Roy

That may be why you feel you're getting nowhere, because you're just "generally" looking for help, instead of focusing on the things you need to work on most, your biggest problems or obstacles in life. Things will start to "actually" work when you take responsibility to search for and focus on the exact information you need to use to make changes. Just "doing personal development" doesn't really change anything. It just makes everything a tiny tiny bit better. Stop using a machine gun and get yourself a sniper rifle. What is your single specific biggest problem right now @Max8?

Take THAT for data!

It's not brainwashing, or a belief, or wishful thinking. It's literally as simple as lifting weights. How do you think you could bench press 100 pounds? You would start bench pressing what you can comfortably say 65 pounds. You would do that for a while, consistently. Then add another 5 pounds, and do that for a while, and so on. All the while keeping the vision and realizing eventually you will reach 100 pounds. At the start you might say it's "impossible" because you can't do it currently. But if we all just went about living life based on what seemed possible now and convenient, nothing would get done or accomplished. You don't have a right to bitch, or make excuses, or call it "stupid" when the road map and the work is right there in front of you. If you want to bitch, do it while you're going through the work and exhausted. That's when you can call it stupid.

It's interesting there seems to be two kinds of Stage Green. When I'm talking to people I like to play a game where I prod with certain questions and judging by their emotional reactions I'll know which one they are pretty clearly, whether they are putting it on for show or they have a chance to get past it to Yellow.

It's the ego going whatever lengths necessary to uphold the identity that it deserves to suffer, for whatever reason that may be. Of course, all of it is a fiction. If looked at hard enough, long enough, and with enough determination it's possible to see past the surface into the hollow.

There is no way you haven't had any results after doing it for 4 years. The results are there, you just have to uncover them and be honest about it. They are more subtle than you realize. What is one thing that has obviously improved since you started your journey? It can be anything, it doesn't have to be big. Just pick one.

If you feel absolutely awful and doing it going there, why fight going uphill on ice? You aren't going to perform your best and get results feeling like that. Brainstorm different places you can get the same results you want, they exist. Women are everywhere, not just clubs. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

This is a lot. I am really sorry. I don't know what I can say to remedy anything for you besides that, know it is NOT your fault nor responsibility. Don't blame yourself for any of it, as the mind might be weird and play tricks on you. You didn't do anything wrong so don't feel like you have to do anything or put anything on yourself. If you want to though and ff it helps you or your family members who suffered, try to console them and offer your emotional support, if they need it and want it. Or connect them with additional resources. It's great that you restrained yourself from doing something rash. For now I wouldn't focus on him but yourself and your other family members. Perhaps you could rat him out about the gun under his bed. I'm not sure that is a good idea though, it's hard to know how things would go down. You might create more problems than creating justice. I don't know. Please be kind to yourself, get away from him as best you can, and take it easy for a while to process this. Be well Arc.

This thread made me want to watch the movies over again, so I got through the first one last night. I remember many great scenes from watching the films before, but this one really stuck out last night. Morpheus explains to Neo something that I think is quite analogous to the ego work that we talk about here and other personal development spheres generally - He explains that most people are too dependent and buried in the very system that keeps them deluded, and that they aren't ready to be "woken" up to the nature of their reality. They will actually fight to defend their ignorance. It's remarkable how true this is in the real world. You can hand someone gold, and they will throw shit back at you.

I withheld sex from my first long-term girlfriend. It was a really good decision, built a really good foundation for the relationship. Don't view me as a hero though, it was only like 2 or 3 weeks . Enough though.

I don't entirely agree nor disagree with @Leo Gura but I think he's being too harsh here. Two people should both have good communication about their general intentions about what kind of relationship it will be before having sex. So you don't "give up the cookie" and expect something more and then have the guy (or girl) bounce on you the next day. It happens way too much and people get hurt for no reason. Have the courage to set the boundary and share your ambitions (and have them share theirs too) before getting too involved with each other, because yes sex IS another layer of involvement. Sex is not a casual thing unless it's happening in an explicitly clear casual setting like a fucking brothel or in the bathroom of a bar. It's all nice to be "organic" and "flowing" about sexuality but let's be honest and not forget it's mostly a transactional thing. You are making a subtle business deal in every relationship, don't let your selfish intentions cloud you to that reality. I banged a French girl earlier this year on the first date, and while the hours up to and during the sex were great and we seemed on the same page with our energy and intentions, what we were both REALLY after were completely different things. It seemed all fine but obviously we read each other wrong somewhere because she was quite upset when I said I wasn't sure I was after a continuous thing after we did the deed. I still feel awful about it. So yeah, talk about your intentions @cjoseph90 Don't treat your encounters like a joke. It's good to have a little bit of fear, it keeps you from being stupid. There are MANY guys out there who won't hesitate to fuck you and delete your number the next morning. They will play all charming and say all the right things just to get what they want.

