Happy person in-training

The human mind has a great capacity to delude itself.

We get used to being unhappy.

We get used to being in pain.

We can live years without realizing that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way our life has turned out. It took me 24 years just to acknowledge to myself that ‘I'm not happy’.

I need to get used to being happy. My general state of being was one of anxiety, fear and insecurity; one of escape into a fantasy world where I'm perfect, and one of an inability to face reality.

I need time to become accustomed with the fact that I shouldn't depend on anyone, that I have to take action and that I'll make mistakes in the process.

Get used to being successful. People will envy you. Weak ones will fawn all over you and will seek your reassuring shadow, same as I was not so long ago. I hate it when people become weak like this around me, it makes me feel uneasy. I must stop seeing it as such, and basically not care.

When successful, people will notice you, and will try and shake you. Men will try to invade your frame, and women will test you to see if you are the real deal. And they will all cheer when you fall, except the few precious ones, the loved ones and the true friends.

I need to assimilate the concept of being attuned to my desires, to what I like to do, and to the fact that I have the RIGHT to act and change things if I'm unhappy. I'm allowed to impose my will on the physical world to get what I want.

There will be clashes with other personalities, and that is OK. I will be misunderstood and criticized. People will discourage me and make fun of me. They will attempt to impose their view of the world, and of what is right or wrong. I must get used to that fact, and become stronger so that I can be able to not allow any one's frame to change mine. In the same manner, I will naturally attempt to force my world-view onto others, and strong willed ones will remain unaffected.

Basically, I'm learning to take my place in the world, to exercise my will, that I CAN and SHOULD exercise my will, my perception of people's feelings be damned!

I have to internalize the concept that I was sacrificing my own happiness for the sake of others. For the longest time, I've perceived my happiness as inversely proportional to that of others, which has made me try to be as unremarkable and as externally ‘polished and formless as possible. Basically I had no character. I was described once as someone who 'smiles all the time'. Enough said.

I'm just learning to give myself value, and to dissociate my happiness with that of others. There should be a core of happiness, of identity in each one of us, that is inviolate and fully unreachable by anyone. No matter what people are around you, we should be solid on the inside.

I should finally get used to the fact that I will fail many times, that I'll be wrong and will have to review my ideas and thoughts and beliefs. In life, an adult man knows that shit will happen. The difference between a boy and a man is that the man has accepted that fact. He has accepted that he might get cancer, that he might be betrayed, or fail miserably. A boy will be scared of the nightmarish potential future, will cry for injustice and will run to a father/mother figure to hide in the hopes that things will go away, or that someone will take care of the problems. A man does not worry, for he knows that shit WILL, in fact, happen in his lifetime. It is not a matter of if, but of when. That's why the true strong man is not afraid at present, because he has assimilated that reality of the world.

A man live in the present time fully and completely, enjoying his life and actively seeking to achieve his desires.

And when shit strikes,

Well, he is a man. He will deal with it.

That's what men do. We know there will be pain and hard times, and we deal with them to the best of our capacity when they happen.

Alone, with no certainty of success, with no one to whom to run for cover and protection, nakedly exposed, a man will face his problems with a clear mind and with a clear flame of self-sustaining, self-sufficient life force burning fiercely inside him.

And when faced with insurmountable odds, when things look desperate, a strong mature man will throw everything he has, and scream a giant and rebellious FUCK YOU to the world. And if he has to go down, well then so be it.

That's it.

It's a long process, one of a difficulty I've underestimated, and one that provides its own share of pain. But that's the training necessary to be happy.

I’m thus a happy person in-training.

Welcome to the world.

Im going out tonight

In trying to gain more control over my life (the source of happiness in my current understanding of the world), I've decided that I should ask guys to go out with me to sarge, not the other way around.

So tonight I called a friend to be a sarging buddy.

I took this from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (I think) : Everything a man (as opposed to a boy) does has a purpose.

I should write a post about my theory of what differentiates a boy from a man, and how it applies to my current life.

Anyway, remember the general rule: One is supposed to generally feel good about himself.

To do that I must identify my current state (angry, anxious, afraid, etc..). I must then clean it of all negativity.

Then replace with the basic rule of life, of feeling good about oneself.

I detach myself of any external source, i.e. I recenter myself :

Become aware of your body, and relax it.
Become aware of your thoughts, and clean them up.
Go deep and FEEEL good about yourself.

Then I can ask myself, unclouded by external influence :"What do I want?".

I want to go out, and behave in a controlled manner in a club or bar. That means I want to talk to people, be social, not be limited by fear, but rather own my environment, expand my control space, and just enjoy myself. I want to be able to flirt with women, and generally evolve through the night in a club without feeling any negative thought

Not having any fear in a social situation implies not being jumpy or overly reactive to any external input. This is a challenge for me as I become overexcited with the energy of a crowd. According to the Myers-Briggs test, I'm a highly extroverted person. In a sarging context, that's not always a good thing.

So anyways, concentrate of being calm and unreactive.

Also, concentrate on identifying immediate desires, such as:
-Not to laugh too much, and only when I feel like it. With my friends, when I'm nervous and grow passive, I smile and laugh too early, too much. This takes me out of my positive controlled state because I'm not acting according to my true emotion of the moment.
-I see a set I like, or a woman passing by me, and I want to interact with them. The should be an immediate desire-action linkage in me. I see something I want => I take action. No doubt or questions or self-analysis. Just do it.

Always, always always be focused on myself. No matter the outcome of any interaction, I get out of it unaffected, because I am obeying my immediate desire, and I don't let external factors affect me.

Be selfish, constantly monitor your thoughts and desires, and TAKE ACTION. This is the rule of lie. Desire -> ACT. Desire -> ACT.

As a practical objective tonight, let's see how much I can remain in state throughout the night, and how I feel about myself immediately afterwards, and the next day.

F.

Mantra

I'm still often paralysed by fear an anxiety. I just wake up some day and feel unable to act.

My guess is it's because I slide into a negative frame. One that attaches a lot of anxiety on any action or decision. Instead of the frame : "I want to do this, this is my desire, it's gonna be great, I'm excited about the idea of taking action and stepping that much closer to what I want", I'm afraid of what will happen, of failure, of success, of having to deal with success and the "burden" of expectations.

For decades, I've been in an anxiety frame. One that put me in a passive state. I used to avoid making decisions as much as possible, and always (unconsciously looked for a dominant male figure in my social groups. Those guys would be the ones making decisions, and I would follow, safe in their shadows).

The problem is that one gets used to a way of living, even if the frame makes you unhappy. I used to compensate my passive life and general lack of purpose and lack of enjoyment of my life by escaping. I developed very strong daydreaming scenarios, in which I would be perfect and all powerful. Also, masturbation was (and still is) a powerful escape mechanism, providing me with instant pleasure.

Jerking off is like a drug at times, I get instant pleasure, and escape from the present. And like a drug, the inevitable return to reality leads to momentary depression, lack of energy and daydreaming.

I used to read a lot as well, especially science-fiction and fantasy types. They are excellent escape mechanisms. A good sign in recent times is that I feel less and less of a desire to read new books. I started growing disinterested with them, something I see as a sign of improvement.

However, I'm still very often plagued by 'bad days', where negative thoughts paralyse me, and make me feel stressed out and anxious about nothing in particular. That's the power of it, that it's so vague a feeling that I often don't realise I'm sliding into it.

I think I need to gain more control of my thought processes. Of the words that course through my brain, and I think I need to do them via repetition.

The author Osho, as well as other sources, have helped me for form a general set of guidelines and life concepts. These are general rule on how I should view life. I wrote them in an older post.