Saturn wrote:
Yeah, I here what you're saying. Have you actually managed to lighten up about things? I'm just wondering how this can be done although, as I suggested in OP, I'm not sure advice or anything external (barring dramatic events) can make a difference. I tend to think one must somehow come to it on one's own.
I did, though I'm no longer sure how it happened. I think the first step was to stop caring. About anything. I'm going to die some day - meh. Everyone I ever love will one day be gone. Oh well, can't be helped. Terrorists have seized control of an embassy somewhere in the middle east and are shooting people. Tch, same old world. I do seem to find it hard to stop caring about animals, though - I'd care far less about an orphanage being blown up than someone hurting a kitten.
First, stop watching the news. Stop reading newspapers. There is nothing in there of any relevance for you. If anything major is happening to you, you will know about it! Remember that the news is there to make you miserable and fearful, because this makes you more likely to buy their nonsense (weird, that, but there you go. Good news never sells that well).
Second, develop your ego. You are a brilliant, amazing person and you are more important than anyone else in the world. Repeat this to yourself five times a day, every day. There's a risk that you'll become arrogant, but it's better than hating yourself. Since your needs are more important than anyone else's, all that whinging people keep doing becomes just a background drone. Charity? Meh. I'd rather spend my money on me, thanks.
Once you're in a position where you value yourself more than anyone else (otherwise known as "normal" - this is the default state for most people) and you've cut out all the guilt and emotional blackmail that people are throwing at you, you can move on to step three. This is where you start lowering your barriers - but only to important things. Charities, friends, family, helping the world... all that stuff is fine, but if you try to care for too much you'll never cope. Care for a few things that are important to you, and you'll be happier in yourself and can actually make a difference.
Yeah, it sounds horrible. You're basically shutting down all your empathy for a while, so you can build yourself up. If you want to love the world, you MUST first love yourself. So take time off from everyone and everything else and focus on that.
Again, I can relate to this quite strongly, Thom Fuleri. I think over the last year or two I have been becoming more orientated around what I want rather than what I think I ought to want. This has been part of something of a more general inner transformation than one which is only about not taking life so seriously. I suppose I feel I am wanting to take a step now, as part of this ongoing process, where I lighten up about things and am able to enjoy things and not feel bad about that or as if something bad will happen as a consequence of me getting my way and enjoying life.
I really think it's quite good advice you're giving about shutting down empathy to focus on oneself, although I don't see it as advice as much as a desrciption of or perspective on what to some extent I have already been doing. I mean, I think a fundamental part of focusing on myself in order to make a better life for myself, and most likely as a result also a better one for those around me, is that I now rely less on advice. I tend less to seek out answers from other people about what I should do. Rather, I try and get clearer on what I want to do.
It's perhaps as if taking oneself, rather than the concerns of the world that weigh in on one, more seriously (what one wants), is a way to take life less seriously.
30 Jan 2012, 4:35 pm
