Osaid

Nice. Yeah, I get it. The main thing to realize here is that the other guy doesn't know any of this. If you pay attention, you can see yourself constructing this entire story in the moment and then getting pulled in emotionally. You can see yourself applying this entire story to what the guy said to you, and then getting emotional about it. You can actually learn to not do this, and let it go instead. You can get really good at it. Just make the decision to forfeit the emotional treachery you are about to pull yourself into. It's actually way easier and much more efficient to do this. You will feel a bunch of emotional pressure building up and then you'll be like "nope, not gonna even consider this seriously" and then all of that pressure will just instantly eviscerate, because you aren't pulling yourself into the ego's story anymore. It really is that simple and easy. Remember, your emotional well-being is always top priority, above all else. If you are at unease emotionally, it is because of some sort of resistance and misalignment with reality, so there is never a situation where being emotionally unwell will benefit you or make sense. If you deeply understand the importance of being emotionally well, whenever a situation arises that affects your emotions, it will instantly send alarms off and you will be like "woah, I need to let go of whatever story I'm thinking of right now which is causing this feeling in me". It will become natural to you. In a sense, you kind of have to override your ego's desire to be "right" here. Being "right" means pulling yourself into a debate with the person, which is as we said is unsustainable and unproductive. Being "right" means being emotionally unwell. Overall it's just not smart. Being "right" means wrestling with the pig. What is truly right, is having enough respect for yourself to not engage with any of this nonsense. My pleasure. Yep. This is a massive insight.

Yeah, you understand yourself better than anyone there. This is a fact which many people take for granted. It means that you, yourself, have the greatest capacity of loving yourself, because you understand yourself so completely. You know what they're saying isn't true. That's where the resistance is coming from. What they are saying is not in alignment with reality, so you feel resistance to it. Since you are yourself, you understand yourself better than anyone at that party can, and consequently, you have the greatest potential for loving yourself, because you understand yourself so well. You obviously don't think what they're saying is correct, or else you'd just agree with it. You actually don't need other people to understand you in order to feel fulfilled, that's just a survival habit you've formed. You're using other people as a proxy to feel bad about yourself. The resistance is this: Deep down, you know what they said is BS. It doesn't even make sense. It doesn't really apply to you. That's not the type of person you are. It's literally something the guy said on a whim without having any knowledge on your situation. On the other hand, your ego mind is wracking itself over it, because of survival reasons. Status, what other people think of you, what it will mean in the future, etc. It wants them to change their mind. This feeling of "shit" feels so strong because it's a survival game from the ego's perspective, and the ego takes survival very seriously, and so it elicits a very serious response. The ego wants to prove itself to other people, so that other people understand it better and then it can feel better about itself again. It's possible to skip this step and go straight to the source of love, which is you, not necessarily other people. The ego delegates some of your love to other people for survival reasons. The truth is, you can decide to love yourself right now, but you will notice a feeling of resistance pop up from the ego. "No, you can't just love yourself after what happened, those people need to understand what they said is wrong, are you really gonna let them misrepresent you like that?, etc." You can choose to get pulled into the ego's game here, or just accept that you will never have full control over what people think of you and surrender to it. See, the ego's game is unwinnable. You're not gonna control what everyone thinks about you. That's the end of it. The ego will go insane over this fact and resist it, until you decide to surrender to it and be ok with it. The resistance you feel comes from a denial of reality. Peace comes when you align yourself with reality, which is that you will never have full control over what people think. The reason you encounter resistance in reality is because you trap yourself in these endless unwinnable ego games. Of course you're gonna feel like shit when you expect to have complete control over what some drunk idiot thinks about you. It's UNWINNABLE, surrender to this and realize that you don't have to win or play any stupid ego games, you can just accept and surrender and be at peace with it, and you will ask yourself why you even cared to begin with. You don't need to control what some drunk dude thinks about you to feel fulfilled with yourself. From a more practical perspective, I would advise you be careful with who you decide to engage with and share information with. Be very perceptive. If they don't make the effort to try and understand you, or don't even seem slightly open to it, don't even say anything. It doesn't matter. Why would you wanna engage with someone so immature? You have to have respect and standards for yourself. You should be like "Oh ok, this guy is assuming a bunch of random shit about me. I'll just laugh it off and try to disengage as much as possible". At the very least this is someone you make stupid jokes with while drunk, not talk about serious life perspectives, because what are they gonna offer there? Nothing, just their own bad perspective. Be resourceful and tactful in how you spend your energy and information. It's not worth pouring your heart out to some drunk dude that doesn't understand anything, this will actually make you more emotional and make you even more annoyed when they blatantly disregard what you're trying to say. You have to expect all of this as a possibility beforehand, that way you are prepared. If you try to prove yourself or engage with them, you will be pulled into their ego game which is them pushing their agenda and assumptions onto you. It's like that quote, “Don't ever wrestle with a pig. You'll both get dirty but the pig will enjoy it.” You really gotta understand that these people are STUPID, in the sense that they do not understand at all what you are going through and they do not really even care about what comes out of their mouth. You are doing yourself a disservice when you get affected so heavily by something like this. The proper action is to realize the guy doesn't even know what he's talking about and then not take it seriously. The guy probably forgot about that conversation by now. It's just not worth getting so invested in something like this. The big problem is that you are taking what the guy is saying to you, and you are applying it to the full context of everything that has happened to you in your life. All your hardships. Everything. The guy that said it has ZERO of this context. In a sense, he isn't even talking about you, because he barely has any information about you. He just came up with some idea and assumption about you inside of his head and then spoke. Do you see why getting so emotionally involved is silly now? You're defending a version of you that doesn't even exist.

