Day 363 - Why did the chicken cross the road?

Some say the motivation was just to get to the other side...and it's funny. It's funny cause it's true. Because, we were expecting something more.

...I just spent a bit of time researching this classic "anti-joke," and I've found some interesting things. Here's the Wikipedia page, if that suits you...Also, here is a segment from an 8 minute video on the subject that interestingly goes into a neurological theory for why one might laugh at an anti-joke.

A realization I just had while looking more into why the chicken crossed the road: I must stay focused to clearly communicate my message, my conclusion, the point I'm trying to make. It's very easy to get off topic when there are so many directions that this could go, but the gift within this is the puzzle of finding the connection to the original point of discussion and articulating it in a way that readily makes sense.

This point of staying focused within the midst of a racing mind is a point that needs to be stabilized if we want to be effective in reality. To flow with the swaying of the mind is easier than disciplining oneself in physical reality context. This is the basis of what makes "ADD" kids less successful than the elite children in the private schools. I'll be using the Chicken to illustrate my concepts here on. You may see yourself as the Chicken.

Now, when Chicken is facing the road in front of him, and his mind is racing about all kinds of things, how is he going to get to the other side? The Chicken may even contemplate the 'how' as well as entertaining several what if's all related to one fear or another. But the question is: Why did the chicken cross the road? So, as the Chicken takes a deep breath and asks himself, Why?, he possess the power to make a choice and follow through. If a car is coming, it's a simple matter of common sense based in physical reality.

So, knowing your 'why' helps to focus. I'm pretty sure that a real life chicken would just operate with a 'why' starting point, and never even create a single thought. No energy is required for the chicken to motivate himself to cross the road.

So why am I crossing this metaphorical road? Let's first define the road. It's hard, difficult, risky, scary, real. On the other side of my road, I will define this as: being aligned with my physical body and all of physical existence through the principle of oneness and equality, unhindered in my expression (thought, word and deed) of what is Best For All in every moment of every breath. In this here 7-year Journey to Life blog, I'm writing about my process of crossing the road. In this process, I must face the road and forgive myself for creating energetic relationships (difficult, risky, scary, etc.) toward the road/process as well as all that constitutes who I have been in my journey before reaching the road. Getting to the other side is going to take some serious, focused introspection. 

If you took the time to check out that video segment I linked to at the beginning of this post, you get a nice visual for how the mind will operate in anticipation to reduce uncertainty. I most definitely am guilty of doing this, and the way I see it in how it breaks down is an ego desire to be right and the polarity fear of not knowing. This one information analysis/projection system of the mind is a major source of anxiety. Add it all up: Desire + Fear + Anxiety = petrified in uncertainty. Welcome to the world of being aware of being mind controlled.

The alternative is to be the Chicken who is so connected to his 'why' of crossing the road, it's clear, it's based in physical reality, that there is no need to think or worry or create projections and anxiety.

With purpose so clear

Focused fully, here

No need for fear

Ass is in gear

Fig. 2 - Ex. Immobilizing thought/desire

Day 245 - Coffee & Attention

cc: pixabay

I've accidentally exposed myself to my relationship to coffee today. At 8:30PM, I decided to brew a pot. I wanted to get my head into that space of mental focus. I wanted that drive to perform at my peak. I wanted to find an easy way around resistance. K, haha, just going to hop into forgiveness for this one.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to utilize coffee as a crutch to find a level of willpower that I had believed myself to not have.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create a relationship of dependency to coffee.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I can focus better and maintain my attention for longer when I consume coffee, not realizing that I can just as easily waste my time while hyped up on caffeine.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to abuse coffee and drink it just to feel the high of it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing my attention to wander, and with coffee, just wander faster :)

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that coffee is not to blame or credit for my work ethic.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create a relationship to coffee such that I am less able to complete work and stay focused without it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to expect that coffee will solve my problems for me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to tell others, in relation to my schoolwork, that "It wasn't me. The coffee got me A's," and within these the mental backchat justification was that I wouldn't have been able to stay focused and productive without coffee.  Call it ADD or whatever, it's time for me to start taking responsibility for my work ethic, and how and why I drink coffee.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel more in control when I drink coffee.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel less in control when I do not have coffee, such that I allow the resistance and grogginess experience to shut down my work efforts.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to act within an energetic relationship of belief in my productive ability that "I cannot do it" without external motivation such as coffee and time pressure.

