PetarKa

Here's a link to the channel. It's a new channel (it came out 2 months ago). I think most of you guys will like it: SciShow Psych

This is not a question, it's feedback about the course: In the values assessment segment, it goes like this: (1) Most meaningful things in life, (2) Tabula Rasa, (3) Master values list, (4) Toxic values, (5) Values definitions, etc. In my experience, (5) should be before (3) and (4), so the order should be (1), (2), (5), (3), (4). Why? Firstly, because the master values list didn't help me at all. They were just abstract labels and I know that I need to clarify what the words mean to me, but like I said, they can mean many different things at the same time e.g. Beauty can be associated with: pictures, sounds, physical appearance, a way of life, etc. Secondly, it didn't really give me a feeling of comprehensiveness, on the contrary, it closed me off, it cut me off from many possible values I could have (like you said, the full list would be the size of a book). It would be better if you could organically create your values in passes 1 and 2 (maybe one could even do them multiple times), and then create a single sentence definition to the generated values. Then one can finally create appropriate labels for those definitions. Just as an example, my list contains about 5 or 6 values that I couldn't find on the list. I hope this was valuable feedback.

Thanks guys! The support really helped me see through the illusion / faulty logic. After a couple of weeks now I can embrace and trust the dichotonomy. It's just a part of self-actualization, you need to just trust it and not be overly logical about it.

@Clayman I'm the same - Skopje, Macedonia.

I've been thinking about this for quite awhile and it's been holding me back in my ability to find meaning and inspiration in life. I mean if reality is meaningless and there is no good or evil, then how can the so-called "positive" emotions like passion, bliss, joy etc. be actually positive, are they just an illusion? The same goes for negative emotions...

@Leo Gura Then how can our values exist?

"A teacher can open the door, but you must enter by yourself." -- Chinese proverb

I've also struggled with this issue and have been wondering whether I'm wasting my time with it or not. If I think about it, I have changed quite a bit in the past couple of years (almost 2 years of meditation, every day, 15-30 min) and I can see how my behavior and emotions change, though these changes are so specific to me and so subtle that it's hard for me to express them with words. For example, I find myself sort of magically not even wanting to engage in low-consciousness activities and the most of the things I was addicted to (porn, arguing, stubbornness, etc.). I don't know how, but I'm just indifferent to them now. I can't claim that this is due to meditation ONLY, as I've done other things to grow myself. But I just think that the progress you get from meditation is so slow, but at the same time, so steady, that it's hard to recognize the effects it has on your life - you might just think back to your past 5 years from now and say "Holly shit! I can't believe I used to do that in the past!" Hope it helped.

With the posture: I've recently been slouching more and this has caused a lot of upper-back pain and it has prevented me from being able to meditate effectively (I get distracted by it A LOT), and now I just lie (or lay, can't remember grammar...) on the floor with my eyes open and proceed with a synthesis of Do nothing and Letting go. It's been working well since I can focus uninterrupted by the pain, I can see it's working by the way I feel after a session. Just checking in my experiences.

@BeginnerActualizer This has been the case for me too. And not just for my LP, but even for my values. And happens A LOT in fact. I notice more and more how much I deceive and manipulate myself. Thoughts come up like: "Oh you don't really want that, it's too hard.", "Nope, can't have that as a value, its too goofy.", or "But if I pick that, my parents won't approve of it..." etc. etc. I just want to share with you peeps that there are a lot of internal obstacles to finding one's LP. But that's OK. It's part of the process. Just keep digging, keep looking.

Just from the name (Life Purpose) you get a feel that it's something you were destined to be, that it was God-given to you from your birth. I used to think that it was something that already existed and I just had to discover it. But in my experience, doing a lot of introspection and experimenting, I'm starting to see that: One can have multiple Life Purposes. I find physics and math fascinating, but on the other hand, I also like to think deeply about the world, I even have a desire to travel and discover new beautiful places, and I also find drumming and rhythm really interesting, and who knows maybe there are hundreds of other things I love to do but haven't thought of or haven't yet come into contact with them. You can cultivate a passion from scratch. I find that if I ask myself "What is beautiful about this? In what way am I passionate about this?", I start to see it in new different ways. I start to like it and maybe even love it! It's kind of freaky... Though I'm not 100% certain about this. I'm also not 100% certain about this either, but I it seems that your passions and values change over time. They morph and evolve into new creatures, new muses. What I found valuable 10 ya is not what I find valuable today. And this is kind of a paradox: If your passions change over time then how can you ever have a Life Purpose in your life? What do you guys think?

