Do you guys/gals ever think how short this life is? What's the point of it all?

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Atreus21

Lifer
Aug 21, 2007
12,001
571
126
The earth is 4.5B years. If you are lucky, you might make it to 90. Even if you lived to 120 our lives are so short. if the solar system blinked their goes 10,00 years.

With life being so short what does anything matter anyway? I guess it's the journey. Not the destination. Because whatever you do. All the accomplishments. The rewards. They are all going to disappear. Steve Jobs is a perfect example. You could be a billionaire and develop technology that the world loves and uses, but in the end does it matter? Again, it's the journey. Are you happy and excited doing what you're doing? I think that's the key. I don't even really believe in legacies. Everything eventually fades.

If the destination is meaningless, so is the journey.
 
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Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,704
5,456
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The earth is 4.5B years. If you are lucky, you might make it to 90. Even if you lived to 120 our lives are so short. if the solar system blinked their goes 10,00 years.

With life being so short what does anything matter anyway? I guess it's the journey. Not the destination. Because whatever you do. All the accomplishments. The rewards. They are all going to disappear. Steve Jobs is a perfect example. You could be a billionaire and develop technology that the world loves and uses, but in the end does it matter? Again, it's the journey. Are you happy and excited doing what you're doing? I think that's the key. I don't even really believe in legacies. Everything eventually fades.

This is a fun discussion because we all have dueling perspectives on it. For starters, life is literally the longest thing you'll ever do. You'll be alive until you die. You'll be alive for as long as you live. So in that sense, life isn't short at all!

On the flip side, in the cosmic scheme of things, life can appear to be pretty short, and that implies meaninglessness (which isn't accurate, but we'll get to that). It's easy to be cynical about it: everything you do will be obsolete in 100 years. And you'll most likely die long before that. And your ability to influence real change in the world is limited. Trump, who is president of the free world, has a very limited scope of influence on human in general & in your life specifically. Even Hitler, who threw the entire planet into WWII, had a limited impact, statistically-speaking - there were about 2 billion people on the planet in 1939 & just shy of 80 million people died, which is roughly 3% of the world's population. So humanity's reach is not infinite nor does it affect every single person on the planet, so why bother, right?

So...what does matter? Well, to begin with, I think having a meaningful-to-you life matters. And I think the implementation of a meaningful life is a multi-faceted discussion. At a basic level, you've got Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which means that for starters, you've gotta go get a job to feed & shelter yourself. But I don't believe we showed up on this rock simply to survive, but to thrive. I think that we are here to learn & to grow & to do great things with our lives, although not necessarily in relation to others, but more of in a "PR" (sports-talk for beating your Personal Record) kind of way, where we're focused on incrementally improving ourselves, inviting good things into our lives, doing good work, feeling good, etc.

And I think all of that boils down to an equation of sorts, which begins with the power of choice: we are all free to recognize or reject truth. We are all free to make our own choices on a day by day basis. We are free to be victims or victors. To quit or to be persistent. To have a fix mindset or a growth mindset. To have integrity or to be underhanded. To be moral or amoral. And it's super easy to just quit & give up & feel trapped. I've gone through my own periods of depression where I've either felt so bogged down that I didn't feel like there was any light at the end of the tunnel, or so apathetic that I didn't care because I wasn't feeling it, which, to me, says that there is purpose & goodness in life, because how can you feel so down in the dumps if there isn't also good in the world? And I don't think I'm alone in this feeling. JRR Tolkein had this great bit from LOTR - Sam's speech:

Frodo : I can't do this, Sam.

Sam : I know.
It's all wrong.
By rights we shouldn't even be here.
But we are.
It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo.
The ones that really mattered.
Full of darkness and danger they were,
and sometimes you didn't want to know the end.
Because how could the end be happy.
How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened.
But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow.
Even darkness must pass.
A new day will come.
And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.
Those were the stories that stayed with you.
That meant something.
Even if you were too small to understand why.
But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand.
I know now.
Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t.
Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo : What are we holding on to, Sam?

Sam : That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.

