Time Traveler

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck !!! Sometimes everything is OK, marvelous and fucking nice ! But sometimes everything is pure shit ! Today is that time. Everything was screwed up from morning. I tried to do everything right, I meditated, I exercised, I went out with my dog, but as I said somewhere, "willpower is limited resource". All my struggles ended with don't now how many hours of stupid computer games, bottle of scotch and total overeating. Worst thing is that I didn't enjoyed any of that. I feel like shit. I suspect that this is due to weather conditions that are terrible today. Could be that I shouldn't get out of bed today.

Hi ! My journal is called "FROM GOOD TO BETTER" or abbreviated to FG2B. Why such name ? I recently take a video course by Mattew Barnet on Udemy about goal achieving. One of the principles was that you should not do something to get away from bad situation in your life, but instead strive to improve already good situation to even better one. Of course, it is matter of perspective and everyone is free to choose which one he likes best. I have lived very long with such a paradigm that I don't want anything, but just need to run away from some danger that threatens me. Matt's course inspired me and I decided to try a new way of treating life; choose my goals and try to reach them because I want to, instead of trying to escape danger that awaits me ahead. There is another aspect I'm trying to change,, closely related to one above; tasks or goals. Meditate 2 hours a day, work out at gym for 2 hours 3 times a weak, drink 3 liters of water daily, these are all tasks. Achieve better health, earn more money, these are goals. My second paradigm shift is from tasks to goals. So, to try Barnet's goal reaching strategy I choose simple first goal: "Drop 20 kilos of weight until 16.04.2017". I will record my progress, main strategy, results and insights here at least once every week, but would not delve in much details which I will record in my private journal. If I will start another goal, I will record it's progress here too. Goal #1 - Drop 24 kilos to 16.04.2017. Started: 23.01.2017. Milestones: 19.02 - 11 kilos lost, 19.03. - 19 kilos lost. First ideas (how to) Implement some reasonable eating strategies: chew until liquid, eat for hunger - not appetite, eat slow, eat until no longer hungry ... Do some physical activities every day, walking is first one that comes in mind Cold shower in the morning Some forbidden stuff: beer, white bread, ...

Keep going ! But don't try too much simultaneously, cause all these things uses willpower and willpower ir limited resource.

“I can handle any situation, any challenge life throws at me.” mantra works well, I use it every day Weight loss - 6 kg in first month, good, but no changes for last week or so. Best thing is that I love my new eating habits and everyday walking. I definitely feel much stronger. New meditation style I attended Vipassana (Goenka) retreats 2 times and tried to implement this meditation practice in my everyday life. But I could not get away from seeing it as a hard task I must do every day. And MUST DO IN THE RIGHT WAY. So, now I invented my new Mixed Meditation Art (MMA) style, where I watch different inner states (music, bodily feelings, emotions, thoughts, ...) Now meditation is pleasure for me. My web DB project My brother send me first email with requirements four years ago. Holy shit ! I am ashamed ! Back then I thought it'll be an easy task and I'll complete it in about a month. When it turned out that I will need to learn much about databases and web design I felt overwhelmed. I could not divide project in small chunks without learning some 5 new software languages before. I concentrated only on end result and looked at learning new things only as a obstacles in my way. Last few days I changed my perspective (with help of Alan Watts) and are looking at whole project as a piece of music and not trying to reach last note faster. My progress with Mental Bank I added two valued tasks: * No shit (abandoning stupid time eaters like video games and news reading) * Full workday (working 8 hours on my goals in accordance with pre-written plan) I'm on pension, so I don't need to grind 9 to five. First one was easy (do nothing) second was hard. Could be, I need to modify it.

Homeostasis fights back I was bragging few days ago how nice I'm doing, but now I am feeling homeostasis in action on myself. She doesn't want me to change too fast I've got itchy runny nose for second time this year when before it happened once in 10 years. Now I cure myself with cold showers and Scotch, but without much success. My healthy habits worked so well, but every slip throws me back tremendously. Impression is that some entity doesn't like that I am changing. 1 hour later I watched this: https://www.actualized.org/articles/overcoming-adversity and now all my problems look so small to me I took Leo's mantra: “I can handle any situation, any challenge life throws at me.” and sung it some 100 times and now I believe that I can solve any problem, that raises in my way to better me. I will certainly repeat this regularly particularly in times of doubt and recreancy.