My advice is to imagine what it would be like to work in that kind of way for let's say 30 years. Would you still want to do it? I can't answer this question for you, you have to do it. If you say YES, then by all means, go do that. But be careful, as you may not even know whether you'd like doing that until you've lived through those years. And then you can look back and say: "Wow, I wasted my life..." or "Wow that was one beautiful life!" Also, if you haven't found anything else useful from the course, I'd suggest to keep looking, do a lot more introspection, start reading the books on the list, they'll open up your mind concerning what Life Purpose is and isn't. Hope it helped.

The past couple of week / months, I had been feeling depressed and uninspired to do anything in life. And a few days ago, I posted an article on this forum entitled "A Paradox Of Life - If There Is No Good Or Evil, Then How Can We Say That Self-actualization Is The Goal Of Life?", here's a link to the article: And this is post is about personal advice to the people who might also be struggling with this issue in their lives. Firstly, I suggest you read the replies and especially Leo's answer to my question (in the article). It really opened my eyes about the issue. But also, I copied it and wrote it on a digital file so that I can look at it from time to time so that I don't forget (otherwise you will forget after a couple of days / weeks. Here are some other things I did (and still doing): Deeply contemplate the answer: Explain it to yourself, multiple times in fact. It needs to seep into your conscious & subconscious mind. This needs to become a part of you and your worldview. However, this without the emotions, inspiration, and belief in the whole idea is useless. So just logically understanding the concept won't do you any good if you don't feel like it's true. That's why I did the following... Create a leaflet with the words: Create & live an amazing life! (see photo bellow); and read the leaflet every single day (at least, once, sometimes more, I do it after getting out of bed and before going to sleep). While I'm reading this I ask myself: What is an amazing life look like. Then I say (and visualize): peace of mind, having passion, being warm and kind to others, having an organized life, gaining wisdom, learning physics and math, discovering how the world works, etc. (these are my values, you would think about your own, whatever gets you excited deep within - If you say that you can't find anything, that's a lie, keep looking) Finally, and this might be a bit controversial, you have to trick yourself into finding meaning in life. Somehow I did this and I don't think I can explain how I did it, maybe I just said to myself: Hey, life is just meaningful! and I believed it. This solved a whole lot of things concerning this issue. This also might go against the no manipulation principle, but life is paradoxical sometimes, also remember Leo's video The Role of Balance in PD? I think this idea of tricking yourself is something that no one can tell you or teach you about - you just figure it out yourself at one point through growing and understanding life better. I hope it helped! Keep creating an amazing life, because life is what you make of it!

@Martin123 Uptil now I've meditated mainly because Leo stressed it so much in his videos. But now I feel that I was doing it bcs someone else said and from that my results will be stifled and not as fruitful. That's why I believe I need to have stronger reasons. In short, I don't know why...

In the Higher Consciousness Virtues exercise, should we select one of the virtues in bold? Example: Should we select Richness or should we select complexity, intricacy, depth, or differentiation?

Why does the Life Purpose Examples file not have the Domain of Mastery segment? Do you think it's already encapsulated in the Zone of Genius?

Leo, is the Personal Development Blueprint still updated regularly? If it's not, do you recommend people using it for building a strong foundation for Self-Actualization?

