bluegreen17 | lists

lists

things to worry about:

dad's health
dad's driving
my future
how i am going to pay the rent by myself after my supplemental savings runs out
mom
my sisters
my brother-in-law
the weather
aging
becoming a bag lady
forgetting to put something on my 'to worry about' list

things not to do list

clean the apartment
finish grocery shopping for the week
improve my attitude
brush and floss after every meal
visit mom in the nursing home
mail michele's birthday card
go to work
eat healthy food
call the doctor about stopping wellbutrin
lose my depression
finish the laundry
get a haircut
learn scottish gaelic
maintain my sense of humor

edit 25 jul. 03:i'm a failure. yes,i mailed my sister's birthday card. oops.
i just have no self-control.

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Hmmm...Have you read any of Robert Anton Wilson? Specifically his books Prometheus Rising or Quantum Psychology? I have been trying to make myself believe the things that he says lately. Seems relevant when I read this entry...

i really like r.a.w. because he seems intelligent and he's also very optimistic. but i've been having a tough time believing in positive stuff lately,even though i desperately want to. i've been reading 'new thought' authors and others that have a positive viewpoint. perhaps it's just my ego making a 'last stand' of negativity but i don't know if i can fight my ego alone. sometimes,even though it's rather stupid,i wish i was an alcoholic so i'd have a built-in support group at a.a. i have little support in my everyday life. i think it's pretty helpful,if not essential,to have some support in life...psychological support,i'm talking about.

well,back to r.a.w....what are the things you are having trouble believing?

i think i've read parts of those books,but not the whole thing. i may just take a peek at them again.

Being optimistic is not part of my nature either. But I have been trying. All of these books, RAW as well as many others, tell me that this stuff is a choice, but they are a bit weak on telling you *how* to make such a choice. :-) Of late my job, a pretty bad one at that, seems to be drying up as the state of California continues to run out of money. (This upcoming year I think I will make about half of what I made last year, and that was not really a living wage.)

In the midst of all of this, my wife has gotten a new job, with an increase of pay that is about 2/3 of my total income last year. So basic psychological drives should be satisfied: food, shelter, etc. are okay. However we do live in a culture that says that, as the man, I am supposed to be bringing home a lot more money. This kinda stuff didn't bother me when I was at least happy with my work, but now it is really grating.

But I am trying to force myself into thinking about all of this positively. In Meister Eckhart there is this notion that, if a person who is dead is unwilling to let go of life, then they need angels to come and tear all of this away from them. The problem is that to the person who won't let go the angels seem as demons tormenting them. If they could just think about things correctly they would realize that this 'torment' is a good thing that ultimately will liberate them. Joke:

Hungarian Optimism: Well, today is worse than yesterday--but it is better than tomorrow!
(I am told that Hungarians have a very fatalistic optimism. Most of my in-laws are Hungarian or Hungarian derivatives...)

So the demons--er, angels--are ripping me to shreads but it is to my ultimate good. I am trying to find an opportunity to make unemployment work for me.

well, back to r.a.w....what are the things you are having trouble believing?

If I wasn't clear about this in my comment above, the short answer is: "all of it." But, like Mulder's poster on the X-Files, "I WANT to believe."

i think i've read parts of those books,but not the whole thing. i may just take a peek at them again.

In the specific books I referred to, there are actual exercises to try. I am trying to work some of them--at least the ones that I can actually fit into real life. :-) Right now I am looking for quarters. (It is an exercise from the beginning of Prometheus Rising. You visualize a quarter and expect to find one when you are out walking. So far all I have found is a quarter's worth of free parking in the meter, but it is a start.

it's hard to get away with not equating our jobs and our salaries with our self-worth. more so in general with men,where women feel lousy if they're not gorgeous.that's a generalization,but unfortunately it's being less so because now men also worry more about their looks and women about their salaries.

anyhow,a good 'how to' happiness book is called,amazingly, happiness is a choice by barry neil kauffman. i like the whole concept,but it takes a lot of work,so of course i haven't done much with it.

that quarters exercise sounds cool. i guess in the old days it would have been pennies. i used to do something i learned about in a book by richard bach...i think it was in illusions...evaporating clouds. it seemed to work,but i'm still skeptical.

i really think there is something to energy and how we attract things to us. it just seems rather complicated to me,though,because it seems we have to know pretty much what is in our subconscious because the subconscious is doing a lot of the 'attracting'. or,i guess,we can reprogram it,and push out the old programs by 'writing over' them. (this probably doesn't work in programming,so the analogy isn' quite right,but you can record over things on a cassette tape...) it's just that it seems it takes a lot of work,at least at first. shad helmstetter's what to say when you talk to yourself is a good one for that. i just need to get the motivation to do that...can i order motivation from amazon?

Nope--Amazon does not carry motivation. I've checked! :-)

I am going to look for that Happiness is a Choice book--it sounds interesting. I am especially interested in books with a lot of real, very precise, how-to material. Most of the books I have are far too theoretical. Helmstetter's book, an old copy of which is on my shelf, is good on basic ideas, but I could still use more help with the details--but I am working with it right now, so it is funny to me that you mention that one by name. :-)

i like what eckhart says. it's just hard to remember. i invited the demons for tea one day but they still scared me. oh,well.

i like the hungarian quote. reminds me of a lot of jewish humor,which i like a lot,because i can relate to it.
yeah,woody allen often speaks for me. if one is going to be miserable,one might as well laugh at oneself and at least take the edge off.

also,from richard bach's illusions,i once did a red feather visualization,and not long after found one in a craft store. later on,i found a red feather on the ground,not long after a friend's friend,who was responsible for that book landing in my hands,had died. i felt like it was a message from him. but i'm still skeptical a lot of the time.

yeah, i WANT to believe too...i hope that counts for something.
i've even prayed the 'lord,help my unbelief' prayer but i don't think it helped. maybe we can choose to believe and it doesn't have to be a 'gut level' thing. i guess if it's not intuitively felt,that's faith,isn't it? i don't know...i'll have to see how faith is defined,but i have a hunch it might be a tricky word like 'love'.

Weirdly enough I have been having flashes of memory lately. I think it has something to do with the self-work I have been doing lately. But not sure. Belief is a choice, and like happiness I need to figure out how to actually implement the choice. All of this is my way, I guess, of saying I like Jewish humor, too. :-)

The big problem for me lately is one of goals and focus. Almost all of these books start with the comment that you need to determine what your goals are, and then use the ideas in the book to achieve them. However, most of the books I have don't deal with figuring out what your goals are in the first place. :-) I used to have goals, but lately I don't seem to have any drive to do much and have no direction to go. So that is what I am trying to work on right now.

And i am pretty sure that trying to believe counts for something.

You sound just like me. I think so many of us worry about the bag lady thing, too.

And I don't think you need to worry about losing your sense of humor. It's showing through even now with all of your worries. :)

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