Followed by an equally fantastic quote from Gandalf:

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

This quote is a highly clarifying statement: you are here, on earth, on lease. You have a limited amount of time left - do you want to be an ostrich & stick your head in the sand & coast? Because you can 100% do that if that's what you want to do, and it's easier than anything to get stuck at home doing nothing. But given a world of infinite opportunities & options, why make such a choice? It IS daunting to try to figure out Life, the Universe, and Everything, but I feel like we also need to define a path forward proactively if we're going to be truly happy. Because to me, it's hard to be happy if you're missing the key requirements, which are:

1. Defining what happiness means to you personally
2. Discovering things that make you happy
3. Putting in the effort & thinking required to both achieve & maintain that

I personally believe that a person's happiness & success in life is largely dependent on how proactive they're willing to be. It's hard to be happy if you don't know what happiness means, and it's hard to be happy if you don't put in some effort into maintaining that state. I kind of view myself as having a ying-yang inside my brain: the Reactive Man on one side & the Proactive Man on the other. Bourdain said it more succinctly:

bours.jpg

I don't think life is static. I think it's more like a plant: if you want a good result, you have to take care to feed & water it, because left unattended, it will wilt & it will die. Like Bourdain said above, that reactive, lazy, childish part of you is constantly trying to maintain the inertia of being a couch potato & having existential crises & not doing too much or being willing to dive deep or try to do better or anything like that, so it's a constant battle, in that regard. So now our equation for life is growing:

1. We all have the ability to choose & the freedom of choice in our lives, despite what our current circumstances dictate. If you want to read more on this idea, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. He's a dude who decided not to let life in a Nazi death camp beat him down on the inside. Amazing concepts about attitude & reactivity in it. Anyway, given the freedom of being able to choose how we react, what we do, and what we invite into our lives, this is both scary & awesome, because we can choose to live as dumb of a life as we want, or as epic of a life as we want!

2. Life requires TLC; it needs constant babysitting, because like a plant, it is alive, and will wilt & fade if not properly attended to. This means that if you want meaning in your life & happiness in your life, there's no "one shot & DONE!" approach available...it's going to require your constant involvement in it!

3. We all have an Earth Lease. We don't know when it's up - maybe tomorrow, maybe in 50 years, who knows? You are here now, and you have what time you have left to either be like a turtle & withdraw into your shell, or do take the reins & put in the time & the effort to defining what you want from life & then working towards it (including happiness!). That can be a big wall to overcome, and the existential dread that comes from thinking about the Big Things in life makes it easy to slip back into reactive mode & completely forget about it just days later. Our ability as human beings to live in denial is unparalleled in the universe, lol.

To me, that's just the tip of the iceberg. I believe there's meaning in life. I believe happiness can be achieved on this planet. But I also definitely believe that it requires time, effort, and thinking to not only get there but to maintain that state, because we are constantly fighting the Reactive Man. We have to decide to take on the role of the Proactive Man in order to keep the Reactive Man at bay, and that often has to be done on a daily basis, from what I can tell. And with all of the modern distractions available, it's incredibly easy to let that slip out of mind & out of sight & go back to living in blissful ignorance to what I consider fundamental truths of the universe, because continuous effort over time is a surprisingly difficult thing for people to do in general!
 

Svnla

Lifer
Nov 10, 2003
17,986
1,388
126
Years.png


Months1.png
 

skyking

Lifer
Nov 21, 2001
22,382
5,347
146
I was driving across the mountains today to hold a vigil for my niece. I got where the radio was sparse, turned on Pandora got this for the first song. WTF Pandora?
 

WelshBloke

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
31,441
9,343
136
Theres birth, and theres death.
And theres the bit in the middle.
The bit in the middle is life, and that's the best bit, the bit you're supposed to enjoy and squeeze all the juice from!
Im amazed at the amount of people that waste the best bit worrying about the bits that dont matter!
 

Hayabusa Rider

Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
Jan 26, 2000
50,879
4,266
126
This is a fun discussion because we all have dueling perspectives on it. For starters, life is literally the longest thing you'll ever do. You'll be alive until you die. You'll be alive for as long as you live. So in that sense, life isn't short at all!

On the flip side, in the cosmic scheme of things, life can appear to be pretty short, and that implies meaninglessness (which isn't accurate, but we'll get to that). It's easy to be cynical about it: everything you do will be obsolete in 100 years. And you'll most likely die long before that. And your ability to influence real change in the world is limited. Trump, who is president of the free world, has a very limited scope of influence on human in general & in your life specifically. Even Hitler, who threw the entire planet into WWII, had a limited impact, statistically-speaking - there were about 2 billion people on the planet in 1939 & just shy of 80 million people died, which is roughly 3% of the world's population. So humanity's reach is not infinite nor does it affect every single person on the planet, so why bother, right?

So...what does matter? Well, to begin with, I think having a meaningful-to-you life matters. And I think the implementation of a meaningful life is a multi-faceted discussion. At a basic level, you've got Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which means that for starters, you've gotta go get a job to feed & shelter yourself. But I don't believe we showed up on this rock simply to survive, but to thrive. I think that we are here to learn & to grow & to do great things with our lives, although not necessarily in relation to others, but more of in a "PR" (sports-talk for beating your Personal Record) kind of way, where we're focused on incrementally improving ourselves, inviting good things into our lives, doing good work, feeling good, etc.