Notice that when you expect God to be this way, you are putting a limitation on God. God can make things harder or easier. It can make itself question whether it is God or not. That's what it means to be God.

Yes, absolutely. My brother was a hermit shut-in that played video games all day, he got mentored by a really good teacher, now he is one of the best salesmen I have ever seen. All the odds were seemingly against him. It's definitely worth learning and dedicating time to sales. Learning how to interact with people will get you places. Even just making a little bit of progress here will pay massively.

phenomenal observation

They are scared of conflict. They lack enough self-love to put themselves out there. By being "shy" they never have to risk doing things that might make them look "stupid" or "weird", which will massively affect their self-esteem and self-love. By being reserved, they never have to enter situations which might make them hate themselves or feel bad about themselves. It's a cop-out which basically brings the risks that come with social situations down to 0%, but obviously it is unsustainable in the long run as social dynamics are unavoidable. Notice that everyone is "shy" to some degree. "Shy" is just a boundary you created which keeps your self-esteem safe. Some people have a very fragile sense of self-esteem and self-love, and so it ends up being much more noticeable, and then you deem them as a "shy person" because of how obvious it is. They are shy because they are avoiding something that they are resisting, something that will massively impact their self-esteem, and some people tie their self-worth into social situations so deeply that they would rather just avoid it at all costs.

Asking the real questions. Where is the obligatory long beard which is a staple of enlightened masters?

First thing you need to do is establish a baseline sense of self-worth and self-acceptance. You can't count on the people around you to be emotionally developed enough to carefully consider the words and languages that come out of their mouth. They are gonna be fearful and their doubts and anxieties will creep into your mind if you are not grounded enough in your own self-worth. You have to have enough love and respect for yourself to not let other people's lack of development hinder you and your focus. Being worried and having anxiety about something that you can't even control is not productive and it will harm you further. Yeah ok, your mom kind of screwed things up and she might even blame you for it, you should not even consider falling into that line of reasoning or even entertaining it, you should realize that playing a blame game and swearing at people is just unproductive and low-consciousness. Your focus should be on how to calm your mom down or how to de-escalate the situation, instead of pulling yourself into the delusion. You have to be the mature one here and ask yourself what is the best way to handle this from a big picture perspective, instead of rushing into the argument in an attempt to prove yourself to them. It's a more holistic and detached perspective that comes from realizing that worrying and being self-deprecating wont help with anything. You yourself know deep down that it wasn't really your fault, and that you simply misunderstood the situation, and that you do not deserve hate. Tap into that. Ground yourself in that. You simply did what you thought was best. Don't let others gaslight you into self-hate. Keep that feeling strong, that feeling is truth. Your goal should instead be: How can I de-escalate the situation? How can I control my parent's emotions? What tangible and practical steps can I take from here to take back control over the situation? What is there to learn from this situation? What is the Universe trying to teach me? How can something like this be prevented from happening again? I can relate to feeling bad about spending your parent's money. They probably worked hard for it. I get it. For me, that feeling went away once I started making some money. It grounded me more in the value of money. You just have to accept what has happened and realize that feeling guilty about it is not gonna benefit you. You guys already considered what spending 50 dollars might do for you, and you decided to take the risk, and that was the best you could do with the knowledge you had at the time, and that's the end of it. Learn from it and move on. That's the best you can do. You can still extract 50 dollars worth of value simply by learning from and contemplating your situation. There are valuable lessons to take in, and then those lessons will ripple into a butterfly affect which will help you massively in other areas of your life.

