bet you remember the birth of @smallsteps or meeting your wife pretty well.
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.
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.
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."
gah, is the Finnish media as negative and doomsday as the Australian one?
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.
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.
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.