Trying to get back on track in life

Re:Trying to get back on track in life by premium-komodo on Sunday May 30, 2021 @03:14AM (#27331271)

Well, it's hard to evaluate a complex situation like yours, but I get the sense that you're doing a lot of outward searching for good things, e.g., searching for a good job, satisfying interactions with others, interesting topics that could be studied for a long time, etc. Let me suggest that you may be finding this search discouraging because you've gained perspective. I was obsessed with computers for 20 years, and I just can't see them the way I used to because I just don't think the big wins lie in some new web site or app or database or whatever.

There's a good book called _The Path to Nibbana_ that describes a practice I've found helpful. It's about reducing craving. Reducing craving allows there to be contentment and equanimity, and a different kind of happiness than most people are used to in that it doesn't depend on anything. In any case, whatever you do, I hope you'll feel better.

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Re:Trying to get back on track in life by morpheos137 on Sunday May 30, 2021 @03:37AM (#27331386)

Kind of feel my day to day problem is that I am too content with circumstances where others would not be content. Sometimes "suffering" can motivate change. If you are content with everything why not just lie down and die? I don't mean you personally I mean in general. I respect mindfullness and Buddhist ideas but I think I am more naturally toward the equanimity side of spectrum (at least emotionally speaking) and this results in inertia which results in existential angst when I see years go by and I don't accomplish anything.

I appreciate your heartfelt comment and I will check out the book.

If I lived in 1221 I would probably be a monk or something...lol...maybe I can still be...I don't really have the religion though...kind of nice the idea of having a life with few worries that inertia today will lead to future pain.

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Re:Trying to get back on track in life by rthomas6 on Wednesday June 02, 2021 @11:09AM (#27369600)

What you are describing is not equanimity, because there is an attachment to not working/relaxing. When you ask why not just lie down and die if you are content with everything, you could just as easily ask why not work really hard if you are content with everything? Because if you really have equanimity, working hard would cause no less contentment and no less suffering.

A big part of mindfulness is narrowing down your reality to only this moment, because that is really all that's real. The past isn't real and the future isn't real. It's not about accepting "your life" because that's not actually a real thing. Right now is all that is. All context is actually fully contained in this moment. So one can accept and be at peace with what is happening right now and see it for what it is, then, thus informed, make and follow a plan. But each moment has it own independent meaning and is an ending in itself. There is no final goal because it's always right now, so the rational approach is to always pay attention to what IS.

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Re:Trying to get back on track in life by meiraleal on Sunday May 30, 2021 @05:45PM (#27337157)

> If you are content with everything why not just lie down and die?

Because life is about happiness? If you find what makes you happy every day, why die and have these great days going for waste? With this mindset, the bad days also don't become that bad, because you have the experience of the great days of the past.

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Re:Trying to get back on track in life by bs_alumna on Sunday May 30, 2021 @09:52AM (#27333241)

Ahimsa is the central idea of Buddhism. The idea is to avoid harm to others and to avoid harm to yourself. I would begin by introducing a healthy respect for living beings because currently, you're trapped in a self-harming cycle of pain, angst, and thoughts of death.

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