Idler's guide to Happiness

This is what I am learning for myself. Maybe it can help you too.

Step 1: Define your identity, Identify your role.

Decide for yourself what Life's principles are. Whether it's the Golden Rule, a philosophy, a religion; consciously attempt to put words to what values you believe in and would like to hold. Write them down, and live to be true to them. Then list out responsibilities you feel you have to yourself or to those around you as well as any goals you have.

Ex: I have always felt a responsibility to those around me to be successful for their sake. To be full of happiness and time and ability to be able to support anyone around me who could use some happiness, some of my time, or some talent of mine. And so I have a responsibility to find an unbottomed happiness, availability of time and attention and finance, and a responsibility to develop talents for helping others. I feel a responsibility for my wife, my parents, my brothers and sisters, my friends, and the lonely or downtrodden.

Step 2: Identify how its going

Next, make a list of the work, activities, and hobbies you have; write down how you spend your time. Think about each one, think about why you engage in it, think about the effects and consequences for good and bad it may have on you, or the people around you. If any activities do not promote your Life Principles or do not support your perceived responsibilities, put them on the shelf for 2-4 wks and see what happens.

Ex: I listed one of my activities as Video Games, I listed Pros as: relaxation, creative discovery, appreciating the creative art of others. Cons: I have a tendency to become absorbed in a game to the exclusion of work, homework, and when I play too much I end up becoming short and snippy with others if they interrupt me, or until I can play again. I decided the Cons seriously outweighed the Pros.

Step 2: Discover how it might be

Fill any holes in your time with new activities of your choice that you've always wanted to try, or other obligations you may have been neglecting.

Ex: To fill the hole of relaxation I created, I decided to invest time in rest/meditation without any distraction. To fill the hole of creative discovery and appreciating the creative art of others, I decided to take up a hobby of learning about and making my own tabletop board game, which also has the Pro have creating opportunities aligned with my perceived responsibilities.


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This is something I've been developing for a few weeks now, and I've found myself trying to get back into my old activities (like video games) and bingeing my time on them, this has made identifying the consequences and pros/cons of these activities even easier to see in my life, as well as bringing me to a realization to my fixation on them, despite an increased negative perception of my investment in them.

This has turned this guide's practice into a conscious willpower struggle within myself that is quite interesting if not frustrating! =) The more I struggle against these kinds of time investments I realize how strong and pervasive my learned habits are, and how difficult it is to manage natural emotions and my developed subconscious.
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It is obvious to me now that I am not my 'natural' self. I am not an accumulation of culture and history and social context. I am not my family genetics and developed health conditions and american schooling. These are things that developed me without my conscious consent. I am not my emotions; a bodily and culturally taught reflex. I am not my learned coping mechanisms and behaviors. I am not my logic. I am not who the world tells me I am.

I am who I say I am. I will be identified by the behaviors and thoughts I chose to cultivate, and not those that have been cultivated within me. I am taking back who I am. I will prune out the parts me that detract from where I am going; keep the parts of me that support my goals and discard the rest.

Choose who you are. Choose where you are going.

I understand that your problems feel insurmountable. that it feels it would be better for you if you didnt exist.

But you can overcome.

Work hard and never give up. Life can be simple and even easy for you.

I have found inner strength when I follow the outlines I feel that God has given me when listening to His promptings and seeking to follow his commandments by working and wanting to live a life in diligent humility under the example of His Son Christ.

You can to. He is ready to help make you into that person you wish you could relinquish your struggles and be.

I know that He will do this for you, because I feel Him doing it for me, and I know that He loves you. We are both His children.

I feel inside me two pulls of direction in every avenue of my life. Two pulls of direction for different ways of life.

One is gentle and subtle and reserved and motivated to a humble strength in a gardening of my life.

The other is loud, fiery with emotions; wanting to pull and shove and sit and demand to be.

I believe that if I follow the way of reservation and a gardening of life and soul. If I listen to the subtle and gentle promptings in being and acting. I will be stepping into a quiet stream. A stream that touches every bank surrounding and flowing through a spiritual connection to what is and will be.

A small ship on the stream guided to the islands that are not separated or isolated, but encompassed. I will be granted the opportunity by the stream of what is to lovingly embrace the souls that inhabit this eternal round.

Stars in the night sky. Bright or thin, seemingly apart and yet forming infinite constellations.

And I will begin to see the connections.

This is my hope. And my aspiration for being what I term, a super hero.

Rebel

I want to rebel against competition
I want to rebel against entertainment
I want to rebel against seeking to be filled
I want to rebel against misunderstanding

I just want to be.

to be happy.

I want to live my life, and be good at it.

I think if I were to be the only judge in my life, for my life. I wouldn't be very kind to me.

To have been given so much and the way I have squandered it.

I have sought too often to live the way I want and it has only ever led me to a life I never did

I am giving it all up.

No more will I seek the things I have built my life around. Things that are not lasting.


I give up competition. entertainment. seeking to be filled. misunderstanding.

I will live a simple life.

And I will no longer fight.

I will rebel.

Seek Strength Through Faith in Christ

The sickness drains.

today is has frustrated plans.

Sadie had been rushing and getting primed for hours in preparation for our wedding invite photos.

finally arriving, all our outfits ready, I ask Mercedes about where we will be meeting our photographer.

Unable to listen to her answer, I broke back in. I have to find a bathroom NOW.

But we were in a residential area, there is no public facilities for miles.

But then I could not even wait for a toilet.

It was happening NOW.

