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Life Outside The Box

"Think outside the box" is such a commonly used phrase these days that it seems like you hear it at least once every day. What does it mean? It means to think differently than normal, to step outside of the average person's comfort zone.

Some people claim that it means to think outside your comfort zone, but it doesn't, really… people describe you as "thinking outside the box" when you have a different way of looking at things than normal people (although usually only if this produces a positive result… otherwise they describe you as "nuts"), even if that is your normal way of thinking.

Everyone has their own "box", though… it's all the filters and lenses that you see life through. You can't actually, in this world, be outside your own "box"… your box just changes, and possibly grows bigger. That's one of the reasons I don't like the "box" analogy.

A box implies rigid sides, strong boundary and structure that is difficult to alter. While all people have some rigid boundaries, things they will not do regardless of circumstances, these are relatively few. Most "rules" for most people are more guidelines than hard limits, more where the cost of doing whatever it is, be it mental cost or physical cost, is high enough that the benefit needed to outweigh that cost is unlikely to happen.

So… I have a different analogy that I prefer over the box referred to in "thinking outside the box": I don't have a box, I have a house.

My house can be added to when I find new beliefs or ways of thinking that I like and wish to add to my own. My house can also have pieces of it demolished if they start to have their cost outweigh their benefit. It is on an essentially infinite lot, but there remains a core piece that the rest is built around.

That core piece can be redefined if it becomes necessary. Some pieces may no longer be part of the core, or me at all, and some pieces may become important enough to be added to the core. All the other rooms in my house, however, the ones that are NOT part of the core, have their meaning in how they relate to the core. They don't stand on their own… they are defined by how they touch and expand upon the part that IS in the core.

A box is a rigid thing likely to be destroyed, to where it is no longer a box, in any attempt to alter it. A house, on the other hand, can be added to, subtracted from, repainted and redecorated, and altered in many other fashions, even altered in its very character (such as by adding a second floor), yet it is still a house.

That seems like a much better analogy for a person, especially someone who is aware.

What kind of "house" do you live in? Do you have a different analogy that you use?

Author

October 11th

Awareness, Beliefs, Feed Your Mind

Discard Your Life And Find The Real You

What is the real you? What is it that makes up the true you, what belongs to you and only you? What do you get when you see past the surface, past the anger and fear, "love" and betrayal, hurt, pain, and even agony? The real you… the deep you, the you that is beyond what the surface you can even imagine.

When you are born, you have no concept of your "self". As you grow older, you build up a structure, a belief system, a framework of lenses and mental maps through which you see the world. You are told, and you believe, that this framework is you. The framework gets covered with experiences and emotions, and even the spaces between the beams of the support structure get filled up eventually. You go on about your life with the belief that this giant amalgamation is you.

Everyone else around you believes this, too. Only what they think of as you isn't even the structure you have built up… it's only the surface of that structure, a surface that changes constantly as new experiences, new emotions, and new everything else piles up, sometimes stripping off pieces of the old coverings, but more often simply piling over them, making them part of the inside, and making that structure ever harder to discard.

As you go about, identifying more and more with this framework that you've built, some of it intentional construction, most of it not, you build walls, walling off this portion from that portion. You do this to protect yourself, to keep yourself from getting hurt, but that's not what they do, it's only what you fool yourself into believing they do. Because those walls don't keep things out, they keep things in.

That's right… you're building yourself a prison. A prison inside a structure that is built of the giant ball of stuff that you call your life. And you not only build this prison, you voluntarily stick yourself inside of it, trapping yourself in with all the pain and injuries that you have suffered over the years. And to top it off, the prison that you build, and trap yourself inside, can't ever even fulfill the purpose for which you supposedly built it… it can't even keep out new pain!

That's right… you build up this structure of falsehoods, lies told to yourself, walling yourself in to keep out the pain, and it doesn't even work. The walls only function in one direction… they hold things in. They hold you in… they limit you to far, far below your true abilities. They keep the pain that you have experienced close to you, so that it can continually injure you and prevent you from healing. What do you do when the pain builds, when it gets harder and harder to deal with? You build more walls, and build the walls you have higher!

The walls that you build for yourself are a prison… but they're also an illusion. They are part of the framework that you have built up, an integral part as a matter of fact. But here's the thing: that framework isn't you.

That's right, all those lenses and perceptions and mental maps, all those experiences and emotions, those hatreds and angers and fears… they aren't you. They're a tiny little pimple that you've built up on the surface of the real you. All that stuff that you're trying to protect, the part that hurts, the part that knows pain and fear and suffering… that is only the very smallest fraction of you. It's like looking at a tiny island in the middle of the ocean, and calling that the ocean.