My inner clock says it's time again to write in my journal My Mental Bank (MB) based Healthy Lifestyle implementation goes very well. I have lost 6 kilos of weight without even trying. My healthy eating habits are easy to follow and I pay myself every day (MB cash) when I stick to them. I haven't found decent goal yet to try out goal setting / achievement system. This is one of my problems - I seemingly don't know what I want. I can effectively accomplish many things if someone tells me what to do. This is stupid and crazy - I should somehow remove blocks that don't allow me to know my life purpose. Meanwhile, I have started a course of LOA. One of the exercises was to re-frame my negative traits. I wrote 5 pages of them and don't know where to start

Just like you spend points / money in any computer game

It is very powerful tool to enhance good habits, but I'm thinking now, could I modify it to diminish bad habits ? Like making a list of things to not do and deducting fines for doing them. Or maybe it is better to concentrate only on positive ?

OK, almost two weeks passed, some reevaluation took place. About goal #1 3 kg lost, less than planned, but goal was very ambitious anyway Some additions to daily rules: eat breakfast, start with veggies evening eat only vegetable soup if eating eggs, then only hard-boiled But main insight about my first goal is: "It was completely wrong way to state a goal like that and must be restructured completely". In the beginning, when I formulated my goal, my first difficulty was to declare two parameters: amount of weight to be dropped big enough to be noticeable, small enough, so I can reach it fast deadline of project not too close, so I can proceed at moderate speed and not to take drastic measures not far so I can ... WHAT SO I CAN RETURN TO MY PREFERRED STYLE OF LIFE: overeating, avoiding physical activities, eating unhealthy, drinking few barrels of beer every now and then and so on, so on, so on New paradigm: Goal should be implementing healthy habits and sticking with them for all of my life. Of course they can be rearranged if I consider necessary, but not terminated on achieving some magic number on my scales. I haven't heard someone saying that he / she want to quit smoking and the start again, but my goal was very much like that I rearranged my weight loss graph, now it extends much further in time (2018-may-20) and weight loss (40 kg). I'm in no hurry now, cause I'll enjoy every day in this never ending journey ! My #1 goal is not a goal anymore, cause it lacks deadline, it is not specific and is only partly action based. It is transformed to controllable never ending implementing healthy habits. My weight loss graph will be one of the control variables in this journey, cause that can be measured precisely, and I will report it regularly. So I need a new goal to test goal setting tools I have one task i should accomplish quickly - a website for my brother, but frankly, this goal setting business is big overhead. All these affirmations, visualizations, etc, etc, takes precious time and if one is motivated enough and have clear action plan (like me in this case) then best way is: "just do it !" Cause IMO all these special setting techniques promotes mostly motivation and taking action. Also they can be useful (I hope so) when one doesn't know how to achieve one's goal. So I will postpone my goal #2 until I'll find some decent candidate. Other tools I'm excited to try out this new (for me) tool, that coverts doing my "valuable actions" into a game !

I am doing it for few days now. It's like a computer game where you get points and are happy with them although they have not any value. Here you pay yourself imagined "money" for your efforts and also feel good about it. Before going to sleep you add these sums and feel even better, then you write all the good things that happened to you today and set up some affirmations for the night and go to sleep feeling happy Whole process is cleverly designed and addicting like video game and therefore very easily to do. I constantly keep asking me through the day: "what else could I do to gain more points ?" Five stars !

Recently I watched a video about a goal setting / achieving. One important point was that in your goal setting you should make a move from your current good situation to even better in future. I agree, that such paradigm would render strong motivation and consequently massive action and fast goal achievement. Problem is that frequently my goals are fear based, meaning that I'm in deep shit and if I would not do something then I'll soon be even worse. I understand that every half empty glass could be viewed as half full, but I don't know how to do this perspective change regarding my own situation. Any advice ? May be there are some books, videos on this subject ?

Found out what it is. NLP method called "reframing".

