You are NOT safe and you are NOT good enough

Yeah so i hear/see people say "youre wonderful just as you are" all the time and id just like to point out that it isnt true

anyone who tells you that youre ok just as you are is either lying or incompetent to judge

rather than mollifying ourselves with nonsense that allows us to stay weak, we should be brutally truthful with ourselves about what is wrong with us, so that we can address it

obviously, certain things cannot be changed, such as age, body dimensions, brain functioning, ect

but theres a whole lot of things about ourselves that we can only improve with consistent effort, and the single most powerful motivation to change that i know of is honest acknowledgement of what is wrong and the unhappiness that comes with knowing oneself to be inferior or substandard

also, you are not safe

you are going to die, maybe very soon

obama cant protect you from that, hillary cant protect you from it, trump cant protect you from it

pronouns and safety pins wont save you, walls and a stronger military wont save you: nothing will save you

youre going to die, and its probably going to be very bad

death usually comes in two ways

1) suddenly, out of nowhere.

2) slowly and painfully

1) youre walking along on your way to the soda machine and BANG a goddang liger jumps on you, cracks your neck and eats you alive

you were just going to get a pepsi to drink at your desk and now youre liger poop; the people near your station are wondering where you are and the liger that ate you has already pooped you out, and wandered off, and thats how fast it happens and how final it is

2) youve been feeling worse and worse and when you finally go to the doctor it turns out that youve done caught the cooties. eight months later you weigh 90 lbs and youre laying in a bed with tubes coming out of every hole in your body. the best thing anyone can say about your death is that youre not in pain anymore.

if somehow you do manage to live a long and healthy life, youre going to have to watch all the people you love experience some version of the above

and all of this could hit today, right now even

so thats part of our existential challenge: how to deal with the reality of tragedy and suffering so that we use the time we have in a way that makes our lives worth living, even though we have to suffer and die, and watch the people that we love suffer and die

and if the things youre focusing your time and energy on arent achieving that, and preparing you for that, then youre wasting the very little bit of time that you have.

Thank you for sharing how you feel about yourself and your life in this world. Is there anything we can do to help?

Two Points...

1) I'm Pretty sure that part of Trumps platform was to outlaw death during his first term.
2) I have always said that drinking Pepsi will kill you!!

The funny thing is, these days when you tell people they're not OK as they are, they start hating their own race, sex or other body parts, and quite violently so.

What we do know is that while they shouldn't feel OK to be as the Force intended, they must feel OK being fat and batshit insane as our feminist overlords commanded (or face reprisals). << And that's coming from me! I'm fat and mental!


NB: I drink a good 3-4 litres of pepsi max a day

I feel that it is important to remember that acknowledging room for improvement does not have to be the same thing as believing your current state to be bad. Me, for instance. I know that I can be in better shape and I am working to be in better shape (lost three pounds so far this month), but that doesn't mean that I have to hate how I am now. I am working towards a better paying job (applied for one today) but I also realize that I'm still doing better financially than I ever have been. Something, some possible future state, being better doesn't make the current state bad.

One can seek improvement without being in such a negative frame of mind. Otherwise you'll always be unhappy because there is always room for improvement. You can always be healthier, wealthier, better at a specific task, etc. If having room for improvement means that you have to feel so poorly about where you are then achieving said improvement won't satisfy you, because it never ends. Be happy the way things are, but look forwards to the way things will be.

Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Every path is different. I will never deny that any where. My door is all ways open. In times where our focus is in question , good council is to be sought out. Seek or friends, I most remember in my life the day I realized I wasn't alone in a lot of my questions, nor did I have to choose to be. May the Force find you where you seek it.

If we aren't focusing our time and energy on achieving the knowledge of how to deal with reality, we are wasting our time?
I wonder - what does that look like to you? What does a person who isn't wasting their time do or think or feel?

Read this as an interested question for continuing the conversation - not as an attack or disagreement.

I'd just like to add that being honest with ourselves doesn't have to be brutal. I know what I need to work on to improve myself, but I'm not going to beat myself up over it.

If you listen to Watts, one of his discussions was in the pointlessness of trying to change oneself. The person who you are trying to change, is the one who is "not good enough" to begin with. While many would knee-jerk react to this by saying it's all pointless and getting depressed, Watts says this should be a major relief! You don't have to become a different person, because you who you are!

It reminds me of Einstein saying that you cannot fix a problem with the same level of thinking that created it.

