Living In The Moment

One of the most important principles I have gleaned thus far in my path into enlightenment in Buddhism is living in the moment.

Living in the moment makes everything much, much more simple.

Not living in the moment is an excellent way to build up stress. Not living in the moment means one of two things: you’re either contemplating the past or thinking about the future. Of course there are exceptions (e.g. reminiscing, looking forward to starting a family in a few years), but in general thinking about the past and future is stressful, whether you see it or not.

The past is currently a series of unchangeable events and therefore should not be pondered (in a negative light). Regretting the past does you no good whatsoever; regretting the past only causes emotional distress and is entirely avoidable. You cannot change the past. At all. Don’t fret about it. Instead of regretting the past, learn from your mistakes and apply this wisdom to your future life and make changes accordingly.

Fretting about the future is equally avoidable. Granted, since the future has not come to past, it is harder to keep a cool head about something that will be stressful in the future. Yeah, that genetics exam might be really hard, but stressing over the exam a week ahead of time will only make your week up until the exam exceedingly stressful. Stressing over future events only makes the current day more stressful than it needs to be. Take each day at a time in preparation for a future event.

By looking forward to an event an undisclosed amount of time in the future, you diminish the quality of the moment you are currently in. A lot of people often look forward to something, say a vacation, and fail to appreciate the here and now. This is important for two main reasons: one, the here and now may be just as important as the future (and could be equally appreciated), and two, by looking forward (e.g. “Like OMG I like CANNOT WAIT for so and so), you tend to regret the day you’re currently living, which makes life harder at that point in time. By always anticipating the future one forgets to appreciate what that day may hold and add stress by not enjoying, and even disliking, their current day/week, etc. leading up until that totally radical vacation with your cute little boyfriend, etc.

Appreciating the here and now makes the current time much more enjoyable. This picture is a little silly, but I remember this moment pretty well even though it happened quite some time ago. My friends and I were just casually hanging out while one of them was proctoring one of the university buildings here on campus, and it was a blast during an ordinary time. /end awkward silly caption

Living in the moment does three things: it prevents your from regretting the past (reducing stress), prevents you from fretting about the future (reducing stress), but most importantly allows you to appreciate the here and now. This last part is commonly over looked. It might be as simple as appreciating the beauty of a bed of flowers, or an ephemeral feeling experienced through out your day. By appreciating the little things during your day, you will find your day will be much more manageable and enjoyable. Don’t stress the negative things. Appreciate the positive things. Live and love and learn.

If Love's A Word, That You Say...

In my previous post about Asthenia, one of the points I talked about was loving everyone. Hatred and disdain are easy emotions to feel, and it takes courage to love, especially when most other people would go about things differently (i.e. taking a negative route). The following entry is a brief introduction into love and compassion.

Someone is a lot more likely to respond positively to love and affection than hostility. This is a no brainer, but people get caught up in things and become frustrated quickly and resort to less than kind interactions. Even though someone may act negatively toward you, to respond negatively yourself will only make the initial problem worse. In stead, look past the rudeness and be the better person and act kindly toward them. This will either make them feel better and change their attitude or make them angrier (which isn’t as good in the whole scheme of things, but will make you a better person and feel better about yourself). Funny how that can work though, right? Not everyone responds well to positivity. There is a difference between being positive back and being sarcastic. Sarcasm is just as bad as negativity.

Don’t force love onto other people. Forcing people to change doesn’t help anything and can make the problem only worse. Lead by example. The best way to help people change and become happier is to love them and lead by example. If someone sees how happy you are, you’d kinda think they’d want to change things themselves. These sort of things don’t happen over night unfortunately. Patience is a virtue.

Forgive and forget. This is something I need to work on myself. There is a difference however between forgiving someone and letting someone back in your life. For example, say a friend of yours betrayed you and it really hurt. It’ll do you good in the long run if you can eventually forgive the person. Additionally, it’ll do you good to show no hostility toward the person who betrayed you, because that only creates additional negative energy that you don’t need and will only cause you more stress. However, it’s a judgment call as to whether you want to renew or continue a relationship with that person. In the past, I’ve overlooked some pretty crappy things my friends have done to me, only for them to repeat offenses. But forgiving someone is the first step to moving on. It really is. I promise.

