Days 247-248: SF on "doing nothing"

3105-01062013

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compare my current living to the way I lived in my previous circumstances, perceiving and believing myself to be “doing nothing” as compared to what I have done before, not realizing that my past and my present are not comparable because I am not the same person now that I was in the past, which makes the most favourable course of action / way of living subject to change.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold on to the way I have lived my life in my previous circumstances because my previous way of living has made me feel like I'm “doing enough” or “doing my best”, not realizing that my past way of living has been largely self-compromise in terms of what I have been doing and how, and that it has been motivated by fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have felt that I have been “doing enough” only when I have compromised my well-being, in other words, when I have accepted and allowed my fear of failure to consume me to a point where I have worked at the expense of every other aspect of my life, not realizing that this way of living is not sustainable as I seek for stability in an ideal that cannot be achieved – and that my feeling of “having done enough” has thus been based on self-deception and cannot be trusted.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the worth of my life is determined by the deeds I do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I am not the deeds I do but the motivation that moves me to do them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to plan my return to my previous living circumstances according to who I was before I left, not giving myself the chance to even consider reconstructing myself and my life based on who I become as I travel and find a new perspective on what I have been doing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create an ideal scenario of my return, where I would come back to my previous responsibilities and duties as an “enlightened” being who would then live out my previous circumstances “perfectly” without making mistakes – not realizing that here I deny myself the chance to reconstruct myself and my life as I hold on to what's familiar and comfortable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to re-live my past circumstances by repeating the same things over and over again because I have not forgiven myself for my mistakes and would like to live a “perfect” life – not realizing that as I hold onto the past I ignore the present, and that life is too short to re-live every past moment into a flawless one.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to grow attached to my living circumstances so that I had to relocate myself to the other side of the globe to be able to de-attach myself from them and question them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to forget the possibilities of life as I have grown attached to my routines, lifestyle and worldview.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to grow attached to my routines, lifestyle and worldview because they have brought me a sense of stability and comfort.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe it to be “worthless” to travel and not work while traveling, naming this “doing nothing”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for not working when I travel because I perceive and believe only “real work” to contribute anything to the society, not realizing that as I travel I gift myself with time and opportunities to study, learn and focus on self-reflection – all things that will assist and support me to “give back” to the society as they change who I am within my actions which affects the outcome of my actions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that only working on something concrete, long-term and instantly visible contributes to the society, not realizing that a lot of “invisible” work is to be done before I am able to see what the best course of action would be and who I need to be within it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for focusing on myself as I have perceived and believed this to be “selfish”, not realizing that if I do not focus on working on myself I will remain as a fuck-up and would only damage the reality around me as a consequence.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe it to be a “waste of time” to focus on myself when a lot of problems wait to be solved, not realizing that I cannot contribute to the solution of these problems when I am still a part of the “disease” that causes and upholds the problems in the first place.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it is necessary to take time for myself to sort myself out in order to actually be of assistance in solving the problems that are present in this reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be restless and impatient because I have wanted to be “ready” to act and be of assistance in solving the problems of the world, not realizing that I am still of very little use because there are a lot of points that I need to sort out in myself before I can participate – and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that working on these points within myself is in itself an act of assistance and participation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand the arrogance in believing myself to be “ready” to take action while I ignore the issues within myself that I have not dealt with yet.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not live as humility by assessing myself in self-honesty to see what I am actually capable of at the moment and what I need to work on to make progress.

I commit myself to continue working on the most prominent points I have been facing lately – instability, dependency and direction of life – by facing them in my practical living and writing them out when necessary.

I commit myself to explore the possibilities I have for directing my life – the things I do, live out, live within, work on, support and uphold – within and as the realization that I am not tied to places, people, possessions, contacts, surroundings or circumstances in any other than practical ways (for example I am tied to money because that is my access to the world's resources which I need to survive).

I commit myself, when and as I consider different possibilities for directing my life, to consider first and foremost what is best for all and to search for any and all points of self-interest with absolute self-honesty.

