Dear ketzer,
After reading your post I recognize there is a part of me that feels the same, needing that validation and approval to feel better about my choices. That my choices make me feel like I’m normal and I fit in so I won’t be judged. one particular relationship I have that connected with your sorry is the one i have with my Motherinlaw. I don’t have a close relationship with my mom so I felt my motherinlaw was a way to replace that void I felt. Except I grew up very different from her so she judged me harshly on my decisions and it cut like swords. She would tell she know who i am better than i know myself, and she said she Is really good at reading people. So me being young and now learning about myself and about the person I was becoming I felt threatened by her words. Everything she had to say to me was negative and i started feeling like I’m no good, that I didn’t have any good qualities. And the fact that I didn’t have a relationship with my mother the person that’s suppose to know me best made me feel even more like a failure. So I took it upon myself to challenge my thinking. I started practicing being more mindful. I started accepting myself for being different and stopped thinking I needed to be normal to fit it. I accepted the choices I made even if they were mistakes. And I started loving myself (this was the hardest part). My thinking started to improve and I started to feel better about who I am. The validation I felt I needed to be accepted decreased. I accept me and I love me and i refuse let anyone take that away. It’s hard work and I work at it everyday. Some people can be judgemental and it hurts the most when it comes from people we hold near and dear. But I learned once I know who I am, my good qualities and bad then those peoples judgements don’t matter.

I read your post several hours ago, and didn’t find anything else to add to what you have written.

Then I heard this song that randomly came to me on the internet, from a performer I like and used to listen a lot, and thought about your post.
While listening to the song, I thought, if I see beyond the subjectivity of my own life, history, life battles and point of view, I see so many people wanting the same thing as I: just for once stop identifying myself with my stories and how I got where I am now, stop being judged (and judging myself) for the mistakes I’ve made on this human plane. Ok they are solvable, nothing is so fatally wrong beyond repair in our lives, except death.
It was 3 years ago when I listened to this musician, and back then I felt life was really hard on me, I was surrounded by enemies thinking and talking bad things about me, mostly untrue, but true from their level of understanding, judging me, trying to push me from the edge of the abyss, and without the firm ground of supporting family under my feet. I felt like I was climbing this mountain during a storm, alone, not knowing where I would end up and if anything or anyone was waiting for me on the other side of the storm. Never stopping the ongoing process of remorse and trying to find the true line for every single situation in my life, of where I was wrong or where the other wronged me. And in real life, I don’t like mountains much. And at the same time, this was the best year of my life. The only way to survive my everyday ongoing hell, was to have and outside “spiritual” identity. I identified with everything that was opposite to my hostile surroundings, and also with what I aspired. I had this secret life where I was not “the sister of” or “the daughter of” or “the employee at” or “the girl from that city”, I was no one and yet my truest self.
So many people want to get out of this vicious circle of Karma, identify with something beyond what actions they have done in the past which resulted in their present lives, I mean, are we really that? The result of our past actions, good or bad? Are we also our new selves for fixing our past mistakes or our personal biases?
I am hypnotized by this sound right now:
https://youtu.be/l1SZjOS0_PQ Hammock – Like A Viley With No Echo

Dear ketzer:

I have a question for you, since you are a thinker and a writer and you brought up an excellent topic:

what herd-guidelines/ principles is it sensible to adhere to and what are foolish to accommodate?

anita

Hmm mhm, I think…

It is possible to become mentally off the grid yet still live in it.

I think what attaches us into it 100% is fear. A fear of rejection and denial. Also, desire and dreams. Everything that we have learned to know as “motivation”. As we are those modern humans who are programmed by society to strive for our desires and avoid anything that seems unattractive – we join this flow of desperation the grid itself is.

So, what I’m thinking – once you manage to detach yourself from worrying about fitting in, once you stop struggling running after desires and start accepting all the good and bad coming at you equally – you are off the grid.

And once you can observe society, the people in it, say, from under it – you’ll realize what the grid actually is. The web, the whole consistency of it is the very same fear people feel – about fitting in, about being good and deserving enough, about getting all the good stuff and avoiding all the bad stuff.

I think the grid isn’t neither good or bad – but once you go take a look at it from the outside – you understand it so well that you can either decide to not take a part of it (and be a an isolated person) – or you can go back right into it and operate in it with the new knowledge you have attained – you sort of have gained a metaphorical upper hand, as you know that most people whom you deal with on a daily basis – the same ones that you feared that are judging you – they are completely clueless and base their judgement on their own insecurities. Be aware that some of them even claim to love you, yet they do it out of their own insecurities.

You can be yourself, not motivated by fear, and you will be good enough – and you have nothing to worry about.
And us not worrying about not being good enough will NOT kill our motivation to be good at anything – it will help us become truly accepting of what we do, and being open about what we do, not insecure – will help us become as good as it gets.
Fear is the worse motivator, yet it seems to fuel the whole world 🙂

You’ll make the world a better a place by not feeding on that fuel. And you’ll be happier.

My body is my cottage. When I sit on my own and ain’t travelling around in the past or in the future – I am home, I am alone, and I love it 🙂

Not sure if any of it makes sense anymore. I get excited and confused at the same time.

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Lacy.
• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Lacy.

I think when you are aware enough to let go of the fear itself, there will be nothing stopping you from remaining with the herd and operating in it. You will be living the same life, most probably, but you will feel more in control and less anxious.

By “living the same life” I mean that the norms and rules of the society will still apply to us. Of course, operating without fear and worry will enable us to make different decisions from those who operate with them.