Advancement Through Balance

 Happy New Year, All!  It's the first day of 2023.

To me, it's the perfect time to start setting forth our evolved philosophy in more realistic and consistent terms.  And that's Advancement Through Balance.

Our society in the United States is very divisive because, among other reasons, we don't seek balance.  We seek conflict.  Life does provide situations where conflict is necessary, and we certainly must prepare ourselves for that.  However, it does not mandate that we actively seek out, initiate, or provoke conflict.  People's mindsets do that all by themselves.  

We are in our best shape to interact with the world around us when we are open-minded, objective, well-informed, and educated.  However, we are not in the best shape when we are tooled, groomed, deputized, cuckolded, and manipulated.  That's when we stop being well-informed and start being a conformist.

Unfortunately, it is an innate part of human nature for some of us to be more aggressive than necessary, and for some of us to be more docile and compliant than warranted.  If others have chosen these paths, there is nothing we can do to change their ways that does not involve becoming even worse than they are.  But we most certainly can discipline ourselves so that we don't take either path, and instead find balance between them.

It might sense to say that those who are balanced cannot advance, because they are ambivalent and have no loyalty or drive.  This is incorrect.  You can become aware of multiple perspectives, and still choose one over the others and still be right.  There's nothing in the world wrong with you making your own choices, provided that they are informed, and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to manipulate you.  Don't be tooled.

Over the course of this New Year, let's all advance.  We have already built the foundation of knowing how wrong, obnoxious, and sometimes evil others are capable of being.  We can shore up that foundation with the knowledge that we ourselves have our own failings, but that these limitations do not prevent us from improving and becoming stronger - if anything, they are more detailed blueprints from which we can learn to build even better.  From this point on, we erect a high ceiling and a higher tower - constructed of self-respect, assertiveness, and informed practice.  These materials will last a lifetime - by contrast, a structure based on mindless aggression, which supports parapets built on fear, submission, and undeserved fealty, is doomed to collapse.

Let's grab a shovel and break ground today.

MOTHER PROTECT US, FATHER EMBOLDEN US.

ADVANCEMENT THROUGH BALANCE.

The Next Level?

 Happy Sunday Afternoon, Friends and Neighbors.

Those of you have followed this blog through the years, and patiently waited through the lulls and gaps, know that my cause celebre is dealing with those who are unkind to us, developing a thicker skin (more like Armored Heart) when their presence is unavoidable, and simply getting the eff rid of them when the possibility of doing so is available.

I don't know about you, but I am actually reaching the point where the message has become slightly redundant.  Mostly because, on the personal end of things, it's kind of already happened.  Anyone that I was able to dismiss is long gone, and anyone that I've kinda had to tolerate, I've put on a clinic in grey-rocking.  Honestly, while the subject of bullying and narcissism is clearly eternal, I'm beginning to feel a little bit like the Japanese soldier who stayed in the jungle for 30 years because he honestly thought the war wasn't really over.

In all honesty, I haven't been making enough time for those who actually have been good to me, and that needs to change.  However, that's my issue, to be dealt with.

That being said, the question remains:  What's on the other side?  What's the next level like?  How is the climb up from this part of the mountain?

Or in other words, how do we address life once we get over other people who weren't good to us, and start being good to ourselves?

That's a question I'm kind of figuring out myself too, but here are some suggestions I've picked up along the way.

(1)  Continue Mastering Your Thoughts.  You don't think about "them" anymore, so what's to be thought of instead?

    (A)  Meditate.  You don't need to have constant, non-stop, never-ending stimulation.  If there's nothing in front of you to do right now, then use that nothing constrictively.  Just be, just breathe, just observe.  Add some mantras on top of that if you choose, but don't be ashamed of just doing nothing for a short time every day.

    (B)  Review.  Check your living space.  Check your finances.  Check your social schedule.  Like what you see?  Good.  If not, go back to the well and change things up a tad.  Throw away the stuff you don't need, and fix up the stuff you do.  

(2)  Continue Owning Your Actions.  Thinking the right thoughts is good, but transforming them into actions is better.

    (A)  Keep Advancing.  One of my most vocal (former) critics asked me years ago, "Are you saying people should be happy with who they are, or are you saying that they should improve?"  I answered, "Both."  And I still mean it.  Get even better than that, every single day, even if by only a little bit.  tell yourself to run a little faster, lift a little heavier, smile a little a wider, earn a little more wealth, etc., etc.  Maybe relax one day a week as needed, but keep climbing up anyway.

    (B)  Be Real.  If you're wrong about something, learn a lesson.  If you're right, congratulate yourself on being right once.  If you don't know, ask.  If you do know, act on that knowledge.  If they're good to you, be good in return.  If they're not good to you, be polite, but unaffected.

(3)  Plan and Graph The Future.

   (A)  Decide Your Goals.  Choose what you want to happen and plan how to make it happen.  This is doing your homework, making choices that require effort, and refusing to lose sight of the goal.

   (B)  Choose Your Influences Wisely.  We have spent years reminding ourselves that if people are criticizing you just because they dislike you, don't take you seriously, and don't want to hear anything you have to say, their opinions are not valid.  We got the point of that.  However, chances are better than average that you still need constructive criticism, and that if you disengage your ego when it's being presented, you may actually be receiving some much-needed help.  If it's coming from people who actually want you to succeed, and not fail, it costs nothing to listen.

   (C)  Tune Out The Distractions:  Harder to do in this day and age, when we're tethered to our devices for better or for worse.  But if what you're seeing and hearing from your devices is drawing you offsides, or taking your eye off the ball, then you'll need to stop seeing and hearing them until they lose their influence over you.  You make the rules, they don't.

Should you find your mind wandering back to the aging relics that left scars, try to remember this:  

   i.    You were presented with that experience as a blueprint of who not to be, and not as an excuse to behave the same way they did.  

   ii.   Also, if you were never presented with obstacles, losses, rejections, and insults, you would have been just as spoiled and narcissistic as they are.  Leave them behind, overcome the residuals, and keep moving.

I EXIST.  I MATTER.  I BELONG.  I DESERVE.

RESPECT ALL.  BEFRIEND FEW.  LOVE ONE.  HATE NONE.