Hansu

@Apparition of Jack Thanks!

Sorry for late answer I never realized that I could be using my political view of the world as some kind of shield to not think and to create false feeling of safety, but slowly Im beginning to think that I do just that. "Well, we already live in perfect society when it comes to governing so I dont have to think how to change it!" "Well, we already have equal opportunity so what do we need feminism for?" "This particular candidate lies on some issues, so I dont have to listen to them at all!" "Sure they believe in fascist ideology, but they are incapable of ever growing threatening numbers. No need to worry!" Its like the centrist ideology is perfect way to think yourself out of having to do anything. You can always find a middle ground between everything and then play like you are the intellectual one for "finding resolution that takes everyone in account". Its like throwing your baby into the kennel to play with your dog because its the dog's turn to choose how they spend their afternoon playing. True, I feel happy that I have the knowledge to buy my first house closer to inland. I recently joined the workforce (On the sidenote, Im doing my dreamjob and you have been a great part in helping me to struggle through to it) and now Im waiting for the housing bubble to burst so I can get a cheap first time house. Rationally thinking Im then one of those who are exploiting with my opportunistic thinking. Then again, why would I knowingly take huge blow on my house's value by buying now and not after the bubble? Huge part of my enormous debt would be air! I never thought of it that way. Sure! We can sit in first world countries merrily waiting for technology to save our asses (And in the end, I think technology is what will save the earth) but those people in third countries will continue to struggle under the oil companies exploitative ways. Like what is the root reason for the 2015 refugee crisis? People are blaming Americans recent (5-10 years) military actions, but could it actually be the first world hunger for oil in eastern countries that started a hundred years ago? I think I finally understand what you meant with "You cant mark C on every question on multiple answer exam" It'd be easy to not demand abolishing slavery, but maybe to try and help the most exploited slaves. There wouldn't be as much opposition to your idea because you were just helping those who are being exploited, because those who are slaves in household that respect their slaves "are not suffering, they are fed, clothed and respected! They are doing fine!" Also, now I understand the term "wage slave" This is probably the core of my political ideology. This is a lot to think about. I always thought Im the rational one in the bunch, but in fact I could be the lazy one, the one evading responsibility with the perfect 20/20 hindsight always trying to one up the another. Thanks!

@tsuki These views reflect on Finland's political discussion on refugees that has been raging for well over 5 years now. It may or may not apply to the political discussion going on in USA. Leftist view on immigration: "We need to take in everyone who wants to come here for better life, no matter their background or the danger that the situation could escalate like it has in Sweden and Big Britain!" Right view on immigration: "We need to stop everyone who wants to come here illegally, look at the statistics! All they do is fight and steal, they dont work and for this reason we need to bring back borders no matter if people die!" Centrist view on immigration: "We need to help people coming here as refugees, but we also need to regulate and take in only those in need of help. We don't want things to escalate like they has in Sweden and Big Britain, and they wont as long as we regulate" @Serotoninluv I think you have a good point when it comes to the perspective of others. The perspective of right I have some understanding of because I believed strongly in the right ideology when I was a kid, but I have little understanding of the leftist point of view. I guess I should follow more leftist media (Currently I only follow Tim Pool who is closer to libertarian centrist-right) @Yog Not a bad idea. Do you suggest videos specifically on politics? One's with controversial topics or one's with milder topics, or a bunch of both? @Leo Gura Man, you always know how to stir my emotions. "You have no vision for how great mankind could be." I actually don't. I have no vision for better government than socialist-democracy, which we already have. So I don't have any vision for the better, only for worse. I guess this is a huge ego defense? I also agree with the "easy to fool" part. As centrist I'm always looking for a way to compromise to promote de-escalation, and I see how this trait can easily be exploited. This is the same reason why I despise how the leftist lie in order to gain support for their ideas. "Or one side says: global warming is a serious threat. The other side says: global warming is a hoax. And you say: who really knows? Let's wait and see." This, again, is true. I believe that we should work actively on preventing global warming, however not on the scale we do today. To me it seems like the right wants to protect their business while the left is nitpicking on small things that are miniscule when it comes to preventing global warming. But my view? I have always though that we should wait for technology that collects pollution to prevent global warming, so Im literally thinking "Lets wait and see" "What you're missing is that truth and rightness are the average of any two positions." I always thought that great government is equal combination of left and right, as they tend to reduce the stupid decisions made by their opposition. Is this what you mean? The average is found through the arguments of two opposites, not the one "almost close to the truth" ?

