Your stumbling blocks

If I may,
Character is somthing that situation has no control over.
Real life application.
Have ready have in place have set your ... If this happens or if this happens agains ... Have your response ready. Take some time to do it. Think it out and say ... Maybe this is how I wanna act next time . Make a choice and insert it next time it arrives.
Already know how your going to conduct your self. My character states you will be treated as valid as I am and you recieve all that comes with that. That's my choice. You can make difrent ones , lol even change them.
This is one of a gazillion ways to do the same thing. Try this one? Be well and we learn as we live. We do. Don't forget.
May the Force we share find you where you seek it .

My biggest blocks are the character blocks I have to break . The things I found harmful and toxic. For the sake of forwarding my own self I must forget and remove a few ... To listen more is harder to practice that I thought . It's , to me , frustrating . To break that years and years of not listening ... Into the oposite .... To change that character trait is grueling ! Possible but difficult and AND taxing!!!

My "Stumbling block"(As I understand it) is that I cannot help but lie in a lot of situations. for example.. if somebody is being distant while I'm talking to them, or doesn't seem interested in talking to me, I will get very nervous that I've done something wrong or that offended/bored them, and I'll lie to make myself seem more interesting. Or I'll even greatly enhance the truth in situations where it makes no sense to. for example, over the weekend I fell down the stairs and was knocked unconscious when I hit my head off a radiator at the bottom and had to go to hospital as I was bleeding a lot, however when telling a friend about it I for some reason lied about it, saying I broke my foot too, which does nothing to benefit me, I think I just sub consciously tried to make the situation more intense. It used to be a lot worse, now it's just small things, and when I do lie I tend to tell the person straight away that I lied and apologize. But it's still a problem, and it still affects my day to day life. and has ruined multiple friendships in the past

MadHatter wrote: A lesson that I learned when I was exactly the same way was that if you are always being confronted you might be confrontational. Its something I struggle with myself but I've gotten a lot better at it by just backing away more often than not.

I have thought about your words and I see that you have a good point. I'll work on it. I don't want to be confrontational and I know better than anyone how judgmental and arrogant I can be. I have so much to learn and much more growing to do. I thank you for your wisdom. I will do better.

My biggest stumbling block is that I try to please too many people. I try to please people in general and that lead to some interesting conflicts, and some interesting sides and conflicts. I try too hard almost to be too empathetic to all sides, which is I suppose admirable, but exhausting. And it makes taking a stand, a final stand on a subject, or a conflict very difficult. And it makes any action difficult

My biggest stumbling block is being such an introvert.

I struggle to make conversation offline and online. Many introverts are able to socialize more form behind the keyboard/phone, feeling a little safer from the obscurity of not being in the physical. I am not one of those people. I struggle to chit chat, banter, get to know you, general social talks.

I will step up and say things that I feel need to be said, but usually I will observe and wait for someone else to say it. With my reflections on it, I find it is not a place of insecurity that this introversion comes from, but more of a physical and mental draining that results from any social interactions.

For example, here at TOTJO, I read every single post, but rarely ever post. Especially the huge topics, because by the time I am to the end, when I had planned to say something, I am so drained from the topic. I log off.

I have gotten much better, I am posting here, lol. But it is a huge stumbling block that I struggle with.

My biggest stumbling block is my lack of discipline. Between life and my own shortcomings I've put off a lot of things I've wanted to the do, completing the Jedi IP among them. But other life choices and habits I just haven't been able to break. I say I want to change but I rarely do and that makes me sad.

Another block is just my own timidness. I used to be vocal with my opinion but a few years ago I just shrank, now I'm more private with my opinions but with so many people shouting their opinions I'd like to say something too but with today's political climate I'm more likely to be vilified rather then understood.

gone are the days when you could have a friend different then you and have the sense to still think them a good person. I think facebook ruined that.

Thank you for the topic, Dan ... I admire the courage of everyone who has taken part in it (and of those who will later). It indeed does take a act of bravery to open oneself up vulnerably - even just a little - to talk about one's 'stumbling blocks'.

I won't address any of them here, but if anyone wants to talk to me about their various hurdles- or anything else - I'm a pretty good listener. Often people find their own solutions to things and all I have to do is nod

As for me, I have a a whole obstacle course that I run occasionally (if only partially - I do fall). I've had a pretty incredible life : my youth still drags at me, my early adulthood was pretty turbulent, I survived by overdosing on education and am still addicted to it. Much of my life I have been very well liked but never really loved (at least in the conjugal sense). In the last part of the Creed, it cautions us to "never seek so much to be understood as to understand ; to be consoled as to console ; to be loved as to love." Note well here that it does not say to never seek 'at all' these things, just not "so much" more than what we give to others. Were it not for the Jedi way, I would still be fostering a perpetual identity crisis rather than taking life as it comes : and to be honest, sometimes that even becomes an identity issue.

Funny, I just thought of that thread "True Jedi aren't Masters" ... Even Jedi Masters are human beings. The crown of all virtues being "human-heartedness" one can arrive at mastery of that, accepting that human hearts sometimes ache. Even for Jedi Masters...

... perhaps especially.