I had not planned an emergency bag for this situation, so I grabbed my handkerchief and broke for the tree line.

before I could make it to a spot that was invisible from the street, it came.

flipping open my pants button and clip and zipper I went, but I didnt come out smelling like roses.

Sighing I come back down the hill. I saved what I could, at least my outer clothes were in clean order

but before I could finish getting myself completely together, the second wave hit.

I bolted to the tree line.

This time I wasnt able to save anything.

Naked and covered with my own excrement in the middle of the woods.

Luckily Sadie was there to put me back together.

Ive never had such a plan ruining emergency.

Ive never been so vulnerable.

Im tired and my dreams dance within reality.

My bath was cold, my first well fitting suit is corrupted, Crohns has let down myself and Mercedes, I have no control over it. I control my diet, I take the pills, I get the medicine. But I dont get relief.

I had a blessing that stated, "God is aware of my goals", I will find remission, I will find a path that eases my pains. My goals are weight gain, testimonial autobiographic graphic novels, and having the strength to bring it to my relationship.

I currently dont have the strength to be fun, after 4pm, I begin to drift in and out.
Im not able to dance with Mercedes like I used to, I have trouble bringing energy to our love.

Even at work, I begin to fade at 10am. only through willpower and mind and body techniques am I able to push through and accomplish my goals.

Im ready for a new season in my life.

God will raise me up.

The blessings He has given me will come to pass.

I must have Faith and believe.

Ambition

I have discovered my personal secret to happiness. Accepting work and putting off procrastination. Accepting trials and failure, and continuing to work.

For a long time I have desired to write and illustrate a graphic novel inspired by the reality I see. A world where every thing we think, do, and say is encouraged by supernatural forces of Good and Evil fighting an eternal war for our souls. The one to bring us to understanding and empowerment, and the other to blindness and despair.

A world where every thought and action is important, and eternally significant.

I have continually put off my project because it required a lot of effort and work to draw and write and think! How sad that feeling looks in writing.

But I am inspired again by personal revelation I have had reminding me of the Plan of Salvation.

I believe that my procrastination and lack of ambition is a struggle had by many and is a main tactic of Satan to destroy our society.

 I often find myself giving into desires to take it easy in my free time rather then working on such projects that I have desired to see realized for years. Letting myself drown to TV and movies or internet surfing. Of course rest is important, but I know if I really rested then I would have the energy to begin work on my hobbies in the next hour.

Satan encourages us to entertain ourselves for entertainments sake, to have fun and be happy. Just relax. To immerse ourselves in addicting and consuming activities. Giving us a half lie to tempt us with what we desire most: happiness, and encouraging us to find it in ways that will only constrain our real talents, and the real joys of personal satisfaction.

To overcome this pitfall one must set priorities and personal goals and then have the ambition to follow up and get to work on such projects you have always desired to undertake but have never been able to make real progress on. Art projects like mine, fitness and dietary goals, family goals, business goals, education goals, etc. Whatever calling you've been holding in your heart.

2 Nephi 2:29

Choose not eternal death, according to the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein, which giveth the spirit of the devil power to captivate, to bring you down to hell, that he may reign over you in his own kingdom.

2 Nephi 2:18

Because he (Satan) had fallen from heaven, and had become miserable forever, he sought also the misery of all mankind.

2 Nephi 2:25

Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.

D&C 58:27-28

27 Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness;

28 For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.

Thursday

"Too bad people don’t fall in love at the same pace, at the same time, for the same reasons, and it’s too bad that those emotions don’t move simultaneously. But each bit of madness moved at its own pace, one not dependent on the pace of anyone else. It wasn’t like tandem skydiving, where you were connected as you fell, where you were forced to fall at the same rate and use the same parachute. Falling in love is a solo act. I knew that, I just learned the hard way. You just jump and hope that your parachute will open. Sometimes, you look up and realize that you were falling by yourself, the object of your desire still on the plane, not interested in jumping and watching you descend into that scary place alone."


http://lifeisabeautifulstruggle.tumblr.com/

Love is beautiful. I admire my Heavenly Father more and more when I feel how trying the world can be, and how there is so much room for love to push my life. to grow my life.

"if you love someone thing, set it free.

if it comes back, its yours

if it doesnt come back, it never was"

-Richard Bach

We came through the veil, set free, for our love to be tried.

"because you cannot know yourself

or what youd really do

with all your power

what would you do?"

-The Flaming Lips

Here we are in life, learning who we are, learning what we will do with the power that we have. Will we use it for personal gain? for pleasure? to work? to play? to raise up those we love? will we bury our talents, or seek to increase them?

The gospel of Jesus Christ, the testimony given by God through the Holy Ghost, reveals to us the test of life. the plan of salvation, and how we can attain a fullness of joy. Without this revelation we are left to wonder our purpose, but with it the way is so much clearer.

If God revealed to you His existence, told you where to find His truth, how to have His word, how to feel His love, showed you how great His blessings were for you, and how sore any other path would leave you, would you leave everything you knew to follow Him?

Would you continue to put your time and effort into activities that you knew had no worth?

I ask this of myself every day. I have asked myself this every day since God did reveal his existence to me three years ago. I have left much behind, and there is more that I know must follow. But I will follow Him and continue to try as hard as I can.

Someone asked me if this was like running into a brick wall repeatedly, hitting the end of your will, falling down, getting back up and running again to the end of your rope, until you're bloody, raw, and quake at the thought of getting back up again.

It is indeed like this. I have run into the brick wall of addiction for years. but eventually the rope snaps, the bricks fall, and you find yourself on the other side. shaken, but standing. And the love you feel then, the gratitude you feel for your Heavenly Father is an awesome thing.