IMO in our society goals steam mostly from neurotic reasons, e.g. to prove something. How many times we have read stories of extraordinary achievements made by people who are called "idiots" in their childhood by parents or teachers ? I'm curious, what would Napoleon had said if advised to grow instead of pursuing his military career

I've read it (in Russian) some 10-13 years ago. My impressions: * good marketing, every volume promises: "Holy Grail will be revealed in next volume !" * very philosophical, presents some nice world model where Egregores rule (and are called Pendulums) * gives advice how to succeed in life: "Stay away from Pendulums and build your own !" * I was disappointed in the end, too few practical advise for me That's all I can recall after so many years.

You should discover your life purpose. Leo has a detailed course on that and reviews are extremely good.

@Prabhaker Thank you for thorough description ! Looks like that gazing is easier than e.g. Anapana, but renders about same results. I'll definitely try it out.

Hi, All ! Has anyone practiced Trataka meditation for some time ? Described briefly, it is staring at one point: candle flame, mandala, pen tip, e.t.c. IMO one of the easiest meditation forms, but I'm not sure how effective.

OK Sometimes, when I get up early and have starred at my computer screen late previous night, I see distant objects doubling. So I drive my car early in the morning and I see two cars approaching in parallel on the highway. When I close one eye, I see only one car approaching. So, how much cars are there ? Two, one or both ?

Leo advised us that we should use our direct experience to gain some truth about reality, our true nature, etc. But I don't trust my direct experience very much. Without supporting contextual knowledge it doesn't tell me much about reality. For example, if I'm driving at night lonely road in deep woods, I see that lights appear out of nothing and disappears into nothing. Of course I know that that's not the case and direct experience gives me very skewed picture of reality. When I'm doing an inquiry "who am I ?" and trying to look into "me" I see feelings, thoughts, sounds etc coming out of nothing and disappearing into nothing. What can I do with that ?

1) feel emotional response in you 2) examine this response (where in body, how it feels, how big, how strong, etc ...) Don't try to ignore or fight, cause it'll give energy to Dad. After a while you'll become transparent (equanimous). Dad will not get energy from you and will stop. If not, who cares ?

@Aleksandar If you need a degree, then train your willpower and collect some bag of tricks to study matters that you really don't need. If, on the other hand, if you need skills then study by yourself. No exams no shit just do the projects you want to and learn how to do them.

Ok, let us pretend a world without suffering: 1) stones seems to not feel anything, so such world could be made from stones alone. Boring. 2) then another example would be world full of equal creatures experiencing equally intense orgasm all the time. Even more boring. And nothing to do about it cause it would be impossible to get more intense orgasm or even less intense without creating suffering. What else ? @Paulo Barbosa picture your version of world without suffering !

Work with emotional response to stomping, not with sound itself. Meditation isn't about reaching higher states or changing outside world, I think your Vipassana teacher should have told you that. 1. Accept that everything you feel, see, hear happens inside of you 2. When you hear stomping a) thank it for returning your awareness to current moment (if you was drifted away) b) watch how your emotional response rises in your body c) explore that response with your awareness and sustain it as long as possible d) if response fades away before the next stomp explore the emptiness before it Good luck !

I've heard this argument so frequently recently that I cannot restrain myself: Infinite doesn't mean "includes everything". For example set of integer numbers are infinite, yet contains only integer numbers and not flying saucers

Hi, all ! Calculations I use here just to denote any activity like making bookkeeping, programming, etc. Sometimes I feel that every work makes me sick. If it is some mechanical work, like cleaning shit out of my house, I can simultaneously do the work and concentrate on the feeling of aversion in my body. Then I can immerse myself in that feeling, contemplate it in every way I know and eventually resolve issue. If feeling (pain for example) is in my body independently of my activities, then it's even easier. But sometimes I hate to do some mental work, like fixing some bug in my friends website. I hate to do it, bet I cannot experience that hate clearly enough. If I sit and try to imagine that I am already doing that work I cannot feel anything relevant. If I am doing that work and simultaneously trying to be aware of feelings I cannot concentrate both on work and feelings. Is there some solution to this ? I've searched the internet but it seems that I'm the only one with such problem. Or with such unrealistic hopes to concentrate on two things simultaneously.