The real you is vast. It is deep, and strong, and powerful. It cannot be hurt by the vagaries of this life, because it is only the tiniest fraction of it that is involved with this life. Your physical presence, and the structure that you have built up, are merely the tiny portion of it paying attention to what you perceive as your whole life. And when you identify yourself as that tiny portion, you are giving up the vastness of the real you, like identifying yourself as your pinky.

Your walls you have created are illusions, but they are self-maintained illusions, given the power that you are drawing through your connection to the real you. Want evidence that what I'm saying is right? It's very easy to obtain… all you have to do is let down one, just one, of your walls. You will immediately feel closer to that vastness that is the real you. And with each wall that you release, you will find yourself closer to that reality.

When you get close, you may be scared by the openness, the sheer open expanse that you feel drawing nearer. After all, for all of your life that you can remember, you have lived inside your walls. You may never have even had a moment's clarity, an opening of the mind's eye to see the vastness around you. If you HAVE had one of those moments, you may be even more scared, because you have an inkling of what it's like.

It's not an empty vastness, though… you aren't alone. In fact, when you reach that vastness, you'll find that you are connected to everyone and everything else, with a deepness of connection that the very word connection doesn't seem strong enough to convey the reality of what you feel. You are a part of everything, and everything is a part of you.

It's sometimes hard to keep this connection to the real you… it's easy to forget and focus back on the surface structure, identifying with that structure that you've built up. Once you've let the feeling go long enough, in fact, it's hard to remember what it was like… until something triggers it again, and then it all comes rushing back.

There is an old movie called Dune. They made a newer version of it, too, but I'm talking about the original. In it, there is a phrase that is repeated a few times: "The sleeper must awaken." I have always identified with this phrase… I've always felt like it meant something to me, something more. I've felt like there was something bigger slumbering inside me.

Lately, as I have read, and learned, and written, and looked inside of me, my awareness has gradually expanded, and the phrase has changed, in my mind, to "The sleeper is awakening." I felt that bigger thing inside of me stirring from its slumber, starting to uncoil.

Tonight, as I was talking to my wife to help her relax, something clicked. Sometimes the greatest words of wisdom come when the conscious mind gets the hell out of the way and lets things flow from far deeper inside. Suddenly, that thing that had slowly been awakening came aware. The sleeper has awoken.

This connection, this deeper you, is your connection to God, to the awareness that created, and contains, and in a way is, the universe. But it is being "consciously" (too small a term, I think) aware of that connection, not in some sort of vague "God created the Heavens and the Earth" kind of way. It is an intimate and strong connection, a direct connection. It is deep, wordless communication flowing back and forth, much of which, to this point at least, seems to be more of an "I am here" message and an "I know" response flowing from each direction.

This vastness is inside each of us… in fact, it IS each of us. We are not the limited lives reflected in the world we live in, we are not even the conscious part of our minds… we are far more than that. But in order to find our true selves, we must first give up the structure that have built up, that we have defined as "us"… and that's probably the hardest thing in the world to do. That last wall, the one that separates us from our true selves, the one that is the foundation of support for our whole framework of our lives, is really, really hard to let go. It is giving up the "you" that you have always known, for a great unknown.

Do not be afraid. The whole world will change before your eyes, leaving nothing unaltered. Once you let go of that last wall, and the fear, there will be no doubt, however.

It's worth it.

Author

September 28th

Awareness, Beliefs, Body/Mind Relationship, Communication, Conscience, Energy, Expectations, Fear, Feed Your Mind, Free Will, Growth, Healing, Internal Quiet, Learning, Motivation, Patterns, Relationships

One Man’s Change – Overcoming Depression

You may want to read A Potentially Fatal Mistake, the article that lead to this one.

When I was younger, I had great self-esteem, but horrible self-worth. Just because I was confident in my abilities didn't mean that I thought those abilities made me worth anything. Other people had worth, and always took precedence over me, because I didn't have any worth.

This low self-worth lead to me being depressed. I was depressed to the point where I didn't really feel emotions, didn't really care about anything, for years… about 5 – 6years, actually. Near the end, it was bad enough that I couldn't sleep more than 45 minutes a night, I thought about dying every day, and finally was ready to go through with it.

I went to the hospital because of the side-effects of such low amounts of sleep (seeing things move when they weren't, etc.). While I was there, I finally told someone who could help me about how I felt, and they ended up sending me to another hospital, where they gave me Prozac and a medicine that helped me to sleep.