I think a part of it could be judging other parties. One of the biggest factor why I believe in the centrist ideology is how it takes the right-side style of obsessive statistics analysis and the left-side obsessive empathy and merges these two into more rational ideas when it comes to things such as immigration. I can elaborate if you have no idea what Im trying to say This is a difficult one for me. I have always believed in democracy and the equal treatment of others to the point of obsession, but lately I have been pondering how democracy is dying, whether it is a good or bad thing. As result I've understood that I do have authoritarian beliefs in me, and that authoritarianism has its place just like democracy and equality has its place. For one, not every voice and opinion is equal to the other, while every voice and opinion deserves an equal opportunity to shine and be heard. Honestly I have no idea where I stand on the authoritarian-libertarian scale, how does one explore it?

While I dont agree with the groups being silenced(their ideologies), I think that silencing them will just make the problem worse. When we have sites like 8chan, the government can easily monitor the rate of radicalization. Then we censor the site and they go to deepweb and spread to forums that cannot be tracked as easily as something as public as 8chan. You raid one website, and the address to the next website will spread through word between the radicalized members, who now very likely feel like heroes fighting over freedom of speech which only unites them more. When we let them have their forums, at least we know what they are up to. I mean, if there was someone coming after the members of Actualized.org and the community, wouldn't we hide and continue doing our things in the shadow?

I "was" introvert when I couldn't make friends. Then I got friends, and I "was" extrovert about 80% of time, 20% of time I wanted to be alone in my room with nobody bothering me. I mean 80% of the time of a party I was extroverted, then around 11 o'clock I would escape to my room to be alone. All "introvert/extrovert" classification has done to me has been to limit me. It drove me to exclude introverted or extroverted behavior out of my life, making me unhappy when I did. The greatest lie of my life. I don't think its any kind of sign of "being sign of higher psychological/cognitive development", I think classifying yourself as one has the opposite implication.

Funny thing, I just finished a 30 minute contemplation on a question "What kinds of void am I filling?" and now Im pretty sure that Im not addicted to anything else but negating the negative emotions caused by a bundle of fears. Not lack of anything physical, not even lack of sex, but fear of arbitrary social things. I have been trying to achieve internal peace through finding a partner, losing weight, quitting addictions but all it has done has sent me to an internal spiral of negative thinking, failure and distraction from my true needs. Thank all you kind people. You have helped me off the wrong path and shown and convinced me to walk down the one I need most right now. You have helped me to lay the groundwork and create a clear vision I need to weed out my fears, befriend my shadow and continue my path towards internal peace. I can feel that this is going to be my biggest, and the most painful self-help journey in my life. Thank you convincing me to go for it.

Whenever I try to quit an addiction, be that overeating, alcohol or sugar, I become a zombie. For years I have been trying to lose weight, cut alcohol and cut sugar. For years I have failed. For years I tried everything at the same time. Unsurprisingly, it never worked so 2 months ago I decided to postpone losing weight for later to have more energy for fighting alcohol and sugar (And now Im fatter than I have ever been in my lifetime) First I tried to lose sugar and alcohol at the same time. It was easy for 2 weeks, then one weekend I went on binge drinking and eating so I was back on square 1. After that I decided to quit one at time. First I tried to lose alcohol, so for 2 weeks I dropped the alcohol, went on an alcohol binge and that fucked up. Then I tried to lose sugar, and same story. What I've learned over the past few months is that when I try to drop an addiction, I lose all interest in visualization work, reading self help and basically I become unconscious. I waste time watching TV, porn, drop practicing my instrument etc. However, after a relapse I gain immense energy on doing chores, visualization, I drop TV, I eat healthier, I read books, I practice my instrument and to put it simply, I become the best version of myself. So, what should I do? I cant willpower my through the zombifying effect that the process of quitting an addiction gives me. Its too strong, and I always end up relapsing and not only losing weeks of effort put into the attempt, but I also lose a lot of time that I would have used on working on myself, hadn't I been in a zombie. Am I unconsciously avoiding emotional work? You know, that work that Leo is always talking about? How can I find strength to push through the zombie-phase and not relapse?

