The discussion with the therapist today kept breaching the border between psychology and philosophy, which are the kinds of discussions I like to have. I don't know if this is going to help me, but it is good to have someone skilled to talk with, who is interested in the topics and is willing to push back, as well as ask good questions and provide good insights. After a handful of sessions already, she listed some of the challenges I have faced throughout the years, and how there is quite a list.
So what is life trying to tell me?
For a long time, I have believed that while there are no guarantees on the outcome, having a good, consistent process should on average lead to better results. However, that hasn't actually been my experience in life at all. As I joked today, I must have been pretty bad in my last life. While there is a lot more I could have done differently, overall, my processes shouldn't have resulted in this many bad outcomes. And, my "luck" is pretty poor as well.
Now, there are a lot of people out there in a much worse position than myself, but like the therapist mentioned, there is quite a list of let's say, "mid-level" events that have made quite heavy and regular impacts on my life, that have lasted for multiple years, or will be with me always, and they have been consistently happening throughout my entire life.
Is it bad process?
I guess it is, but I am not quite sure what is wrong in it, nor what would be right to change too. But, what the therapist said is that normally change of some kind is needed. But, what does that actually mean in practice, if I am unable to identify where things are out of alignment in the first place? Because random change is not likely to lead to better results and often will do more damage than staying the same.
If I am to make process changes though, I guess this is the time to do it, as there are so many other structural changes going on at the moment, that it is a good opportunity to investigate and redefine my habits. Perhaps it will unearth what I am doing so wrong that is leading me down this path of bad outcomes.
Is it an existential crisis?
Maybe life is telling me not to bother. It is saying, "What is the point, stop caring, stop doing, just stop." Perhaps the bad outcomes are the result of a flawed foundational belief, that there can be meaning in life. Maybe nature is doing what it does and weeding out the weakest by stressing me until I am unable to cope. Under enough pressure, everything gets crushed, right?
I don't know. But I might still have a few decades in front of me, and I don't want to spend them suffering the same outcomes as the last four decades behind. So, I guess I better work out what I need to change and then go about changing it before it is too late to do anything at all.
Doing nothing sounds pretty good though....
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Introspective, my friend @tarazkp. Always the stoic, self-critical struggle in the face of life's challenges. Without leaving aside your assiduous combination of wry humour (‘I must have been pretty bad in my last life’), heh, heh, heh; and philosophical musings, since I've been reading you, you are culturally familiar with understated resilience. While grappling with existential doubt and the weight of persistent misfortune, you always show an underlying determination to seek meaning and improvement, a quiet echo of perseverance in the midst of adversity. You must go easy; if you cling to the pendulum, you may slip and fall.
I believe it is a fool's errand. But since I don't have another quest... :)
In fact, I think there is no meaning of life as there is such a reality as death in the end. If life would have a meaning, it would be accumulating beautiful moments, to me. Thus, live the moment in the rest of your decades ;)
I first read this as "accumulating beautiful women" :D
A bad choice may be better than not doing anything. I think not to do anything, I think the worst. Try to do something.
This might be true. I have made plenty of bad decisions, but maybe I have learned something or, it gives a guide for improvement.
One of the curious things about therapy (good therapy, that is) is that the changes required evolve out of, and sometimes are integral to, the therapeutic process itself.
Yeah, I get this. While I am definitely not a therapist, it is similar with skills training in many respects. It isn't what is learned in the classroom, it is the mindset changes that come outside.
If we wish to get better results we definitely need to do things differently. Identifying areas where we need to act differently is so often the problem. But the way I go about it is believing in the law of cause and effect. That means that for each action we take we will get a related outcome. So I watch out when I'm taking negative actions knowing it will lead to negative outcomes. Most bad areas of our lives are so because of negative actions we took in the past. So start first by avoiding the negative. It's a pretty good start. From there you can go further.
This is what I wonder though. As my process is generally one of consistent review and change anyway. So how is it I keep changing the wrong way :D
That is decent advice. I often find myself knowing what I "should" do, but I am pretty stubborn and don't do it :)
It sounds like you have a lot more going on than I would have guessed or imagined. I think if the things are taking up this much real estate in your mind then they are probably not something you want to ignore. As easy as it might be to just do nothing.
Yeah, there is a lot going on at the moment. Perhaps always?
I can relate to that. My mind is always going a million miles a minute. I think it would take some pretty intense meds to silence the noise!
If enough pressure is applied, there's diamonds at the end of it. We are, after all, just carbon.
Perspective certainly helps, ad does reframing, but ultimately, the underlying elements are not illustrated better than these meme:
Under pressure, diamonds get crushed too :)
Yeh I get that pretty frequently.
This is probably why people that realise that something has to change don't actually change anything.
Hope it doesn't take another four decades to figure out what to change :)
Better the devil you know :)
I don't think I will last that long at this rate - unless my luck changes! :D
That devil just keeps cropping up XD
You never know, it might!
The fact you don't want to suffer by repeatedly doing the same thing is good news. Look I'm not sure life does have any meaning beyond procreation of the species. But that's okay, that's still your role...to make a positive impact on people around you, including Small steps, so they too survive well. Maybe that's enough, right? Maybe searching for bigger meaning is a fools errand, our own conceit.
I don't know. for the species perhaps. But, is it worth the resources I take up?
I was just saying this somewhere in another comment.
It's depressing to think of it like this. However I choose to find it liberating. I don't care for God and will never find meaning there, so I may as well just find joy in the small things and the relationships I have. I find more despair in striving for elusive meaning.
More optimism dude. You have as much as 1500 HBD staked with a crazy annual percentage. In many countries this is an annual salary.
In this country, it is a weekly salary.
It happens that you don’t want to change the country; I myself am used to sitting in one place. But you can always change the amount of HBD in staking :)
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!BBH
To me meaning of life basically comes down to what the Jamaican woman said in the old movie Meet Joe Black: "Take that nice picture you got in your head home with you, but don't be fooled. We lonely here mostly too. If we lucky, maybe, we got some nice pictures to take with us”
So basically enjoy life and appreciate the small beautiful moments that we have. Sliding down the snow hill in a sled with your daughter or enjoying great time on the beach with your family. Small stuff like that is what makes life meaningful.
Did you take enough pictures in your head before your time is up?
I was talking about this with my daughter yesterday, and how our attention focuses on the larger things, missing details. I used an example of the tulips on the table and asked what colour they are. "pink". Is that all? Look closer. and then she started to see all of the different colours in the petals.
Did you take enough pictures in your head before your time is up?
Never.
"Random change is not likely to lead to better results " as a person may be focusing on an area that needs less attention and working on while the area that needs more attention keeps escalating and causing more damage. Whereas if the area that needs more attention is identified and worked on, it could fix the area that needs less attention by extension.
yea, talking to someone who is knowlegeable and can suggest options is all good. I was recently super depressed for a while and what helped me most, beside meds, is watching things I really enjoy.. like movies or youtube vids.. 🙂😉👍