After my personal transformation last year, I knew that I would probably discover some personal development needs that should be handled to optimally capitalize upon my hedonistic rebel identity & lifestyle going forward. This year, 2011, has been a big year for identifying these needs. So I’ve prepared a to do list for strategically improving my highly customized self & quality of life…
Instant Reality Reset
This is where I pretend that I just entered into my life for the first time again. It’s almost like I pretend my life starts over or I have amnesia. The key is that all obligations, disputes with people, worries in my life, and just about anything else bad disappears from my conscious mind. I can then focus on what inspires me & turns me on, which moves me forward much more effectively than focusing on the negative. It only lasts for a brief amount of time, but that’s all it needs to in order to propel me through challenging mindsets throughout my day. It is like pressing the reset button on a video game console. I need to start remembering to use this tactic much more often.
Dumbass Identity Strategy
I first mentioned this strategy in this note. I’m now questioning whether I actually want to build this deep into myself, because it might very well enable my bad subconscious belief that people don’t like me. However, this dumbass strategy can be effective, so I’ll probably still want to use it at times in social settings where I am consciously maintaining my self-worth while doing it. Basically, I proclaim how much of a dumbass I am when people reject me for doing what I want to do, then just continue doing it anyway. It effectively allows me to not be near as phased by the rejection, because I am no longer trying to protect myself from it, so it removes the emotional charge. I need to see how this integrates with my “People Really Do Like Me” point and consider ramping this one up in the future.
Story of Meaning
I first mentioned this distinction in this note. Our happiness derived from what we do in our lives is multiplied by the meaning that we give it, big or small, positive or negative. Conventional wisdom tells us to seek out the truth. Well, seeking out the truth is good for finding the truth, not maximal happiness. There isn’t much happiness within the practical real world truth, trust me. So, I want to invent & anchor a story of meaning that is optimized for my personal happiness. This might very well be something crazy, like that I live in a dream world or a simulated reality or that I’m a famous rockstar. If I really took it seriously, then it could enhance almost every moment of my life for greater happiness. The main barrier is making it feel legit inside my mind. My mechanistic thinking doesn’t help with that, but I’m up for the challenge. I need to keep searching for the right story of meaning that will be both believable & emotionally effective.
Age of Personal Exploration
I first mentioned this vision/prediction for humanity in this post. The Age of Personal Exploration is when it becomes normal for people to continually explore their inner identity & psychology and openly live based on what naturally makes them happy. Currently, mainstream society motivates most people to not explore & ultimately repress much of their true selves through rejection. However, society is opening up and becoming more liberated over time. I’m convinced that this age is coming and I am choosing to largely live as if it is already here. Ultimately, I just want to be my raw natural self and connect with people who gel with that. Rejection from people for being me should be looked at as a disqualification of those people for my inner circle and a savings of time to not have to test them more extensively. So, I need to get even more raw & open with my identity, especially with some controversial aspects that really light me up with happiness.
People Really Do Like Me
A close friend just recently helped me discover this extremely powerful underlying belief that I have long had. Since age 12, I have been walking around with a pervasive belief in my subconscious that “people don’t like me”. It is still going on to this day and has really been a fundamental killer to my connection with others and my personal happiness. It might even be a core part of why I reject human connection that is not deep. When I meet a new person, my mind is broadcasting that they are not going to like me, virtually all the time. When I interact with people who know me & generally like me, my mind is broadcasting that they wouldn’t like me if they really knew me deeply, virtually all the time. It one of the biggest limits to my life’s happiness. I don’t have a solid strategy for overcoming this deep seeded subconscious belief, but I really need to work on this and beat it, now that I’m consciously aware of it existing. I need to flip it around to a pervasive belief that “people really do like me”. Maybe my “Story of Meaning” tool can help this.
