S/He's Problems

I’ve been writing down my thoughts my whole life, although they were never very organized until recently. I get so many random thoughts and they fly out once a minute passes and they usually return after the validity period has elapsed or they return and I don’t find them profound.

As I jot down these disparaging wondering thoughts and epiphanies in my head; I am always afraid of people finding them, I guess because I think they are going to judge and question my sharpness. So I’d put them in quotes, and attribute them to a fake name, a fake date. If anyone found it at least it would look like it wasn’t my thought. If an entry struck me as especially profound I might attribute it to a real person who was known for being smart.

This secretiveness was a persistent theme all the way through childhood and into my twenties. It gave me a sense of control over how others saw me. I was embarrassed to want certain things. I was embarrassed for other people’s desires for certain things, like whenever I’d see old men checking out young women, or overweight people ordering coffee with four sugars and four creams. I felt like people’s wants should be extremely private because they reveal so much, and so I didn’t want to let other people in on mine. I didn’t want other people to know what I was. I have always guarded my wants and likes especially to those I don’t wanna let in. Mean beach Yo.

This is a theme I keep noticing in life. My problems are always simpler in the eyes of others, just like other people’s problems seem simpler to me than they make them out to be. If a friend came to me today with a dilemma and she didn’t know what to do, I’d have no problem telling her “What I’d do.”

Strangely, it’s almost always obvious what others should do, and less obvious what we should do ourselves. I’ve become increasingly aware of this phenomenon, both on the giving end and receiving end of advice.

The question is who’s mistaken? Is it that others are always oversimplifying your problems, or is it that you’re always over-complicating them?

I think there is, almost always, at least a bit of both going on. But I know that in my case, I’m normally the one with the more distorted view of my problem and I’d bet most people are that way too. It’s easier to be rational about other people’s problems than your own, because you’re much less emotionally invested in other people’s problems, so you can stay more rational about it.When you go to another person to help you with a problem you’re having, often you’re not putting two heads together towards addressing the same issue. The other person is trying to come up with a way to solve the problem, and you’re trying to come up with a way of protecting yourself from your fears surrounding that problem. Often this means your solution is more comfortable for you in the short term, yet it prolongs the problem, and overall, creates a worse experience for you.

 

The most effective solution usually resembles a straight line between where you are and where you want to be, and this path necessarily ignores the emotional landscape that path must cross. If the straight line brings me to a steep slope overgrown with brambles, then so be it — it might hurt a bit but the directness of the route ensures that it will be over soon.

When I think of my own problems, I tend to look for the easiest path from here, emotionally speaking, which almost always makes for a more circuitous route, and often that route doesn’t even go to where I’m trying to get.

I think this is a normal human tendency. We make problems harder and more complex when they are ours.

From Steve Pavlina:

I don’t think I’ve ever met someone that claimed they didn’t know what to do who wasn’t butt up against the most obvious solution, staring them right in the face the whole time. They claim ignorance in order to prevent themselves from having to face that solution, which is often quite clear to everyone around them. They think that other people are actually buying their excuse, but the reality is that there’s a whole

There is a paradox to beware when it comes to rationality. We often feel more conviction about our actions when we’re riled up emotionally, but that’s when we’re least capable of being rational. In other words, we often feel more headstrong about a bad approach than we do a good approach. While you’re being swept away by something, other people are standing on the banks, where they can see where you are and where you’re trying to get to — something you can’t often see from your position — and if you ask them what to do they can tell you.

Try with a little help from your friends.

I Don't Know What To Name You

This has got to be one of the most comfortable posts I have put up in months, and I am like yoh! The previous posts have been really hectic with too much energy investment. You know those ‘kinda’ of posts that tire the brain. I am in my room, comfortably sitting on my bed, legs apart, with this jammy jam; seriously I can’t even make out the words playing in the Background, and me teething .Internal Smiles all the way because this is happening so naturally. It’s on days like this that I just say GOD bless Ishmael for choosing to beget Islam… In fact GOD bless Mohammed too for this Holiday. I just ‘be’ happy here working on this effortlessly. With Joy in my belly, and butterflies in my mind and then from the utmost bottom of my heart I say: Thank GOD its Monday bebe. You needed to see the smile I wore as I put my alarm on Dismiss and
cozily went back to bed earlier on.

Disparaging thoughts in my head over this passion thing.It does seem passion generates income for some, but not for others. Therefore, ditching a steady job — under the assumption that your passion cannot fail you in the income department — is not exactly a bulletproof idea. But how do you know if your passion is the kind that would make you rich if you ran with it?

When it comes to making money, it seems to me that the starving artists and the turkey-feather craft peddlers are missing a crucial law of profiteering

Passion has never paid bills, not for anyone.

People part with money when they find something that is directly valuable to them, that is to say they pay for what they believe improves their lives. Money doesn’t come in exchange for passion; it comes in exchange for what other people value. That’s the key:

Who says I value what you are passionate about? Passion is a rather private and internal thing; it’s more of an interaction between your emotions and your actions. Your customers can only guess at why your product is so awesome (or so awful) and they probably aren’t particularly concerned with how it makes you feel inside.But if your passion does not help you produce something that people will pay for, it cannot be expected to make you money. If your passion is to build and sell houses, you’ll come to your work with an excited and innovative attitude, which can only improve your chances to please clients and master your trade. It’s not hard to imagine that outlook leading quite organically to increased profits.If your passion is to balance chairs on your chin, no matter how good you are at it you may have difficulty paying your bills, simply because people generally don’t tend to spend a lot of money to see people balance furniture on their chin. This, in turn, is because watching a chair-balancer doesn’t improve people’s lives in a significant or lasting way.

The correlation between passion and income, then, is only circumstantial, not absolute.