Tip 118: Don't ever, ever, read youtube comments.
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Tip 118: Don't ever, ever, read youtube comments.
Tip 119: Don't ever, ever, make youtube comments.Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
:lol:
I agree wholeheartedly with the first two!Quote:
Originally Posted by Hurricane
The last one... Well, depends on why and where and who(m), I guess ;)
Tip 120: If you're a student moving out every once in a while in the eternal quest for the cheapest place available around, do NOT hoard things that look useless now. They are, for the most part, useless later on as well.
Tip 121 - Drink a little beer everyday.
It always makes me happy.:smilewinkgrin: (I suppose this could be substituted for your choice of drink, but really, there are some great beers out there.)
This applies whoever you are. Even if you're not a student. Even if you don't plan to move. Especially if you're my wife. Though if you were my wife, you'd have to be convinced that the things you hoard do, in fact, look useless now. Which they do, even if you think that they're going to come in handy practically next week. They won't. That's how we ended up with eight gravy boats. In ten years of marriage, kid, we've never used more than one gravy boat, and even that's only about every five months, when we have people round and we're doing something that involves gravy. So, you know, get a grip. Chuck some of this stuff out before I carelessly open a cupboard or, more likely, the door to a little-visited room, and I'm killed by an avalanche of unrepairable antique mirrors.Quote:
Originally Posted by symphony
Oh, I agree Neely! I gave mine up when I went on my new psych medication and I miss it - that drink slightly frozen because I forgot it in the freezer! I think I'll try drinking one today and see what happens. :crazy:Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
Oh that's a shame. Maybe if you drank a little beer, especially Belgian:yesnod:, you wouldn't need have psych med?Quote:
Originally Posted by Vonny
I'm not advocating alcoholism. Just a few nice beers at the end of a hard day. That for me is pretty good. A bath and then a few beers sees me through most days to be honest. I've even got a strange cold and headache (probably from too much coffee, the headache) but a little quality beer each day = a happy smile.:smile5:
Audio books. I must get some audio books. I hate being too tired to read, a little audio book at night could be the answer?
Tip 122 - Invest in (or borrow from the library) audio books.
I only have one audio book, Milton's Paradise Lost complete and unabridged, well if you are only going to have one it's not a bad one to have I suppose...
I can never listened to audiobooks... Tried so many times but after the first five minutes, my mind drifts off and find myself thinking of next day's shopping list or what happened in the class on that day or what not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
Having said that I do have some friends who always listen to them especially when they drive and seem very happy with them.
Tip 123 - Eat grapes daily.
I enjoyed listening to Bill Bryson whilst I was redecorating a couple of years ago. I wouldn't just sit and listen though.
Tip 124: Don't listen to THE GRUMBLER. (That irritated little voice inside your head that criticises, curses and complains about every little irritation and small inconveniance that people put your way. This is in fact a demon that that will possess you if you allow it to become your subconcious commentator of choice. You will then turn into one of those odd little old folk that inhabit houses on the edges of estates and who gesticulate wildly at passers-by for the misfortunes of... everything. Don't listen to THE GRUMBLER. Go placidly amidst the noise and haste).
Tip 125: Get used to saying sorry. You'll be saying it a lot.
...like I do, but it makes for a much easier life. Forget the pride and self justification and embarrassment. Just say sorry - you've done your bit then - and move on.
Agree with you, however I rarely ask for forgiveness.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
I don't like beer. At all. Would a little wine do, instead?Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
Yep, just had a small class of wine with my pizza for tea; always wine with pizza, feel free to have a glass everyday on me (I don't mean I'm going to buy it, I was just being polite I mean, try a decent beer though.)Quote:
Originally Posted by qimissung
The grumbler post is genius. Great tip. I'll try to smash the little so and so. Reminds me of the advert encouraging people to learn again, getting rid of the gremlins.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
I almost never listen to audio books, but I think I will start doing so, at least a little at first. My problem is that when I am really tired, and work does not help here, I just can't focus at all. I would never listen to an audio book in other circumstances, but I can imagine myself sat in the bath drinking beer really tired listening to one. Only thing is that I don't have an MP3 or similar??
Has anyone mentioned pets?
Tip #126 Get a pet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
Bugger that. I have a completely different take on it.