--

There is probably more dimensions to my coffee drinking character that I've created through separation, and I will face these points as it comes up. I really like coffee, so I will continue with my correction and realignment of who I am in relation to coffee/caffeine/stimulants in posts to come. For now,

I commit myself to experiment with my sober self and write about what is going on in my head when I am desiring coffee to expand my understanding of the relationship I have created there.

When and as I see myself wanting to drink coffee for the purpose of getting things done without having to push through resistance, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am slowly embedding a program of dependency into myself, essentially stating "I am weak and unable to overcome resistance (of hard work) unless I drink coffee." I commit myself to showing myself that I can still work strong, fast and effectively without the use of stimulants as an external motivation to stay focused and attentive.

I commit myself to practicing my self-application without coffee, to stabilize my productivity and work ethic while sober, and end the abuse of drinking too much coffee.

When and as I see myself drinking lots of coffee (3+ cups) so that I can get lots of work done, I stop I breathe. I realize that I actually do not need this much coffee ever. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to abuse coffee in this way. I commit myself to toning down my coffee consumption until I have cleared my unfettered relationship to it, so that I may once more enjoy coffee for it's basic expression of itself. I am the coffee. I am me. I am with coffee, most simply.

A moment of my past:

I had developed a strong affinity toward this segment of a Futurama television episode:

Day 244 - Where has my Attention Gone?

Continuing from yesterday, I am expanding here on how my attention like to wander. I realize that each individual instance of attention wandering may have various, specific points that require my attention, ha. So the basis of all my self-investigation work requires that I be attentive to what takes my attention away.

cc

I have labeled myself as having ADD, but what that actually entails, I have not thoroughly investigated. To define it, once and for all, Attention Deficit Disorder is, in my experience of it, an agility of thought that moves on to the next thought rapidly and frequently. I can pay attention to something for a long time if I need to/want to, but usually I just don't want to. So, ADD for me is kind of a positive mind state seeking. I want to be engaged with the next thought. That's the positive definition that I have utilized to cope with "ADD."

The negative side is how the willingness to not give too much attention to any one thing causes much unfinished business. I tend to have a difficult time with long and tedious work, and usually just let my mind jump around until I must stay focused (i.e. procrastination & delay patterns). When I used to smoke weed, my attention was diverted continuously within a favorable experience, and the primary consequence was a trail of unfinished work/projects/pursuits. I don't blame the flower, but it did positively amplify the experience of my attention frolicking.

So, this point of establishing a stable attention within myself and in reference to my own self-honesty that is here in every single breath is not going to be as simple and straight forward as I would like it to be. What I've liked is the "freedom" of a wandering attention. This is a major key: realizing that this "freedom" is not real freedom. It's more accurately a predictable out flow of lack of self-control over my attention. My willingness to jump around with whatever is impulsed my way is like the ultimate programming, isn't it? I've opened myself up to psychological attacks from the media, namely,sex and money appeal, but even just now the bag of cookies that my brother just put in front of my face (impulse) caused an internal debate that lead to an imagination and mouth watering that took over control and I ate a damn cookie. In this specific case, I realize that I need to investigate several dimension of my sugar eating character.