I was on Prozac for 30 days, and in that time it cleared out the depression enough that I could take a good look at myself and my life for the first time in a LONG time. I realized that I was keeping myself depressed by my thought patterns… I would dwell on the things that made me feel bad, almost wallowing in the negativeness of it all.

So I made a decision. I changed my thought patterns… when my thoughts would start to go down that path of negativity, I instantly stopped them. I'm not saying that this is something that everyone can just instantly change, but that's what I did.

It worked. When those 30 days were over, I didn't suffer from depression any more. I was cured, and I no longer needed medicine to help me. Removing the cycle of negative thoughts removed the negative emotion of depression, and freed many of my other emotions, to some degree.

A couple years later, I had depression come back… I had allowed myself to fall back into the cycle of negative thoughts. Again, I needed a little help to clear my head, so I went to the doctor, told him of my previous experience, and asked for Prozac again.

It was the same story… I took it for 30 days, and during those 30 days, I really thought about what was going on, and I realized that I had only taken care of half of my problem the first time. I had dealt with the negative thought cycles, but not the problem behind them, which was my low self-worth.

What I found, with all that thinking, is that I had value intrinsically. I was worth something because I was a person… it had nothing to do with my intelligence, my looks, what I had or hadn't done. I had worth simply because I was a person.

I had felt this way about others all along. Everyone else had worth, regardless of who they were and what they had done. Not only that, but they all had equal worth, though some of them had more importance to me, being people I liked or loved or both (yes, you can certainly love someone without liking them). In other words, the worth had nothing to do with anything specific to the person, it was theirs by virtue of being a person.

And that value was mine, too. I was also a person, and I also had worth simply because of this. That revelation, along with fixing my negative thought patterns again, made my changes permanent this time. Since that time, I have been depressed, yes, but it has lasted, at most, a few hours.

Now, different people may have different reasons for thinking that every person has value. My "why" is that I believe that all of the universe is a part of God, including each person. I believe that God's universal awareness is present in, and perceives through, each person. So, in essence, any time you deal with any person, you are dealing with God, also.

I think it would be awfully hard to believe in God, and believe you are dealing with Him, even if indirectly, and think that the person that He is in has no worth. In fact, God's worth is so overwhelming that any difference in an individual's worth, if it exists, is insignificant in comparison with the worth that God being present in them adds… so every person is of equal worth.

In case you're wondering, I am Christian, but I think my understanding and beliefs are considerably different than average… you can feel free to ask about them, if you want, just send me an email (you can click my name at the top of this post to find my email).

Author

September 20th

Awareness, Beliefs, Feed Your Mind, Growth, Healing, Perseverance

A Potentially Fatal Mistake

Depression

A potentially fatal mistake… scary headline, isn't it? It's the truth though, and I speak of this from personal experience. There is a mistake being perpetuated throughout the country, but particularly (from what I observe) in the education system that may be preventing us from saving lives.

What is this mistake? It's assuming and believing that it is low self-esteem that leads to depression, and that raising self-esteem can get rid of depression.

Low self-esteem doesn't cause depression… low self-worth does. And no, they are NOT the same thing. Meriam-Webster defines self-esteem as "a confidence and satisfaction in oneself". You can have self-confidence without self-worth… you can believe that you are good at something, without believing that it makes you worth anything.

I speak from personal experience. I have never had a problem with self-confidence. I have, and I may sound conceited here, always known that I was smart and at least average in the looks department. Any mental endeavour tends to come easily for me (except remembering people's names… one of these days I'm going to get around to fixing that). So my self-confidence was fine.

The problem is that I didn't think I was worth anything. It didn't matter if I was smart, even if I were a genius, the smartest person in the world, and it wouldn't have mattered if I was the most handsome man to walk the earth. I didn't think that meant anything for me… it contributed nothing to my self-worth.

If you don't believe that you are worth anything, then you don't believe that you contribute anything to others, either. You end up with little or no incentive to do anything, or even to live. You can have untold amounts of confidence in your abilities, but without a belief that you are worth something, it doesn't mean anything.

Low self-confidence is a good indicator of low self-worth. It's difficult to have anything other than low self-worth if you have no confidence in yourself. That doesn't mean that the opposite is true, however… you can't assume that someone with high self-confidence has good self-worth, also. That also means that raising someone's self-esteem, as they put so much emphasis on today, doesn't necessarily (and really, it's not even all that LIKELY) raise the real key, their self-worth.