Censorship is nice until they come for you. Ideally we would teach the people to choose their entertainment better, but instead we just use censorhip. Nowadays fair use is for those who have money and fame to fight for their right to fair use. Even big, respectable channels like Kurzgesagt are abusing their power to censorhip those who point out their lies. But lets not get political here. Leo, you are going through hell if you want to fight for your rights to restore that video.

@DrewNows Hey, sorry for another slow reply. This may sound stupid, but what does a void look like? A few months ago I fixed my self-image problems regarding physical appearance. I did this through imagination and affirmations. However while the work removed my negative thoughts about my looks, it didn't really help me with any of my addictions. Would self-image problem still be considered as a void of some sort? Thanks!

Awareness alone does not seem to be curative with some of my neurotic behavior, while it has cured some of my neurotic behavior instantly. Some of my behavour Im just... Aware of. I guess I have to take action to stop myself with the behavior? Im hoping the Shadow Dance has the answer for this question @MsNobody Great post! Very inspiring! Now that I think about it, I never tried to replace my addictions with anything(Im also at fault for judging my failure to quit). And unsurprisingly my addictions are worst in weekends when I most often lay around in my home "relaxing". The only thing I can imagine as enjoyable way to replace laying around my home all weekend is camping in the woods, but Im really unsure if its a good long term solution. But I'll keep your advice in mind and try and figure out something enjoyable to do to at least replace alcohol and to not fall back Do you mean self-talk as in probing your mind with questions to pick out the roots of your cravings?

@Arcangelo Hey, sorry for the late answer Congraz on quitting alcohol! Its not easy. In my case my problem is a combination of addictions and my neurotic behavior I've discovered with the little amount of shadow work so far, and I have to admit that my ego IS big. Probably bigger than the average at my age, but luckily now I have tools to overcome it! Hopefully I'll be able to quit the worst addictions in 12 months or so. I wont rush it, it probably takes longer than 12 months to untangle an ego that has been inflating for over 20 years. Hopefully I'll at least reverse it to deflation. Wish you best too!

This is perfect! Thanks!

I live in a country where health care is free, so Im considered healthy if I can work and I wont get an appointment unless Im threatening to kill myself. Private psychotherapist would cost a fortune, I think Im going to try work it out myself, I've become good at just that I picked up Shadow Dance by David Richo today. Im planning to not quit my addictions, but to read the book and do the exercises for a month or two to really pick up the habit for this work before continuing to quit the addictions so I wont not dabble it (Im afraid zombie mode would overtake me over and ruin whatever progress I do with shadow work) Do you have any advice on starting up this work? Is there any specific meditation technique that could aid with shadow work?

Good point During my last attempt I bought a lots of fruits to replace some of the sugar. My main source of food atm come from chicken, cow, rice, wok-vegetables and food-cream (I dont know what it is in english, food-cream is a direct translation) @salvijus Thanks, I'll check that out This makes a lot of sense to me, but where should I start looking? I have a good job, multiple friends, Im highly effective when im not in the zombie-mode and I have my future all planned out Only thing I can pinpoint that I crave, but miss at the moment is the perfect boyfriend/girlfriend with whom to spend time snuggling and all the other related stuff that comes with relationship. But it doesn't feel that bad and it doesn't feel like I absolutely have to have a relationship EDIT: I guess its time for me to finally start doing some shadow work

I would love to make them understand that they live in the most beautiful and best country to ever grow up in People of my culture are one of the most unappreciative people I know when it comes to quality of life