When I was young, I thought that the world was unchangeable - what it was was what it was and there's nothing you can do about it. So there was no alternative to simply putting up with indifferent service in shops, rude people on the tube, the internal inconsistency of outraged idiots who think that Sid Vicious shouldn't have been allowed to cover My Way, the fact that there's a huge plot-hole in Minority Report.
Now I think that it's worth processing these things and sometimes expressing them - not as an obsessive and nitpicking curmudgeon, but in a way that makes the good-humoured though serious point that I'm not prepared to silently put up with this crap.
So I'd say it should be Tip 127 - Listen to The Grumbler and to the Mickey-Taker. They're a double-act, and they work best together.
Great tip, thank you!Quote:
Originally Posted by iamnobody
I would modify it, though:
Tip #127 Pet your pet.
So, what clever thing would you say to the person who is serving you indifferently at the shop? I've been an indifferent shop girl, and I'm curious to see if my shopgirl self would notice or even remember thirty seconds after you'd gone. Usually everything that the dull, droning public says to me is completely uninspired, something like "pretty little girl like you should smile more" or "I read last week that this was all supposed to be on sale, was that just a lie to get people in here?"Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkBastable
Ha ha! Good point Juniper!
128 - Practise snappy comebacks
i.e. The answers to the above abuse could be:
a) I'd been smiling all morning - and then you walked in
and
b) Everything is on sale - to normal people
(better to be surly up front than sorry after the fact)
The Grumbler is a subtle beast. It's not the world you change - if you can do that then all's well and good and good luck luck with it- but yourself.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkBastable
Well, where would William Wilberforce, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Attila the Hun have got if they'd've taken that attitude?Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
Buddhists! At one? Bone bloody idle, if you ask me.
Having said that, I'm not suggesting that my attitude will change the world, necessarily. It just lets the world know that it's disappointing.
No Buddhism highlights our solitude, potential misery and the probability that it will go on and on and on - (much like the Grumbler).
There is an image problem with Buddhism though - doormats. i think the type of westerner it used to attract - disillusioned hippes - dropouts looking for an easy meditation into idleness - may have had the expectation that they just had to rise above it all on a serene cloud of their own superiority.
Having said that too - I like Grumpy Old Men and my wife reports - regularly - that I'm becoming one. It's a struggle...
We just don't have the high profile Buddhists here yet I reckon.
I have only one problem with Buddhism - getting rid of desires. How do you do that and why would you want to? If I got rid of desire, there would be nothing left of me! (Okay, I know this is for another thread, so you don't need to answer here!) But the rest of Buddhism sounds good - things such as eliminating fears. The idleness sounds good too, to stop running around like a chicken with its head cut off. That I like.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
This is the best tip ever. My brother sent me an email today ranting about a woman he knows, "She's a princess! :flare: She grew up a princess and she still thinks she's a princess! :flare: She lives in fairy tale land!" Reading it, all I could think was "Let her be who she is!"Quote:
Originally Posted by qimissung
129 - Always try to control your temper.
130 - Drugs.
Oh, I wouldn't say anything to the person being indifferent.Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
Let's imagine a perfectly plausible scenario.
Me: Could I please have half a pound of mature Irish cheddar?
Indifferent deli person: I'm afraid we're out of Irish cheddar.
Me: Is that all you have to say on the matter?
Indifferent deli person: I'm sorry?
Me: Aren't you going to offer me an alternative? English? Welsh?
Indifferent deli person: Oh. Well...
Me: What do they teach you people in deli school these days? It really is too bad.
Then I'd go straight to head office and demand that she be flogged over the cheese counter, stripped of her position and thrown out onto the street without references, in the hope that this salutary change in circumstances (which she'd have brought down on her own head, let's remember) would lead her inexorably to a life of degradation, heartbreak and ultimately an unheeded demise in a dank corner of some hellish debtors' prison, surrounded by similar miscreants, such as the middle-aged woman on the Tube taking up the armrests on both sides of her seat and whoever wrote the sign in the window of the charity shop in Wimbledon in which the word 'Wimbledon' is misspelt.
In other words, I expect no more than an outcome proportionate to the original offence. I may be particular, but no one could suggest I was other than scrupulously fair.
