Progressive Development
alieNDN
2,181 Posts
not to get all new age on y'all, but...I'm curious what endeavors people here have pursued, not to further their career or anything, but just to take care of their mind and soul. We've all gone through struggles and been real low, i'm talking the low when u just feel so out of wack u dont even feel like consoling to friends your shitty state of mind. besides meeting the influence of positive people in your life, what was something you took into your own hands to get u on a better path? discipline?refraining from vices?different vices?education?less internet time?hobbies?expression?sacrifice?volunteering?this year i've turned myself around for the better. it started with taking some courses in painting, spanish, walking and hitting the gym on a regular. getting in conversations with people i usually wouldnt. I am always interested in hearing of other pursuits to engage in. how did u combat gluttony or procrastination?
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A key ingredient for learning how to get the most out of life is to realize how finite your time on earth is. I'm 37 years old (soon to be 38 on the 21st of this month), have carried several caskets of young murder victims in my day, so I realize how much of a blessing life is. Saying this, here are ways I use to cope with life's calamities:
1. Feel free to take time for yourself.
-Don't spend your entire existence working for goods. If you're miserable, the goods won't help you. So, if you don't want to go to work on a particular day (assuming you have sick time), take a day off. Fuck it!!! Taking mental health days just to chill when you're fed up with you work can be so cathartic. I wish I could teach my wife this technique.
2. Don't sweat the small shit.
-Learn to be a big person and look past silly shit. When people act like idiots, I chalk it up to THEM having a problem. I will NEVER give a person power to change my mood just because of their presence around me. I don't give enough of a fuck about whatever wrong they did to let them to still enjoy influence over my emotions. Let shit go because it takes a lot of negative emotional energy to hate.
3. Pursue your passions.
-Take time to find out what you're passionate about, and do that shit! If you like painting, do that as a way to release stress. As for me, my passions are music collecting, listening, and production. When I'm down, I listen or perform music. Listening to uplifting music soothes away my negative moods.
4. Seek out social support and express your woes to someone you trust.
-Do not repress your emotions, as this is a sure way to become hypertensive. Despite stressors in my life, I always express my concerns to my wife as a way of dealing with my troubles. Despite being a big dude, I have normal/low blood pressure because I don't let shit get to me. I also have support networks of people I can confide in when things get tough. Don't bottle up your emotions because it will kill you. Men tend to be less expressive than women, and not surprisingly, women outlive us!!! Fuck that tough guy, strong-silent-type bullshit.
5. Exercise.
-Regular exercise can roll away the stress as most folks know. There is nothing more cathartic than my long morning walk with the dog. Hearing birds chirp and watching the sunrise is so soothing. Enjoying nature's wonders is a great way to escape the troubles of your day.
6. Slow down.
-Don't try to accomplish everything you want to in an instant. As the saying goes, Rome wasn't built in a day. Do what you can during your workhours and save the rest for the next day. You can apply this to your personal projects as well. Sure have deadlines, to be efficient, but don't become a slave to them. This will up your "pressure quotient" and lead to poor psychological and possibly physical health.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
Within those two years, I also had a worry that I wouldn't really be productive, so after a month or so of accomplishing very little (and feeling very bad about that), I resolved to treat writing as a 40-hour-a-week job; not 9-5, but I had to total a minimum of 40 hours a week writing, revising, submitting, or researching where to submit. Most weeks I kept to this.
I wrote a book's worth of short stories before the money ran out, which I still see as a success even though I wasn't able to sell a single story. And even though not get my fiction published was very hard on many levels, I came out of the experience a different person. For years, I'd had the idea of trying to convince the local arts museum to allow me to do film programming for them, but had always talked myself out of the idea, telling myself they wouldn't be interested, I'm not qualified to work for a museum, etc etc. Now, having spent a few years refocused on self-actualization, I pursued this film series and made it happen: I program and host a monthly free film series there. This is turn helped me getting a year-round day job programming films for the local film festival.
It's not the kind of success I had pictured for myself, and the dream of getting fiction published still looms large over my life, but getting an arts-related job in Baltimore is no easy feat and if I hadn't taken the plunge and spent those 2 years working on writing, I would probably either be right back to working retail, temping, or waiting tables right now. Things didn't turn out exactly as planned, but as far as chasing those dreams I have no regrets.
Travel/Volunteer time is also incredibly cathartic, not so much on the tip that you are helping anyone else (i find the notion to be impossible) but to see/live the day to day lives of others that require so much less energy than devloped nations to live and how much can be gained by working with what you have instead of what is easy (birth of hip hop). I was in costa rica on the border of panama volunteering in an agroforestry project and proceeded to travel via land to mexcio. Nothing I have experienced in this life can compare to what i learned on this trip. Not to be one to promote cultural imperialism, you are still contributing to culutural imperialism just as much by buying the TI album or whatnot as all that music is bumping on the cameroons and inflecting the speach of the 10 year olds, it is inescapable. The best route is to be a down to earth person and spread the love gospel face to face.
Suerte with your journey brother,
It is all in your mind.
Jay
2.) As Stacks said, slow down. Recognizing when you're moving at a faster pace than your paradigm accounts for is crucial. Be objective, don't allow your life to play out like a prescription.
