The Process - Part III

When I decided I was going to have a normal life, one of the things I wanted was to NOT do things out of fear. I remember recognizing that almost everything I did (and often didn't do) was out of fear.I wanted to get to a point where I could do things because I wanted to rather than because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t. Realizing one of the mechanisms that leads to terminal dissatisfaction is a difficult thing to come to terms with, especially when you have no clue how to fix it. I can’t say exactly how it did it. It’s complicated, I think. There was a decision to do something about it, a lot of research on how successful people get what they want, trial and error, changes in attitude, a growing sense of control over my life and what happens to me, and then I would say that I had some momentum and things got a lot easier. 

Now in terms of my concrete life, I am very future-focused and in terms of myself I am very present focused. If I am okay now and I have what I need, then with a bit of focus, my future will fall into place. When I started reading what happy successful people had to say about happiness and success, I remember thinking that there had to be some luck too. “How could all of that good stuff happen to one person when so many others live with so much shit everyday? A person like that has to have a golden horseshoe up their ass. Things don’t just happen because you want them to!”

Well, actually, they do...but, it seems, you need to be doing what's right for yourself...and it’s not just desire that makes it happen; it’s a certain kind of desire, maybe a true desire. There is the type of desire that is more like a wish. It occupies your thoughts, it may involve a high degree of chance (like winning the lottery), and you basically sit on your ass…and by this I mean specifically doing nothing that leads in the direction of the thing you want. The other type of desire is a combination of drive and planning. You may not know how to get from point A to point B, but you can see a few steps, so you take them. As you take the steps, you see more, you start to experience the benefits of making positive change and you are encouraged to move forward. Granted this assumes that you do not have an intense fear of success. In this case, smaller early successes will trigger the imagination to the larger successes to come and you will probably either shut down, or fabricate unnecessary obstacles. I know this from experience. I do everything the hard way. Not so much anymore, but I still see it from time to time.