r0ckyreed

1. Actuality 2. Satisfaction Meditation 3. Power of letting go 4. What is wisdom 5. Guided exercise for Infinite Consciousness

Imagine that you have a baby that you gave birth to. Sometimes, too many principles can be confusing and hard to remember and keep track of on a daily basis. What would be the top 10 most important principles, rules, or lessons that you would want to impart on your child before they grow up and take on the world? Here is my list, feel free to critique and add your own. 1. Ambition, potential, and work ethic- live life to the fullest and develop a work ethic for following through to unlock your dreams and full potential. Take action! 2. Contemplate Daily - live an examined life, where you are contemplating for its own sake for gaining insights into reality that you can actualize. Contemplate each day. Think for yourself. 3. Invest in yourself (life is deeper than money) - spend time each day growing yourself through education, reading, etc. Save money so you can have freedom, not things. 4. Kaizen - find ways to make small improvements and habits each day 5. Courage - face fears. Stand up for yourself no matter how uncomfortable it may feel. Be assertive for what you need. Have the courage to persist even if it seems like nothing is happening. 6. Integrity - your actions represent your principles and values. Do what you say. 7. Passion/Excitement - Always live your life aligned with your top passions and excitements. 8. Gratitude and self-compassion - always have and express gratitude for yourself and give your self the love and kindness you always deserve. 9. Playfulness - while work ethic is important, it is also vital to be playful and enjoy life right now. Have your mind and soul like a child and bring playfulness and joy to whatever you are doing. 10. Question All Social Influences - invest in being all alone by yourself in solitude. Society makes slaves of us all. Be an independent thinker by allowing yourself time to be alone and away from social influences. Don’t do drugs. Don’t fall for peer pressure. Real peace and serenity is always in the present moment. Change your friends if all they want to do is change you. This is my first attempt. I am going to need to make my list more simpler because it is so wordy. I will contemplate this more. What are some of your principles that have been helpful to you, but also that you would impart on your child for being successful in the world?

Philosophy. I see philosophy and personal development as the same. Philosophy is supposed to grow us. Although, in the end, we are all perfect the way we are, personal development and philosophy to me are about actualizing our full potential while also having a deep existential connection to it. I love philosophy because it engages my mind and motivates me to keep growing and helped me develop a love of learning in college, where I never really valued learning, education, and thinking until I took a philosophy class in college. Philosophy is my ultimate passion and love for life. It is amazing that we exist and that we can ponder and introspect about reality and our function within it. With philosophy, a deep passion for me is to grow, but to also help others grow and develop their own philosophies and answers to life’s deepest questions and challenges. How I apply my love for philosophy is through existential therapy. I use existential therapy to help others find their own answers to life and also reframing how they view life to the fullest and existential layer. A lot of times, our problems in life prevent us from looking within to that existential domain. So much of life is missed when we do not spend time contemplating. I love helping others, but I also love just being in solitude out in nature just contemplating and marveling at life. I love to read books out there as well and write about insights or just think them. I have a bias towards contemplation over meditation. I use my contemplations to help me ground myself into being. But I also realize that contemplation is actually a form of meditation called analytical meditation. I believe contemplation is the key that unlocks the answers to life if only we stop wasting time and do it. I truly believe Socrates when he states that “The unexamined life is not worth living,” as well as “the only thing I know is nothing.” I still don’t know where I want to go in life or the specifics of what I want to do, but I do know that philosophy is my passion and the impact I want on the world is through my talks, teachings, counseling, and writings about philosophy and how we need to live more examined lives. Don’t shut off your minds, use them! This is the one thing I don’t like about traditional forms of meditation because clear thinking is important. We examine our lives through both thinking and not thinking I suppose, but I know that we should learn how to contemplate more clearly in life. Contemplating and questioning is lacking in our society. If everyone spent time deeply contemplating, there problems would be few as opposed to many. I witness this with my clients, which many of them I admit are still at the physiological stage of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and need that emotional/social support. Philosophy and examining life, enjoying life, and blossoming to my full potential are some of the things I enjoy. Memento mori has been a practice that has helped me put my life in perspective. I also subtlety help clients do this to by them thinking about life in terms of an hourglass in which it is all about what we do with the sand (time) we have left. Any feedback is warranted and well-appreciated because I am still trying to make my vision of philosophy, personal development, and consciousness raising more clear and specific.

Tests are bullshit and don’t let them define you. The real tests in life is how you handle suffering and failure. They are inevitable. Intelligence cannot be measured through a test. Failing or passing a human test is meaningless. Focus on acing the test of life. Most people fail that test. Don’t let results dismantle you. Stay in the Now, and focus on using your time to the fullest. If you give it your all, then there is nothing to worry about. Be invested in the process but remain unattached from outcomes.