I commit myself to show mercy on myself by giving myself time to work on myself by not accepting and allowing guilt, fear and the sense of duty to move me while I travel; I see, realize and understand that this is what has moved me before and that this is not a sustainable source of motivation for a life lived in favor of the well-being of all because I am a part of all and suffer while I move myself by force.

I commit myself to face the moments when I think I “should be doing something” by stopping, breathing and realizing that by allowing this thought to move me I move myself by force because it is not necessity and common sense that is moving me.

I commit myself to continue studying the life of the people around me in these different cultures I live within as I travel as this has felt natural, enjoyable and enriching to me – in other words, by being present in each and every moment this act of studying and learning happens without conscious effort as an outflow of being HERE.

Day 231: Departure

11052013

I described to a friend the horror of going on a trip like watching a train heading at you: the waiting is full of anticipation and it feels like the moment of impact is never going to come – but once the impact does happen it's no big deal, it doesn't feel like something major just happened.

I am now traveling and I don't feel any different. There has been days, weeks and months of preparation and anticipation plus a last-minute rush – and now that I am here, there is nothing, no major feeling of “being alive” or “freedom” or “adventuring” - I am simply here, directing myself within my surroundings and circumstances. I knew how it would be so I was not expecting it to feel “big”, although there is a relief that all the hurry is now over. It will just be replaced with different kind of activity.

In reality there was a practical threshold of getting certain stuff done within a certain time period so that I was able to depart, but imagining there to be some kind of a “magic border” beyond which I and the reality would be “different” is simply not real. I am me, I breathe just the same as I did two days ago – and the reality is the same as it was before I got here.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the reality does not consist of “phases”, “chapters” and “stories” even though the human mind conceives and dissects it so.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to forget to breathe and thus forget that life is a constant continuum of breath in which each and every breath is equal, and that thus giving some periods of life more value or emphasis than others is to create and believe “meanings” (connections in the mind/brain) that do not actually exist in the physical reality if not as the consequences of the actions I commit in the name of these beliefs.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to imagine a threshold/border/line beyond which living would feel different and I would feel different, not realizing that even though this threshold is determined by the physical reality (requirements of time and matter) it does not mean it's real.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that a person can change oneself by changing one's surroundings, not realizing that change requires one to accept and allow change within oneself and that this cannot be replaced by external change although external change may support internal change.

The most noticeable change I have seen in myself after my entrance exams and since I left home is that I allow myself to lay back without becoming limp – I have feared letting myself just be because I have feared it would lead to laziness, passiveness and ignorance. I now see it is not relevant to worry over this, because I can trust myself to be self-honest about my living. During this spring it's like there's been this nagging voice in my head passing guilt all over me which has driven me to do things. Now there is no guilt moving me, just necessity. This is important to notice because it is essential that I find such a way of working that doesn't consume me. I can see that during my latest work spree I was still partly motivated by guilt, and this is not a constructive starting point for work. If I now find myself moved by necessity – why not while working? I guess stress plays a major part here because within stress the work load looks “bigger” and thus “impossible” which replaces common sensical necessity with fear, self-judgement and guilt (“I have to get this done”).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to motivate myself to work through guilt instead of realizing that all living is about necessity – what is necessary to be done to direct myself to the direction I have chosen – not trusting necessity to be obvious to me if I simply stop and breathe and instead writing a motivation script in my mind (“I do X because of Y”) so that I would not become immobile.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that trusting myself to see necessity without the mind would result with me being passive and not doing anything.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear becoming passive and immobile as I have feared not being “worthy of life” and that I would then be a disgrace to all life on Earth.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my self-trust will backfire, not realizing that I am the one to decide whether or not I live up to my trust and that to doubt myself is to give in to helplessness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is necessary to motivate myself with thoughts.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is necessary to motivate myself with emotions and feelings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that a motivation that is based on what is actually here is most efficient, because it directly addresses actual needs and thus comes up with direct solutions.

I commit myself to investigate my activity levels and participation in life during this trip when I don't “have to” do anything at all on top of surviving in order to find and stabilize myself into a state of being from which it would be constructive to work and be a functioning member of my society.

I commit myself to practice breathing by returning myself to breath whenever I fall out of it as I see, realize and understand that the state where I live as breath is the closest I'll get to my “true self”.