Bottom line: establishing a consistent self-awareness of myself AS my attention will be a great benefit to my discipline. Enough prelude.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become overwhelmed with the alternative attention outlet such that I build up an internal friction-energy that takes me away from my self-attention. So, a key realization here is that what I am correcting is my relationship to the individual subjects/objects of attention that seem to take me over.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to let myself go within an energy experience overlay onto whatever is calling for my attention without me considering who I am within that movement.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not be here with myself as breath in every moment.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that my self-attention is who I am, and within this, every time my attention is diverted, I am responsible for that, it was my decision.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to abdicate my responsibility and self-awareness when I become distracted.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to lose myself within a series of attention grabs. In this my sense of awareness of self, of my breath, is nonexistent.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to forget about my breath of life as who I am in every moment when I blindly follow whatever catches my attention.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to give my directive power away to whatever distraction that I have deem as interesting. In this process, I am not creating a self-honest agreement in relation to relinquishing my attention from one thing to the next. I am merely within a reactive, predictably programmed mind experience that I had once created within myself from a starting point of self interest.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define all self-interested pursuits as valuable and worthy of my attention  not realizing that through this program, I am placing control of my attention outside of myself as I passively seek fulfillment of this desire, which is the base program of my automatic attention diversion acceptances.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to intentionally become distracted because I am experiencing resistance to what is here.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not always be present with my breath, what is here, and what requires to be done.
--
When and as I see myself within the friction of an internal debate for my attention, I remember to stop and breathe. I realize that if I am with my breath, I may take into consideration a stable perspective and make a real self-directed decision. I commit myself to stop allowing my attention to move with distractions when I become aware of my who I am as my breath. I commit myself to moving from a common sense starting point, and when I am in discord with that, I commit myself to investigate my relationship to whatever had grabbed my attention without permission.

When and as I see myself in a series of attention diversion, I stop I breathe. I realize that I need to start writing down all the distractions, so that I can remember and analyze what I deem is worthy of my attention. I commit myself to the self-honest investigation of all attention grabs.

When and as I see myself deliberately moving into a distraction, I stop I breathe until I am stable. I realize that this is just a well embedded system of conscious diversion. I commit myself to breathing through the resistance that lead me to make a deliberate choice to go into a distraction from whatever I was currently facing.

When and as I see myself in a loss of directive control of my attention, I stop I breathe. I realize I need to investigate the specifics of each particular attention preference that I have coded into my mind. I commit myself to bring myself back to my hereness with my breath, so that I may once again stand up and direct my attention to what is here, what requires to be done to create a world that is best for all.

Thank you.

Day 243 - The Responsibility of Self-Attention

"The solution of attention I present to you is the focused specificity application of yourself as who you are in every moment as every breath. "

While I was walking through my DIP lesson this month, there was a section on attention that I found to be very relevant to what I'm walking through right now. It's so simple and yet so profound.

It's all too often that I allow attention diversions to take me away from my breath, my being here, my presence of and within the moment. Silly distractions even. One my guilty indulgences is this game called Subway Surfers. One of it's main features is that it's "highly addictive." It's also a time sink that I don't really want anyone to know about. Hidden and shameful....nice. SO, I blog about it because it's what has come up.

source

I could go into excuses and justifications why I continually allow myself to play this game, but the key point is that it's one of the major attention diversions in my life. I probably won't even be writing about it if I had somehow decided to open the app while I was watching the Solution of Attention video interview. It was much like a window of opportunity to see myself and finally take responsibility for what I am accepting and allowing in this context. There is one other video game app that I like to play, but I'll address that in another post.

Which leads me to a noteworthy side point: selective self-responsibility. Oh, how I react to that concept! Like what the hell am I doing. Okay, breathe.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to to become frustrated with myself for what I have been allowing myself to exist as and participate in.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to get angry that I do not act within the common sense of what is best for all.

I compromise myself through repetitive allowance of attention diversion. It's bullshit. It's shameful. And this is where SF come in. Breathe..

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to, for a long time, continue to participate in the video game because I want to have lots of virtual coins. Why? I want the purchasing power, even if it is only within the game. Oh man, there is something else going on here.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be greedy and filled with desire to have lots of (virtual/not real) money.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I will have real satisfaction from unlocking something new. This is a primary additive point for most video games.

