose a lot of the cherished things I have today. On the flipside, I do have some degree of positive motivation but it's something I have not spent a good amount of time cultivating.

I'm still ultimately frustrated day-by-day given the amount of emotional labor I put in. Part of the problem is that I have too many duties and obligations right now that my efforts are basically spread thin among the different workloads. I can't just drop them, though. I need to strategically complete each of them while simultaneously making sure that I don't blindly accept any new duties or ideas without first assessing how this will affect my work. (This is something my 2015 self did not know)

And of course, I find myself slowly moving away from "fun" activities because of this. I actually find this to be very beneficial to my level of productivity but detrimental to my level of happiness. I find that I'm going too far in the former so I better stop and relax to re-balance the scales. I'll be doing "fun" activities after finishing this journal entry. I don't know. . . play a video game. .  watch a show. . . anything. It's the easiest thing in the world for me anyway.

That's all for today. 'Til next time.

[Extreme Z7]

<10-22-2016>
Best (or Worst) Strong Determination Sit I've Ever Had

The highlight for my day today was that I decided to do another Strong Determination Sitting session. I've been hanging around this forum for a while and I came across people talking about strong determination sits. After the stuff I read, I decided to give it a try again. I've been doing really comfortable meditation sessions for the past few weeks and I really think it was time for something different. I set my timer for one hour.

The sit started and I decided to let my mind loose and suddenly, a wave of random thoughts emerged. It was a rapid stream of noise and it felt like madness. After a few minutes it dies down and I spaced out for a while before things actually started to feel peaceful. It felt weird because I don't expect any pleasant feeling from SDS but surely enough, it eventually vanished and things started getting uncomfortable. At first it was bearable and my thoughts came back to its original monkey-mind state. The more time passed, the more uncomfortable the sit became and the more I wished my timer to go off at any moment. I had a bunch of salive stored up in my mouth because I didn't want to spit or swallow it. Eventually, I felt so uncomfortable in my current position that it was all I could think about and I just let my spit drool down onto my lap. Things started to feel like hell, the most difficult part was trying to deal with the urges and temptations to give up.

As I sat, my most effective weapon against the pain was to constantly remind myself that I am not my body. ("I am not my body", "I am empty awareness", "I am not my body", "I am empty awareness"). I definitely think it helped. As a matter of fact, I gained a new perspective on SDS and that it can be seen as a practice to get closer to a state of consciousness where you are not your body. I needed to constantly remind myself of this, though. When I wasn't, it felt like hell. A couple of strong urges came up, telling me to give up. Each one I ignored by doing the previously mentioned technique.

In the end, I won. I couldn't believe how great I felt when I heard my timer ring which meant I had successfully pulled off a 60 min. SDS. 60 minutes of sitting down without re-positioning myself. This was by far the most intense and difficult meditation session I've ever had so far. The session felt so powerful that all I could think of doing afterwards was to lay down on a comfy couch for another 5 minutes. I started to think about the worries I've been having for the past months and I felt like some of them became far too petty for me to worry about. In other words, I quickly solved some problems that have been plaguing me for months by doing a practice that lasted only one hour. I'm absolutely curious to how my life would change if I do this for an entire week. I'm up for that challenge. I hope that I'll make it through. If you're still reading up to this point. Please wish me luck!

[Extreme Z7]

<10-23-2016>
Suffering The Consequences of Overconfidence (and Leo's Intuition Video)
 

Perhaps yesterday's experience (see post above) made me overconfident. I wasn't even able to last 10 minutes in SDS today without moving. Even when I didn't fully expect that I would be able to it again, I didn't think I'd barely even get close. Oh well, lesson learned. I'll still try to do 1 hour SDS per day until Friday, though. I don't need to, or even want to. But I'm curious to how it will be like.

Leo's newest video was quite profound and it gave me a lot of reflection as to my past actions in personal development and a more broad perspective on my future life decisions. There's too much detail for me to talk about so I'll not talk too much about it. All I'll say is, many months ago, I was struggling on figuring out what my life purpose is. After so much trial and error, I find my intuition attracting me to the realm of cartoons and perhaps even animation. My drawing habit has become my most cherished creative hobby which is surprising to me because when I first started personal development, I thought I would either pursue game development or music production as a main creative field and everything else, including drawing, would just be side-hobbies. I've experienced far more passion for drawing than I have any other hobby recently. Here are some recent comic strips I drew for mine and other people's enjoyment.

On a final note, I downloaded and printed out Leo's worksheet and even the worksheet of last week's episode. I'm not sure yet as to how it will help me but it's worth trying out.

[Extreme Z7]

<10-24-2016>
Following My Intuition
 

I'm not in the mood to write a very lengthy entry today. I'm just feeling lazy that's all. Anyway, Leo's last episode "How to Harness Your Intuition" is still burned into my subconscious and I've been reflecting a lot on how it's helped me and how it's going to help me in the future. That's all I want to talk about really. I'm very tired, I made a drawing that took me 6 hours today which is more time than I usually spend. Here it is below: