Stop letting circumstances dictate behavior

This is a habit and it needs to be destroyed!

It’s very easy for me to for example think that: Well, today I feel a little bit down, so I’ll just binge out on snacks and watch a movie or two. Instead of doing what I initially planned to do.

It’s not as easy as just deciding to change a habit (duh!). 

If I remember it correctly, it takes 21 days to actually change a habit and another 24 (45 in total) to make the change permanent in the way that it feels natural. 

But even though I cannot just snap my fingers and I’ve formed a more desirable habit, it’s not as if I have no control over myself either. What I’ve realized is that, as with so many things, this starts in my head. I set an intention and then I convince myself to break the intention. It’s not a question of giving in to an uncontrollable urge. It can be that too. But most of the time, I start rationalizing breaking my initial intention, in ways such as in the example above.

How am I going to accomplish anything if I choose the lower option when stuff happen. Stuff always happen. 

I think that the binge-out-and-watch-movies example is a good one. Because it illustrates a bigger, core-habit. The one of letting circumstances dictate my behavior. One thing that I realized right now, is that this habit also makes me look for excuses to break my intentions. I had actually not thought of this until now. But if there is a “reward” for a certain type of behavior, I will unconsciously start looking for what can bring me that reward. 

One thing that probably is necessary, is to broaden my perspective with regard to my choices. I probably cannot always follow my schedule when I feel too much resistance. It’s probably a good thing to have a certain flexibility, unless I just want to bang my head against the wall. But that doesn’t mean that there is nothing productive that I can do. Changing the habit might means that I cannot go for the easy, comfortable option. But it does not have to mean that I have to push through whatever tedious task I have in front of me either.

Barcodes, QR codes and the number of the beast

QR codes is an extension of barcodes. Have you ever wondered what numbers the three longer numbers on the barcodes stand for? Probably not. It’s not something that we normally think of. But compare them with the other numbers and see if you can find the answer.

Now, think of the fact that you need a QR-code to prove that you’ve taken the thing that will grant you access to a bunch of stuff in society and that the Bible warns about a mark of the beast that people will not be able to buy or sell without in the end times. Am I being paranoid and conspiratorial? Maybe, but…

Inside other people. Part 2

I can sit and talk to a person, who is someone completely different from whom I am perceiving. In a sense, this is always so, since I’m only perceiving a small part of the person, and this small part is in turn shaped by how the person interacts with me, unless the person is one of the few who is the same with everyone he or she talks to. 

But it’s more than that. The person in front of me might be a complete actor. I know that I’ve sometimes gotten this feeling about a person.

The more I think about this, the more staggering it becomes.

Inside other people. Part 1

This is so obvious and many might think that I’m an idiot for not really thinking about this until maybe a couple of years ago. Let me explain what I mean by this. Of course, throughout my life, I’ve many times pondered what someone else might be thinking of, whether it concerned me, something- or someone else. I’ve even engaged in vain fantasies about being admired by others. I still do sometimes, even though I try to stop myself when my thoughts wander in that direction. 

What am I talking about then? I’m talking about consciously thinking of the fact that we only have access to what’s inside our own heads. We don’t even have direct access to reality. Only our senses’ interpretation of it and our thoughts and feelings about it. 

Intentions, awareness and resistance

Set intentions, don’t try to force them and observe how you feel about the steps you decide to take towards realizing the intentions.

This is a formula that I am going to try and follow. If my beliefs are correct, I will, if possible, alter my course somehow, every time that I encounter resistance. And this will eventually lead me to my goals, if my goals are truly my own.

Life shouldn't be hard. Part 2

Imagine where I would have been today, if I in the past hadn’t welcomed anyone into my life, lived many years for instant gratifications, did not push people that were good for me away, hadn’t taken drugs in a harmful way, hadn’t engaged in promiscuous sexual behavior, hadn’t lied, hadn’t pushed down and ignored my negative emotions, hadn’t eaten a bunch of crappy food, had been more loving and forgiving towards those around me, studied harder, planned better for the future and in general thought more of the consequences of my actions. Etcetera.

Writing this down, I come to think of that most of these decisions are not either-or decisions. They are to a large degree things that I could have just not done. 

The conclusion: Life is easy. I’m the one making it hard.

There is something strange happening in the world. Part 2

So, what can we do? I believe that the only thing that we can do, is trust that God wants what’s best for us, and do our best to be our best, towards ourselves, each other and the world. I cannot believe in some final judgment where the saved go to heaven and sinners go to hell. There is no way for me to reconcile this with the idea of a good God. Not if God also is omnipotent. I don’t understand how an omnipotent, good god could make/let even the worst person in the history of mankind suffer forever. But I’m open to the possibility that there is something I don’t understand here.

What I do feel is important right now however, is that we do our best to be our best. Not because of some reward or punishment down the road, but because this is what God calls us to do. Because it is what is going to give us the best possible outcomes, and because there might be some hard lessons in store for us otherwise. 

I wish to interject that being our best, does not mean to be flawless. On the contrary, being our best often means to accept and embrace ourselves as flawed creatures fully. To allow ourselves to make mistakes and accept that we sometimes act against our own interests. Because this is part of being human.

So maybe, just maybe, this is not a time where God will let fire rain down on earth in a literal sense, where the saved will get to live in paradise, while sinners will face eternal suffering. Maybe this is rather the time where we really start seeing that living for our own selfish interests and instant gratifications will do nothing good for anyone. Maybe this is a time where we finally see our madness and confusion for what they are and choose to let go of them. 

And I don’t know. Maybe in the end it is as simple as letting go of fear and embracing love. But maybe things are a little more complicated than people make them as well. Maybe we don’t have to be afraid of anything. But maybe, when it comes to certain things that we need to let go of, we will find a few things that are rather difficult to do so with. Maybe things that we have made parts of our identity and that we are very defensive about. I know that this has been the case for me. And it took som pretty deep soul searching to see these things and how they affected my life and ultimately who I was as a person.

There is something strange happening in the world. Part 1

In New Age circles there is talk about “The Ascension Process”. In more biblical contexts, people are talking about “the apocalypse”, “armageddon” or “the end-times”. 

Personally, I find labels like this one problematic, since labels bring with them certain ideas and expectations, exclude others, brings some to the forefront and others to the back. 

A very common human trait seems to be that we want to know. And we don’t just want to know. We want to belong to the group that knows something that the others do not. This is of course one of the many ways that the ego tricks us and I don’t think that we can say “I don’t know” enough these days.

But I find it interesting to look at the ideas of the Ascension Process and The Apocalypse together. Because both of them have some merit. 

On the one hand, we have a huge amount of people reporting strange things happening with them, that seem to point to some magnificent revelation of us being much more than we seem, when we perceive the world through our physical bodies with our physical senses. I’m one of those people.

On the other hand, we have enough biblical end-times prophecies coming true that I believe it warrants at least enough concern, that we cannot just brush it off lightly. We of course have the verse from Matthew that says “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars.” We also have several places in the Bible, where it is talked about how people are going to be in the end-times. One usch place is Timothy 3:2-4: “People will be selfish, greedy, boastful, and conceited; they will be insulting, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, and irreligious; ³ they will be unkind, merciless, slanderers, violent, and fierce; they will hate the good; ⁴ they will be treacherous, reckless, and swollen with pride; they will love pleasure rather than God.”

I’m not saying this to condemn anyone. I don’t think people are this way because they are bad. And these are all traits that I myself wrestle with. And… I’m actually going to write something completely different here than I thought. I honestly don’t think that these traits are more prevalent today than in Jesus’ times. It’s just that we recognize them as something bad today and we actually have a bigger chance of catching a glimpse of who we really are today than in ancient times. So this could actually be a prophecy that is unequivocally positive throughout. People are as they’ve always been, but now they have a chance to see it and recognize it as something that doesn’t make either themselves or anyone else happy. 

I guess that I believe that we can’t just condemn everything that belong to the category of New Age as bad or evil, because I’ve seen how this stuff works and how it is helping me to become a better person. Besides, what has been crammed into this labe is everything from letting go of negative emotional energy, to tarot cards and astrology, to channeling and contact with spirit guides.  

Life shouldn't be hard. Part 1

I just realized something. I’ve made so many bad decisions in my life, that I don’t know where to begin. And sure, everything in my life isn’t great. But I’m pretty happy with how things are in general. I have a wife that I love, a job that I like, I make okay money, I know a bunch of interesting stuff, my body works as it should with only some minor back problem that are slowly getting better and I, mostly, fill my spare time with things that feel engaging and meaningful.

The conclusion: Life is easy. I’m the one making it hard.

What is "self-talk"? Part 4

The thing is that when it comes to self-talk, it can take the shape of a dialogue rather than a monologue. It doesn’t have to. But it can. I believe it should. Because the negative voice inside ourselves does not have to have the only say. It can be challenged. And what I am beginning to realize, is that often we have a choice. A choice between bringing ourselves down or up. Between talking to ourselves in a condemning or forgiving way. Between showing compassion or hardness towards ourselves. Between trusting and distrusting ourselves and our abilities. 

And how we talk to ourselves may determine how we feel inside and whether we succeed or fail.