And I think all of that boils down to an equation of sorts, which begins with the power of choice: we are all free to recognize or reject truth. We are all free to make our own choices on a day by day basis. We are free to be victims or victors. To quit or to be persistent. To have a fix mindset or a growth mindset. To have integrity or to be underhanded. To be moral or amoral. And it's super easy to just quit & give up & feel trapped. I've gone through my own periods of depression where I've either felt so bogged down that I didn't feel like there was any light at the end of the tunnel, or so apathetic that I didn't care because I wasn't feeling it, which, to me, says that there is purpose & goodness in life, because how can you feel so down in the dumps if there isn't also good in the world? And I don't think I'm alone in this feeling. JRR Tolkein had this great bit from LOTR - Sam's speech:



Followed by an equally fantastic quote from Gandalf:



This quote is a highly clarifying statement: you are here, on earth, on lease. You have a limited amount of time left - do you want to be an ostrich & stick your head in the sand & coast? Because you can 100% do that if that's what you want to do, and it's easier than anything to get stuck at home doing nothing. But given a world of infinite opportunities & options, why make such a choice? It IS daunting to try to figure out Life, the Universe, and Everything, but I feel like we also need to define a path forward proactively if we're going to be truly happy. Because to me, it's hard to be happy if you're missing the key requirements, which are:

1. Defining what happiness means to you personally
2. Discovering things that make you happy
3. Putting in the effort & thinking required to both achieve & maintain that

I personally believe that a person's happiness & success in life is largely dependent on how proactive they're willing to be. It's hard to be happy if you don't know what happiness means, and it's hard to be happy if you don't put in some effort into maintaining that state. I kind of view myself as having a ying-yang inside my brain: the Reactive Man on one side & the Proactive Man on the other. Bourdain said it more succinctly:

View attachment 20373

I don't think life is static. I think it's more like a plant: if you want a good result, you have to take care to feed & water it, because left unattended, it will wilt & it will die. Like Bourdain said above, that reactive, lazy, childish part of you is constantly trying to maintain the inertia of being a couch potato & having existential crises & not doing too much or being willing to dive deep or try to do better or anything like that, so it's a constant battle, in that regard. So now our equation for life is growing:

1. We all have the ability to choose & the freedom of choice in our lives, despite what our current circumstances dictate. If you want to read more on this idea, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. He's a dude who decided not to let life in a Nazi death camp beat him down on the inside. Amazing concepts about attitude & reactivity in it. Anyway, given the freedom of being able to choose how we react, what we do, and what we invite into our lives, this is both scary & awesome, because we can choose to live as dumb of a life as we want, or as epic of a life as we want!

2. Life requires TLC; it needs constant babysitting, because like a plant, it is alive, and will wilt & fade if not properly attended to. This means that if you want meaning in your life & happiness in your life, there's no "one shot & DONE!" approach available...it's going to require your constant involvement in it!

3. We all have an Earth Lease. We don't know when it's up - maybe tomorrow, maybe in 50 years, who knows? You are here now, and you have what time you have left to either be like a turtle & withdraw into your shell, or do take the reins & put in the time & the effort to defining what you want from life & then working towards it (including happiness!). That can be a big wall to overcome, and the existential dread that comes from thinking about the Big Things in life makes it easy to slip back into reactive mode & completely forget about it just days later. Our ability as human beings to live in denial is unparalleled in the universe, lol.

To me, that's just the tip of the iceberg. I believe there's meaning in life. I believe happiness can be achieved on this planet. But I also definitely believe that it requires time, effort, and thinking to not only get there but to maintain that state, because we are constantly fighting the Reactive Man. We have to decide to take on the role of the Proactive Man in order to keep the Reactive Man at bay, and that often has to be done on a daily basis, from what I can tell. And with all of the modern distractions available, it's incredibly easy to let that slip out of mind & out of sight & go back to living in blissful ignorance to what I consider fundamental truths of the universe, because continuous effort over time is a surprisingly difficult thing for people to do in general!
I made more sourdough yesterday. I took my puppy to the park for the first time and I watched her play and noticed how much she adored me, as if I were her whole universe. My family and three dogs are all home and I have arrived at a place of contentment without complacency. Sometimes I AM is enough.
 
