/lit/ - Literature

>>16471734
At some point I realized that my grouping of my thoughts was not complete. I added
>about future, projection, fantasies
>about past, projection, memories
>opinions
The first two were easy to deal with. There is no point and no need to think negative things about past or future. If bad things happened or bound to happen, we should accept them as facts of life and deal in the same way as we deal with other facts. Negative things from the past should serve as important, positive lessons. Negative things from the future should serve as cautions. On the other hand I found that those two can serve as immense source of positive thought. I made a habit of writing pleasant memories from my past in the journal and everyday I find and "enjoy" new little gems from my past. I also write positive things about future, positive projection so to say. I found that the best way to do so is to think how I will make things better or do great things. How I will fix things around, build, create something, improve relationships and etc. Naturally, I started to develop positive goals on all aspects of my life. One thing that inhibited my positive thinking about future was lack of progress in some of my goals. Solution is pretty straightforward.
>Aggressively set out to accomplish your goals
Now,
>opinions
All inner and outer negative opinions should be weighed on truthfulness. Those that are not found to be based on facts, knowledge and expertise of the matter should be disregarded immediately as they hold no value. Those that are found to be truthful should be accepted as facts and dealt in the same manner as facts. Now, let's go way back to
>think about myself
To think positively about ourselves we should have a positive self image. To have a positive self image, we should have self respect. To have self respect we should have strong identity, strong moral principles and values. I started thinking and working on my principles and values. The first principle that came to mind was golden rule. I tried to follow it, but quickly found that it comes out wrong from time to time. I don't want to dwell on it, but I found a better alternative that always works.
>Silver Rule: don't treat other people in a manner in which you wouldn't want to be treated by them.
I'm carefully following, observing my actions and try to follow silver rule in every decision in my life and and it started to improve how I think, see, feel about myself. I believe that slowly, this will develop into a habitual thinking and I will start subconsciously making all ethical decisions based on the silver rule. With time and effort I will develop a strong identity and pride and self respect that will serve as inner source of positive thought and happiness. In the meantime the little progress that I'm making serves as a source of positive thoughts.

>>16471734
whenever i'm unhappy, i just binge read wooster & jeeves..

>>16471734
Actually I should have gone deeper on the self image. To have a positive self image we should see ourselves in a positive light. To be able to do so, our actions should be consistent with the image we want to see. Thus, it becomes very important to earnestly to our best to follow our principles and values. To do so
>We should recognize and weigh all ethical matters
>Apply silver rule to all of them
>In case if we missed/misjudged some ethical matter we should do our best to rectify the damage

In the beginning I said that the only problem I had was a severe depression. That is not true of course, I had a lot of other problems in every aspect of my life. I just was apathetic to them. However, this axiom
>Facts(reality) must be accepted without reservation
made me learn to meet my problems face to face. Who knew that simple journaling could change my life so much.

Bump before I go to bed, /lit/ is very active today. I will write more from my journal if there is a demand. /lit/ discussion on this topics is very welcome.

bump because i'm interested in this but i don't have the time to read it right now

>>16471805
Based and Comfypilled.

bumper

Bump because Im too lazy to read all this right now and want to read it later and ask OP questions

this is a really nice post, I'm glad you got more out of life from doing this OP, I'll try putting a little more juice in my diary today too

Thanks for the blogpost OP. I’ve never written a journal before despite getting moments of clarity that I should’ve written down, but your post has convinced me to get on it. So, thanks.

>>16471734
This Apu image is always so comfy, I want to be like this when I get older in age

>>16473243
do it and don't forget to follow the simple structure
>reflect on the day
>reflect on books, news, ideas, my notes
>dwell on the problem
>ask questions

bumperino

>>16471743
One more little thing about opinions that I forgot to write. Some of our negative opinions are not easy to spot, we might have them without realizing. Particularly
>doubt and expectation of failure
The giveaway of those opinions is inaction. So, if we see spot inaction, procrastination we should seek out doubt and expectation of failure in our mind and deal with them (in the same way as we deal with all other opinions) and try to replace them with positive thoughts.

On self-image. These days I mainly focus on silver rule, it consumes most of my attention, so I forgot to mention few things about self image. I divided self image into three parts
>Physical image
>Personality
>Moral image

I didn't have problem with my physical image, so I didn't put much thought about it. The only thing I did was that I make sure that I always look neat. I initially started to write long thoughts about Personality and how to develop it, but I found that actively following
>Silver Rule
>Aggressively set out to accomplish your goals
greatly develops character in all aspects, especially courage and honesty. This is a long topic in itself, but if you dwell on it you will come to same conclusion. We develop moral image as said before, by meticulously applying silver rule where it's applicable. to solidify our image positively in our (and in other people's) minds we should publicly defend our principles, values, position, family and friends whenever it's required.

