Lorcan

Other suggestions Timelessness vs Schedules Advice for High School and College students part 2 - Staying on Track. Joke suggestion: Leo Weighs in - Trump vs Hillary

'If people want to take you for a ride then passivity means you respond appropriately while consulting the rest of your values - don't just sit and be a doormat - as long as your number one value is non-injury and you do everything in that spirit then all your responses will be fine, and if the results are not what you hoped for you are still fine because your intention was honorable. You can't do anymore than that!' I don't understand what you are saying here accurately enough. What do you mean by 'don't just sit and be a doormat - as long as your number one value is non-injury and you do everything in that spirit then all your responses will be fine' Can you give an example of Just sitting like a doormat (I assume by this you are trying to say "Don't just sit there and endure the suffering" (Whether this be someone saying slander about you or whatever) Also an example on Not Sitting like a doormat and what you are supposed to do (in relation to stoicism) Surely sitting like a doormat and enduring wrongdoing put on you is no different then retaining the non-injury value as mentioned above. Which I assume from researching stoicism and reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius that you mean non-injury in the sense that you expecting the bad things in life to happen, hence Marcus Aurelius wrote: "Say to yourself first thing in the morning:today I shall meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, agressive,treacherous, malicious, unsocial. All this has afflicted them through their ignorance of true good and evil. But have I seen that the nature of good is what is right, and the nature of evil what is wrong;and I have reflected that the nature of the offender himself is akin to my own - not a kinship of blood or seed, but a sharing in the same mind, the same fragment of divinity" I'm sure there are more quotes relating to the "expectence and acceptence of the bad/good" in Marcus Aurelius meditations but I haven't read to deep into it yet. Thank you.

Hello, Im Lorcan Im 14 years old. Ive been doing meditation for a solid 2 months now, these can be anywhere from 20 minute to 1 hour sessions , I have missed 3 days of meditation but other then that Im getting more consistant For the Majority of my Summer so far I have been playing video games ,watching youtube etc. I did do Running for 20 minutes everyday around my house but I gave up as th weather got gotter the amount of flying insects that followed you arond grew so I gave up in Frustration( They are so annoying , they get in your eyes ears nose etc.) I have been doing my meditation consistently everyday. (With a few days I forgot or was way too tired to do it) I have read the book The Four Agreements and The Wheel of time. ( Very good wisdom type books) And I am currently trying to read marcus aurelius's meditations. But having trouble grasping it thus reading it very slowly and making little progress. What could I be doing more? Why do I feel unfulfilled? What should I be doing right now, somwtimes I have no idea what to do and just decide to play video games as I dont know what I should be doing

Thank you all for the insights. It helps. Video games consume most of my time. You can make time go way to fast while playing. But with other hobbies time is relatively slow. I was chipping away at my stone face sculpture for about an hour, in the last 5 minutes the nose fell off it (I probably hit the rock too hard). Then after that I went inside and read a bit of books. Does anyone know any advice for reading books without getting a sore neck, its annoying to have to look down at the book all the time, sure I can hold the book up but my arms can only hold it up for so long. Does it even matter if I look down to read books? I dont want permnanent neck damage from looking down for long periods. I did google it and nothing of much value was coming up except for some thing that actually holds the book in front of you. I dont know why I spend so much time playing video games. Maybe I need anthoer hobby on top of Stone Masonry. Or should I increase the amount of time I chisel my stone. Im increasing my meditation time, Infact I did an hour today. I will have to sort out my room for school.

Cool little piece of lore leo. Thanks. Makes me wanna play skyrim again just for the lore lol.

Running, Stone Sculpture/Carving , Public speaking. PennyStock trading, Javascript/C# coding are things I don't mind doing. I guess also do science, Pyschology, Sociology ,Philosophy etc but that kind of fits in with reading and what I read.

I have read the book mastery partially, I found it boring. Perhaps I should read over it again from the start.