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Mai72

Lifer
Sep 12, 2012
11,562
1,741
126
On the flip side, in the cosmic scheme of things, life can appear to be pretty short, and that implies meaninglessness (which isn't accurate, but we'll get to that). It's easy to be cynical about it: everything you do will be obsolete in 100 years. And you'll most likely die long before that. And your ability to influence real change in the world is limited. Trump, who is president of the free world, has a very limited scope of influence on human in general & in your life specifically. Even Hitler, who threw the entire planet into WWII, had a limited impact, statistically-speaking - there were about 2 billion people on the planet in 1939 & just shy of 80 million people died, which is roughly 3% of the world's population. So humanity's reach is not infinite nor does it affect every single person on the planet, so why bother, right?

Yea, no doubt. I've thought about if impacting people and forging a legacy really matters. The Hitler example was spot on. Even Ghengis Khan who ruled over much of Asia lost power and fortune when he died. His legacy still continues, but TBH how many people actually care about Ghengis Khan? Supposedly, over 8% of the men living in Mongolia carry carry y-chromosomes that are nearly identical to Khan. That is crazy. Or, we could look at Rockafella or the railroad tycoon Andrew Carnegie who was at one time the richest man on the planet. Does anyone really care about Andrew Carnegie. How many buildings bare his name? Or, what about Edison, Tesla, The Wright Brothers, and Ford. Or, Elon Musk? How much of an impact will Elon have? And, what about us? The 99% whose impact on the world is less far reaching? The teacher. The fireman, police officer, and the local business guy? Yea, when you look at the BIG picture much of it doesn't matter.

So...what does matter? Well, to begin with, I think having a meaningful-to-you life matters. And I think the implementation of a meaningful life is a multi-faceted discussion. At a basic level, you've got Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which means that for starters, you've gotta go get a job to feed & shelter yourself. But I don't believe we showed up on this rock simply to survive, but to thrive. I think that we are here to learn & to grow & to do great things with our lives, although not necessarily in relation to others, but more of in a "PR" (sports-talk for beating your Personal Record) kind of way, where we're focused on incrementally improving ourselves, inviting good things into our lives, doing good work, feeling good, etc.

Agreed. Maslow's first level (food, shelter, air, sleep, clothing) is the basic level for survival. If you don't have that covered you can't work on yourself, and pursue something meaningful. Growth and wanting to learn is so important. It always maks me sad when I see people who stop growing. They become stagnant. Watch TV for hours. They sit inside all day. Excessive TV viewing has been tied to low levels of depression as well. It takes a TON of work to thrive, and to grow. It's why many people opt out. They just give up, and it's very easy to become set in your ways.

And I think all of that boils down to an equation of sorts, which begins with the power of choice: we are all free to recognize or reject truth. We are all free to make our own choices on a day by day basis. We are free to be victims or victors. To quit or to be persistent. To have a fix mindset or a growth mindset. To have integrity or to be underhanded. To be moral or amoral. And it's super easy to just quit & give up & feel trapped. I've gone through my own periods of depression where I've either felt so bogged down that I didn't feel like there was any light at the end of the tunnel, or so apathetic that I didn't care because I wasn't feeling it, which, to me, says that there is purpose & goodness in life, because how can you feel so down in the dumps if there isn't also good in the world? And I don't think I'm alone in this feeling.

Most people don't realize this, but we are making choices every second. Our thoughts determine our actions. We tend to rationalize our behaviors though. For example, I'm always in conflict with exercise and eating nutritiously. I'll say to myself "I'm not going to the gym because it's raining" Or, "im not exercising because I'm tired." But, the truth is I can easily go to the gym. I don't feel like it, and I'll watch movies, or game for hours. At the end I feel worse. If I had just gone to the gym and pushed thru the pain I'd feel so much better when I am done. We are always fighting this internal negative dialogue within ourselves. Always fighting those negative thought patterns that tend to loop and loop. I know that I have a fixed mindset, and I'm trying to work on this. It doesn't help that I have years of conditioned behavior. I will get thru it.