What drugs do you recommend? That last drug idea I got from you had my mind completely unhinged for about 2 weeks. I'm only tonight beginning to feel a bit more sane!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
It's all down to happiness. We pursue the things we think will make us happy - money, fame, drugs, alcohol, partners, etc etc. We may find that the actual happiness is short lived - the money runs out/ fortunes change leaving us with the desire for a richer life but without the means to live it, or fame is a huge boost to the ego, but can result in a massive deflation as fortune changes or the press turns on you, or drugs can become an addiction, or alcohol may lose you money, credibility and family, or partners divorce you or make you unhappy. There's no guarantee that any of the things individuals pursue to make them happy will do so. And, of course, at the end, even at the end of an interesting, positive and delightful life - you have to leave every little bit of it - including your loving family and friends - behind.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vonny
It's not actually the having or not having things that will make you unhappy - it's your attitude to it. Can a rich person not suffer if they lose their fortune - be above that and happily take up a poor man's life? If it has happened - it would be a rare person.
Be careful though - it's not thinking - I'm cool. I don't care if I'm rich or poor nothing affects me. Thinking consciously these things will not stop unhappness. What you have to do is cut the root of desire. This is what Buddhism is about - through meditation, reflection and practice. It's not about giving things up, because that's not actually stopping the desire for them. It's about completely changing our conditioning. It is counter intuitive and very very difficult. This is why people become monks and nuns so that they can go through the rigourous training needed to do it. (People don't become Monks and Nuns in order to withdraw, but to focus upon the path which actually brings them up against the very conditioning, emotions and desire that drives all of us.They don't do it to escape but to confront.)
By the way, I'm not advocating anyone becoming a Monk or a Nun. It is unsuitable for most of us. There are other ways a lay person can practice.
Real happiness? All of us crave and yet we live misguidedly. We are misled by our society since our society’s values are money, power, relationship, acquisition. There is no shade of happiness and peace there. You can never be happy save a certain point. Once you have the basic you must peruse something subtler than wealrth
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
The trouble I have with this is not that it is or isn't true - because obviously it is - but that anyone should think it should be avoided. It seems so....I dunno...self-regarding to me to suggest that all that is anything other than perfectly all right.
I often hear people talking about "today's society", "they" and "them" and I cannot help wondering who makes up the society? Who are these "they" and "them"? Are we not part of the very same society?Quote:
Originally Posted by osho
I feel happy to have certain luxuries (say my laptop or phone or ereader) not because I show them off or they keep me warm at night but because they enable me to do things that give me pleasure... Like coming to this Forum, talking to my friends who happen to live thousands of miles away from me or carry all my books with me.
One can easily claim that smoking, having alcohol or doing drugs are worse than wishing for material things... As they, one might argue, offer nothing but fleeting, false "happiness".
131 - Embrace your society and be a part of it!
Scary. I was going to say that too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowqueen
Yes I like the Buddhism stuff myself as well. The core values makes perfect sense to me (see for example the Four Noble Truths). I'm not full-on into it but I think in its philosophy there is perhaps something there for everyone, or nearly everyone.
Tip 132 - Dip into Buddhism a little.
You mind find something to make you a little happier.
Meh I dont really recommend drugs...but if you must do one, do weed - by law it is worse than alcohol but from a physical point alcohol is far worst.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vonny
I have tried several drugs and had stints with many things, and I don't care much for them. This may sound all cliche but there are natural highs which come internally from the body and these are amazing compared to drugs.
Drugs are a lot like huge metropolitan cities at night. With towers of glass and bright lights of white and yellow and red and green and blue and all that vastness and newness. But after a while living in any big city one feels that metallic loneliness at night, that cold loneliness that only a big glass city with starless skies and little yellow and white lights can give you. Drugs are like this.
Life just seems simpler in the country. I mean everyone ought to spend some time in a big city like New York or London or Paris. But the simpleness of the country is more pleasant.
Mind if I correct a bit?Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
Tip 133 - Dip into all religions a little.Close an eye once in a while to faith, and once in a while close an eye to modern science. But never keep the same eye closed all the time.
Paul, thanks for your explanation. I was kidding a bit about being riddled with desires. My main desire is to be free of my recurrent ptsd symptoms. Buddhism does appeal to me.
