At the moment, I'm more than justifiably drunk, so bear with me (and my choice of subforum). How do you live your life, and how do you make sure you live your tomorrow better than your yesterday? Do you have a process for looking back at your day/week/year and deciding how to improve? What are areas you personally feel you could improve in? As for me, I find people around me make sure I improve in technical skills, so I find I need to pay special attention to my social skills and building connections with people. I'm still (barely) young, and I'm still exploring my areas of interest and how to engage myself in them. How're your lives going?
I'm going to give a brief answer now, but I feel I'll be better equipped to answer when my chemical influence is on par with the chemical influence that spawned the discussion to begin with. My life is going extremely well, so much so that I sometimes feel guilty about it, but I try to improve myself through careful meditation and reflection, as well as making peace with the fact that there is more than one "me" to improve upon. There is an extremely ambitious, leadership-focused and business-minded side of myself and there is a nature-loving, meditative, stoic and highly-content side. Both can lead to dark places, and both can do good for those around me. I'm trying to place my focus on "channeling" those sides when they are the most constructive. I'm also trying to place some focus on activities that can be profitable for my career, but that I also enjoy for their own sake, such as visual design, coding and writing. And, of course, I improve myself every day by cultivating my personal relationships, especially with my wife. We truly bring out the best in each other. I help her feel secure and nurtured (something that has been missing for most of her life) and she brings out a more aggressive side of me (not in a bad way -- not in the least) that I've long suppressed.
Well personally I find that keeping myself physically fit allows me the strength, stamina and desire to improve myself in other areas. Now I am basically retired even though I am young thus I don't need to improve on the whole career thing but I try to lean as much as I can every day. There is always something new I an learn and I also spend a little time every day working on a few questions of Quantum Mechanics. Plus having a few drinks always improves my attitude! LOL!! AA
I am old and have spent way to many years reaching my current level of perfection. But I will keep working on becoming more humble.
My older friend used to tell me whenever I would bug him to get his ass of the coach...."Are you kidding? I just got the moss growing evenly on my chest but I still have to get a more even coat of dust on me!" AA
For me, gaining knowledge is a top priority which requires that I seek out and remove bias from myself as it becomes apparent to me. I have found that placing little value upon how others assess me has led to my life being much more peaceful and by extension enjoyable... which is not to say that I do not care what other people think in general, it is just that what others think about me is of little value to me. What matters most to me when it comes to my self-esteem is can I look myself in the mirror and say that I am a good guy and mean it. If I can that trumps the negative assessments I receive. Even when it comes to positive assessments of myself from others, I still place little value in it else my ego swell to the point of obscuring my objectivity, and as the pursuit of knowledge is a primary goal of mine I cannot allow ego to cloud my objectivity.
Thanks for the response. I'm in a similar position that too many things go too well for me, and I'm a bit worried that I'll get used to just going with the flow, just because the flow is taking me in a good direction for the moment. Do you plan out your improvements in your "business" and "nature" sides, or do opportunities to do both present themselves often enough that you can just react to it? Similarly with your personal relationships, do you have a "plan" in lack of a better word, or can you just wait for opportunities for improvement to show up? - - - Updated - - - What kind of stuff do you focus on? Do you plan it out or do you just grab whatever looks interesting right then and there?
First of all, never post online if drunk. I have learned this lesson the hard way. Secondly, I improve myself by going to conservative blogs and reaffirming my liberal bona fides in response to the absolutely insane posts and comments I read almost anywhere I go. On a more serious note, I really just read books every day. I am reading an incredible book right now, it's called "Independent People". It is blowing my mind. I also just went to Powells in Portland and picked up a very hard to find copy of Rawls "Theory of Justice". After all, everyone needs mind candy to keep sharp.
I agree except for the becoming more humble. I have spent nearly 70 years learning....I don't go out of my way to learn anything else, I'm retired, what I know now is fine by me.
Thanks for the question, a tough question to answer. Today as a relativist it is much easier for me to see an issue from different perspectives and as such this makes it easier for me to make an informed and objective assessment of the world of which I live in. For most of my life my world view was handed to me and based upon emotion aka feelings as opposed to an objective body of empirical research. My feelings can lead to a bias while unemotional research of the cold hard facts leads me to a more objective view of people and the world I live in. My bias often has a physical manifestation in that I feel my gut tighten up when someone is speaking or says something that I disagree with or I quit listening and focus on what I am going to say. I hope one day to be void of emotion when debating or otherwise discussing delicate or controversial topics. I am no longer so easily baited and try to have my arguments based in a solid logic. Today I am open to being proven wrong and am thankful when I am as that is when I learn the most. I am currently examining feelings as they tend to cloud my judgment, for example fear can paralyze, love can blind, hate is a like a poison as is jealousy... etc. Some feelings I can do without such as hate and some feelings I need to scrutinize like how far am I willing to bend in the name of love. I doubt that I will ever be completely free of bias but I am committed to minimizing it's corrosive effects upon me to the highest degree possible. Sorry if I am rambling, my views here are an evolving work in progress. I am starting to see emotion as the bane of objectivity, thus for me to be more objective I need to be less ruled by emotion. Sometimes I wish I were a Vulcan.
I am on the flip side of that coin in that I am not doing good and there is little I can do about it as many things are outside my ability to control. The silver lining in this is that it has made me challenge my need to have a desired outcome I order to be happy. If my happiness is attached to a unfulfilled desire then I am not able to be happy untill the desire is fulfilled. On the flip side if I attach my happiness to things I have now and situations that are currently positive, then I am potentially setting myself up because if I loose these things and/or the situation turns negitive then with it goes my happiness. Another area in which my views are evolving.
