Okay I'm gonna sound like I'm playing devil's advocate here but it's something I'm always trying to work on, and I think when you don't, that's when you become the dick of which you speak.
People will remember the lesson of losing 20 dollars before they remember winning 20 dollars.
Actually, memory is determined by emotion - and it can be any kind of emotion. I bet you remember the birth of @smallsteps or meeting your wife pretty well. I remember the time my sister found $50 in the caravan park at Noosa when I was 9 and we got icecreams, and sitting on my Dad's back and reading 'cheese' when I saw the Kraft symbol in the paper when Dad was reading the job section when I was 3. The praise made the memory stick.
When we CHOOSE to only focus on the negatives, such as how we were treated by our ex wife when we got divorced, we end up bitter old men alone drinking in pubs and telling the same story over and over and over again like nothing good had ever happened to them at all. Dicks.
try to overcome the challenge by creating something meaningful.
This is where I utterly agree with you - meaningful is community, is the love you share with family, being a kind human (because god knows the human race needs this reinforcement).
What happened to just being a good person and adding value to the community? What happened to helping others improve their lives and in so doing, getting help in return? Why so much fucking drama all the time? Instead of positive impact being the measure of success, it is now all about grabbing attention.
I love what you say about what 'leaks'. God knows I try to be content with my lot (which for most part I am - mortgage free, live in a beautiful place, lovely family etc etc etc) but still dammit, I'm going to moan that strawberries are now $7 a punnet! In many ways it's actually healthy to vocalise your discontent and frustration - because when it festers, it turns into anxiety and depression and frustration and so on.
I read this great article the other day where the woman said she's irrationally angry at all kinds of things - the woman who took too long to get moving at the petrol pump, the three quarter full latte, and so on. Tiny things. But she suggested it's the only recourse when her larger frustrations, worries and concerns are festering and when nothing can be done about them at all, like climate change or the US elections.
I think a lot of people are frustrated and angry in the face of things. Of course the multiple forms of media we're bombarded with don't help - gah, is the Finnish media as negative and doomsday as the Australian one? - so what can they do, but constantly let off small steams?
I think it's a larger philosophical question about how to live our lives, I am sure you'll agree. We can't leave massive marks on the world, unless you're like, the inventor of pencillin or something. The vast majority of us will die forgotten or at least be forgotten within a few generations. We have to be good with that. But we seem to have forgotten our larger responsibilities to be a part of unfolding humanity. That really, really matters.
Sometimes I think it's to our detriment we don't have a unifying church that teaches and guides us, and glues us together through community. Of course the church failed for many reasons, and I'm not for one minute suggesting that clap trap cult. But we do seem to be rudderless. So in the lack of rudders, individual human beings need to be the ones that guide - our family, friends, people we speak to online.
Anyway I'm rabbiting on. I've got complaining to do to the council about putting in development with tiny house blocks in a country town.
Yes, but these events are far apart, right? They are extreme highlights, but the days and therefore our lives, are not made of extreme highlights, it is made of the day to day experience. Our emotions arise before we have a chance to choose anything, however we are able to only after choose how we react to them and perhaps parse the emotion and choose to focus on other aspects. And then, if like the ex-wife story, the knock-on effects of the divorce keep impacting, like financial distress or something, then the source becomes a recurring problem, like a terminal illness.
And, it gives an opportunity to make changes in life, solve problems. Complaining is fine, as long as it is followed up by actions. Too much of the complaints are passive "I'm fat. I will eat another donut."
Nowhere near. But it is changing here too. Click revenue is all that matters.
Even the inventor of penicillin is unknown by many and will eventually be forgotten in total. We all will be - the speed of forgetting might change.
The internet offers the same religions, just far, far more fractured. It will never unify because unlike in the past, people can now pick and choose their religion based on their mood of the moment.
Yeah, it's the passivity that shits me. I knew a guy once - quite a close friend - who was a bit of a stoner but worked hard and made some good investments. Ended up snorting a lot of it and lost his wife and now lives in a shitty house where, no shit, you can see the bare earth through the floorboards.
I avoid him if I see him - there's a lot of lamentation about what went wrong (nothing to do with him of course) and how everything is going to hell in a hand basket.
I feel sorry for him but at the same time it's like, dude, sort your life out, you used to be a smart guy. Make good choices.
Yeah from a yogic or Buddhist perspective those base emotions can be observed, but shouldn't be acted upon, unless of course they are 'good' - kindness, compassion etc. The more you practice recognizing these emotions, the stronger that muscle gets, til eventually, positive reactions arise FIRST.
But that's the kind of philosophy that takes a while for most people to learn - that's what I mean about having guidance. If we knew our minds and how they worked, we might fare a little better. Add community and it's a much better recipe for happiness.