Now, why is this (guilty) indulgence something that I must stop? It's who I am within it. I reduced myself to a simplified, zombie state. Motivated by a transient/null reward, I play it every day so I can get the "super mystery box" each time I play. The consequence of letting this play out, unchecked, unmoderated, unfettered, automatically, is an accumulation of lost time, time that I will never get back. And this is vital time. I am walking my process. Don't I want to be as effective as I can be? YES! I do.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become angry with myself for relinquishing my attention.

I commit myself to to patiently and consistently work myself back to here by investigating these long running patterns of lost time where I have allowed an attention diversion and deliberately not investigate it.

I'll continue tomorrow with more detailed SF on Self-Attention. For now, If you are curious about the video interview I was watching, I am happy to inform you that it's publicly available here: The Solution of Attention

:)

Day 228 - Becoming Consistent with Focus

This is a continuation of Day 227 - Sticking to one mission at a time

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I am more productive when I multitask, and so feel compelled to do more than one thing at once.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to be MORE THAN productive.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that multitasking actually slows my productivity as I am not fully directing my side-tracking, rather bouncing from one thing to the next as if I am on auto-pilot.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to seek for and follow distractions when faced with a challenge or resistance within applying myself in the context of "work."

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to simply let slide my reactions of resistance toward work, not realizing that each and every single movement is my responsibility as a statement of who I am / what I allow.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to bite my nails, eat candy, play video games, do laundry, do other work, when I am experiencing resistance toward a task, such as this JTL post.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize my decision to delay a task.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not take responsibility for the timely completion of a task through the thought "there is plenty enough time," not realizing how I am compromising my ability to do the primary task AND other work more effectively.
 --
When and as I see myself abdicating my responsibility to direct myself through playing the Victim Character of some externalized force such as ADD, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am responsible for all of my directions, preprogrammed or otherwise. I commit myself to the continual realization that I am responsible for every movement I make.
..I have a long way to go, but accumulation is the only way. One bite at a time. 1+1+1+1...

When and as I see myself multitasking, I stop I breathe. I realize that I have chosen to multitask because of a desire to be ultra-effective with my time. I commit myself to breathing and questioning if I am diminishing my effectiveness within a particular task.

When and as I see myself on productivity auto-pilot, I stop I breathe. I realize that I wasn't consciously directing myself and completely unaware of my breath. I commit myself to create a plan to get back to my original task if the current task is worth the current attention. No more task, to item, to interest, to video, to curiosity, to other side-track. This behavior leads me down a path that I did not intend. I commit myself to move with intention.

When and as I see myself moved by distractions such as nail biting, candy, fun, interest, I stop I breathe. I recognize the resistance. I commit myself to breathing until the resistance fades and to continue with the primary task. I commit myself to pushing through that resistance, and if necessary, to investigate how I have created a relationship toward a given task that yields that resistance.

When and as I see myself abusing time by putting off responsibility, I stop I breathe. I realize that what's actually going on inside of me is a reluctance to face a responsibility, and I have entered into an energy of resistance and allowed it to direct me within tiredness or some form of laziness. I commit myself to sit and breathe and get back on track, finish my objective, and plan for rest.

The key in all of this is to have a plan. A day plan. An hour plan. A project plan. A plan for multiple projects. There's no limit to how I organize/structure my time. The important element is that I do organize and structure my time, effort, and even sleep.

I commit myself to planning when and as I see myself moving from task to task, unplanned.

photo from flickr cc

Day 227 - Sticking to one mission at a time

It is recommended by the Desteni group to walk through one point at a time, which contributed to my fear of opening up my nail biting again. It's interesting how fast that association happens and then becomes a part of my program. So, to release that specific thought association there: I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I shouldn't attempt to really stop biting my nails unless I am more than confident in my ability to complete the process in one solid go. I forgive myself for allowing myself to accept my interpretation as the whole of truth and integrate it into my perspective without a second thought.

