Extreme Z7

<10-04-2016> Workaholism Strikes Again I've gotten into a neurotic obsessive productivity phase again where I keep pushing myself to work on an agenda every day with little time to contemplate life. I'm doing it right now because its nearing the end of the college semester for me again and I'm rushing to get everything done. I sure hope this isn't going to create any detrimental long term effects for me but it surely is putting me down in the short term. I sometimes look down on people who have productivity issues and have difficulty putting themselves into action but I've found that workaholism can be just as bad.

What isn't enjoyment? A person with a high level of awareness should be able to enjoy everything, even suffering.

Quite a nice read. But do you think that you're attached too much to the actual phenomenon that is going on? What did you learn from the trip personal development-wise? It'd be a shame if it was just intense sensations, visuals and trances. Also, you should know that I have absolutely zero experience with psychedelics so forgive me if I'm asking naive questions.

Ideas are nothing on this topic. Simple direct experience should be your only focus to find the truth of existence.

<10-03-2016> Still Moving On Despite Feeling Shitty What gloomy weather I'm having over here. I always feel awful whenever cold weather comes along. I tend to become more anxious too. Still, it's no reason to discontinue my habits for a day or for however long the weather lasts. Today, I mostly did studying for academic life. But I also spent about an hour each on my 3 major habits I have at the moment, Meditation, Drawing, and Personal Indie Game Project work. I want to be able to spend more time on personal development reading but my academic studies are eating up a lot of my time. Maybe when this semester ends, I'll have more time to catch up on what the gurus read for a living.

British People live in London

Can't disagree with that, actually. But then again, I think Leo might have used the word 'serious' in a different context. Either way, still don't disagree with what you said. Taking life too seriously leads to misery in my experience.

You're doing good. Just keep moving.

@Leo Gura It can vary depending on the stuff you follow and what pops up in your feed. For example, I follow a lot of hobbyist cartoonists and entertainers on Twitter because I dream of becoming a cartoonist myself and I've had fun seeing other people's work so far without being too distracted by it. Even then, I still don't spend a lot of time in it. Facebook seems to be a real chimp stadium, though. Unlike Twitter, you're given content shared by people on your friends list giving you less control over the content on your feed. I mainly go there to share my drawings with my relatives, not to consume content.

REALLY? Are you sure? I don't see it. Oh. . .Oh wait. . . huh. . . .

<10-02-2016> Getting Lost In Distraction Got lost in a party. I need to focus. Future depends on it. I need to sleep.

I feel so inspired right now.

What?

@Neill What makes you think you understand ego when you clearly don't bother trying to study it first?

<10-30-2016> Not All Cravings Are Bad I want to write about cravings today. I've come to a realization today that just having cravings is not inherently bad. Especially if you do consciousness work and have some level of mindfulness, they aren't going to hurt you that much. What's bad are just cravings for the wrong things. For example, no matter how good you moderate, smoking is still going to have an adverse effect on ones life and it must simply be dropped. Not because having the craving must be shamed but simply because it is not conducive to someone's well-being in life. Moderation is only good when the habit has some benefits to be had but can be counter-productive when taken too seriously or had too much. Like say, entertainment or even personal development content. That's all for today. Be back again, tomorrow.

We can't really help. Your emotions and your thoughts are your responsibility. You have to know how to put the work and effort to handle them.

<10-28-2016> Walking And Seeing The Miles Ahead Had to calm myself down again and remind myself to be extremely patient with my results today. I experience this everyday but I had a particularly strong fit today because I reflected on all the creative work I've done so far but contrasted it with the very little success and recognition I've had so far. I had to remind myself at just how little work I've actually done despite how much I've made and am not even a kilometer near fulfilling my life purpose. I'm pretty excited for 2017, though. Because I've been planning some big life changes when I get the chance and 2017 seems have the perfect times to implement them. Right now, I'm still bogged down by many obligations and projects that are eating up my time. I unwittingly fell into the trap I'm in noe because of lack of foresight. I hope that I won't make the same mistakes or at least fail at a lesser degree on the coming year.

@ULFBERHT I don't want to speak of enlightenment too much but I will say that all doubts and skepticism is normal on the enlightenment journey. The reason why I don't let them get to me though is because my higher intuition and direct experience tell me that there is something to spiritual enlightenment and I recognize just how much my own thoughts about reality is irrelevant.

@Hardik jain Then accept your lack of acceptance. Counter intuitively, removing your neurotic desire to improve your reality improves your reality.

What long term plan, indeed. . . if you don't have one, it's simple. Just be patient and study educational material and most importantly, yourself. Gain mindfulness over your actions, thoughts, and behaviors and how they affect how you feel. You're treating meditation as if it's some shortcut to bliss. Just keep focusing on learning new things on this path that may help you. Embrace your own ignorance/incompetence. Once you get a deep understanding of how little you actually know about life, then it will make perfect sense why you still have big problems in your life even after a year of personal development.

@Hardik jain Don't fight any emotion that crops up. Fully accept your emotional state no matter what. Also, maybe create a long term plan for developing emotional mastery because it seems to me like you're trying to look for a shortcut.

<10-26-2016> Enjoying My Own Self-Created Suffering Stumbling around the forums again and this time I kept bumping around some advice involving being kind to yourself on your self-actualization journey. Hating your own flaws and ego is, ironically, itself ego. My intuition is telling me that's all I need to enjoy life but it's also telling me that it's still critical to strategize my way to a different lifestyle. Currently, my environment, my social relationships, my duties, and even my own psyche are far too toxic to live a truly amazing and creative lifestyle. I'm beginning to real gain a grip on my life purpose too, but I feel like I've made good progress only on the foundations. Doing all this is extremely tough, extremely emotionally tasking, and I have to love it. I have no choice really, not fully accepting my suffering means that I'm going to avoid it, and I can't beat it as long as I do so.

<10-24-2016> Following My Intuition I'm not in the mood to write a very lengthy entry today. I'm just feeling lazy that's all. Anyway, Leo's last episode "How to Harness Your Intuition" is still burned into my subconscious and I've been reflecting a lot on how it's helped me and how it's going to help me in the future. That's all I want to talk about really. I'm very tired, I made a drawing that took me 6 hours today which is more time than I usually spend. Here it is below:

LOL. He's even got the shirt down. Amazing content, though.

Are you foreshadowing the future episode "Why Philosophy is Wrong - A Critique of Philosophy"? I'm just kidding around.