Since the true cause of depression here is low self-worth, not low self-esteem, the emphasis on self-esteem in the education system is misplaced. What makes it even more misplaced, however, is that you can't give someone self-esteem… they have to earn it. And that's why some people think that it's self-esteem that's the issue… what you do that you feel earns you self-esteem can, at the same time, help you to feel you have worth. If you feel like you are doing something worthy of greater of self-esteem, you may feel that a little bit of that "worthy" rubs off on you.

Mistaking the cause of depression, and the cure, can lead to attempting the wrong treatment. If you use the wrong treatment, you are unlikely to cure the problem… and with depression, that can be fatal.

By the way, I'm making a request with this article, as an experiment… if you like it please vote for it on Reddit (you can click here), in addition to whatever thing you normally use.

Author

September 20th

Awareness, Beliefs, Learning

Are You Anchored Or Adrift?

Do you know who you are, what you believe, and why you believe it? Are you aware… do you look around and choose a path for yourself, or do you just blindly follow the path laid out for you by others? People who fit the first description are anchored, while people who fit the second are adrift.

People who are anchored know who they are. They know what they believe and why they believe it. They are aware of their own ability to choose their path consciously, and do not simply follow what others have done before or direct them to do now.

Those who are adrift, on the other hand, are mostly who other people tell them they are. They shift with the wind, accepting and following the last input they received, never (or rarely) asserting their own power of choice. Sometimes they try to place a limit on who can affect them this way, keeping it to only those they consider authorities or experts in the field, but this often a false front, with them allowing all who give the appearance of authority, or even just certainty, the ability to decide who they will be and what they will do.

You probably know examples of each type. You can probably even think of examples of a "type of person" who is expected to be anchored, but in reality is adrift, like a preacher, a teacher, or other authority figure. The sad part is that other people who are adrift rely on these people who are "supposed to be" anchored, but in reality are not, to give them direction in their own lives.

At this point, some of you may be thinking that the people I'm referring to as anchored are probably close-minded. If you're thinking that, you are wrong. People who are anchored have no need to reject the opinions and beliefs of others without considering them. They know who they are and why they believe what they believe well enough that other people's beliefs are not threatening. Close-minded people are actually adrift, rejecting the input of others without considering it because they lack confidence in their own beliefs.

Fortunately for the majority of people who are adrift, it is totally possible to become anchored. Totally possible and totally easy are not, however, the same thing. If you want to become anchored, you need to take a few steps, and while they are simple to understand, they are not without effort, and likely not without pain.

Learn To See Your Own Beliefs

If you want to be anchored, you must be aware of what you believe. That means consciously aware, and able to articulate what it is that you believe. If you cannot say what you believe, you certainly can't understand why you believe it, and so it is likely that you believe it because someone else told you it was so. Don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean your belief is incorrect… it just means that it's not truly YOUR belief, it is someone else's belief where you are acting as if it is your own.

If you need help getting started, you can try a series I wrote a while back:
Choose Which Beliefs You Want

Once you have learned how to see your beliefs, you must choose, for each one, whether to keep it and make it your own or discard it as not being congruent with who you want to be. This process also helps you to resolve conflicting beliefs that can be the source of much, if not most, of the stress in your life. Each belief you choose to keep is now able to become your own, and part of who you are, not just part of a persona.
Understand The Why Of Each Belief

Once you have chosen to keep a belief, and indeed even while you are considering whether or not to do so, you will need to examine it. You should find out the details, EXACTLY what is involved in the belief, what type of circumstances it applies to, and most importantly of all, WHY you believe it. If you cannot say why you have a belief, then it is not yours yet… it is still a part of the persona you are projecting, not who you truly are. Once you are aware of a belief, choose to keep it, and can explain why you believe it, you can claim it as your own, a part of your true self, your core.
Align Your Outside With Your Inside

Now that you understand which beliefs are a part of you and which are part of a persona, you can reject that persona. You have enough knowledge of your self that you no longer need the affirmations of others to feel worthy. In fact, your self-worth (which is NOT the same thing as self-esteem… in fact, there is enough of a difference that I will probably write an entire article on it in the future) will be stable, neither ridiculously high nor ridiculously low. It will simply be enough to be who you are, and allow others to be who they are, and draw shared enjoyment where you can.
Be Aware

This is the last element on the list, but in reality it shows up earlier in the mix. The thing is, it may show up anywhere on the list… it may be when you first start, when you realize that you can, in fact, choose what you believe, or any other time in this process. It is at least virtually impossible, and probably actually impossible, to complete the steps above without becoming aware. So what does it mean to "Be Aware"? It means knowing, understanding, and accepting that you have the power to control who you are and how you respond to any situation. It means accepting responsibility for your own actions… ALL of them. It means, more than anything else, being aware that you are free, that no one can force you to do anything you choose not to do. They can force your body to do certain things, but you are not your body, and that real you is completely, 100%, irrevocably free.