OK, off to a bad start, but the goal of this post is to reaffirm a personal awareness of deviation toward a particular task. This largely pertains to the point of delay, procrastination, ADD, etc. The basis of the concept is falling into the resistance energy when faced with work.

For examples: Biting my nails can be an escapism/release from the work that I am facing. Eating a delicious treat is a favorite go to when my mind is racing for a distraction. Another favorite distraction is other productive tasks that are looming in the background. Internet issue of having multiple tabs open, and wanting to cycle through all of them instead of just getting one task done at a time.

It's weird because I feel like multitasking with multiple tabs open on my computer will make me faster, more productive, and yet the opposite occurs. When I sit here with my focus, I am able to complete a single task faster than if I draw it out with other tasks. I believe the feeling of slowness happens with the resistance, so I am slowed down by it during the working, and then through the resistance I multitask and find ways to actually slow me down.

If I could stick to one thing at a time, I would be more effective. Hence the recommendation to walk one point at a time. Popping around to multiple points will take a long time AND prevent me from reaching depth within each single point = less effective.

Even when I misspell a word while typing these posts and the red swiggly line appears underneath, I am much inclined to stop my train of thought and fix the error before continuing.

So, there is a lot of multidimensional play here within my "ADD" issue. I will sort it all out in time, and I already understand that becoming overwhelmed is not the solution. Temporarily mitigating the resistance by altogether stopping my attempts at focusing on one task, gets me no where. Also, there is many different angles one could take on this perspective of taking on just one mission at a time: small scale, large scale, time frame, etc.

I realize that when I sit down to type a post, I can get that post done faster if I do not allow the resistance energy to guide me. Even as I wrote this sentence, a wave of tiredness brought up the thought, "go sit lay down on the couch, just for a little while." And it is precisely this that I need to work through.

This is tough. And I knew it would be. But I haven't actually considered how hard it is to move oneself through persistent resistance. I know that if I keep taking back control of my body within my breath, I can do this. It's not impossible to undo our nature as organic robots that only move with mind frequency. I remember that I can breathe and direct myself. And what's really cool about this flow right now is how I'm noticing all kinds of thoughts come up like how I'm doing a shitty job by not taking a rest, and that others will think I'm a bad writer if I keep writing through the tiredness. It's like my mind will throw anything it's got at me to ensure that I listen to at least one thought so that I am directed and controlled by the mind consciousness system.

So, where from here? I guess I'll stop here, and write early tomorrow to apply some practical self-forgiveness for these control points that lead one to hop around from task to task and believe that they're sick with Attention Deficit Disorder. Thanks

picture credit

Day 181 - Physical aside vs. Mental jump

Thanks Kitty!  pic from Day 10

When I don't know what to write or how to begin one of these entries, I have realized the effectiveness of just simply beginning to write. This was a particularly cool moment of deciding what to write on today because my cat helped me out. I was just beginning to get into my writing about how it is that I jump from one task to the next in a moment of even the slightest resistance toward the initial task, and my cat that I call "kitty" interrupted me. I talked back to her, "you just creep up to me, cast a single 'meow' and get my attention so easily." I realized that I was just writing about distractions, but this was a different caliber of distraction.

Physically induced aside vs Mental jump. This is what I wrote verbatim in my journal after excitingly thanking her for helping me achieve the insight that inspired today's post :)

A physical distraction is much different than my own mental thinking distractions, yet also very similar in how they both take my attention away from the present task. A physical distraction is more acceptable in my opinion, and when a physical distraction is unwanted, it's easier to say no to. A mental distraction with an energy attached, for instance, the energy of curiosity, is very easy to follow, especially when faced with a more mundane alternative, primary task.

So, the prevalent point I've been working with: "Procrastination," has a new perspective that I intend to utilize to cross-reference when I am having trouble focusing on a task or daily set of tasks.