I want specifics! When I wake up morning , what should I do every hour, Fill in this template scheduling what I am supposed to be doing. So I know exactly what to do, so I don't end playing advanced sudoko for 3 hours because you said "Build you ability to tolerate complexity and Nuance" (Note: Dont overload on the meditation, I can handle about an hour, possibly 2 buts that's pushing it) 10:00am - 11:00am- 12:00am- 1:00pm- 2:00pm- 3:00pm- 4:00pm- 5:00pm- 6:00pm- 7:00pm- 8:00pm- 9:00pm- 10:00pm- 11:00pm- Note : I would wake up earlier but I cant mess up my family sleep schedules, dont want to wake them up early.

How will I wake up without alerting others in my house sleeping lol

Btw on waking up early, how many hours of sleep do you need. I heard some people make due with just 5 hours

So far Ive been told I have a false belief. That there is no self. Ive been told to buy the book mastery. Ive been told to meditate. Ive been told to do less video games Ive been told to put pen to paper(do action upon what I learn) Read books and have patience. Do things that are meaningful and bring meaning Dont have dodgey friends Devlop I want to learn. Etc This is all great advice,but not what I was looking for. However dont worry about it. What wormon posted above is what I was looking for. I know exactly what to do from what he has said.

So you want me to read books huh? Finally an answer I can take some action upon, I will read more then. I haven't been reading my self help books as much as I should (some of the language if Marcus Aurelius meditations is hard to grasp)

Yes I do meditatation. I do minimum 20 minutes, but occasionaly I do it for longer.

I am currently playing alot of videogames. The Problem is I dont know what to do , what am I to do? I remeber we had internet cut off from my house for 3 weeks I got so bored I stole a limestone rock from my neighbors garden and began carving it into a face with 1 blunt rock as a hammer and 1 sharp rock as a chisel(extremely fucking slow but it works) I asked my dad for a chisel ,he didnt have one but he gave mr this tool that was used for touching up bricks which worked semi effiecntly. Then eventually I got a chisel and a hammer. I havent donr any work on my stone face in thr past few weeks. What do you want me to do? Start chiseling my rock again? Draw nature with paper and pencil. Jump on a website and learn about something that interests me? Video games tell me exactly what to do. When Im not playing video games , Im lost. What am I supposed to do? What should I be doing? And dont give me a vague answer on what I should be doing. I have no idea. Im lost. What should I be doing, what shouldnt. What do you want me to do tommorow? See I just automatically jump on and play some video games as I dont know what I should be working towards. Its all very vague. Very very vague. If I could describe self actualization the one word, Id use is vague. But leo would argue it is specfic. Thing is ,the information being told to me.is vague so I dont know what to do. Give me answers that I can tae action on

What do you mean there is no self? How can it be false idea of me? I think therfore I am, and you tell me I am not? I am a thinker that has desires. If I am to rid of desires am I better off dead.

What point in your life did you feel the most lost and had no idea what you were going to do with your life.

I was just recently talking to my friend, At one point I was telling him about meditation and my experience with meditation. He had an argument that I just believe what other people say and then think it is true, and therefore my experience with meditation is me lying to myself believing that meditation was having some sort of positive effect on me. Is this true? Am I lying to myself? How do I know my experience with meditation is authentic? Not just some sort of placebo effect from lying to myself believing meditation will help me in some way. I would like some insight into this. I don't like lying to myself. I feel like my experiences from meditation are authentic? Or are these experiences generated from me believing that meditation will help me in some way?

Thank you. Thread closed.

Thank you all for commenting your insight has been somewhat helpful.... I will continue meditation until I start seeing these exponential results leo talks about and the only reason I meditating is because leo stresses is it as the most important thing, and his biggest regret being not meditating when he was younger. So beliveing what he has said in his videos.(I mean his argument about why you should meditate seems pretty convincing and his videos shows that he is quite passionate about what he does) I being 14 decided to jump on the choo-choo train of enlightment nice early so I can reap the big rewards in my 20's. Even if I the benefits from meditation come from me lying to myslef, I think Aryla mentioned it doesnt even matter if you lying to yourself. Even if it is a placebo effect. But I thought I must be dedicated to the truth? If I am lying to myself surely it will always be in the back of my mind. I beleive mal said something around the lines about the ego doubting itself or aomethingvwhich I couldnt quite grasp as I havent watch leos vid on the ego yet. My question is still unanswered, and honestly I didnt exspect it to, but the insight was good( this forum is amazing) I will carry on to meditate how I normally meditate without thinking that it will help me and just belive that it will help me if this leo guy is right. I will have await for some experiance that will confirm that leo was right. So far its a pure experiment for me,does it actually do shit? So no "It will work guaranteed" bias invovled as that would lead me lying to myself. Ive been meditating for 3 montjs btw. Mostly 20 min session, some 25 some 40. I did an hour session once. I will just have to wait in see in maybe a year or 2 years time.