I am current a therapist-in-training and am studying to be a therapist. I find that a lot of my clients could benefit so much more if they were dedicated to the process and implement what was discussed into their actual lives. I give my clients tasks to do but a lot of them fail to follow through. I tell them that “expecting results from coming to therapy once a week for an hour is the same as Kevin Durant expecting to win NBA championships by just going to the team practices.” It is important that people realize that therapy is much more on you than it is the therapist. It’s about what you do between sessions. But it is important to have a therapist that supports and also challenges you to grow. I am existential therapist, which means I focus on the existential domains of an individual and how they cope with the inevitabilities of life (death, isolation, freedom, meaninglessness, and suffering). A lot of therapists don’t go deep into existential domains cause I feel like they themselves have not went that far in their own growth. If you do not know what you want to “work on,” then it is really hard for any therapist to support you. My way of doing therapy is that I am like a philosophical guide/companion that tries to help you to understand yourself, your strengths, and your areas of further development. Some therapists have other therapists to help them with vicarious trauma. But some therapists have not went far enough into themselves into the existential domains. I believe that we don’t truly know ourselves until we have the balls to dive deep into the ocean. But first, one must go through the kiddy pool, then adult pool, then ponds, lakes, and then oceans if I were to put that analogously. But a lot of people I work with are not ready to go to ocean, so you have to meet them where they are at and assess where they want to go with therapy.

Good point. I was over-generalizing there, and I realize that now. Yeah. I see it now. Both can be powerful. My biases are that running a marathon would be more challenging, but I guess the same could be said about sitting and doing nothing! Lol! I just don’t think sitting for a long time is healthy for body and will not grow the body, but it may grow the mind. With running, I see it as growing both but I may do an update post after trying both. Many people already are sitting on their asses all day doing something, but very few can sit all day doing nothing. The reason I choose running is because our bodies were designed to be active, and I heard that sitting down for long periods of time can lead to blood clots and other joint issues down the road. I guess the same could be said for running in a way, but at least it builds cardiovascular system and immune systems and is overall very healthy for body. But like anything, too much is too bad. That’s a good point. Trust our feelings and all. I need to work on following my intuition more. I typically just follow my highest passions and excitements and look for challenges I can do. Challenge is essence of growth. My highest excitement and goal is to be able to do a month marathon, but I realize that I need to build up to it. My heart tells me that I need to do more with my life besides sitting down all day at work helping clients and then coming home and winding down just to detox, self-care, and prepare for next day. My whole thing is “get busy living or get busy dying.” All we have to do is become an embodied of our loved potential. When I die, I want to realize that I gave it my all. Most of the gravestones I see sadden me because most have not lived their potential. @Gesundheit2 what has helped you follow your intuition? All I do is follow that enjoyment and excitement. I want to make my grinds enjoyable and not grind through grinds.

It’s a paradox. No properties can be aware because anything you name is already couched within awareness. This is the solipsism problem of how can I differentiate between inanimate objects and animate ones or ones with consciousness and awareness or not. It is generally assumed that when you look at human bodies walking around that there is another mind there who is aware. When you look at a plant or rock, it is generally assumed that it isn’t a self. The headless void of the Watcher is your answer, which cannot be named or put into words.

Oh wow! Wonderful post mate! I am no longer sitting on my ass. Get off the ass and hit the dirt. Real spirituality is in the discomfort. Hedonism is in the comfort. Keep going like Forrest Gump and Rocky Balboa!

I will keep looking for it on booklist.

True dat. I would also agree that progress and potential are illusions just like everything else. Life is an illusion, and I want to play this illusion to the fullest before it is over. I only get one shot at life and whether it is real, virtual, fiction or whatever does not matter to me because there is no alternative to beingness here and now that I am exposed to. I am the only judge and the only one that matters on deathbed if I even have one. I think it is important to balance enjoyment and potential. If we are not growing and having fun, then what are we living for? Right on brotha. Keep living now, and it is also important to plan and use concepts as long as we still focus on the present. Make the most of Now. There is no tomorrow. That’s what I am saying. I realize that running and meditation and spirituality are all one.

So could sitting all day as well. I heard of research that suggested that we should only be sitting for less than 3 hours per day as it is bad for joints. Sitting for long periods of time could be unhealthy. I will probably build up to 30 day marathon. None that stood out to me. If there was a book like that, I would be surprised that I did not see it. I will check booklist again to see.

Could running a marathon a day for the next 30 days be considered a running meditation? I think sitting meditation can be okay, but Jedis are trained to be active and passive with the Force. Sitting down all day long does nothing for personal growth. The point of life is to grow into the best versions of ourselves and to maximize our potential in life. On our deathbed, we will be confronted by at least two main things, which are whether (1)we lived up to our potential and used every ounce of ourselves to the Universe, and if we also (2) enjoyed life and actually had fun and were playful with life. So could running a marathon a day be a spiritual meditation practice that could combine both potential and playfulness? I believe what Rocky Balboa was doing was a spiritual practice. He found a reason to keep going and staying in the Ring of Life even though he could have easily laid down, stayed at home watching TV. What do you think?

You are the book.

What has helped me is waking up at 5am and writing at least 3 crappy pages. The goal is to write down all my insights and to let the ideas flow through me. It helps with contemplation practice. @JosephKnecht I see that your book Who We Are is on audible. I will definitely check it out! I do not have audible yet. But I plan on getting Audible plus for $8 per month, which seems like a damn good deal for all the books it has on there. How do you get your book onto audible? By the way, do you have any other tips for formatting and how to organize writing. I tend to connect all of ideas together and it is hard for me to separate them at times. Do you plan on getting your other books onto audible? How is that process? Thank you!@JosephKnecht

Get pissed off and disgusted by what you are doing to your body, finances, future, health, etc. If that does not wake you up, I don’t know what will. You can do it. Small steps in the end are big steps.