What is your problem?

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   E. Anonymousposted 14 years ago

   When you read the topic, did you imagine an angry person?  That might be your problem.  I am here to answer the really tough questions.  Paper or plastic?  Flowers or candy?  Fish or chicken?
   
        Seriously.  The topic caught your eye because there's something bothering you.  Let's start a discussion without rules or boundaries.  Let's find out what people really believe and where they place their true faith.  Do you trust your car to start in the morning?  Why is it harder to believe that you're healthy than to believe your battery didn't die last night?
   
        I'm not a doctor, a priest, or a lawyer.  I'm just a regular person who's put myself through hell, and come out smiling, for now anyway!
   
        Take a chance!  Ask a question!  Maybe you'll like the answer.  Maybe you'll have a different question.  I'm not interested in talking about how smart I am, or my troubles and triumphs.  I want this HUB to be about YOU!
   
        Take a deep breath, and let's get to it!
   
   --E.

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      Home Girlposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      What's your problem?

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   E. Anonymousposted 14 years ago

   Home Girl,
        It is actually impossible to have a problem if one is dwelling entirely in the present moment.  That's pretty pie-in-the-sky, but it's spiritually accurate.
   
        I struggle with false pride, the fear that I'm above or below others, and the fear that any of my shortcomings might be discovered and exploited.  I deal with that fear by being honest at every reasonable opportunity.
   
        I don't really like thinking of myself as human.  That may seem strange, but really most people don't want to be thought of the way they view the majority of humanity.  So I'm special because I'm aware that I'm not unique.  Well, perhaps a unique collection of very ordinary parts.
   
        I'll get into doing something mildly productive and take it to extremes.  I got warned by facebook that I was adding friends too fast.  Which is funny, because they were still feeding me suggestions of who I might know.
   
       The nice thing is, if I can let all of that go, I don't exist as the entity which imagines or experiences problems.  That's a nice feeling.  It's not something one learns, but something that one remembers.  The feeling of being okay, safe, content.  I just have to trade the endless stream of imaginary problems for the stillness and silence deep within and afar without.
   
      You only asked what my problem was.  I guess I don't know what I ought to do with my life in the future.  I have no great sense of direction or purpose.  I am given to bouts of depression and negativity.  However, as I've said.  It would seem that all of that is a choice.  Sanity and serenity seem to be the opposite of everything intellectual.
   
        But I still enjoy over-analyzing pretty much everything.
   
   Thanks For Asking.
   
   E.A.

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3. 62

   slock62posted 14 years ago

   If we what to create change in our lives, the change we desire must be the most important thing in our lives.
   
   The life we are living is the life we have chosen.

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      E. Anonymousposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I don't disagree.  But I'm going to pretend for a moment that I do.  You are speaking from a transcendent viewpoint that most people are not awakened enough to grasp; or even begin to make practical use of.
      
      I spoke in a county jail facility the other day.  I was not in a particularly motivational mood, so I simply spoke honestly.  I can't imagine what horrific state of egoic pride would be required for me to stand in front of 200 prisoners and tell them, "Congratulations!  You are living the life you chose!"  They needed the truth from a slightly different perspective.
      
      The question, which throws a wrench into the works is, "When exactly did you choose the life that you are living?"  Do you believe that you chose to be born into the situation that you were?  Have you been acting and actively choosing each moment since birth consciously?  Most people have a great deal of trouble with that particular brand of logic.  What if I've been the victim of some horrific crime?  Are you truly ready to accept the consequential wrath of a rape victim or a molested child when you tell them that they chose for the crime to happen?
      
      I find it's a bit easier to start with "everything happens for a reason."  We must remember that there were times in our lives when it would not have been advantageous to hear that we "made our own bed."
      
      Now, if we assume that synchronicity is functioning perfectly, we'll only encounter people who are at our same level of development and are ready to hear whatever we are currently learning and experiencing.  Certainly if we go around announcing that victims and the poor are choosing their own lives, we will become very popular with the rich and conceited.  For many people who have read "The Power Of Now," or learned the truth in similar terms, their great desire IS to be accepted and popular among the rich and conceited.
      
      The choices we make consciously CAN create our reality.  However, most of us are mostly unconscious, most of the time. We are also subject to consensus reality.  Unless you believe we each have our own universe.  What a lonely philosophy that is!  If we are conscious, surrendered, and accepting of only positive. . .oops, positive from any perspective a human being is capable of is an egoic judgement.
      