This quote is a highly clarifying statement: you are here, on earth, on lease. You have a limited amount of time left - do you want to be an ostrich & stick your head in the sand & coast? Because you can 100% do that if that's what you want to do, and it's easier than anything to get stuck at home doing nothing. But given a world of infinite opportunities & options, why make such a choice? It IS daunting to try to figure out Life, the Universe, and Everything, but I feel like we also need to define a path forward proactively if we're going to be truly happy. Because to me, it's hard to be happy if you're missing the key requirements, which are:

1. Defining what happiness means to you personally
2. Discovering things that make you happy
3. Putting in the effort & thinking required to both achieve & maintain that

I personally believe that a person's happiness & success in life is largely dependent on how proactive they're willing to be. It's hard to be happy if you don't know what happiness means, and it's hard to be happy if you don't put in some effort into maintaining that state. I kind of view myself as having a ying-yang inside my brain: the Reactive Man on one side & the Proactive Man on the other. Bourdain said it more succinctly:

When my mom passed away I took a hard look at my life, and I decided that day I wanted to teach in Asia. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I took a chance and flew to a country that I have ZERO knowledge about. I had lived a sheltered life. I only flew one time before my trip to Asia, and that was from NJ to FL. A 2 hour trip. Now, I was going half way around the world. I didn't know the language. I landed in Seoul. I had to find my recruiter who we only had a very brief encounter. She put me on a bus with no foreigners. I had a 4 hour bus ride to jeonju. I was out of my element, and I felt alive. It was so different. I wasnt't trapped in thought. I was living in the moment I guess. The same happened when I traveled to Bangkok. And, when I traveled to Korat, Thailand with my Thai gf. I was meeting her family for the first time. I was the only foreigner.

You have to define what happiness is. No doubt. It takes work, and this is where most people falter. It can be hard work, and for many they just give up. That is even if they start the process which most people don't because they are so conditioned to believe that their life is the way it is, and there is nothing that they can do about it. I disagree with that mindset. Yea, you need to be proactive. It's very difficult though. It takes a lot of time and effort. It's a shame what happened to Bourdain. He was fighting some really nasty internal demons. His quote is spot on. I can easily get stuck at home doing nothing, I'm always in a struggle to not do that. I can game for hours, and in the end come out much worse. It's always a battle. Those key requirements are so true.

I have the "Man's Search for Meaning" on audio. I've listened to that audio book about 5x already. I need to go back to it again. It's a life altering book. And, how can you complain about and feel sorry for your own life when you listen to Frankl's story. It puts it all in persepctive. It's such a great book. I've also read "The Shortness of Life" by Sennca. My favorite quote from that book "It's not that life is short, it's that we waste so much of it." Marcus Aurelius has a few gems as well. "Meditations" is such a a good book by one of the last great Roman emperors. He journeled often, and in his journals he often talked about death, and what is life. Those two books have gotten me into Stocism which is very popular amongst young men today. I'm going to real "Mindset" by Carol Dweck. The fixed vs growth mindset. Also, "Anti-Fragile" by Nassim Taleb. Have you heard of Ryan Holiday? He has a fe great books: "The Ego is the Enemy" and "The Obstacle is the Way." He's very much into Stocism and has a podcast called Daily Stoic. I've also delved into Buddhism. Mush of Buddhism has to do with mindset is why i was drawn into the practice. Why do we suffer? Mush of this has to do with our inabilty to let go, and our attachment to selfish cravings and personal desire.

I don't think life is just about happiness. What is happiness anyway? I can get extremely happy when I'm eating a bowl of ice cream. It has more to do with fulfillment. Tom Bilyeu (Impact Theory, Quest Nutrition) said it perfectly. "It's how you feel about yourself when you're by yourself." Those thoughts that creep up when you're alone with your thoughts. Are you fulfilled and engaged with life? For example, when I go to the gym I'm not a happy person. I don't want to go. I'd rather stay home and play video games, watch videos, or do nothing TBH. They make me much more happier. But, those activities just give me short burst of dopemine. it's when I do something that I don't want to do. It's when I push myself to do something unpleasant, that at the end of it I'm going to be much more satisified and fulfilled with life. After I get done my workout I feel great that I actually did it. That I actually did what I said I was going to do. At the end of of 6 hour gaming session I feel like crap TBH. Because most of the time I'm avoiding what I should be doing for short term pleasure. If it's earned it's one thing, but TBH it's rarely earned. It's more like I'm avoiding the work I should be doing. It's all short term pleasure. Sure, it makles me happy but as I said before much of it is short lived. It's why I believe fulfillmet trumps happiness. Like sadness, happiness is a state. It comes and it goes like the clouds.

I like this list from Tom Bilyeu:

mc-rect-tom-bilyeu-success.jpg
 
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Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,704
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I made more sourdough yesterday. I took my puppy to the park for the first time and I watched her play and noticed how much she adored me, as if I were her whole universe. My family and three dogs are all home and I have arrived at a place of contentment without complacency. Sometimes I AM is enough.

