PepperBlossoms

Also, in the non-dual paradigm, if one dies, they may think that their live is over and that is it. In the Jesus paradigm, when one dies, they could become a ghost or go on to Heaven/Hell. I think the Jesus paradigm makes it harder for one to commit suicide because of the ghost/Hell possibility whereas if one thinks it will just be over, they may be more likely to do it. One may be more attuned to being loving in the Jesus paradigm, with the awareness of evil existing and therefore a better eye to tell the difference between love and evil. In the non-dual paradigm, all distinctions are kinda randomly made based on whatever you want and what is relative to you and one may have a problem with being as loving (or having that as a priority) but could still do it (because there could be so many things to choose from to prioritize). Both paradigms may be open to vast curiosity and exploration but the Jesus one may focus more heavily on love whereas the non-dual one may focus more heavily on imagination.

try hard enough and eventually you will fail

I think it depends on what the person already has, what they value, what they need, etc. Someone with lots of money may not value if their partner can provide money so much but may really need a partner that is funny if they are too serious - stuff like that. Someone may value attention if they don't know how to be alone but there can also be people who give attention and are annoying. Or one may value attention for instance but then figure out how to be alone and no longer care or need the partner to provide that. It could help to have it where you feel the two of you can grow together, whereas otherwise, it may start to feel like a waste of time and get dull. It really depends on what both parties want and expect.

You could ask them how they assist with anxiety/depression/paranoia and see who's answer you like the best and go with that person. If it was me, I would want someone who was able to point out the things that I am doing that are self-harming myself, things I am overlooking, traps with my thinking, better strategies to have, trying to get to the root of the issue of this is causing this is causing this, and how to heal/work through that, working through my anger/shame/guilt/insecurity/negativity/sadness/anxiety, looking at my coping skills and getting rid of the bad ones and replacing with better ones, how to take responsibility for my actions/thoughts/feelings and to stop being a victim and blaming others, finding my values/passion and how to transition to doing more of that and getting rid of the stuff I don't enjoy, how to find the positive in a situation, how to use more perspectives and recontextualize things, etc. I have found books to be super helpful and online support groups and also reddit's mental health pages and also just writing thoughts down. Ups and downs come all the time and sometimes that just means that it is a situation that we haven't yet figured out how to deal with and so it is going to keep being shitty until we find a solution and so all the more reason to try to find one.

The person this experience is operating from wants there to be a person with a story but then it is like the person could be just as imaginary as everything else like the background stuff; like the person this appears to be operating from could be just as much background stuff as the background stuff; but then it doesn't matter if it is imaginary or not because it is still being 'experienced'. and then morals are so twisted where everything is good and bad and it is all whatever we say it is i feel so lost and my head hurts I feel like I just want to get a job and do it mindlessly and forget about all of this awakening stuff. the model for life got too complicated for my brain to be satisfied with and I just don't want a model anymore or think anymore. I had a hard time with the morally dark side of my career and ahhhh. Work makes me unstable but then also not working makes me unstable. I guess I need to just meditate and drop all these thoughts.

Keep in mind that every single day, hundreds of opportunities are thrown away. By doing x, you are throwing away doing a, b, c, d, e, f, g, and on and on. Situations are always going to be where you could be doing more or better than you are. Become more okay with things being okay, not super great, but just okay. The perfect day is never going to arrive, so just enjoy the mediocrity. Everything has pros and cons, nothing is perfect. Life has ups and downs and the ups and downs keep on happening. Even if you get better at handling downs, sure even worse downs could happen. But all the more reason to keep on getting better at handling the downs. Everything gets left. Even if you stuck with engineering, you would have left the field eventually. Solar will eventually be left. Everything changes. Heck, you have left so many things so many times, left a restaurant, left a meal, left a discussion. You sound pretty similar to what I sound like and I am still struggling with this topic too. Maybe a more helpful mindset is to think in life in terms of weeks. If I am going to die at the end of the week, what do I want to do during the time up till then? Then if you are still alive at the end of the week, great, but the next week you could still die at the end of the week. Life can feel totally pointless yes. We can come up with a purpose and get excited and then think well shit I don't even care anymore. I think doing stuff to be in flow state can feel nice... so finding more ways to do that can be helpful.

@Realms of Wonder Thanks for the book recommendations.

I feel like I need an accountability partner or something. I've gotten so lazy that I just do a few things a day. But oh no, I should be my own accountability partner. Maybe I just like talking to people. Meh.