When you have followed each of the steps above, which are not always strictly done in the order listed, especially #5, you will find yourself anchored amongst a sea of people adrift. This gives you many advantages, too many to be listed here, but I will list one benefit: peace. Peace comes with awareness. When you know that you are free, that you are who you choose to be, and not who you choose not to be, peace is unavoidable. It is only when you try to deny this freedom, and the responsibility that comes with it, that peace ever departs.

And that is a huge difference, and a huge benefit, in and of itself.

Author

September 11th

Awareness, Beliefs, Feed Your Mind, Free Will, Learning

Believe It Or Not, Your Beliefs Affect The Physical World

Candles

Do you believe in God? Do you believe that there is no sense in believing in God because it makes no difference in the world we live in? It really doesn't matter which of these two you believe, your very belief in that thing (or any other thing you believe) will affect the world around you.

I'm not talking about anything mystical. I'm not talking about the incredibly popular "Law of Attraction". You can, without accepting ANY mysticisim at all, be absolutely certain that what you DO believe affects the world around you, and that the depth of the belief affects how much impact it has on the world outside of you.

I can make that statement with utmost confidence because of how it affects the world around you. Here it is, in plain language: Any belief that you hold affects the world around you because it affects the actions you choose to take and your response to circumstances that relate to it.

The depth of your belief plays into this because it affects how strongly your response (or action) is influenced by that belief. Lightly held beliefs may have very little effect… your belief that blue is the best color is probably lightly held, and won't really affect much, other than possibly your choice of clothing or decorations. Your belief in God, or your belief that he either doesn't exist or is irrelevant, is likely to be much more deeply held, and thus has more power to affect your actions and responses.

Your beliefs regarding money are an easy way to show how beliefs affect the physical world. If you believe that money is out there for the taking, that all you have to do is reach out and grab it, then you will look for, and find, opportunities to do so, and you will not let a little risk stop you. If you believe that all you can do is try to save money, because the risk of stepping outside your comfort zone is too great, then you will pass even good opportunities by, if you see them at all, with your focus being so directed on how to save money instead of how to make more.

All of your beliefs affect you in the same way, though most are not so easily visible. They also affect the world around you when other people observe you acting upon them, especially if you have children or younger siblings. When they see you act on your belief, they may very well pick up on that belief, since they look at you as an authority, a way to learn how they should be dealing with the world.

Other people may react negatively, especially if they hold conflicting beliefs. As evidence, witness the conflicts between people who believe in different religions, or the conflict between people who believe in God and those who do not. While the first is more likely, according to history, to result in physical violence, the latter is, as far as I can tell, at least as likely to start violent arguments in the modern world (at least in the United States, which, though I have lived in two other countries, is still by far my strongest basis for understanding the modern world).

People who react to your beliefs, either positively or negatively, can affect you and the world around you. They may be your future boss (or client), or they may turn someone else against you. They may, at the extremes, be the person you marry at the positive extreme , or choose to kill you because of your beliefs. While either of these two are, as stated extremes, and unlikely to happen in practice, there are a range of lesser possibilities that become more and more likely as they go down the scale.

So… even your belief that beliefs can't affect the real world affects the real world. And there's nothing mystical about it.

You might want to look at evaluating your beliefs and deciding which ones to keep as is, which ones to alter, and which ones to remove. If you are interested, I have written a series of articles that may help:

Author

September 11th

Awareness, Beliefs, Learning, Relationships

The Not So Well Travelled Road To Peace

Most people can barely find a moment's peace in their hectic lives, yet others, who accomplish the same amount, simply radiate peace at all times. There is a simple but difficult step that will move you from the former group toward the latter.

It is hard to find peace. There are few, if any, people who will deny that. There is a reason why it is hard to find peace… and that's because you lose the peace in your seeking. Peace is inside you, in your heart and in your mind. By seeking peace, you are looking at it as outside of you. Since it is, in reality, inside you, you will never find it by seeking it.

