Day 394: Failing at life

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I have thought about my participation within the Desteni group and how it's been wavering quite a lot within the past 6 months or so. I make commitments to keep up a steady pace of producing content, to interact with the other group members, to partake in the maintenance of the group projects – and I always end up failing more or less. I haven't been able to keep up my pace of writing this blog at least 3-4 days a week – a drop from the 7 days a week I used to do for several months – and this blog is pretty much the last piece of participation I've been holding onto, because I have really not wanted to let it go. I have seen the practical value of writing and publishing my writings, and I feel that if I were to completely drop the blog I would completely and utterly FAIL, like giving up on myself in some way.

I just now asked myself about this, and I was surprised how clear it all suddenly was. The reason I fear taking on this commitment and investing my time on it is because I fear losing the people around me. I fear that if I were to change into the next gear (“next” here doesn't imply “better”, just a stage of movement to a direction), the people I hold dear would scatter away. But I can see that whoever I become, there will always be someone to agree with me and get into the car with me – lol, such a good metaphor – and that me holding onto people is an act of fear and not one of practicality. Of course this doesn't mean that I will lose the people around me, but I am not even giving them a chance to face that decision.

In a way I am living within and as a compromise: I see that to change my living would be impractical in terms of coping, and so I adapt to my circumstances. I adapt myself because I fear there would be no one left if I didn't.

What I mean by this in practice is that even though I am currently very busy with my studies and work, I am also spending plenty of time on recreation and procrastinating (not that they're the same thing). I realize that recreational time is important for me because through it I give myself freedom to create and express in ways that do not fit within my work schemes, and through recreation I also give myself time to rest and recover from any possible stress my body and mind have undergone. But not all of my “free time” is used in this manner. Sometimes I simply avoid doing anything of relevance because I have driven myself into mental exhaustion, and I justify this with the need to “rest” without asking why the fatigue is there in the first place and whether it could have been avoided. There's also a guilt aspect to this, where I accuse myself of having “indulged” in recreation, even though when I honestly look at my doings I know that this is not the case. I have taken care of my responsibilities – except for this commitment to participate with Desteni.

It might also be that I am simply trying to carry too much, that I am only starting to recognize my own limits. Maybe I am way too occupied at the moment to add on any more responsibility without turning it into a stressful compromise of a life. I know that my studies will be over in a couple of months, and that I will then be able to for a while focus on other tasks. I know that stressing about it will only make it worse.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for not living up to my commitment to participate in Desteni.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel obligated to take on responsibility as a part of the Desteni group.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear failing to update my Journey To Life blog because I have defined upholding the blog to mean that I am “doing OK”, that I am active and willful, that I am consistently walking my process towards becoming a competent human being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have already failed at upholding the blog, if not a year ago when I broke my writing rhythm for the first time, then at least this winter when I failed to write even once a week.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I have failed my process by not writing a blog post every day, not realizing that I have in fact been walking my process in practice and in private writings, if not every day of the week, then at least more than half of the days, and that I have not failed my process but simply failed the task of reporting about it to others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fail the commitment to report about my process to other people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear failing to walk my process because I perceive and believe that I will then fail at life and as a living human being, not realizing that “failure” and “success” are simply different outcomes of different choices and actions, and that I have just decided to charge some with positive meanings and others with negative meanings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that when I die there will be someone/something to measure how “well” I have lived my life and that I would then feel shame / pride according to the result – not realizing that shame and pride have to do with this world and this reality and how things work in this dimension of existence, assuming that life after death will be as it is here when and as the human mind dictates how life is experienced, not realizing that life after death could be ANYTHING unimaginable – and that to fear possible feelings of shame by judgement – which can be breathed through and released, as they can be in this reality - is thus to focus on the irrelevant: if I cannot know something for sure and prepare myself for it, why stress about it at all?

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that there is an authority who decides whether my life has been “good” or “bad”, not realizing that it is ultimately up to me to decide and carry responsibility for my decision.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to secretly wish for there to be an authority to decide upon the “preferable” and the “unpreferable” so that I wouldn't have to look for the truth myself and make a stand as myself, not as a vessel of God/universe/whichever authority.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to participate in Desteni so that I could feel better about myself, as if I was then “saved” from The Judgement, and not from the starting point of wanting to work for this world as a whole.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in Desteni from the starting point of self-interest and fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that to really contribute to the Desteni group and not only slow it down, my starting point needs to be selfless, as it needs to be in whatever I do with other people for all of the world.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that selflessness doesn't mean that I'm excluded from everything else, but that the concept of “self” disappears in favor of All.

I commit myself to map out and revise the ways I use my time.

I commit myself to focus on my main responsibilities – studying (to establish a position for myself in the world system / to educate myself), working (to sustain my living / to apply what I've studied into practice), and civil society participation (to rehearse working with people / to create networks and relations) – and to thus give them my full focus and energy, only taking into consideration other possible responsibilities when/as/if I have time left over from my current main responsibilities.

I commit myself to regularly revise my responsibilities to see if some need to be let go and replaced with others.

I commit myself to take into consideration the fact that my capacity is in fact limited even though it can be expanded to some extent, and that I cannot take on too much responsibility without the quality of my input decreasing.

I commit myself to build my life to be enjoyable, constructive and fulfilling in a way where I give to Life more than I take from it.