@Gesundheit2 Oh and it would have been for getting my writing/editing some of the books I have started as well as just keeping up with chores. I started some books but I have just kept on having other things to do and they keep on not getting worked on. I guess I kinda really just want to finish all these other chores so that I don't have to worry about them and they are just taking a really long time but I am also getting lazy when it comes to doing them. I guess also then it would be thinking more about careers but I am kinda wanting to see if the books go anywhere but also am considering working as a therapist/psychologist but am ahhh about the schooling (and I can be bad at listening at times..) and was thinking I could try just starting off as working for a crisis hotline and see how that goes first. Or there is just going back to civil engineering but I wasn't super good at it and had some ethical hard times but the pay would be good... if anyone would want to hire me that is. Or there is teaching but I am kinda soft spoken. I feel like I am all over the place and don't really have a structured plan... EDIT: but.. if I am telling myself I can't talk to guys because of my past history of cheating so many times, then I don't know how I would be able to manage the career option of therapist/psychologist or even just trying as a crisis hotline because that would involve talking with guys 1 on 1 (and girls too). .... .... . ... but even working as a civil engineer, most of my coworkers were guys. I guess teaching would have the most female coworkers. I guess it is too bad I was such a cheater for so many years and didn't stop doing it sooner.

Ahh. Thanks for the interest @Arcangelo @PenguinPablo . I was regretting posting this and was going to delete it but then saw people responded and so I decided I needed to respond. The accountability partner thing would be great but I am again remembering my cheating past and how I really can't talk to guys anymore/right now. I like to jump for attention and it is just a recipe for me feeling stressed and guilty/bad and then I would obsess over how bad I feel and so I think I need to just use myself and my bf as my accountability partner. He is already pretty good when it comes to commenting on my eating/driving/listening/cleaning ha... he kinda already does it I just never really thought about it that way before. Ah I am sorry. It is hard because I have to close the door to half the population but because of my cheating history where I did it for so many years, talking to guys secretly, I just would feel bad, even if the topic stays completely on accountability.

How about one of y'all run for president?

How is your life as a sage going to look different compared to how it is now? What is it going to be used for? Maybe as a therapist?

I guess a few things that come to mind are, if you have only met the person in the video game and not in real life, then I could see the meetup in real life being a mindfuck and noticing that they are not fully what one thought, or I have had that happen to me. I would be weary of saying you love them if you haven't met them in person, but that is just me.

hmmm I guess I would be straight up with her and say, I know in the past you said you weren't interested in me but I am finding myself falling for you and wanted to let you know that and see how you respond. When she responds with a, yes I am falling for you too, or no I don't like you like that, you can then decide to stay or move on. The holding on to the hope of it working out has been quite maddening for me in the past.

It sounds like you did the best you could and the company was ridiculous/abusive. Working conditions like that can really mess up your mental/physical health. It is hard because for abusive relationships to work. We still have to be benefitting for them to continue and so we overlook the abuse and say we can handle it but it will still take a toll.

Being focused on not doing anything morally wrong; having a hard time with the "dark side" of the grey areas.

I am noticing that I am talking quite a bit about myself. That is one of the downsides about focusing on mental health rather than what I did previously which was exploring reality - when you focus on mental health, you tend to focus on yourself quite a bit and then it tends to allow for lots of anxiety and insecurity because you are on the stage of attention; instead of when focusing on say delusions and metaphysics, reality/this existence/consciousness/constructs is/are on the stage of attention

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh okay that is me. thanks.

If I go back to the "life purpose" stuff... well it has changed. It went from just making good grades and doing good at my sport to surviving my job to trying to question and explore reality to trying to figure out my mental health..... I don't really have a purpose. I wake up and then I go to bed and some stuff happens in between that. I liked the questioning and exploring reality but I question if that was a phase. I liked the figuring out mental health stuff but I question if that was a phase. I also kinda think the obsession with excercising and grades and sport was a phase. And the obsession when I was religious was a phase. So the next question is.... ... ... what is going to be my next phase of my life??...??? time will tell? If I keep this doc and look at it in 10 years... maybe I will see what that is/was. Maybe I need inspiration? Maybe I don't need anything. Maybe I need another mind-altering experience. Maybe maybe.