Yep. My experience as well. They are very direct and cutthroat, and they like to be practical and pragmatic. Anything "meaningful" as you describe it is not useful to them and doesn't make them money, so why talk about it.

There is a lot of stigma around porn and masturbation. Also, post-nut clarity. Sexual activity in general is not the cleanest and most hygienic thing, it puts you in a somewhat primitive state of mind, so people are more likely to feel bad about it afterwards. Like, "OMG I can't believe I was acting like such an animal a few seconds ago, shame on me". This kind of mentality. I have never struggled with this personally. I think people do overreact in regards to porn. They will have some other activity they do which is much worse and then harp on you watching porn. You will have some guy who religiously follows no-fap and then eats Mcdonald's every single day, like you can tell their priorities and views towards porn are skewed. They view it as "dirty" and "beta". Most people don't know shit about sexuality in general and aren't very comfortable about it, so the extreme backlash kind of makes sense. It's ignorance. Yeah you can become addicted and obsessed, and there is potential for it to cause significant damage, just like a bunch of other things in life which are not ostracized nearly as much. This is an interesting statistic, but I can guarantee if you ask the average joe off the street what their reason for hating porn is, they will not say this. Just thought this was an important nuance to point out, as the question is why are so many people against porn. The title is hinting at an overreaction, which I agree with. I doubt many people will have this reasoning at hand. There might be reasons to keep porn moderated, like this one. But I think in our current society we are overreacting and using reasons that don't make much sense.

Hmm, I have had a similar experience recently as well. Not sure what was causing it either. It was a noticeable shift in energy and state, I would laugh much more and be much more motivated and energetic and clear-headed. It helped with social anxiety as well, a lot of my work at the time was based on interacting with people. Some mornings had a very clear and euphoric feeling to it, it would come on sporadically. I could almost notice the exact moment I would tap into it. And then some mornings it didn't happen. I was taking a supplement at the time, not sure if that had anything to do with it. I will try to test things out more as well.

Absolutely. There were big benefits, lots of personal development and growth. I would say it turned mine around and motivated me to get much more diligent about things. That doesn't disprove that it's not a cult though, which is why cults are so tricky. Most of them reel people in with stuff like this. Most of them aren't aware that they are cults. This was basically the idea. I went into it with this mindset and approach. I wanted to extract as much growth and development as possible from it, but eventually it got to a climax where a bunch of the ideologies I didn't really agree with caught up to me and I ended up just deciding to leave. It was definitely a massive learning experience, and I think it was an inevitable experience considering my brother was in it and I was always considering joining. Maybe. It has to be a very slow and careful effort though. I guess the narcissistic authority in the cult of existence is me/God. I'll take it over some stage orange boss.