I grew up with a fairly domineering older brother (we get along great now, but we were both dorks growing up) & my self-confidence suffered as a result. For a long time I definitely felt like a second-class citizen...I wasn't in the cool club, I wasn't all muscly, being a geek was not "in" like it is today, etc. But it also gave me the opportunity to explore my worldviews on things instead of just accepting them, and over time, it shifted me from being an "I need an answer on the spot" type of reactive person (not so much to other people, but for me, when I was asked stuff & felt that anxiety rush from feeling unprepared & having low self-confidence) to being a more exploratory "it's OK to take my time, flesh things out, decide what I want, and not know the answer immediately" type of proactive person, which in turn helped me get over my ego & be more willing to do deep-dives into things instead of just holding surface-level beliefs on everything.

One thing that really changed my perspective was Amelia Earheart's quotes on intrinsic value. For example, when asked why she wants to fly as a woman, her response was, "I want to do it because I want to do it." That's actually a foundational quote for my self-esteem, as I struggled with anxiety a lot growing up: my life is my life, and I get to be the judge of what is good and what I like and what I want, and I have tremendous value simply because I exist & not because someone pats my head and gives me permission to feel good about myself, and I can do & enjoy things simply because they have intrinsic value to me personally & that is 100% OK.

One of my biggest takeaways has just been learning to be proactive. Learning that I can take ownership of things simply because I decide to & that I can grant myself permission to not only do things but to immensely enjoy doing things. I used to feel somewhat trapped by circumstances. For example, cooking was a chore & I wasn't very good at it, but I learned how to shift my attitude. This book "Attitude is Everything" by Jeff Keller really opened my eyes to the idea that the bulk of my choices about what I did with my life & nearly all of how I felt in my life were controlled by how I chose to control my attitude, rather than feeling like life was dictating what to do & how to feel to me:


I mean, that sounds obvious written out, but it's not so obvious in the thick of things. I still don't have it all figured out, but I've become a much happier (and more productive) person by adopting a proactive approach where I choose what I want and I design how I want to feel by inviting better situations, assets, and experiences into my life, rather than just reactively coasting along & hoping for magic results, lol.
 

DAPUNISHER

Super Moderator CPU Forum Mod and Elite Member
Super Moderator
Aug 22, 2001
29,559
24,422
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The only meaning to your life, is that which you assign. You are in unimaginably small and insignificant speck, in a vast universe. Speaking for myself, it is incredibly liberating when you grasp that fact. I go about my existence as though it is a great big middle finger to a hostile universe, that has no need for life to exist anywhere at any time.
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,704
5,456
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Yea, no doubt. I've thought about if impacting people and forging a legacy really matters. The Hitler example was spot on. Even Ghengis Khan who ruled over much of Asia lost power and fortune when he died. His legacy still continues, but TBH how many people actually care about Ghengis Khan? Supposedly, over 8% of the men living in Mongolia carry carry y-chromosomes that are nearly identical to Khan. That is crazy. Or, we could look at Rockafella or the railroad tycoon Andrew Carnegie who was at one time the richest man on the planet. Does anyone really care about Andrew Carnegie. How many buildings bare his name? Or, what about Edison, Tesla, The Wright Brothers, and Ford. Or, Elon Musk? How much of an impact will Elon have? And, what about us? The 99% whose impact on the world is less far reaching? The teacher. The fireman, police officer, and the local business guy? Yea, when you look at the BIG picture much of it doesn't matter.



Agreed. Maslow's first level (food, shelter, air, sleep, clothing) is the basic level for survival. If you don't have that covered you can't work on yourself, and pursue something meaningful. Growth and wanting to learn is so important. It always maks me sad when I see people who stop growing. They become stagnant. Watch TV for hours. They sit inside all day. Excessive TV viewing has been tied to low levels of depression as well. It takes a TON of work to thrive, and to grow. It's why many people opt out. They just give up, and it's very easy to become set in your ways.



Most people don't realize this, but we are making choices every second. Our thoughts determine our actions. We tend to rationalize our behaviors though. For example, I'm always in conflict with exercise and eating nutritiously. I'll say to myself "I'm not going to the gym because it's raining" Or, "im not exercising because I'm tired." But, the truth is I can easily go to the gym. I don't feel like it, and I'll watch movies, or game for hours. At the end I feel worse. If I had just gone to the gym and pushed thru the pain I'd feel so much better when I am done. We are always fighting this internal negative dialogue within ourselves. Always fighting those negative thought patterns that tend to loop and loop. I know that I have a fixed mindset, and I'm trying to work on this. It doesn't help that I have years of conditioned behavior. I will get thru it.