If you want to find something specific, like someone on the same life mission, you need to go looking for it. It's a shot in the dark waiting for a certain kind of thing to come around. That will be a lot of waiting. Which is ok if you're patient and able to handle it. It sounds like maybe though you aren't content with that anymore which is why you made this thread? Where do you think your ideal person would be (with that certain life mission)? What places could you put yourself in where you think you could meet them?

It's not great, but I wouldn't be too harsh on it. It looks like someone is just trying to learn the system and got too excited to throw together some webpage.

No shit. You can't give radically consciousness alternating and reality shattering substances to most people and expect them to make sense of it without some sort of serious ground work being laid. It's like trying to teach calculus to a camel. You might as well put a blindfolded person in a labyrinth and ask them to find their way out. Also not to pick on you personally, but more of a public service announcement - watch the hubris of thinking you "get it" while others "don't".

Reality really is a spectacle, ain't it

I have no idea what the fuck people are talking about. The 2nd and 3rd Matrix movies are good movies and not bad by any means. People just want to seem cool by unconsciously jumping in the dog pile? The Matrix trilogy is likely the best set of science fiction movies made to date. Yes even better than Star Wars, I love Star Wars and they are fun movies, but it's mostly just a simple hero's journey tale talking place in a science fiction backdrop. The Matrix on the other hand has way more complex implications that dives into real world issues and ties a lot of philosophy in as well.

Are you missing out? Maybe, I don't know you. Perhaps it's not as amazing and not a "big deal" as you might think it is, once you have it. Perhaps there will be that "aha" moment and you realize you were creating a lot of suffering for yourself, or at least allowing the suffering to come in from culture and the social matrix. If you really want it though, you can totally have it. Why not? Put yourself in the places where people are having sex (or want to). How often are you in those places? Be honest?

Keep in mind both Russia and China historically have had incomprehensible amounts of death (combined 50+ million) and destruction happen on their own soil from invasions and civil wars, while the US and a lot of other developed countries simply haven't. At least not to the same degree by a country mile. So it makes sense why those countries fostered larger authoritarian governments. It was necessary to reign in huge populations and govern large landmasses. They needed to collectivize to defend themselves and survive. Smaller governments for medium or larger countries where it's population is free to participate and develop the economy with not such intrusive oversight is a luxury of peace. It's not just about the size of the government either (idk how you would accurately measure that anyways), it's about efficiency. Corruption hinders efficiency quite a bit, as actors will leech and siphon off resources of the collective for their own selfish benefit.

You don't use "systems". You learn from them and pick the best parts, but you think for yourself and adopt a dynamic and specific set of ideas and strategies that best suit who you are and your strengths.

It's what you make it . Don't let it pass you by, trying to find where the "answer" is written down. How much less would you have to push yourself, if you reoriented all the "things" in your life to be on a hill that is going downwards? Do you believe that's possible? And if so what things do you think you could change today, to do what I described?

I think there is a lot of projection and armchair psychoanalysis going on when people make such claims and assumptions about people who partake in these things. I'm sure it has something to do with it, but not everyone who is into a niche sexual activity has some kind of damaged or warped psyche. Sometimes the only way to get off is having a cattle prod shoved up your ass, you know?

Yup. This was a fuck up for sure. Buuuut you are really lucky you didn't have sex or this entire situation would be a LOT worse. Now when you let her go it won't sting as much because there isn't that experience involved. Needless to say it WILL upset her and you as well, but it's necessary. These things can't always be clean. This probably isn't the best analogy but it's the first thing that came to my mind - Relationships between two people are kind of like a pile of electronic cords behind a computer, as you get more involved and spend more time together and "add more cords" by sharing emotions and getting intimate, the pile can become pretty complicated. Even between the most well adjusted healthy people when they try to end a relationship and pull their "cord" out it can be pretty difficult because you will be pulling on a lot of other cords. Pulling yourself out of that pile can be difficult and painful, that's a feature, not a bug. However it's much less painful the sooner you do it when there aren't so many cords tangled up in the pile.

It's simply because most colleges and universities are bullshit, and complete debt traps. Unless you go to learn and train for something specific and in demand in the economy, you are better off to simply start working to save money and use that time to get experience and things to put on your resume. As for the "women won't find suitable partners" issue well, to put it bluntly they'll just have to get over it and lower their standards and the dynamic and balance will have to change so we live in a more equalized society. You can't have your cake and eat it too, so to speak. I know plenty of couples in LTRs where the women makes more than the man, and I've been in quite a few myself now where my partner makes more than me. It's not a big deal at all, it just seems unusual still because it's a relatively new thing after THOUSANDS OF YEARS OF PATRIARCHY LOL.

That's called Margin trading and it's extremely fucking stupid, don't do it. Do not do it. DO. NOT. DO IT.

This again lol?