I just finished my engineering degree and joined workforce in a company with very promising future. Im turning a page in my life, so to speak. For the past 2 weeks I have been dwelling on the memories of my life during the schooling. I feel happy and grateful for all the memories, good and bad. I learned something about all of those. However, I dont feel happiness for my experience in army, my previous school or my time working on the previous company. I only feel gratitude for those memories, not happiness. The only other past besides my time in the college I feel happiness for is my childhood, and what comes from childhood? Nostalgia. Wanting for the past. Dwelling in the past. While I know that dwelling and being happy for the memories I have gathered during the 5 years I studied for my engineering degree is great for destroying any negative false beliefs and neurotic afflictions the bad memories could leave their mark on me, I feel like Im creating false happiness connections to the idea of "turning page in life". When you are young you turn pages constantly. Young teen, teenage, high school, turning 18, college... You turn pages all the time. But when you go into workforce, what pages are there to turn during my next 60 years? Higher position and children, thats about it. I can already see how, in the near future say in 5 years, I begin to sabotage my career because Im secretly dwelling on the desire to "turn a page" in my life. Dwelling with happiness on this "turn of a page" is clearly creating very strong emotional bond with this idea of turning page. Is my fear rooted in nothing? Will enough meditation make me aware enough to not follow this false craving, if it does come up sometime in the future?

@Truth Addict Thank you. This is clearing up a lot of guesswork out of where I want to aim with my spiritual work at the moment. Can you recommend any books that could help me with lowering my resistance to what is? Books that I've found helpful on the topic so far: The Power of Now, Sedona Method, Loving What Is, Psycho-Cybernetic Thanks!

@Truth Addict I see. I realized that if I always stay present in the moment, then I would either act on thoughts I see as needing action, and drop thoughts that have no value to act on. Then I would not be tempted to not accept my present moment, because the present moment would already be the best state of my being. The need would simply not exist. Would this be a good way to move into more dominant state of inner peace, or should I learn to accept the current state as it is? Or in other words, hypothetically, if someone was beating me with a stick should I first accept and be in peace with the fact that Im getting beaten, or should I stop the man first and accept the beating later?

@Truth Addict Are you speaking of happiness as we westeners know it as, or as something else? Often when Im driving to work or to home, I find myself spontaneously smiling. I shut off any distraction that is not the road, my senses sharpen, my awareness jolts up and my mind shuts down. Sometimes I am able to stay in the present moment for 5 minutes, sometimes 10-15 minutes. Only thing that breaks my mind's silence is random thoughts that come up, but go as fast as they came. Is this true happiness? Is this even happiness? @TheAvatarState After some contemplating I realized that when I was writing my opening post I was not afraid that I might begin to hang on this event I described as "turning page" but I was in fact hanging on it. I realized that I was afraid that I will most likely never feel these strong emotions I perceive as joy, as this page is practically the last page I turn before death. Upon realizing this my fear vanished. Thank you!

Lul Its a personal thing, whether to choose to have children or not. Just make sure you are ready to raise them, know how to raise them and most importantly, be financially prepared to raise children. Read shit ton of self help so your child doesen't have to, that's how we evolve.

Do what feels right for you. Life purpose course is a big package of dense material and for many of us, especially those who are not used to college level studying or already have years of self-help experience, might be too much to complete the first time its picked up. If you feel like you need a girl, use the advice here on Actualized.org and other websites that focus on that. Life purpose course is there for you when you feel like doing it. Oh, and if you have not yet begun, start meditating.

@Nahm Well, Im not certain but maybe

If you cut your ties to people who do or say stupid shit, you might aswell become a hermit. Martyrdom is lonely. As for OP, think about a neutral reason for not drinking. Know that these people drink because they hurt, they don't want to listen to someone telling them that they have to stop evading the hurt and get their shit together. If you tell them that you dont drink for religious or health reasons, they start feeling bad for their own decisions and their egos become adamant at blaming you. If someone comments on you not drinking, you could tell them that drinking is fun, but alcohol makes you feel very nauseated, and you dont want to ruin your friends/colleagues evening. Thats rather neutral statement that slightly makes your friends feel higher than you while feel good about their drinking, and could even raise their respect towards you.

"Soul" in the title will turn away every single ateist in the world, and will bug agnostics. Take time to name your book. Make it something personal and expressing. Do your best to make the name neutral in terms of race, gender and faith. Think of your core audience, when they see your book are they more attracted to a title that mentions social anxiety on the broad scale, or are they attracted to a book that promises help for a specific problem like self-esteem? Even though self-esteem has become the meme of self-help in recent years it could still help to mention it in the cover, because people generally dont know where their problems come from, and they focus on these simple solutions that only focus on self-esteem, changing appereance etc. Good luck with the title!