I was just recently talking to my friend, At one point I was telling him about meditation and my experience with meditation. He had an argument that I just believe what other people say and then think it is true, and therefore my experience with meditation is me lying to myself believing that meditation was having some sort of positive effect on me. Is this true? Am I lying to myself? How do I know my experience with meditation is authentic? Not just some sort of placebo effect from lying to myself believing meditation will help me in some way. I

Prove who right? Leo's words. My friend words? . My words?

Good game. I know you said you aren't update this journal, but it would interesting if you could update it in 100 days or even 250 days time to see what your experiance with meditation is like after a year.

I am enjoying my summer holidays a right now, however there seems to be a notable contrast between school and summer holidays. As one feels good and the other feels mediocre and empty slog. How do continue to feel good while attending school, I've started full-time meditation during my holidays (I do 20 minutes a day, which I am slowly increasing to an hour) I am also running for 10 minutes a day (Which I am slowly increasing to 30 minutes as I get fitter) I also spend the majority of my time playing video games but am slowly cutting this back so I can put the time towards achieving long term goals (Like meditation and running just mentioned). I am also trying to read some self-help/wisdom books. I am not sure if I will be able to maintain this + other things I will add on to my schedule while I am school . Simply put, I don't want to maintain the same happiness I have during my summer holidays while at school. Please do tell thank you.

I'm 14, I'm skinny I weigh 7 stone. I am doing laps around my house for 15 minutes, breathing was a problem when I first started running exercise as I had'nt exercised at all before Is started doing 5 minutes running sessions to build my lungs up then went onto doing 10 minute sessions, when my lungs started becoming a non-issue I amped to 15 minutes. My main enemy when running is my muscles right now, I can jog for 15 minutes and I wont be that out of breath. I could do 20 minutes, but when you run clockwise around an an object(In this case my house) my ankle nearest to the house starts to strain from constantly turning right. I have no trouble with breathing during my 15 minutes, the main thing is my muscles now just building up leg muscles. I eat whatever my dad puts on the plate, (My dad is a somewhat good cook) this can anything from fish and vegtables, chicken with gravy plus vegtables , sphaghetti bolganase. Chicken or Ham pies, with Vegetables. I rarely eat pure fruit, I should really eat more. I eat 1 Bowls of cereal in the morning with milk (Not super sugary cereals mind you) and I have dinner which consists of meat with a portion of vegetables and probably something starchy is well, I will have a few snacks in between like some biscuits, some ham, toast with butter, baegal sandwich etc. Then I have a bowl of cereal as my last meal. I make sure to fill up on water an hour and before I run.

If you want to get rid of some of the thoughts that keep popping into to your head, I would recommend meditating outside, it doesn't matter if its noisy, the noise is just one more thing to appreciate. I am 14 and I live in the Ireland in the countryside, I been meditating for roughly a month, I dot no have as many problems with thoughts popping into ones head. Maybe because I am younger and don't have a corporate job (or whatever you may do that you say exhausts you). Ive been doing 20 minute sessions from the start and in the past week being doing 25. I did do one 40 minute session because I had accidently missed a day of meditation. I found the 40 minute session quite interersting. Your up for a surprise when you hit 40 minutes. I found to be aware is what it is be aware, notice everything but don't put your judgement's on it. Leo talks about this briefly in one of his videos on self actualization, something about what maslow said a self actualized person is, I cant quite remember. You are doing well, I can see your mind is ailing , but do not break. Keep it up really great work, ;D