Few other notes. I set a lot of positive goals, but it's important not to be carried away and ignore present opportunities to do great things, because the real goal behind all of my goals is to improve things so that I can think positively. Whenever given opportunity we need to do good things, specifically, needs to be pointed out, influence others in a positive way. Here is a one giveaway when people need encouragement
>Stressful moments
Whenever there is a stressful moment for someone or a group of people, I set out to encourage and push them in a right direction, with few simple words. I am a logistics director and have 22 people working for me, so these opportunities constantly present themselves.

One last note, early on I made a principle for myself to surround myself with positive people, however I'm not so sure if it's a right thing to do. Positive people have positive influence, but "not so positive" people have their merit too. I'm actually debating this these days and I might change it.

>>16471734
I have a Google doc journal that I have been taking notes in for 4 years. It definitely helped me too.

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>>16475354
You want to order your facts instead of taking them all as equal. Better facts make you happier. Facts that are less true make you upset. For instance saying "I'm not as rich as etc". This is very untrue from any standpoint because it has nothing to do with you or them. Someone being "rich" is nonsense. What you are, or what you can control, isn't being rich. Considering your consciousness is you and what it comprises is your ability to act, being rich has nothing to with you even if you managed to hoard the most. It has nothing to do with you.
What is you, or even them, is something within their control.
This is obviously in levels, for instance I can't blast myself into creative mode 24/7. It's simply out of my control. It has to, like depression, do with your neurons. Your consciousness is a reaction of that. So a terribly lazy neet has things they can control and things they can't. You focus on what you can control so your self-management can grow.
This can open excuses obviously, nobody knows everything even about their neurons etc, but it's the only place you can start. It's just important not to be a consequentualist because that has millions of variables outside your control, like the universe or earth existing for a starter.

>>16475941
So figure out what's consequentualist thinking/facts and avoid those.

>>16475941
Can you expand on consequentialist thinking?

>>16471734
Hey anon I'm very happy to hear that. I've reccomended that a few anons write happy things in a journal. It's how I started and is what I tell everyone close to me to do.
I tell them to start of by writing 3 things a day that makes them happy. Wether it was the caramel slice they bought at the bakery or whether it was the sunset reflecting a pink hue on the clouds or the birds chasing and singing to one another. Once you get to this stage of writing in your journal or diary everyday anytime you can't think of something that made you happy. You write one thing you'll do to make yourself happy tommorow.
This constant journalling allows for another place to place your thoughts into words and look back at them that you never had before. It makes the moment extra happy when something good happens happens and you've got something to write for the night.
As you said, and as I say a lot. Focusing on the negative is so easy. After your child days you unconsciously create a list in bed every night about all the negative things that happened that day.
That's why you need to train your brain to focus on the positive stuff and the happu stuff.
I encourage more anons to do this as it always ends positively.

>>16475972
No lol, your specie rejects it and they can die. They've killed so many species and you have easy depression.

>>16471734
Do you meditate OP? I came across this style of thinking on my own through meditating. I think it's really important for one to come to these realizations themselves.
One thing that helped me a lot was changing the way I viewed people. Typically I would look for flaws in other people, looking for their weaknesses and then judge them silently in my head, which was not a way to live.
I then changed my way of thinking to "what's something great about this person?". This has honestly changed my life so much. I look for the best in people now, not the worst. I don't judge anyone on my daily walks anymore, and, instead of disliking certain behaviors my friends have, I really appreciate the good things about them. Meditation is powerful. I urge everyone to practice it and keep at it. I really feel like I have stopped suffering.

bump

>>16471856
>>16471743
>>16471734
I honestly and wholeheartedly wish you all the well in the world, anon, and that you may never face depression again

Thank you OP. I'm too unfocused to read all of this now but I'm going to do so later. Just saying thanks incase the thread gets archived first.

>>16476705
no you don't you're a nazi

>>16476632
fuck off you're a bitch psychopathic nazi. You're a passive aggressive lynch mob. Your studies have been a failure, you're an evil disgusting nazi who compensates by being passive aggressive and stupidly unaware of your own actions. You are a nazi and this turbo jew has been tortured for years and I don't have your shitty useless juvenile problems and I've survived 2 lynching attempts and still study every God damned day while being brainwashed. You have uselessly shitty problem and you kill species and animals like a psychopath while playing woe is me. Your specie will become extinct because half of you are incompetently retarded and the other half are pervertedly interested in everything good and bad and you cross over all the time. You're a disgusting useless evil nazi

load yourself with meaningful responsibilities. you are welcome

it looks like you have done very well, op, congrats on your hard work and thoughtfullness.

>i rarely ever read a book

you should get a copy of meditations by aurelius. you will find a lot of similarities to your thinking here. it is his diary, much like yours. you can read any section at random so it's something you can casually read but has a lot of worthwhile wisdom.

you also seem interested in patterns of thought and how they serve us and can be manipulated by us and others, so you might like to research NLP and CBT.

Comfy thread

>>16471734
>I have a good, secure job, great friends and family.

>>16471734
I am glade life is good for you anon, and I hope it remains that way.

>>16477558
thanks anon for suggestion, I will definitely look it up.