I will prefix this by saying, I don't have much work experience. I have only ever worked as a cashier before this, so I am not too sure what is "standard" or "normal". I recently got into a sales job working B2B. It is entirely commission-based. We sell a real tangible product, not some pyramid scheme type thing, so it is legit in some sense. The job itself has good potential for money and it comes with a lot of valuable skills and life lessons to learn. It has made me much more confident for sure. My brother started working there years ago and he has been there for a while now. He told me a position had opened, and I wanted to try it out so here I am. The people that work here are absolutely amazing at what they do, I have seen them in action, they deal with massive businesses regularly. I do enjoy a lot of aspects of the job, talking to businesses, helping them out with products, learning how different businesses operate, having a team of people to talk with, getting valuable business advice, etc. However, there are quite a few aspects that make me uneasy, and I don't know if I am overreacting or if I'm simply trying to avoid doing the hard work. The way this company operates is unlike anything I've ever seen before. It is very strict and personal. I will do my best to explain. Everyday we wake up at about 4am, non-negotiable. Everyone here is constantly taking naps. It's basically impossible to not be sleep-deprived here, but the boss partakes in it too, which is why I say he seems genuine to an extent, he really does believe what he teaches us, but that doesn't disprove him being a cult leader. The boss says spiritual platitudes all the time, but with a stage orange tint to it. He is very deep in the Napoleon Hill/Earl Nightingale/Grant Cardone type of ideology, if that makes sense. The stage orange spiritual stuff. He commands everything that everyone does. Everyone here is basically a mini-version of him at this point. And there is a very tense energy in the company. At any moment, one of the employees could shout at you or change personalities if you do one thing wrong, even if you guys were getting along perfectly well a few minutes ago. They will threaten to hit you sometimes or make your life "a living hell", but I am unsure how much of that is hyperbolic. They call it discipline, and that if you don't obey you are being disrespectful and ungrateful. I remember asking one time why we were changing our schedule out of curiosity, and one of them got mad at me and told me that I shouldn't ask questions because of my position on the hierarchy. They talk about hierarchies, and having to respect people who are above you, and not asking questions about things and just doing them, as soldiers do in war. They will sometimes tell me to do things that make no logical sense, just for the sake of following orders and following a hierarchy, I guess to make me more "disciplined" and "obedient". They treat me like a kid and behave as if they are my parents or babysitters, that is the dynamic here. I think that the boss genuinely thinks he is doing what is best, I don't think that he is purposefully trying to manipulate or lie to us, but as Leo said cult leaders don't necessarily realize they are leading a cult. He talks quite often about humiliating people who have previously left the organization, and that our lives will turn to hell if we leave. He has even talked about tapping someone's phone in the organization to make sure they aren't selling the company out, which seems very extreme to me. The turnover rate is very high. And then the boss will make fun of the people who leave. It seems clear to me that the organization runs off of fear. The boss himself is quite vocal and explicit. He has very controversial views he spouts, the mindset is "if you don't like it then leave" which I can kind of respect. He also talks about disconnecting from family and friends because they often do not serve us or support us, which actually has some truth to it. A lot of what he says has truth sprinkled into it, which is why I am conflicted. He constantly says the phrase "if you're not with us you're against us". He also talks about how if someone asks us about the company we should always sell them on the company and make it look good, or else we are being ungrateful and poor. He even said he would fire us if we didn't put a good word in. Everyone here treats the boss like a God. Everytime he says or commands something, they say "yes sir". They see him as the ultimate role model. We have team meetings, and after every statement he says he asks "does that make sense?" to which everyone responds in unison "yes sir". It almost seems like a fake question, I have never heard respond "no" to that and I guarantee if someone did they would be mad about it. This guy says some pseudo-spiritual stuff that doesn't really make sense a lot of times and everyone just responds "yes sir" to it. It strikes me as off. They are absolutely enamoured with how "successful" and "spiritual" he is. They also talk a lot about "bullying" in order to fix their behaviour. They talk about "breaking people down and then building them back up", which seems very brainwashy to me. They are very judgemental and poke at lots of tiny things they don't agree with in a very idiosyncratic way, because they find it to be "weird" or "poor" or "disrespectful" behaviour. Like for example, they might out you on just sitting differently. I understand that cult dynamics can be very nuanced. A lot of the points here are mentioned in Leo's video about cults and I felt a lot of it lined up. It may not even be a "cult" per say, but maybe a better label would be "toxic workplace". Most workplaces are toxic to some degree. I'm pushing through because I see lots of valuable skills and money here. There is also another member here who got his brother in, and Leo said cults use family members to recruit. They are planning to have me move into their house to live with them, so that I wont be influenced by my parents anymore as I am living with them currently. Very little time is spent outside of work, every day is basically just spent working. I'm getting a bit worried cause I feel like I am slowly being sucked into their hive mind and way of looking at things, losing my individuality and motivation to leave and think for myself. The longer I stay here the more cemented I feel, as different relationships and habits are being built. I will also add that the boss' personal ideology is basically forced onto everyone, and if you say no to what he asks you will basically be fired immediately, or at least he says so. It is very cutthroat, and he says it is necessary if you want to be disciplined and successful. Am I just overthinking this? I just need some fresh perspectives on this.

Math is based on imaginary distinctions, so yes it is conceptual. A tool. A projection. It's a way of looking at the world which shows us patterns and helps us understand and work with things better, but just because something is useful doesn't necessarily mean it is based on truth. At the very least, it might lead you to truth, like a finger pointing at the moon.