Alexander, you described drugs and the city very well. Again, I was kidding mainly. I'm not one to use drugs really, even prescription ones. But the one I'm taking now does seem to be helping. I've even been able to sleep 6 hours at one time.
Olga, although you sometimes bear a striking resemblance to my mother, I'll let you be who you are! Probably, as before, your intent comes across a bit different in type. But even if you are like my mother, I'll let you be! :) My mom will never apologize, probably because she thinks it would be an admission of guilt. I used to say "I'm sorry" all the time to her, even when it wasn't my fault. I usually just figure that if I upset someone, I'm sorry for that, even if I didn't do it intentionally. (And then, that's what I was taught to do.) But I made a decision a while back regarding my mother, that I will no longer apologize unless it really is my fault.Quote:
Originally Posted by Olga4real
Here's one we hear all the time now, but it is good. The zen concept:
134 - Be mindful. Stay in the moment. Stay out of the past and out of the future.
To know how to do it, just watch an animal, such as a cat lying in the sunshine.
I put that in order to address the idea that some people seem to have perfect lives - to outsiders looking on. We don't know that, but the perception may be there.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkBastable
The other end of the scale is the suicide ho wishes to escape from it all - and every shade is in between.
I think you're right though. We are self regarding. We are the centre of the unverse - but that's only because we only tend to look from our perspective - generally speaking.
There are antidotes to that too - meditations on what we owe everybody else - which is that we owe everything.
Is this what you were referring to?
No worries. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Vonny
I do so like the sound of my own typing... I mean voice.. I mean digital expression...
I get A LOT out of what you say on the forum.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
Kinda. I meant that if the universe were to say to me....
There's no guarantee that any of the things individuals pursue to make them happy will do so. And, of course, at the end, even at the end of an interesting, positive and delightful life - you have to leave every little bit of it - including your loving family and friends.
..I'd say, "Yeah - seems fair. I see no reason to construct any kind of belief system to escape from those very reasonable precepts."
I see now. The Buddhist attitude reflects the view that Samsara - this life we experience - is a place of inevitable suffering to the extent that our apparent happinesses also bring suffering.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkBastable
In the case of a happy and fulfilling life, the likely reality of such a person's mind is that their attatchment to the things that make them happy will have increased, and inensified their attatchment or desire. The inevitable parting from this then results in suffering.
If we could generate a "I've had a good innings" attitude in the face of death, then this will reduce suffering and increase the clarity of the mind. Unfortunately, it seems that most beings are unable, without training, to develop a positive state of mind and thus succumb to fear, anger or another negative emotion. It might be fear for oneself or fear for others in which the underlying motivator is attachment/ desire to retain their state.
I think the Buddhist model of the mind - or rather levels of mind - suggests that whilst our conscious mind may declare one thing - the underlying mind/s are where our motivations and fears manifest and affect our thought and actions.
I don't know if you've ever caught yourself muttering and complaining to yourself about having to do something whilst you somehow get on with what you objected to and do it. I find myself doing this, and my explanation to myself when I reflect is that actually my surface/ conscious mind is not the actual place which controls my motivations and impulses, fears etc. (This might be just me though :biggrin5:).
I have no sense of that at all, I have to say. I'm not saying that there's no suffering - but that it's part of a sort of unfair distribution, because the universe doesn't really recognise life in general as very significant, and actually has no mechanism even to consider whether individual lives are important - which means, actually, that they're not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
I think I'm lucky (and I mean lucky, because it's a confluence of my nature and my nurture - so I can't take any credit for it) that the communication between my conscious and my subconscious seems pretty constant and honest. On the other hand, it might be that I'm either stupid or self-obsessed. Or both.
The upshot, though, is that sometime in my thirties, circumstances conspired to encourage me to figure out what the **** was going on inside me, and so I worked on it. Having recognised a sort of subterranean magma flow that fuelled all the tectonic shifts on the surface, I realised that whatever was going on under there was fundamental, and that as long as I was aware of it, I could anticipate the crevasses, and step over them or step away - and, eventually, learn to dance in time with the shifts and quakes.
All of which, of course, makes you much more sympathetic to the mad volcanoes on other people's planets,
135 - Trust yourself.