With love, along should come empathy and compassion. To understand where someone comes from is important to understand how and why he or she acts the way they do. Granted, some people are weak and prey upon the giving hands of others, but because they are not in the majority, you should not treat everyone like they are trying to take advantage of you. This being said, it is important to have boundaries when trying to love and help people. It’s not always easy.

It’s really frustrating to see compassionless people in the world. A lot of people think only for themselves and don’t see how the world around them is affected by their actions. Compassion is an extremely important virtue, and should be practiced every day of your life. Do you really want to come off as a sociopath?

“If love’s a word,
That you say,
Say it, I will listen.”
Start The Machine, Angels & Airwaves

Starting The Machine

“In leaving the desolation and negativity behind, you find something beautiful.”

- Tom DeLonge

Besides love, leaving desolation is the primary topic of this blog. This entry is a general overview (as many of my early entries will be) and will be revisited later on. It’s an extremely important and personal topic for me. The scenarios range from the depressed high school pariah, to the over stressed college student who can’t keep their life together on top of all their classes, and, after too many broken hearts have had enough. While desolation can be found in all of us, it’s extremely sensitive to younger people who don’t have as much experience dealing with problems, stress, depression, etc., and resort to drastic measures.

What’s the point of trying to leave desolation when things just get worse? No matter how hard you try, things just fall apart… so what’s the point? What’s the point of getting better when the world sucks? When the world is place full of pain and suffering? Desolation will always remain with such overwhelmingly cynical thoughts. Not many people have succeeded in life by thinking they will probably fail, so it’s not worth trying.

The fact of the matter is, the world around you is the world you project for yourself. Instead of a world that sucks and is falling apart, the world you see could be one that needs to be fixed and can be fixed. There is no such thing as impossible. Hell, the 2004 Red Sox came back after being down 3-0 in the ALCS against the NEW YORK YANKEES to win the pennant and go on to win the World Series after not winning one for 86 years (I apologize to any Yankees fans for the reference, and I apologize for that run-on sentence).

Hope. Leaving desolation is impossible without hope. Without hope a person cannot properly function. Hope is an easy thing to obtain if you try hard enough. Just because something failed doesn’t mean everything will fail. Perhaps you haven’t found the right combination to make things work.

Personally, my attitude was the number one thing wrong with me. I hated a lot of things. It didn’t help I kept negative people around me who kept bringing me down. I kept myself in a miserable cycle until I realized things would keep being this way unless I changed it. I had very little to no hope. As I’ve said before, don’t worry about things you can’t change. Just worry about the things you can change, and address things from there. If you take things one at a time, you’ll start to worry less about the things that trouble you, and things get easier.

Leaving desolation has been the hardest thing for me so far in my life. Digging yourself out of a deep hole filled with obstacles is no easy task. It might be as simple as writing all your problems and worries out on paper, laundry list style. From there, you can break down each of your problems: why is it a problem? What makes this problem worse? Why is this problem pertinent? Etc. Building off a breakdown of your problems, you can look at how you can fix them. Drastic changes need to be made in baby steps for most people, and there is nothing shameful in making these changes in a slow manner.

However, it is important these slow changes are done with persistence. Just because you might be making slow progress toward a series of goals doesn’t mean you can take a break. Diets rarely work if you take a small break to have a candy bar or two. Persevering through your small steps toward your goal is incredibly important. Break down your goals into smaller, more manageable pieces and proceed in a comfortable manner that will allow accomplishing your outlined goals.

When times get rough I keep reminding myself, “In leaving the desolation and negativity behind, you find something beautiful.” Focus on how you want to change your life and remind yourself that once you get there, your life will be a lot easier. Once you have your life on a track that’s suitable to you, it’ll be easier to deal with stresses that come along your way in daily life.

Leaving a state of desolation is the number one priority for individuals in any situation such as the ones previously discussed. Life is too short to be living a life you don’t appreciate. It is too difficult to life a life of desolation, especially when life can be hard as it is already. But by rising above and leaving desolation, you build a stronger you, which will be more fit and able to deal with the stresses of everyday life.