3.) Waste time. Not really wasting, but do illogical things that will disrupt your ability to create 'productive' structure. Taking a ride to a place with no intention of getting anything done but being is incredible, and the universe usually has a way of revealing some degree of insight in these situations.
4.) Broaden your range of experiences. The more you can do, the easier it is to tell when you're living out of whack.
5.) Be impulsive. I try to practice this with little things, where doing or not doing don't have any effect on anything other than my psyche. This usually applies to things like making an illustration as soon as I get the idea for it instead of saying I'll do it later, going back into my apartment to change when I'm already out the door, complementing a stranger, et cetera. These things seems pointless, but they usually play into a grander scheme of order.
Good luck.
stacks,
your initial paragraph reminds me of when i read a book on tibetan monks and the mental practices they partake in. a lot of talk about meditating on death. i found this as morbid as hell, i mean imagine daily looking at you in your coffin. but if you could make this visualization real enough you would realize godamn, you better get moving, cuase like u said u are indeed finite. i'd like to say i'm motivated by "rocking chair theory" where you confront your older self years from now on a rocking chair asking your older self if he had any regrets. most likely your older version would be like "i dont give a phuck what you typed on a message board 30 years ago, you should have been out there doing something!"of course i forget about this rocking chair theory with daily stresses, but its important to try to keep it in mind.
point 2 "don't sweat the small stuff"... this is very true. about not surrendering your state of mind based on others around you. i guess this is why monks got it down under control. a lot of people, myself included feel like "oh fuck" when the boss comes towards him or asks me to see him in his office. that anxiety or whatever is something i control. just like how when someone might compliment me and then i feel better. it wasnt their compliment that made me feel better, it was the fact that i allowed myself to feel better because i was validated by someone elses opinion (which could have easily been negative instead).
onetet,
your post was refreshing to read. i think we all learn that initially we have these ideal paths we're trying to go on and then shit just happens. i'm in a field that has nothing to do with my ideal pursuits, but its a stable job. and because i have that stabability i can lend time to the things that make me tick. i guess its something that life does to you on purpose so u dont get used to routine of things working out haha, but it really develops character and wisdom and flexibility and adaptation which has gotta be every organisms greatest asset.
DWJ,
registered in 2005 and only 4 posts??? i'm honored u came into my thread. just watch the waves my friend. dont know the dude u mentioned, but i've listened to the positive sort of motivational cds/mp3 on my portable music player. so many times i've felt so empowered on the way from work after listening to it and im serene and at peace with myself when all of a sudden i'm about to get on the bus and some young 14 year old punk jumps in front of me when i was in line and i'm like "you f*cking C*NT". its easy to be ideal right after a lecture. its hard to be ideal after a lecture and encountering morons. u can always trust waves...if u can swim that is
yuichi, explain?
is that the quickeemart for another world? i'm gonna be apu next halloween, but this year i'm gonna be sanjaya, a south asian has only so many pop culture icons he can represent. maybe oneday we'l be harold and kumar.
jaysus,
your reply was nothing but soul. it says a lot when the things u do are for yourself and not broadcasted to others. have u always been strong with your faith? i hear u on the down to earthness.
Word. As a Quaker, it's something I grew up with, and try to remind myself to do often.
And as much as I hate to knock the mary jane, because she's my main thang, taking a break has been really helpful at clearing the mind and getting more productive. Especially when learning two languages, you need all the memory cells you can get.
1) Fasting
2) Prayer
3) Meditation
4) Absitenence (food, alcohol, drugs, sex)
5) Service
6) Art
7) Asceticism
I read a book on the subject of spiritual disciplines a while back that dealt with these issue from a non-secular perspective and I truly believe that spiritual disciplines are a universal that can surpass religious teachings. After all, we are all one enitity no matter how hard we try to escape it.
salaam
jaysus
Also, let me add on another way of coping with life:
Strive for the mark of a higher calling.
-In this instance, try to get in touch with your sense of purpose. What were you put on this earth to do? How do your actions contribute to the good of society? How do you actions affect others? Have you positvely touched the lives of others? What will be your legacy when you die? My father taught me to ponder these questions at an early age, and I came to understand their meaning as I got older. I now try to live my life in a way that reflects well of me and my family, and in some small sense, contributes to the greater good of all and society at-large. Thinking this way allows you to take the high road on disputes with others, and try to be a "bigger person" on matters in general. It's thinking beyond the petty and meaningless, focusing instead on what truly matters (e.g., love, charity, dignity, self-respect, etc.). We're here for a reason.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
Take the opportunity to do things that no one else is doing. I don't mean rock purple bapes with stripes and plaid, or wild out ridiculous. I'm talking about the little things that no one else is really thinking about. I make it a point to clean every toilet I pee in. No one thanks me for it, nor would I want anyone to, but ultimately it's a way to just do something doable that's getting passed up and get yourself a couple extra positive points. Pick up a piece of trash that's sitting next to a trash can, shake a homeless person's hand, bus your own table at a restaurant, et cetera. It's really just part of recognizing the fact that while our lives may be finite, the way that our actions play out is quite rhizomic and infinite, and we don't have to accept our indoctrinated roles.