Yet those people mentioned in the first paragraph have "found" peace. They did so by learning that it was inside themselves, and giving up seeking it. You have control of virtually everything inside you, and can have more or less of it. Yet when you move it outside of yourself, you lose control of it. This is true for peace, happiness, sadness, anger… even mental focus and creativity. As soon as you make it something other than you, you lose the ability to control when you will have it and how much of it you will have.

When you seek for something to bring you happiness, you are, by that very act, placing the happiness outside of yourself. You're saying "If only I had that, I would be happy". When you say that, you are wrong. Even if you are happy when you have "that", by tying your happiness to "that", you allow someone else to take it away by taking away "that".

It works similarly with anger. When you allow something outside of you make you angry, you are giving up control of something internal. Others can control you by doing whatever it is that makes you angry. You can take that control back by understanding that it is truly your choice to allow them to make you angry, that if you merely reframe the situation, it would not make you angry at all, and therefore it is not the situation that is making you angry, it is your perception of it, thus taking control back for yourself.

When you look inside yourself, to who you truly are, and accept that true self, you can have peace and happiness at will. All you have to do is turn back to the you that is inside, rather than the outside persona that you assume for the benefit of others. Any time you turn away from that internal self, and seek validation from outside yourself, you are giving up control of your own internal self. You are giving it to people or circumstances outside yourself, allowing them to decide whether you are at peace, sad, happy, angry, focused or distracted.

To move from always seeking and never finding to never seeking and always having, take control back for yourself. Understand that everything that you do, and everything that you feel, is inside you. Everything is your own choice… and if everything is your own choice, then all the power to choose who you are is yours, too. You are that which you choose to be.

Remember that…

You are that which you choose to be.

I have created a new contest! One lucky subscriber will win a free copy of The Secret.

Click the link below to enter:
A Miracle A Day Contests – Win A Free Copy Of ‘The Secret’

Author

August 13th

Awareness, Beliefs, Feed Your Mind, Free Will, Growth

What Schools Don’t Teach – How To Be A Man

Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier

While schools teach many useful things, there are some things they regrettably do not. It is good to know science, history, and mathematics, and English is essential for those of us who live in the United States, but one of the most important things of all for any male to learn is left in the dust. One of the most important things to learn as a boy is how to be a man.

The first place that you learn what it means to be a man is your father, and you learn more by his example than by his words, though you DO still learn from his words. That puts children whose father never "grew up" mentally and emotionally at a serious disadvantage. If the person from whom you are learning to be an adult still acts like a child, then that is what you will learn.

That means that if you are a father, you need to be especially careful, because your children, and your sons in particular, are going to be watching you. They will learn from what you do, learning what is right and what is wrong, what is acceptable and what is not, so it is essential that you make sure that you behave the way you want them to learn to behave. It is also essential that you spend time with them, to give them the opportunity to learn from you.

So what happens to children who do not have a father from whom to learn? They must find someone else to teach them. Unfortunately, children have no way of knowing who is a good choice and who is a bad choice, so they will mostly simply find whoever is most convenient. That's one reason that mentoring programs are such a great thing… they can provide a good example to learn from.

With all of the above said, what is it that distinguishes a man from a boy? What can you look at to say whether someone is a good man? Most importantly of all, for the males reading this, what can you look at inside yourself, and what can you learn, in order to be that good man? Here is a list of the core attributes of a man:

Honor

This is the core, the all encompassing attribute of what it means to be a man. It includes all of the other attributes, blended into a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Honor means you tell the truth, even when it hurts. Honor means you take care of your responsibilities. Honor means you live up to any committment you make, even when it's hard. Honor means taking care of those weaker than you. Honor means all of these things and more… and you know it when you see it, whether in a person you meet or in a character in a movie (think Leonidas in 300). Maintaining your honor is essential to being a man, but part of maintaining your honor is knowing which of its components is more important when they are in conflict.
Integrity

Integrity is all about truth. That means being truthful everywhere and to everyone, including yourself. It means don't pretend to be something or someone that you are not. It means accepting the truth of who you are, and if you don't like it, accepting the responsibility of changing it, not just acting like it's not even there. A man of integrity is true to himself, true to others, and true to his word. He doesn't need to swear an oath or make a promise, because his yes means yes and his no means no.
Responsibility

Responsibility is another essential component. A man must take responsibility for his own choices, both to himself and to others. That means that you cannot blame others for things you do, or the way you are, because they can only influence you to the extent that you choose to allow them. If you accept responsibility for something, it is up to you to make sure it is done, and to accept the blame if it is not, regardless of why it is not. If you cannot be sure that you can do it, then do not say that you will.
Respect