Adding perspective:
Why do I follow the mentally induced distractions? Appealing, interesting, more interesting, don't want to forget it, fear I won't get around to it, now or never, only productive in pursuing these mental asides while procrastinating a primary task. Ok, some good stuff to work with here.

Why do I allow myself to deviate from primary task? Resistance (could be many reasons; case-by-case exploration here): Unsure, uncertain, fear of wrong, fear of criticism, fear of less than great...[note here, mental haze into vague guessing of what others will think of my writing as I bite skin on middle finger, right hand], too much work, straining. Ok, I have work to do in demystifying* external work. I've placed all sort of pre-conceived notions of experience likelihood onto external work (in separation of myself).

*"demystifying" is a vocab term I learned from Neo-Tech, a $100 book I bought from a mail-flyer when I was in 6th grade, haha. It was a very hard read that I never finished, but I pulled some pretty helpful concepts of how mind/reality operates. I consider it to be one of the first stepping stones of my truth-seeking journey. As I remember it, to demystify was essential to freeing oneself from the mind-controlled way of life where we just follow suit with the rest of the populace. ...It's actually quite like the notion behind self-forgiveness, now that I look at it. Interesting. General mindset toward Neo-Tech from outsiders: "cult," haha.

Back to here. Now in this example of writing about 'demystify' as a distraction or side-track time sink: it was physically induced through writing. I suppose I kept it going via a mental choice, but how else would I write. I am writing from the starting point of free-flow-figure-it-out, so it's chill. It's not an extensive distraction within avoidance of the primary task of writing this post.

...another distraction, physically induced by music, I started a search on YouTube for the original version of Our Day Will Come. As I was watching the video, I realized myself within the distraction, traced it back to how it started, then decided to let it keep playing in the background while I log what just happened. Back to here, I realize that I can always come back to myself to direct myself. I can always trace the source of my distraction in self-honesty. Bring self back to here is THE KEY of keys.

So, all my struggles with procrastination can come down to self remembering self here; just before writing this sentence, I started closing open tabs that I no longer needed. This was a secondary task that was physically induced by sight, after responding to the end of the song and turning on another version of the song. All it takes is that moment of "what am I doing?" "what was I doing?" Self-check.

Now, furthermore and interestingly, I've been checking myself because of the content of my writing. As I continue to develop my relationship to myself within my physical breath, I will have a more stable cross-referencing point of self-honesty. That's the goal anyways.

Regardless of the type of distraction, I realize that I can always stop, breathe, and check why I have allowed my self to move within the deviation. Sometimes, this can feel out of control / overwhelming. Self-forgiveness need be applied here for allowing the energy of overwhelmingness to take control and misguide oneself into helplessness.

Ok, enough for now. Thanks for reading, and I'll continue tomorrow with the self-forgiveness and corrective application statements.

Day 180 - Attempting to do Too Much at Once

Wow! OK. So, when I drink coffee, especially, I try to do lots of things at once. What ends up happening is a multitude of distractions and side tasks that commence, and I often take much longer to get to what I intended to do from the beginning. This is delay/procrastination, but also an ADD-like symptom of needing to always be doing something. Also, I see avoidance in how I took 3 hours doing side-tasks before I finally got to sit and write about this very design playout. Interesting how every time I face a point in me, it becomes intensified, as if to make it more clear for myself or become discouraged and submissive to it. Ah ha!

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become discouraged and submissive when a personality design becomes accentuated and intensified as I begin to examine it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself from particular personality designs and places them as greater and more powerful than myself, and so I submit.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize myself as one and equal with each personality design that's amalgamated within me.
--
So this is kind of a big, primary design for me. I wrote about it on Day 2! The point of multitasking...I find that it mostly begins because of a lack of patience or willingness to wait even a single moment. If I'm not doing something I need to be doing something. Anxious to be efficient.