When my mom passed away I took a hard look at my life, and I decided that day I wanted to teach in Asia. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I took a chance and flew to a country that I have ZERO knowledge about. I had lived a sheltered life. I only flew one time before my trip to Asia, and that was from NJ to FL. A 2 hour trip. Now, I was going half way around the world. I didn't know the language. I landed in Seoul. I had to find my recruiter who we only had a very brief encounter. She put me on a bus with no foreigners. I had a 4 hour bus ride to jeonju. I was out of my element, and I felt alive. It was so different. I wasnt't trapped in thought. I was living in the moment I guess. The same happened when I traveled to Bangkok. And, when I traveled to Korat, Thailand with my Thai gf. I was meeting her family for the first time. I was the only foreigner.

You have to define what happiness is. No doubt. It takes work, and this is where most people falter. It can be hard work, and for many they just give up. That is even if they start the process which most people don't because they are so conditioned to believe that their life is the way it is, and there is nothing that they can do about it. I disagree with that mindset. Yea, you need to be proactive. It's very difficult though. It takes a lot of time and effort. It's a shame what happened to Bourdain. He was fighting some really nasty internal demons. His quote is spot on. I can easily get stuck at home doing nothing, I'm always in a struggle to not do that. I can game for hours, and in the end come out much worse. It's always a battle. Those key requirements are so true.

I have the "Man's Search for Meaning" on audio. I've listened to that audio book about 5x already. I need to go back to it again. It's a life altering book. And, how can you complain about and feel sorry for your own life when you listen to Frankl's story. It puts it all in persepctive. It's such a great book. I've also read "The Shortness of Life" by Sennca. My favorite quote from that book "It's not that life is short, it's that we waste so much of it." Marcus Aurelius has a few gems as well. "Meditations" is such a a good book by one of the last great Roman emperors. He journeled often, and in his journals he often talked about death, and what is life. Those two books have gotten me into Stocism which is very popular amongst young men today. I'm going to real "Mindset" by Carol Dweck. The fixed vs growth mindset. Also, "Anti-Fragile" by Nassim Taleb. Have you heard of Ryan Holiday? He has a fe great books: "The Ego is the Enemy" and "The Obstacle is the Way." He's very much into Stocism and has a podcast called Daily Stoic. I've also delved into Buddhism. Mush of Buddhism has to do with mindset is why i was drawn into the practice. Why do we suffer? Mush of this has to do with our inabilty to let go, and our attachment to selfish cravings and personal desire.

I don't think life is just about happiness. What is happiness anyway? I can get extremely happy when I'm eating a bowl of ice cream. It has more to do with fulfillment. Tom Bilyeu (Impact Theory, Quest Nutrition) said it perfectly. "It's how you feel about yourself when you're by yourself." Those thoughts that creep up when you're alone with your thoughts. Are you fulfilled and engaged with life? For example, when I go to the gym I'm not a happy person. I don't want to go. I'd rather stay home and play video games, watch videos, or do nothing TBH. They make me much more happier. But, those activities just give me short burst of dopemine. it's when I do something that I don't want to do. It's when I push myself to do something unpleasant, that at the end of it I'm going to be much more satisified and fulfilled with life. After I get done my workout I feel great that I actually did it. That I actually did what I said I was going to do. At the end of of 6 hour gaming session I feel like crap TBH. Because most of the time I'm avoiding what I should be doing for short term pleasure. If it's earned it's one thing, but TBH it's rarely earned. It's more like I'm avoiding the work I should be doing. It's all short term pleasure. Sure, it makles me happy but as I said before much of it is short lived. It's why I believe fulfillmet trumps happiness. Like sadness, happiness is a state. It comes and it goes like the clouds.

I like this list from Tom Bilyeu:

View attachment 20378

I have ADHD & part of that is having hyperfocus, which is where I tend to get overly-fixated on thing. That leads to getting stuck in a whining loop about negative things, most of which are first-world problems. As with most things, I have 2 views on this:

1. Problems are problems, period. Everyone is fighting a hard fight & everyone is managing complexity. Your problems shouldn't be discounted or dismissed simply because they're not perceived as the same as someone else's problems.

2. However...there is a point where I need to quit whining. And not only to stop complaining, but to get off my duff & get to work solving my own problems instead of wallowing.

