Am I wise? I dunno. I've had some bad experiences in my life, together with my natural shyness/social anxiety that have caused me to seek solutions. I read a lot of philosophical, spiritual and self-help stuff. What I discovered was that the more shit that I had to deal with in life, the easier it became to deal with it.
Also, I realised yesterday, after I had written the above, that I was basically giving you the cut down version of the Buddha's wisdom. I've been applying those concepts, and others for a few years, and they've been transformative for me. Also, a Buddhist friend of mine has been supportive and inspirational lately. I still think I'm fairly ignorant in those ways. All of the different things I'm studying take more time than I would like.
One more thing I thought of telling you that has really worked well for me is that when you catch yourself in a negative thought, you need to stop it and counteract it with a positive one. For example, rather than saying "I hate being so crap at X.", say "I can see that my ability to do X has improved and is continuing to improve.". I apply this daily. This is hard at first because cynicism is "cool", but honestly, if you stick with it, you will notice that in time, you have fewer negative thoughts and they play on your mind for less time when you have them. The thing is that your subconscious mind (right brain hemisphere) is a simple computer that does what you tell it to. Tell it to be negative and fail, and you will fail. Tell it to be positive and succeed, and you will succeed. I made a conscious choice to be better and not let the negativity that people had tried to force into me take me down. I'm in control of my life (to the extent that anyone can be).
Also, I realised yesterday, after I had written the above, that I was basically giving you the cut down version of the Buddha's wisdom. I've been applying those concepts, and others for a few years, and they've been transformative for me. Also, a Buddhist friend of mine has been supportive and inspirational lately. I still think I'm fairly ignorant in those ways. All of the different things I'm studying take more time than I would like.
One more thing I thought of telling you that has really worked well for me is that when you catch yourself in a negative thought, you need to stop it and counteract it with a positive one. For example, rather than saying "I hate being so crap at X.", say "I can see that my ability to do X has improved and is continuing to improve.". I apply this daily. This is hard at first because cynicism is "cool", but honestly, if you stick with it, you will notice that in time, you have fewer negative thoughts and they play on your mind for less time when you have them. The thing is that your subconscious mind (right brain hemisphere) is a simple computer that does what you tell it to. Tell it to be negative and fail, and you will fail. Tell it to be positive and succeed, and you will succeed. I made a conscious choice to be better and not let the negativity that people had tried to force into me take me down. I'm in control of my life (to the extent that anyone can be).
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