Eph75

@integral There is always choice, and responsibility might be not to say yes. To do what might be considered "right" out of guilt or obligation - is the absolute opposite of responsibility. What makes it more complex is that choice might not be to say no but to accept responsibly without guilt or obligation, ultimaty realizing a stance of wanting to show up - with no buts, no complaining, no regrets, embodying being a commitment to be someone that takes care of that someone. If you were there, this thread would not exist, so there are things to process here. Life is full of difficult choices. From how you frame it, you seem like you don't want this responsibility, and that you never consciously accepted the responsibility to begin with, rather more so slipped into it. If that's moderately correct, it more sounds like you have to learn to set boundaries and respect yourself first, which might mean saying "no", however difficult that that "no" might be. The worst option of all is the one where you fail to act out of responsibility and respect for yourself.

Long due karma

@Kid A The question becomes, what data drives the happiness index and how overall does that reflect the perception of a positive future prospect. The data seems to be coming from social support, income, health, freedom, generosity, and absence of corruption. These are relatively true for a place like Sweden. They don't reflect the trends around immigration and the perception of the Swede VS prospect of future. In terms of corruption index, Sweden has a negative trend and is dropping on the list, albeit still relatively high up. It also need to be taken into account that Sweden is a naive country that rely on each and everyone to act responsibly. Our reasoning is that we shouldn't have to tell people how to act, as we Swedes have a deeply rooted morale and self-regulation that prevent us some stepping outside of the norm. With the changing dynamics due to immigration, that kind of passive approach to maintaining Swedish values and morale isn't working, and Sweden needs to actively enforce a desired value base. The unresponsible and overly liberal immigration of decades of past is a great experiment with serious consequences that will continue to play out for a long time to come, and really has, is and will forever change Sweden at the core.

@Buck Edwards you should probably look inwards into why this obvious and simple decision needs input from others to be made. You give all the right reasons why the alternative may be better for you. What weight does other people's opinion in these very personal matters yet trivial matter have? Why might that be? How might your way of being be influenced by the same, let's call it (could be framed in different ways) , lack of self-confidence and a looking for external guidance or validation?

@jacknine119 This is normal, most everyone does it in one way or another. The reasons matter. And what the hold it has on you is of essence. Untilmately it's about self-esteem. We can say that it's the perception of having a or being relatively worth compared to others. If our self-esteem is low, there will be a need to equalize the difference. The lesser effective pursuit is the looking for external recognition to achieve this, or as some do, lift oneself by putting other down. For example, have you noticed some people constantly looking for problems with things and people, and putting these down rather than looking for how to help improving or solving problems? You would not achieve any change in the actual dynamics, but you get a false sense of self-worth by for example recognizing others mistakes or wrong doings, or what you make up supports others being less than they are. Using this as a sub-conscious strategy to lower others so that you feel better about yourself. Bullying needs to show up here, one of the most brutal and obvious expressions of low self-esteem by adopting a confident facade and forcefully abusing others to gain that false sense of worth, while actually internally having a very low worth and likely many other internal struggles. Another common manifestation is to always put others before yourself, to be a force of the good and the morally sound. Looking for others to recognize that you do good, so that you can, albeit, temporarily feel better about your own lack of worth. Yet another manifestation could be the building of status, pursuing a well paid job or otherwise monetary status, perhaps have a flashy or relative unusual car, clothes, accessories or style, making up that others look up to you. Essentially buying a sense of worth. A false sense of happiness, where happiness mose-so is about escaping low self-worth. Last example is relationships, having friends that are inclusive towards you, lifting your worth up, having friends so that others can think of you as being liked and accepted, or being able to have a romantic/life partner that acknologes to self not being some kind of failed person. There are many other manifestations of this. The problem is that your self-worth and your self-esteem will be owned and regulated by external factors, other people, the things you can buy, and so on. It's not sustainable. The more effective pursuit is towards unconditional self-love, absolute self-acceptance for who you are. Only then would that need to do/achieve things in the external world lose its power over your internal sense of self. Once that happen, you can still continue pursue a well paid job, driving a car that you like, and be for others who they need (and so on) , but you would be (more) emotionally non-attached to the outcomes of that interaction with the external. Internally, being (more) at peace with oneself. Of course more or less relatively/absolutely so. Key it to do what you said you did, to observe, become aware, inquire into it, with curiosity, continue to observe, and accept what shows up. That we observe with acceptance has a tendency to shift. The last thing low self-worth needs is having negative self-criticism poured fueling it. .. although that would be an effective and common way to continue to break it down, so that suffering increases, adding more urgency towards the emergence of self-love and self-acceptance.

It's a limiting perspective on what is - there can be "no seeking", interaction - and - figuring out how to walk this world. It's a no easy task. Integration, or rather "forward reintegration" into the world posts challenges that are as challenging as dissolving the question that initiated the separation itself. There's a push-and-pull that wants a "reversed reintegration" *with* the world. It can't really happen at that point where the separation has already occurred, the point of realization. Yet it presents confusion, a constant cognitive dissonance. Living within the paradox, until transcending the paradox. If it happens.?. ... The dissolvement of the question. No more questions to be asked. No more answers to be needed. No one to need searching. And no more *need* to convince anyone of anything.

There's a difference between seeking and walking. Being without searching. Interacting without need for accomplishment. There being a foot in two worlds, being in the world but not being of the world. And, just, because why not?