Do it out of love for yourself. You want to see yourself become something amazing. Tap into that. You love and respect yourself so much, that you are willing to confront fear and resistance. Really take in that level of love you are showing yourself, that effort you are willing to make for yourself out of love. Confront what you fear out of love for yourself. You will never suffer a loss by confronting what you fear. You will always receive an equal benefit. You will become a stronger and better version of you after confronting it. You can't really lose in that sense. Every dragon you slay levels you up, it's like a video game. And the best part is, once you confront that fear/dragon, it doesn't nag you ever again, cause you've already slain it.

Yeah, I was originally planning to wait a few weeks because I was expecting some sort of fallout to happen if I were to do it too suddenly, but apparently they were already talking about my behavior and it spiraled into a conversation which gave me the opportunity to tell them straight out I want to leave. They were more understanding than I thought. Like I said, they are not purposefully lying or manipulating, but at the same time they are perpetuating very clear cult dynamics. They are very emotionally attached. I kind of feel bad for them.

Thank you From a purely psychological perspective, it kind of was. There was a lot of fear-mongering. Having family in there kind of ties things up too. But they were mostly cool about it, although it was very emotional at the beginning. Like Leo said in the cult video, I was "allowed" to walk out but there was a lot of psychological baggage and fear that was being created so that I wouldn't really even consider it. He didn't even converse with me about it, he just ordered me a flight out of there, and then my brother talked me through the rest of the process. Like I said, he is not lying or saying things he doesn't believe in, he genuinely believes in what he is saying, he has just unconsciously created cult dynamics within his organization. It's similar to how someone can be a psychopath without realizing they are one. The team meeting today was actually about brainwashing and cults and belief systems, which was obviously inspired by me leaving. I guess he wanted to reinforce the morale of the group and hit those objections before the other members in the group even consider it. Anyways, I appreciate everyone's responses in this thread, I think it brought me clarity.

It seems like the Universe was listening in on this thread or something, cause everything today coincidentally cascaded into a sequence of events where I eventually had to talk it out with my brother about leaving the organization. We had a 3 hour long convo and talked it out. He will tell the boss tomorrow that I want to leave.

@OBEler @ZzzleepingBear Alright, I will probably leave in a week or two once we move back to where my house is, I think it will be the least turbulent that way. Thanks. I will update on what happens. I personally don't see myself living in such an environment for the next few years anyways, even if it does make me a lot of money.

@OBEler I have seen it, yes. Like I said, these guys are genuinely phenomenal salesmen. Probably better than most. I've seen them in action. And this guy has grown a lot as a person and built a lot of valuable skills, I know cause it's my brother. Commision-based pay is known for being turbulent in the beginning, though. This much is true. Everyone here basically came from the same background. Single mother, no father figure. Socially awkward. Very young. most people here are around their 20s. I agree this makes us very impressionable, especially when the boss himself is very good at selling himself to people.

Peter Ralston is the closest IMO

@King Merk I will rewatch it for sure. Everytime I watch it it seems like my mind makes excuses about how it might actually not be a cult. True, it's not everyday you suspect something of being a cult. Transitioning outta here is gonna be icky but it may be necessary.

@ZzzleepingBear I guess what you're saying is that I shouldn't delegate my personal success and financial stability to a group of stage red/orange people that I don't agree with? I guess that makes sense. The idea is to go through an unbalanced lifestyle and then reap the rewards of a balanced one at the end. Good point, so in the end I guess the dependency on the boss and the group is just too high. He does talk about us pursuing our own careers in the end once we become rich, though. For reference, a guy who has been here for years makes about 300 dollars a day. You know how commision is, it can be big or low some days.

@Leo Gura I commend your ability to talk about such topics in this way, as a fellow INTP to another. We rub people off the wrong way when talking so open-mindedly about such things and it's great to see you push through that.

@ZzzleepingBear It is definitely not balanced, they would argue that is necessary to not be balanced in order to be successful and financially free and they would probably list a bunch of people who went through hell to become successful. Becoming successful and rich is a personal thing. What do you think of this line of reasoning? The goal here is to become millionares and financially free, and that will take a lot of sacrifices. @Leo Gura I would appreciate if you had the time to chime in here as well, I think your video on cults really woke me up as to what might be going on here @King Merk @OBEler What brings you to such definite conclusions? What seems obvious to you might not be so obvious to me right now, so I would like to hear some elaboration.