A man gives respect to those around him until they show that they are not worthy of it. And even then, he gives them the opportunity to earn it back. All interactions with others should be done inside the framework of respect… even if someone has shown that their behavior is not worthy of respect, you can respect their knowledge and/or expertise in whatever areas they have it. Also keep in mind that regardless of whether someone is worthy of your respect or not, you should still treat them with respect… just be aware of it in your expectations of them and their behavior.
Faithfulness

Responsibility is about following through on what you say you will do. Faithfulness is about following through on the things that you should be doing whether or not you have said you will. Faithfulness is about going the extra mile to do the right thing in the right way, even if it means going beyond what you said you would do. Faithfulness is what comes after responsibility… when you don't just do things because you said you would and you feel like you're stuck with it now, but instead do them because they are the right thing to do.
Compassion

Compassion is one of the primary things that differentiates man from animal, and man from machine. When you feel that other people are individuals, with their own worth, and their own value, worthy of your help, your work, and your consideration on their own merit, then you have compassion. Compassion isn't feeling sorry for people, it's feeling that they are worthy of your time and effort, and then giving it to them. You shouldn't just feel compassion for those in worse situations than you, you should feel it for everyone. Everyone should be worthy of your time and effort when they need help with something.
Strength

Strength is another part of being a man that is commonly misunderstood. Strength isn't about not admitting your weaknesses (or mistakes), it's not about not having or showing emotions, and it's not about how much weight you can lift. Strength is about following through on all of the things above. Strength is doing what you should be doing, regardless of how hard it is or how you feel about it. It actually shows far more strength to admit your weaknesses and mistakes, and then do something about them (I cannot emphasize that enough… admitting weaknesses and mistakes may be hard, but the real sign of strength is that you then do something to fix, or compensate for, them), than it does to try to hide them or pretend they don't exist.

That's what it takes to be a man instead of an adult boy. Every male has it in them to do the things listed above, and every male will fail at each of them at some point. The difference is that for a man, the failure is the exception, not the rule, and when they fail at one of them, they pick themselves back up and get back to it.

The Law Of Attraction De-Mystified

The Secret

The Law Of Attraction, or LOA, essentially says that whatever your dominant thoughts are about, more of that thing will manifest in your life. One of the common examples is having an "abundance mindset", or to use a better known phrase, seeing the world as your oyster, waiting for you to pluck out the pearl. What's interesting about the LOA is that it actually works.

So why do some people use mysterious, unexplainable terms to describe a process that has a simple, common sense explanation? Because it sells. If you explain something, even something new and useful, to a person in terms so simple that they feel like it's common sense, they won't tell anyone else about it. Why not? Because they don't want the other person to think, or worse yet say, "Duh, everybody knows that."

On the other hand, if you DO use mysterious, unexplainable terms, they will tell all KINDS of people, because they think it makes them sound like they know something special, that they are knowledgeable in an area where most people are not. This make them feel special and smart, which is a good thing to make someone feel if you want to sell them something (ask anyone who knows anything at all about marketing).

How does this apply to this article? Well, there are sources out there, like The Secret, whose logo appears above, that explain the LOA in the way mentioned above. They use terms like "universal intelligence" (meaning a single awareness that encompasses all of existence) or "secret teachers", intending to instill exactly the feelings I mentioned.

There is an easier, non-mystical explanation of the LOA. If you think about something more, you become more aware of it, or things that affect it, around you. Have you ever noticed that right after you or someone close to you buys a new car, you start seeing a lot more of those cars around you? Or, more applicable to the topic, have you noticed that when something is on your mind, like you think maybe your significant other is cheating, that you notice all sorts of things related to that thought?

When we think about something, we are telling our subconscious that it is important, and should be brought to our attention. The more we think about it, the more we are reinforcing this message, giving whatever it is more and more priority in terms of having it and things related to it brought to our conscious awareness from the jumble of constant input from reality. It becomes more and more likely to get past the filters that the subconscious has in place to keep our conscious awareness from being flooded and overwhelmed.

Since more things about the thought or related to the thought are coming to our attention, we perceive things in a way that is colored by that thought that keeps coming up. This means that if you have been thinking, as in the example above, that your wife is cheating, when you smell a new perfume on her, you may perceive it as being an attempt to impress "the other man". If you hadn't been thinking that, you might instead think "Oh, she smells good. I'll have to ask her to wear this one more often." That's a pretty huge difference.