If you don't seek, you will never find that the very thing that causes you to seek will dissolve as a result. That the seeking itself was a goose chase, but it had to be, to be able to make the question dissolve or evolve into nothing. Only when the question is nothing, the seeking of nothing ends. Until then, there's a seeking of something. The realization is, that it - the thing that was searched for - that which the question is supposed to unveil, was right here all that time, it just could not be seen. Seek and find that there was nothing to find. Only when that is experienced, that statement makes sense.

Ultimately writing posts like this is too blunt to allow for diggin down into the nuances of all of those statements, as our existing meaning making will make sense of what's there, force it into our existing frame of interpretation. Here, we're looking at reframing the way thoughts occur to us

@fopylo Perhaps you're making it too complicated, and within that too complicated picture that you have painted for yourself you have gotten lost in that picture, not finding the path forward. Consider that the path forward is not at all in that painting, but in that which compels you to paint in a certain way. That very thing that produces the thought that you feel compelled by and that which creates the sense of right and wrong, good and bad that keep you stuck. When you think about how you should get out of "your rut", what you are likely doing is reversing and repainting the same picture over and over again, defining that picture as ultimately true. But what you're doing is really shortcutting yourself right into the Cul de Sac, the dead end, that you've visited and keep revisiting over and over again. It's you maintaining status quo, but you've been there, you've been down that road, you know exactly where it ends... () Then, how do you choose a different road when you don't know how, and the only road that shows up before you it that one, your, road? Observation. Consider that you don't need to do anything else than observe the going-ons within you. Then asking yourself questions about what makes you think the way you do, where your answers seem preconceived and what's true and needed is unquestionable so. What was it that made you you? What defining moments were there in your earlier life that cause you to become who you are, that has the thoughts that occur to you occur. There is greater understanding to be found here, there are those defining moments in our lives when we decided "I don't want to be that" or "I need to do this to" in order to be, as we make up, successful in life. It's the writing of the script of who we are, that we hold unquestionably true. And it's not unquestionably true at all, in fact, it's all made up and there are specific reasons we subconsciously made it up and "wrote" that script in the shape we did. The only issue is that the script will prove itself not working, it's just a matter of time and to what degree it's creating a discrepancy in our minds. And yet we will keep adding more and more into the script, building an increasingly more complex one. That is, until a point that the script is proven to ourselves not working anymore and we either get stuck, or we reject parts of the script replacing it with something that works better, so that we can be more successful, in increasingly holistic ways. That script you don't choose to change. It changes by mere observation, making connections between our current manifestation and what events made us choose certain ways of being, generating insights into ourselves which in turn may create shifts that allows us to see what parts of the script that we need to let go of, being replaces by something new. This works in unpredictable ways, and logics do not apply as your logics is generated by your current script. For example, and this is just a provocative example, you may think that you want to stay ajour with the anime scene, buy that may be a compulsory thought generated by something in your internal script, making that unquestionably true and a result is that there is something else wrong inside the picture that you have painted, but it not being related to anime. It then makes you focus more on the rest, while continuing wanting for anime. What if the one thing that makes it compulsory is the thing that needs introspection into? What if that compulsory scrioting makes anime a conceptual must? Equally, you can say that you have scripting that create action towards the things that you compulsory do pursue. Driven by a specific behavior, judgment or lens, that you chose for some specific reason, albeit subconsciously so, in order to be able to be successful as you made up successful to be. Looking into this composition of who we are and gaining more understanding of what makes us have thoughts occur to us in a certain way "making you seem you" allows for creating some wiggleroom and freedom to have new thoughts occur, or old thoughts occur in slightly new ways, leading to the picture being drawn be somewhat different, where the predetermined Cul de Sac does not occur in the first place. There's no absolut true or right way of doing it. It's all about the process itself. What events might there have been in your earlier years where you made such choices about who you are, want to be, or don't want to be, that created the set of tools that are paining your current painting? Sit with this question. For hours, and scribble down what you come up with, and consider sharing, explaining and opening up for someone else to ask into what you make up being true. Suspend your judgment of whatever shows up. Query further into it. And while doing this, hold whatever comes up for you lightly (!) ... after all you are just making it up and it is likely to be proven untrue and needing to be replaced further down the path, so try not being too attached to the new truth emerging. Good luck my friend

❤️

Agreed. SD, t's a model, and a tool that emerged from certain circumstances, and all models needs to be discarded at some point when it's meaningfulness and usefulness has been transcended.

Well, while leaving it open to create shadows anywhere on the spiral, I was referring to the shadows created by rejecting some aspects while moving up the spiral, that needs to be addressed, to a certain degree, and reintegrated, in order to transcend the first tier, into Yellow. Even at Yellow, there going to be shadows from prior stages to be reintegrated. Even at Yellow, I would suppose there is the possibility to create Yellow shadows that needs to be cleaned at some later point to aloow further development.

This is not it. You are not born into Yellow, you progress more effectively though the stages as part of early development, being pulled into the center of gravity for where the society and local influence is, by being subjected to more efficient means of development. And, you will get shadows that need dealing with, inevitably so, if you are to mature to the point that you start, your transition into Yellow.

LOA is at play at a much more fundamental level than desire. For example, if you are positive and creative, you attract more positive and creative people, accelerating one's own manifestation. It doesn't have to be fueled by desire, neither deficieny needs nor becoming needs. A interesting factor is that when wanting something too much, the neediness generated is emitting a negative vibration, repelling positive vibration, creating the opposite effect of what one wants. Equally, operating from a place of freedom without attachment to particular outcomes, emits positive energies which attracts and makes it easier to get alignment with others that amplifies the opportunities and possibilities to manifest effects that align with ones values. These are very real effects. The asking for something concrete desire, the actual effect is in the subtle and intangible being that is happening under the apparent surface, and has less to do with an actual thing desired.