This may seem contradictory, but I personally feel that we're all capable of being better. Just because we cannot change who we are, doesn't mean we cannot strive to be the best "us" that we can be!

Changing something out of fear, will only get you a fear-based change. If you can move past the fear, you may find a different path that couldn't be seen before.

This is just my opinion, and if I'm way off, feel free to say so. I apologize if I butchered the Watts and Einstein quotes, or missed the points with them completely, lol!

Brontyn wrote: Changing something out of fear, will only get you a fear-based change. If you can move past the fear, you may find a different path that couldn't be seen before.

I specifically wanted to thank you for this section. Well said.

I'd type that quote by Morgan Freeman in the Shawshank Redemption, if it wasn't so overused and if I could remember it. Here goes.

"Something something ... living, or so and so .... something dying." - Red

LOL!

Oh, Jedi, you warm my heart.

What are the positives we can take from this? What good information and insight can we glean?

Brontyn wrote: If you listen to Watts, one of his discussions was in the pointlessness of trying to change oneself. The person who you are trying to change, is the one who is "not good enough" to begin with. While many would knee-jerk react to this by saying it's all pointless and getting depressed, Watts says this should be a major relief! You don't have to become a different person, because you who you are!

This reminds me also of the movie Fight Club, when Tyler Durden says "self-improvement is masturbation!", referring to the fact that improvement for the sake of improvement is meaningless. Sacrifice is only meaningful if it has a purpose.

Hating yourself for not fitting a mold is a waste of time. You don't "rage against the machine" by becoming a cog in a newer, shinier one. Finding what you truly want, however, and doing it, should be a joyous experience, regardless of the sacrifice and frustration involved. And no amount of complacency or, conversely, hatred, is going to get it done. Action, however, will.

I love how everyone reacts differently in the light of their own existential nature. This thread honestly reminds me of a comic I saw earlier this week.

Hehe,

Obi: "Don't rest on your laurels and pat each other on the back just for your own comfort"

Folks "Stop being negative!, Don't be afraid of who you are!, Don't let others judge you"

Well, I think his point was made for him {-_-}

Though I believe I more or less agree with the "Essence" of Obi's message...

wasting the very little bit of time that you have.

Little? Perhaps my span is short compared to say, a rock, it's still the longest bloody thing I'll ever do.

I don't wanna be liger poop.

JamesSand wrote: Hehe,

Obi: "Don't rest on your laurels and pat each other on the back just for your own comfort"

Folks "Stop being negative!, Don't be afraid of who you are!, Don't let others judge you"

Well, I think his point was made for him {-_-}

I can't speak for everyone else, but I don't take any issue with the assertion that we need to be active and grow and change, I just find that his motivation came from a place of negativity rather than of happiness or hope. I find that while negative emotions can be highly motivational to spur a person on the results are usually not as good as when they are motivated by positive emotions.

Goken wrote:

JamesSand wrote: Hehe,

Obi: "Don't rest on your laurels and pat each other on the back just for your own comfort"

Folks "Stop being negative!, Don't be afraid of who you are!, Don't let others judge you"

Well, I think his point was made for him {-_-}

I can't speak for everyone else, but I don't take any issue with the assertion that we need to be active and grow and change, I just find that his motivation came from a place of negativity rather than of happiness or hope. I find that while negative emotions can be highly motivational to spur a person on the results are usually not as good as when they are motivated by positive emotions.

Donkeys can be motivated to move forward with a carrot or a stick. I prefer the carrot, but I don't deny the effectiveness of the stick either. Ideally, we learn to use both.

Donkeys can be motivated to move forward with a carrot or a stick. I prefer the carrot, but I don't deny the effectiveness of the stick either. Ideally, we learn to use both.

Speaking for the Donkeys...

The image that springs to mind whenever I hear this is a carrot on a string that the donkey chases, unable to obtain.

It's not hard to end up resenting the carrot after a while.




This is getting away from the OP, I suppose I'm just musing on whether motivation to achieve something unattainable is as bad as motivation to avoid something inevitable

JamesSand wrote: The image that springs to mind whenever I hear this is a carrot on a string that the donkey chases, unable to obtain.

It's not hard to end up resenting the carrot after a while.

This is getting away from the OP, I suppose I'm just musing on whether motivation to achieve something unattainable is as bad as motivation to avoid something inevitable

Anyone who's ever trained an animal knows that eventually you do give them the carrot, for the exact reason you stated. If they never get it they'll stop being motivated by it.