There is an awful, awful picture I use for motivation, a photo shot by Kevin Carter in Sudan of a bird-of-prey stalking a starving girl. There's so much wrong in this picture & so many human failings on so many levels that I can't even wrap my mind around it. And whenever I start getting into a negative loop, I look at that picture and remind myself that I have solvable problems & that my life isn't so bad that I'm starving to death & about to be eaten by a wild animal. It's a bit of an extreme motivational technique, but for me, it's a good slap-in-the-face to help me adjust my perspective & zoom out from the day to day stuff I get all wound up about.

ken.jpg

If you're interested in more of the backstory, the photographer had a pretty crazy life. This whole article is kind of NSFL:


Don't forget this after:


Anyway, I think it's really incredibly easy to go into "meh" mode, but I don't feel like that's why we're here, because if you can feel really bad or really apathetic, then you can also feel really good. I don't think feeling really good all the time is something most people get without putting in some effort into defining happiness for themselves & then working to add it into their life on a regular basis, which gets back into that whole Bourdain quote & that concept of the Reactive Man vs. the Proactive Man...it's like a plant that we have to feed & water & care for on a daily basis.

For me, at least, happiness doesn't just come by magic, it comes through choices & through work. For example, I have a somewhat wimpy body. I have to be careful about my diet, sleeping patterns, exercise, and stress management, otherwise I get extremely run down, and I have a REALLY hard time feeling happy when I feel like crap, lol. Learning how to feed myself properly (macros), setting up an exercise routine (not a fan of actually doing exercise lol), making sure I get at least my personally-required 7 hours of sleep, and so on have all contributed immensely to how good I'm able to feel on a day-to-day basis.

I wrote a post on reddit a couple years ago with some more thoughts on this:


I have a post somewhere around here too about the concept of the "warm fuzzy". The Warm Fuzzy is that good feeling you have. Again, happiness is a multi-faceted concept, and I think being content in life has a big role to play in that, rather than just having a big dopey grin on my face all the time, lol. In turn, the idea of the warm fuzzy is that you figure out what works for you & then work to maintain it. For me, that means doing good work instead of crap work, because I don't feel very good about myself when I know I'm purposely putting in a garbage-quality level of effort on things. It also means taking care of my body, because I get extremely low-energy when I don't, and it's really hard for me to feel happy when I'm not feeling energetic & when I'm feeling tired all the time.

Also, sorry to hear about your mom man. And it's amazing that you were able to hop on a plane & go on an adventure like that, that's something that very few people will ever get to do! And while I think life is more about the incremental day to day stuff than the big leaps we take, I do think, like the picture above, that getting our attitudes adjusted by exposing ourselves to the bigger picture once in awhile is valuable because we all tend to get sucked into the courses of our lives & lose sight of things that matter more than a lot of the simple complaints we have. We all have the power of choice, and while we all can feel the pressure & stress of life, we can also choose our attitudes proactively instead of reactively, and decide how we want to feel & behave in order to create a better lifestyle & life experience for ourselves & those around us!
 
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PowerEngineer

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Oct 22, 2001
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There is an awful, awful picture I use for motivation, a photo shot by Kevin Carter in Sudan of a bird-of-prey stalking a starving girl. There's so much wrong in this picture & so many human failings on so many levels that I can't even wrap my mind around it.

Jesus Christ! Cannot really thank you for sharing that!

My contribution to this topic is to suggest the Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, with the warning that some of you will not thank me for sharing that either.

Brian Greene actually opens his "Fabric of the Cosmos" with his consideration of the question posed by Camus: "why not suicide?" His takeaway: "You can ponder this or analyze that till the cows come home, but the real question is whether all your ponderings and analyses will convince you that life is worth living. That’s what it all comes down to. Everything else is detail."

I'll also offer my own poor analogy. I always feel a pang of sadness when getting off the chairlift for the last downhill run of the day. This fun will soon be over. I can let that knowledge weigh down my spirits during that last run, or I can use it as motivation to wring every last bit of enjoyment out of it. I think it makes sense to do the latter. There will be plenty of time afterward to dread the long drive home. Life is something like that last ski run. Get the most out of it that you can. Don't let worries about what came before or comes after ruin it for you.

My two cents...
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
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The part that infuriates me about seeing starving children is the fact that there is more than enough food in the world for them too, but our idiotic capitalist world will not let them have it. Right now we are dumping milk and potatoes because it's somehow a better decision than donating it to countries that could use it. Liability and all that BS. There are also situations where they rather waste food because they don't want to give it for free because there is no profit. For example say you go through a drive thru and you forgot your money, you won't get your food because you can't pay, but also, that food won't go to someone else (ex: staff member, or just handed to another customer for free etc), but rather be wasted. It's not just with food but with every day items too. A clothing store catches fire and all the clothing gets smoke damage. Rather than try to clean the clothes and send it to less fortunate people, they are ordered to destroy it. Stuff like that just pisses me off so much. It's pure waste just because if idiotic capitalist policies we have created.