So what happens when you start perceiving things through the lens of whatever thought has been dominant lately? It changes which actions seem to make the most sense, which ones are better suited to achieving your goals, be they conscious or subconscious. Again from the example above, the choices which bring you toward the subconscious goal of "don't get hurt", which nearly everyone has, are very different when you don't trust your spouse. This obviously affects which choices you make, thus affecting your actions, and bringing about the manifestation of your most dominant thoughts, as the LOA says will happen.

So, to summarize, when you think about something more often, you are telling your subconscious to alert you to things related to it. As it does so, this affects your perception of the situations around you. This changing perception, in turn, causes certain choices to look more appealing, making you more likely to make those choices and take the actions associated with them. Taking these actions then brings about the manifestation of your originating thought.

What this boils down to is that the LOA is real, actually works, and you can make use of that in the way that the people who use mystical terms teach. It WILL work, because it's still the same process, just as pushing the power button will turn on your TV, whether you think that's because it flips an electrical switch or because it prods a little hamster inside to start running on its wheel. It doesn't really matter what explanation you use, if you follow the same process, you get the same results.

But if you want people to spread the word, use mysterious and unexplainable terms to describe that process. (D'oh! I guess that means nobody is going to spread the word for me!

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August 8th

Awareness, Beliefs, Learning, Subconscious

Learn To See Your Own Rose-Colored Glasses Part 4

False Perception

Perception is what we are presented with once our internal filters are applied to reality. If you've been with me so far, you have learned how filters are formed, and how to become aware of the filters you already have. Now we've reached the most crucial part: learning to create, replace, and discard your filters.

If you've put into practice some of the techniques from the previous article in the series, you now are aware of what at least some of your internal filters are. Once you are aware of a filter, you can, at your choice, either replace or discard it. You can also create new filters, but let's save that until the end, as dealing with filters that you already have is usually more urgent.

If you don't like a filter you already have, you can either replace it with another, or discard it entirely. The first step to either result is to become aware not just of the filter's existence (obviously you've already done this or you wouldn't know that there is something you want to change), but to become aware of it's implementation. That means becoming aware of every time it gets called, every time something passes through it. The best technique I've found for this so far is some sort of reminder. This could be putting a coin in a jar, tying a knot in a string, or one I've read about recently, switching a bracelet from one wrist to the other. Each time you do one of these things, it's teaching your subconscious to alert your conscious mind when whatever you're trying to become aware of happens, in this case the usage of the filter you've chosen.

Now that you're aware of each usage, you can either consciously apply a different filter that you would like to replace your current one, or you can work on trying to perceive whatever it is without the filter at all. For example, if you want to remove a filter of being scared of dogs, each time you see one, and feel that filter kicking in, you can do your reminder task and then make yourself stop and see that the dog is not a threat, perhaps even going so far as asking the owner if you can pet it, depending on how great your fear is and how far in the removal process you are. If you want to replace a filter, say to go from seeing the world through a scarcity filter to seeing it through an abundance filter, you can do your reminder task, and then make a conscious effort to perceive the same situation through the new filter you want. In the example of scarcity vs abundance, for instance, if you notice yourself looking at something as something that you can't have, make a conscious effort to change and see it as something that will take more effort to have, and evaluate it in the context of effort versus reward instead of simply seeing it as something you can't have.

Creating a new filter is very similar to replacing an old one (in fact, replacing one involves creating the replacement filter). Basically, you need to become aware of situations where the filter you would like to acquire would apply, and then make a conscious effort to see that situation through the new filter. There is another way to acquire new filters, though, that is easier in some ways, and more difficult in others. The simplest way to acquire a new filter is to be around someone, or even better multiple people, who already have that filter. This is even more effective, as I mentioned in part 2 of this series, if you consider that other person (or those other people) to be an authority in the part of life to which the filter applies.

Creating, discarding, and replacing filters is generally not an instant process, and the time it requires is directly related to how deep the filter is set (for discarding and replacing) or how deep you want the filter set (for creating). Very shallow filters may take very little time or effort, while very deep filters may take weeks, months, years, or even decades. On the positive side, while deep filters may take a long time to complete the process (whichever it is, creating, discarding, or replacing), there is generally noticeable progress along the way, so that you don't get too discouraged and give up.

Well, that covers the basics of internal filters and biases. You now know enough to consciously change how you see the world, and through that, who you are. If you put into practice what you've learned, you will find it becomes easier as you go. You will also probably have insights that help to make it even easier. This process of becoming who you choose to be is what I'm talking about with the slogan at the top – Intelligent Self Development.

Articles In This Series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4