Have you personally achieved anything you feel pride in?

[BvBPL]

You have to work very hard for many/most things at least to the point till you can channel consciously the various natural forces through your system without becoming attached to them and to the results they create. After that you dont have to work anymore - you become the pure enjoyer.

May the force be with you.

Before enlightenment, chop wood. After enlightenment, chop wood.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Before enlightenment, chop wood. After enlightenment, chop wood.

-if that is the best course of action according to the light in you....

 

[Narz]

That quote isn't really true in any meaningful capacity. Maybe in maintaining health. Good luck selling the idea that you just have to work hard to not be sick anymore, though.

Unless you have some deadly genetic disease more than 50% of health is something you can work on. Shoot even if you have genetic predispositions much is still within your control.

Not easy of course. Bad habits, physical, mental & emotional die hard.

 

[Synobun]

Unless you have some deadly genetic disease more than 50% of health is something you can work on. Shoot even if you have genetic predispositions much is still within your control.

You'll still always be sick and less than your average peer.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

You'll still always be sick and less than your average peer.

The following still applies in regard to comparing yourself to others:

What about those who don't care about what other people say? On my end, it doesn't really impact me in any meaningful way if someone tries to tell me I'm wrong or tells me I'm right. Most of the time I just agree with whatever's being said so the conversation ends (although I don't find myself in conversations about this very often).

 

[Synobun]

Not really. You don't need to be told you're less than your peers, you just need the capacity to observe your surroundings. In this instance, it has nothing to do with being good enough or accomplished enough, and more to do with an objective metric of capability. If you are sick, you are less. Fact. You wouldn't be disabled or suffering from a chronic illness if it had no bearing on your longevity or ability to live.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Not really. You don't need to be told you're less than your peers, you just need the capacity to observe your surroundings. In this instance, it has nothing to do with being good enough or accomplished enough, and more to do with an objective metric of capability. If you are sick, you are less. Fact. You wouldn't be disabled or suffering from a chronic illness if it had no bearing on your longevity or ability to live.

You may be correct in certain way but yet quite wrong in another. I have seen too often how so-called obviously normal people went on to waste their lifes while the apparently disadvantaged have made most out of it. Its quite clear that our life isnt just the simple sum of the obvious and apparent...

 

[Synobun]

That's a choice, not a biological fact.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

That quote isn't really true in any meaningful capacity. Maybe in maintaining health. Good luck selling the idea that you just have to work hard to not be sick anymore, though.

Health=/=not sick. The vast majority of people aren't sick, but they certainly aren't healthy.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Yes loads of stuff. Isn't that fairly normal?

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Yes loads of stuff. Isn't that fairly normal?

Give me an actual example and I will answer your question.

 

[Lohrenswald]

The odds that you qualify as "terrible" are actually pretty slim. Humans all think that we are so unique, but in reality we're all very much on par. Your emotional response is up to you.

I NEVER SAID I WAS UNIQUE D:

but also, I don't really see the point of your exercise thing. Like describing the same event in different ways doesn't change the event? I mean, yea...?

 

[Kyriakos]

Well, you can be against pride and still be proud, if you just now define pride as lack of pride, or some other trait you like.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I NEVER SAID I WAS UNIQUE D:

but also, I don't really see the point of your exercise thing. Like describing the same event in different ways doesn't change the event? I mean, yea...?

The issue is that since the event doesn't change there's no requirement that your emotional response should. Pride is a choice. You can either feel it, or not. It really is not dependent on what happened.

 

[JollyRoger]

I am very proud of my level of humility.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I went from obese to the heavy side of normal within a year's time by cutting carbs and exercising more.

Graduated summa cum laude from one my state's better universities.


Once took a picture of a particular butterfly in flight after being told it was practically impossible.



...plus, this year I planned and executed a week long vacation which included flying for the first time, renting cars for the first time, and traveling outside the South of the first time -- and nothing went wrong. I had a notebook full of maps and duplicate copies of details I might need. (I was by myself a thousand miles from home, 500 miles from anyone who might know me. Had to be prepared..)

 

[yung.carl.jung]

The issue is that since the event doesn't change there's no requirement that your emotional response should. Pride is a choice. You can either feel it, or not. It really is not dependent on what happened.

Maybe for the people that actively repress feelings of pride it is a choice, however most of us cannot just conjure up sportive feelings because we want to. That's what our brain's reward system is for.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Maybe for the people that actively repress feelings of pride it is a choice, however most of us cannot just conjure up sportive feelings because we want to. That's what our brain's reward system is for.

I disagree, though I never said anything about repressing anything. Your "brain's reward system" is managed by your brain. It isn't some inexplicable force being imposed on you. People just don't like taking responsibility for it, so it is far more common to let emotions run seemingly "as they will" while reaping the rewards as if we had nothing to do with it. As I said about people who wallow in guilt because they get the reward of constant affirmation, most people are using their emotions as weapons to dominate the people around them.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

most people are using their emotions as weapons to dominate the people around them.

I think you are projecting heavily here and I doubt "most people" would subscribe to a statement like this Maybe you mean subconsciously, but even then I am not so sure if I agree. Just feels like you are reducing something very complex to one arbitrary goal: Control/Domination/Power.

To some extent we have control over our reward system, that is true, but clearly we cannot control everything. Just as an example: People who simply don't have as much of a Serotonin release will always have a harder time motivating themselves. They can still set goals, be productive, apply self improvement, whatever. It's just a lot harder. People who have a genetic predisposition for addiction will always be more prone to fall for instant gratification systems, be it gambling or video games, it does not matter. Your reward center can play for, or against you.

You say "isn't some inexplicable force", I say it is an impossibly complex force. We understand a lot about how our brain works, but we shouldn't kid ourselves and think we've figured it out.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I generally don't use the word subconsciously.

People don't connect the rewards with what they are doing to get them, so you might call that "subconscious," but it doesn't come from "happening on some deep level where awareness treads not." It comes from just plain not looking. I've seen hundreds of people pass through the "ah ha" moment of realizing they have been doing exactly that since I had that experience myself, and it is always basically the same.

For me it was distance. I was desperate about being pursued, so I was constantly withdrawing while being driven to "establish my value." It worked. I was awarded "most valuable employee" type stuff at every job, fawned over by women, entertained by friends, invited to all sorts of events by people who cheerfully paid my way...but to maintain the pursuit required training myself in indifference at a level that made it automatic. When someone pointed out what I chose to feel and the 'reward' it was buying in a way that got through to me I also recognized the crushing costs to myself and everyone in my life. Only the recognition of those costs gave me the necessary incentive to retrain myself.

Your reward center is always playing for you, but in many cases you've forgotten the game and left it on demo mode.