I guess I am also aware, well the more places you apply and turn down, the more potential doors you are closing. I turned down several engineering places I had applied to and then they said they wanted to interview and I said never mind.... I am the wishy-washy type person when it comes to some stuff...... I guess when it comes to job stuff it seems... but jobs have a huge impact on your life. I really don't want to be a "wage slave". I really don't want to do something that my values disagree with my actions. I really don't want to do something that doesn't use my strengths or lacks any creative outlets. Or pays so little that it kinda isn't worth doing in terms of being able to pay for stuff.

I think I am feeling bad because I applied to those jobs too impulsively and am now realizing that if they do ask for an interview, at least the ghostwriting one, I am going to have to decline the interview. I was thinking more on ghostwriting and I don't like the idea of writing the book for someone else and posing as them. I had watched some videos on their company website and one thing they said was that employees need to be emotionally confident or something like that and I am rather the opposite - rather an emotional destruction. Also, I am thinking about the intake technician thing at the neuropsychologist office thing and am thinking, well... if I am just asking questions from a list... that will get super boring and not have enough creativity and I am kinda overqualified for that... so that is out too. So here I am realizing I am wasting the employer's time by them having to look over my resume and cover letter and then I am just going to turn around and say no thank you... The other one, the crisis hotline, I remember thinking, well if I do that, I would want to start off as part time and not as full time just so I can get a feel for it but not be doing it everyday.................. Uh so yeah I failed. I think I have always been quite impulsive when it comes to applying for jobs. I am just so scared about the whole thing, like a cat jumping up in the air, that I just do it without thinking. I guess though maybe I had to do that to then trigger the need to think more...

I had some more thoughts come in on the ghostwriter thing. Well it is kinda like the ultimate "copy off of my paper" plagarism thing. You write the book for someone else and then they put their name on it as if they wrote it and they sell it and make money for themselves. I can see the idea where, well everyone had to be helped and taught to do certain things and no one does stuff alone. I can see the idea, well people can have great things to share but be really bad at putting it into words and organizing it and so the ghostwriter could be really helpful for that, otherwise it may never get written and spread as easily.. unless the person does decide to go with video and do it that way or something. In science class, this girl would always ask to copy off of my paper and sometimes I would say yes and sometimes no. I would get annoyed at times too but she just never wanted to do the work and I was going to do it anyway and well... that is just what happened. You could argue, oh that isn't fair, some people have to put in all this effort to get their books written and others just pay someone to write it for them. I am seeing it is not black and white but rather has lots of grey areas. The parts I struggle with are being okay with the "dark" part of the grey area. The same went with Civil Engineering - I had a really hard time accepting the dark part of the grey area. Yeah I can reason, oh this is all a dream, or oh once it is dead it won't care, but I was having a hard time. Also, it is like, well is it okay to take a job knowing you don't want to do it for 20 years, knowing that you just want to use it as a test run to know if you want to proceed with that path or not? ... I feel like I struggle with having lots of shame and insecurity still. I think if I had any goal at all... for like when I make it to 40 years old, if that even happened... would be to have less shame and insecurity. It would also be nice to have a home that is mine too but that feels so out of reach right now. But heck, all the bugs/animals don't have homes; this whole idea of home all for yourself is relatively a really weird thing.

I think to feel better, I need to do some chores and feel like I am making progress with at least something ya know? So... time to go take out the dishes...

I guess all this suffering partly ties back to relating everything to the ego; to listening to the thoughts and judging stuff. I really need to finish the Ego Development videos... I was debating about applying to MAPS or something similar to work with psychedelics but also ah IDK.

Maybe deep in my heart.... I really just want to get these books done but I am too out of the zone and need to just do it.... maybe deep in my heart I don't want to work for anyone. Like if I do the ghostwriter thing, who knows if they even want me - well... there is some degree of inauthenticity because I would be posing as someone else... also I had the problem with killing trees and that may contribute to that. Yes I want my own books too but I have debated on just electronic forms but also am aware people can just download stuff for free too... I was thinking that would be helpful in terms of trying to take on new perspectives and getting exposed to different people and their passions. And if I did the neuropsychology intake thing - if I am just asking questions... well wouldn't that get old super quick? I was thinking it would be helpful in terms of just interacting with people and seeing if I like that profession. And if I did the behavioral crisis hotline thing... I guess I am not sure. I can be bad at listening. Ah I don't know. I was thinking it would be helpful in terms of seeing if I liked that profession and also feel good about helping others. I don't know anything and I think that applies to almost everything.