Learning how to be True belief in autonomy necessitates altering my conception of reality. I am noticing that I spend too much time wondering what others think. Any amount of time and energy on matters beyond my control reduces my success in what I actually can control. Speculating ourselves into others' heads is a fun break from the hard work of improving what we can control. I think the ratio on that has been flipped my whole life. Thinking about what others are thinking occupies the bulk of all human thought, I think. I really do think that is true. Think about it.
Since, from what I can see, the majority of all humans are devoting the majority of their mental processing to wondering what's going on in every other human's mind, human progress is
Humans who devote
slowing human progress.
Fortunately the way out is simple. Difficult but simple. Stop thinking as others. Only think as me. Respect all others without needing to “understand” them. It is I who must understand my limitations. I will never see as another sees. The mind of another is a mystery to me. Hell, the mind of ME is a mystery to me! Attempting to understand and improve myself is worthwhile. I can never understand nor forcibly improve anyone. That is not worth any time. And I think I've spent the majority of my life doing that.
The solution I see is to be fully in myself. And to relate to others. Up until recently I fear that I've been living IN others and trying to relate to myself. [1] There's been a fear to be fully in myself, fear of ~egotism. Or is it egoism? Someone please help.~ losing control over my ego. Two fascinating questions to ask about this fear: What do I fear will happen if I embraced unlimited self esteem? What, truly, do I fear will happen? Will I become a mass murderer, or just generally piss off everyone who encounters me? Those are two extremes and does fear of my own ego come from within me or has it been instilled? To what purpose? Knowingly or Unknowingly?
Those of us who restrain our egos, do we imagine that the worst villains in history had excessive egos? I would say that they do not have healthy, thriving egos at all. I can never know inside the minds of another, and can only speculate. A healthy ego is loving myself and feeling confident in myself. When I have those feelings I NEED LESS from others.
Scenario:
I am happier in myself. I enjoy time with myself. I work on many projects.
But I also am human. The strength of humanity is society. All things in my life are made possible by others. I maintain connection with others for comfort, for inspiration, for support. If you notice in the sentence above I state why I maintain relationships with others, what I get out of it. I resisted a strong writerly urge to express what I give into the friendship. That invites speculation into what others feel. Honestly I can only express what I get out of emotional connections with others. I cannot know how others feel. Sometimes in my life I have wondered “what others see in me.” I have put myself down as a bad friend, bad brother, bad son, bad nephew, bad uncle, bad boyfriend, bad lover. All such thinking is futile effort. Every single one of those insults to my ego are based on suppositions — on trying to place myself into the mind of another. I'm 52. I am still doing this. Every negative attack we make on ourselves takes us outside ourselves. We can be ourselves. Live inside oneself. I think if I practice being fully in myself I will see good rewards. I will interact with others as me, not as however I think someone else thinks I should behave. Always be within me. Again and again and again I think this sounds like promoting dangerous levels of ego. Haha. What a funny sentence to write when I no longer believe high egos are negative. That's the struggle going on in me. Waves of self attacks and self improvement. Love builds healthy ego. It's only lately, maybe, that my healthy ego level has risen above 50.1%.
If or rather when I get “negative vibes” from someone, I am having a negative emotional response and I do not know the source. If I believe that outside forces control my emotions then I will ascribe my bad feelings to a person or situation. Anything we think is “weird” is always going to be the stuff we know least about. I'm saying that this behavior effectively equals a refusal to understand one's emotions. When I get a negative feeling I do not have to assign it to causes outside my control.
I feel this. I have this feeling. It is in me. With practice I can understand the reasons why I feel this. In essence it will be something I do not control. All bad feelings are an opportunity to practice centering myself in what I do control. I can do a lot. I can even decide what to feel and how to feel. I have limitations. I do not operate at 100% efficiency. I strive to improve always.
my current ego thinks writing like the above paragraph is genius that's the highest i let my ego get, it feels dangerous and i do not like it so what is the danger? Am I going to act in such a way that alienates me from others? I see no point in relationships with others without bringing myself. This thinking leads to me placing myself more than 50.1% into the minds of others. that's a fruitless waste of existence
sometimes i have had these rare experiences of feeling happy and complete during interactions with others. being fully in myself enables me to relate better. interactions are not scripted. what does not happen is conflict. being fully in myself means paying attention. i think that what we call ego is self pity. someone who is over-valuing themselves knows that they are doing it. they know that they are doing it to compensate for their true feelings of under-valuing themselves. They are looking for affirmation from outside. They believe that over-inflating their good qualities will lead to the affirmation they seek. All the above are acts of self pity. Those who society labels as having over-inflated egos are the most insecure. Security in oneself is a state from within, requiring less than 49.9% support from forces beyond our control. Remember, loved ones are beyond our control. Even children are beyond our control. Autonomy.
and when I feel good ego of more than 50.1%
what happens when negative emotions strike? What can I do about this? Is there anything I did that created this negative emotion? What can I do differently next time? How strong are these negative emotions? Are they linked to deeply engrained behaviors? How much effort will it require to overcome it? Ok! Every time I experience this particular negative emotion from now on I will recognize it with a smile, and say: I know you. We've sat together before. I still don't agree with you that this is something worth feeling bad about, so I'm working to push you down below the threshold. I think I will function better if I experience this emotion cycle less than 49.9% of the time. But it will still occur. When it does I reaffirm my commitment to not acting on this emotion. I believe that being inside oneself to this extent is beneficial. I believe that working to reduce negative emotions reduces negative emotions. And yes the theme of tonight's writing is my spontaneous supposition that all negative emotions are the result of trying to think as someone else. Be in others, relate to the self. Be in the self, relate to others.
Came back to add that this post does not mention gayness yet does it? And I did pledge to celebrate gayness every day:
Being centered in the self is GAY. Feeling good is GAY.
※ [1] Even though I cringe as I use this very self-helpy construction. Speaking of self help, I write How To Be: A Self-Help Memoir.