In the moment I make a decision to act, sometimes I don't even allow myself the time to commence. I just have another thought and move on that one. I've dealt with this for a long time, so it's no wonder that I'm still struggling with this point. It's pervasive and intrusive...and here I am separating myself from "it" again, apparently.
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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define my anxious personality in separation of myself where I perceive it as more than, or in control of, me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not take responsibility for myself as this anxious character.
--
So, what will it take to stay focused? Ah, yes. There is a notable fear of forgetfulness. It's like I'm consumed by fear that I'll forget the new, secondary task, so mindlessly, I start doing that to get it done or at least started. The problem is that this can happen repeatedly and before I know it, I've not even started the primary intention/task and several hours have past by.

pic credit

I get overwhelmed just thinking about trying to get myself habitually on track and focused. It's not been my favored mode of existence, since...(1st memory to mind) doing math in the third grade. I enjoyed the concentration and simplicity and competitiveness to be done with my problem set first. So what's the difference (heheh, like subtraction) between my attention cohesion then and now?

I think that the key component to this equation is perceived simplicity/complexity. Rudimentary math has a clear answer, while this self-purification process seems highly complex. In reality, it may be extensive and quite involved, but the solution is simple: Self-honesty and self-forgiveness. Hmm, why then does self-change seem so hard to do? I could come up with a ton of reasons, but they're all just excuses...fascinating.
--
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to perceive process from the perspective of difficulty instead of breathing and realizing that I MUST walk one point at a time, breath by breath.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will not remember to do the secondary tasks, and that I have not allowed myself to simply write it down and bring my focus back to the primary task.

That is the key. If all I did was commit myself to write down what comes to mind and act only within the direction that I have already set out for myself, I will have overcome this tendency to allow the mind to direct me. This is too extensive for one commitment to be simply stated. I have more to explore before I can seriously commit myself to this application. I do not want to create a bunch of compounding consequence of self-dishonesty.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear not being able to uphold my commitments, and within this I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to try to make a commitment from an energetic starting point instead of investigating and clearing the relationship(s) to make a stable choice of self-direction that stands throughout all of time.
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When and as I see myself moving from task to task, within and before completing my primary task, I stop I breathe. I realize this is my mind within an avoidance/ADD pattern. I commit myself to recognizing and becoming well acquainted with this dimension of myself. When and as it becomes unbearable, I remember to breathe. I understand what it is to be the self-directive principle. I commit myself to writing where & why I allow secondary tasks to commence with a dismissal of my previous & primary direction.

For the most part, I am still opening up my relationship to "Attention Deficit Disorder" (not that I actually think I have a "disorder" that needs treatment in the form of pills. I have the tools of self-forgiveness and breath to help me focus and permanently change my attitude/attention as my work ethic). Chipping away, one bite at a time, no more running, here I go! :)

Day 159 - Lacking leadership

The moment of self-direction is elusive and yet always here.

The pattern of the day I'm going to try and capture is the difference between giving up or giving in to a mind dominion state, and a self-honest directive. What I do is go into my mind when I perceive that I can't handle life or a certain aspect of it. For instance, I may be 'participating' in a social circle or even in conversation with one individual, and I find my own thoughts more interesting than what's going on in RL (real life). So, like an ADD child, BAMM, I'm off somewhere else. I've developed a nice set of consequences in so doing. I doubt myself, I wish I was more like the cool kids that seemed to be more socially invested and present with others more. It was leadership. It is leadership that I separate myself from others. I've long desired to be a leader. I lack leadership.

This is a key judgement & realization for me. I've been existing in separation of leadership, placing it very high on the pedestal, seeing it only in others and not myself. I read and long aspired to acquire leadership skills. I didn't really think to much about self-leadership and what that would entail.

SO, here's the deal. I'm going to map this one out and get back to you (me) tomorrow. There is a lot embedded in this separation/desire for leadership skills. I realize that I've been trying to show myself what I need to change through envying other's leadership qualities.

I ever commit myself to the self-discovery efforts required to exist as the change I see is best. I am here, writing for me and you if you want to read and join along. (Just join along, and start your journey to life. You'll thank you later.)

To be continued tomorrow.