      We ought to all write "Desire change" at the top of our to do list?  At least we'll be desiring something that's happening anyway.  The question is, will we ever get it done?  How do we measure our desire, except to judge the results?  From what perspective should we imagine such change?  The "me" of right now cannot fathom being "me" yesterday.  The "me"s will keep trying to compare the past to an imaginary future, with ever increasing insanity.
      
      See, I was looking for problems.  You stated solutions.  Ask a question, you'll get answers.  Make a statement, you invite questions.  Your choice, your chosen outcome, according too you.  There are many problems with so-called positive thinking, thinking we have a desire to change.  Buddha would have quite a bit to say about your suggestion that any desire should be "the most important thing in our lives."
      
      Thanks for your post.
      E.A.

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4. 73

   FuzzyCookieposted 14 years ago

   My first impression after reading the thread title was, that you wanted to know what sorta problems people were having in their lives.. sorta thing..
   cheers!

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5. 73

   FuzzyCookieposted 14 years ago

   "guess I don't know what I ought to do with my life in the future.  I have no great sense of direction or purpose.  I am given to bouts of depression and negativity. "
   
   
   -- Ditto

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      E. Anonymousposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Here's something that works for me when I find myself in negativity.  I just go straight to "certain death."  My brain loves to fight with itself.  So I've put that to positive use.
      
      I just say, "Well, this is definitely going to kill you."  Doesn't matter what the problem is, or why I'm feeling uneasy.  I just try to accept that the situation is going to definitely cause my death.  Even now, as you're reading this, it's working!  You're saying, "No, that's not right!  I can't be thinking that everything is going to kill me!"  That's the point of the exercise!  To watch the same brain that was causing you so much trouble start coming up with excuses to live!
      
      Positive thinking is great in theory, and in practice.  Part of the point of this topic is to find out what is bothering people.  To define our negatives and take a good look at them.  The positive doesn't exist without the negative, at least in our 'realistic' minds.  We are intellectually incapable of imagining any universe that is not statistically balanced.  So, perhaps selfishly, I'm looking for negatives.  I know that my mind will revolt against whatever it's presented with, so I give it worst-case scenarios and watch the magic happen!!
      
      Thanks for your post.
      
      E.A.

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      1. 49

         smashclockposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Some time ago, my niece took horseback riding lessons.  My sister told me that when a rider is seated on a horse, the animal must be given direction at all times by the rider or else the horse will simply wander off in any direction according to its impulse.
         
         Our minds are like that.
         
         The problem for most people is that our minds tend to go to negative places--the mucky, fetid swamps of worry, fear, anxiety, self-judgment, and passivity. In the real world, on the other hand, a horse is more likely to look for a "greener pasture"--a pleasant place where there is shade, water or grass for munching and a wide, open space for galloping.
         
         The horse is a sensible and more content creature. 
         
         You mentioned you enjoyed "over-analyzing" pretty much everything.  There are those of us (the thinkers) who do enjoy that.  My life partner is more of a "doer" and less of a "thinker".  Yes, that creates some "contrast"!!!  I read your choice of words as saying that you analyze things too much.  So this sounds like a problem to me.  The reason I say that is because for me, over-analyzing can be a problem when it serves as an escape from "doing" those things that might serve me better; i.e., taking care of life business, such as getting my ass to the gym, calling on that fraudulent credit card charge, getting my clothes ready for a trip to Europe, etc.
         
         So my further problem is that sometimes I spend my time philosophizing and questioning and expressing and thinking and reading all kinds of interesting things on the Internet when I actually need to close the laptop and get on with life.
         
         Busy hands keep the mind in greener pastures.
         
         Or:  "One cannot know the self by thinking, only by doing."  (Actual experience.)  Someone famous said that--memory escapes me at the moment.
         
         Thinking is useful for solving real problems, not imagined ones--the ones created by our mental horses who have no rider guiding them.
         
         Very few people "know" what direction to take in life.  In that case, I agree with the Law of Attraction idea--go with what feels good, or at least better.  Sometimes that is simply the relief that comes with doing those practical "reality" tasks that need doing in the present moment.
         
         "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might."  That's my paraphrase from the New Testament.
         
         I remember my grandmother sinking into her favorite chair after a busy day with some big task completed, saying with satisfaction, "Well, that was a good job done."  Then she would have a cigarette or three and watch Johnny Carson.  Not surprisingly, she was a person who was usually in a good mood.
         
         We don't always create our circumstances, but we do create our life, in the sense that how we feel about our life and the story we tell about it create the frame around it.  Even a small, dark, minor work of art can be given more dignity, beauty and importance if it's put in the correct frame.
         
         Put a nice frame on the subjects in your life, hang them in a beautiful museum and get busy creating more works of art.
         
         May they please you!
         
         Smashclock

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