Is school important nowadays? Why? Why not? How can we improve modern education (elementary, secondary, and academic)? Which subjects are important? Which are not? Should one focus his energy on school, learning, developing strong work habits, or should one focus on more pragmatic things such as personal development, psychology, meditation, etc.? In many ways it can be useful, but also in many it can be just a waste of time, and sometimes even destructive? A big problem is that students are forced to study, and when you force someone to do anything instead of inspiring and motivating him to be a autonomous learner / practitioner, no results can be expected. The same goes for Leo's videos, and also in life in general. I see: math, history, biology, sociology, philosophy, language, a bit of science (physics & chemistry combined) to be important for everyone. Finally, I'm not sure whether students should focus on subjects outside of school, or study just for grades, or developing work habits, or a 4th option - I'm currently facing that question. The questions and answers are coming directly from a high school student. What do you think?

@Mondsee I believe you're talking about a video from the LP course (not sure which one). It's from the introduction section of the course.

Try this affirmation, I think it helped me / is still helping me (I'm still using it): Every day, I am discovering myself & Life Purpose on deeper & deeper levels. While doing this for 5 min a day, I imagine how I'm getting closer and closer to my true authentic self and most cherished passions; how I'm doing the exercises better and better, and as a result I'm discovering new insights of what lights me up, what I'm good at, and so on. This helped me to get through the internal obstacles (fears, resistance, excuses, self-manipulation, etc.). Every human being on Earth is bound to have a Life Purpose (or maybe even several). Our minds are so complicated and rich with thoughts and emotions that it's practically impossible not to have something worth bleeding and crying for. You might have not yet discovered it yet, or you might have suppressed it (because of fears and similar), or you might have not yet connected all of the dots of who you really are (not in the spiritual sense though). Keep looking for a way!

I've been trying to wrap my mind around this issue. If I sit down and logically think about it, I can see conclude that ultimately there is no goal or point in life, there is nothing objectively good or bad, thing just are. So I am now asking myself: If that is the case, why should I even bother with Self-Actualization? Why not just let go? But here's the catch: I don't know how to let go... So even if I let go today, tomorrow I will just forget or lose the effect of letting go. And I'm back to where I started -- trapped in this vicious and self-deceiving cycle. Although I do not have an answer to this issue, in the background I can just barely see a light, an answer to this question, I can feel the need to trust the paradox and go with it -- it seems like you need to take control, go for Self-Actualization, go after goals (all of which are the opposite of letting go), so that in the end you can somehow (I have no idea how) simply let go. I don't know if this post made any sense. If it did, what do you think, where does the answer to this issue lie? Is this a paradox at all or am I just armchair-philosophizing?

Hello & welcome! I'm 17 and have been doing this for 2-3 years and so far I've installed the following habits in my life: Daily meditation (30min) Daily exercise (strength and cardio / basketball) Reading books - I want to expand this now So my advice is to keep your list of habits you want to put into place minimalistic. Ultimately, you wanna have 3-4 major habits, otherwise you will be overwhelmed and even stressed out. Read 'Living the 80/20 way' by Richerd Koch, I really bought into the idea of Lifestyle Minimalism. Building up the habits which will lead to an amazing life is the foundation of Self-Actualuzation! Keep at it!

@Joshuar They look great and the definitions are very concrete and straight-to-the-point. However I found the master list of values quite limiting in the variety of values I wanted to choose and ended up starting from scratch. Don't know if you've found the same annoyance though...

Third question: What if you choose a wrong Life Purpose i.e. something you thought were passionate about but later found out it was just your mind deceiving you? How can you prevent that from happening, and if you've already done something like that -- how can you get back on track with your truest Zone of Genius and Impact Statement? To be specific: I selected physics and deductive reasoning to be my ZoG, but when I sit down to learn and practice physics, I feel anxious and frustrated, I don't like it. I'm not sure whether its me who has made a bad decision or I'm just not specific enough with what makes me passionate or there's something else at play here. Does that make sense?

I live in a city where it gets extremely polluted during the winter and colder periods. I've been living here since I was born, though I've only lately taken this seriously. Do any of you know some kind of method - eating a particular food, consyming some herbs, taking a supplement/medicine, having a particular treatment, operation, whatever - which can help me heal my lungs from the pollution (PM 2.5 and PM 10 particles)? Thanks upfront! ☺