Personal Relationship Marketing
Being a deep & alternative person, who craves deep connection through my unique identity & lifestyle, I’ve found it quite the challenge to find truly likeminded people who are game for my lifestyle. I know that plenty of likeminded people out there exist where there would be a mutually deep connection, but it is tough to find them. Also, I’m very partial towards visceral in-person connection. I don’t have the budget to continually jet set around the globe yet. I don’t have the budget to build my Viper Squad entourage yet either. I’m looking to move to a new place in the next few years, so I’m trying to figure out the most efficient & effective way to find & develop solid in-person relationships with people who truly fit my alternative identity & lifestyle. It really comes down to being a marketing problem for discovering channels & opportunities to find & connect with my uniquely niche kind of people. I need to continue working on this, since personal relationships are the #1 asset of my long-term personal happiness.
Free Form Hedonism
I first mentioned this distinction in this note. I naturally a very logical, mechanical, strategic thinker, so my mind loves to plan everything out and put everything into a box. However, when it comes to happiness, this makes one’s life ineffective at times. This is because it becomes predictable and one’s focus gets too narrowed to feel as free & appreciative as it should. So, instead of always strategically engineering my pursuits & actions in order to maximize my happiness, I’ve realized that I do need somewhat of a base of what I call “free form hedonism”. This is where I just go with the flow in my mind and casually pursue whatever desires I have in the moment. My performance might not always be as good, but my appreciation goes up and my mind is more free from judging & pressuring itself, which often helps yield more overall happiness. It allows for more “enchantment” to happen within me, which is something I want to cultivate more of, compared to always relying on dropping hedonistic bombs of pleasure. I need a lot more of this free form hedonism in my mindset & lifestyle.
Lean & Ready Based Philosophies
I used to be all about big achievement & forced achievement in my life, where I believed it was better if I put the pedal to the metal and built things big. This thinking was largely fueled by my past “change the world” and “significance” mindset. Now, I believe in taking a lean approach, where instead of building really big stuff to extract a portion out of what I want, I instead believe in niching down to pretty much only build exactly what I personally want. This is like the difference between mass brand marketing versus niche direct response marketing. Also, I’ve adopted a “ready” based philosophy about pursuing goals in my life, where if I don’t feel that I or the project is really ready to go smoothly & predictably succeed, then I usually will just hold off on pursuing it indefinitely. At this point, I’d rather stair step my way to a project being ready than to fight & force something that is likely to fail. There is still a part of my past nature that wants to build Rome in a day, so I need to keep working on accepting my lean & ready based philosophies of achieving what I want in life.
The Youthful Model of Judgment
I first mentioned this concept in this post. I realized that, typically, young people don’t indulge in judging other people’s character flaws like older adults do. I realized that young people more so just simply hedonistically judge others on a bottom-line basis of whether or not people are serving their pleasures & self-interest at any given moment. Typically, older adults engage in the business of other people’s character much more often and judge them based on that. I believe that the youthful hedonistic model of judgment is much more effective for aiding one’s real world happiness, compared to emotionally caring about other people’s character, since there will always be an abundance of character flaws to discover in others. Personally, I’ve been way too much in the business of judging other people based on their character. Instead, I now want to switch too the “youthful model of judgment” and almost entirely judge people moment to moment based on whether or not they are serving my pleasures & self-interest. Of course, I believe in Win/Win via Mutual Self-Interest and my inner circle & general intelligence is still there to protect me from truly bad people. However, I’ve found that judging people based on character is a happiness reducing path and young people kill their happiness much less by not concerning themselves much with the character flaws of others. I need to fully adopt this.
My Personal Problem with Aloofness
I first mentioned this distinction in this post. I very often hate it when a person I feel some connection with talks about how something is so important to their life, then goes and demonstrates that they don’t really care that much about it. This aloofness about what is important to people just pisses me off a lot of the time. However, I shouldn’t really care about it, in the same way that I shouldn’t care about character flaws of other people. In fact, selfishly, a part of me sees an opportunity to hedonistically influence people with this widespread aloofness present. If they really don’t care about their lives as much as they say, then I might as well get them onboard with what I want out life. Ideally, though, I enjoy it most when two or more strong, intelligent, personally developed people consciously choose to connect & enjoy in the same desires. However, this isn’t how much of humanity works. Anyway, bottom-line is that I need to not care about this fundamental aloofness in others for their lives. Instead, I just need to have fun connecting based on my pleasures & self-interest where it works out with other likeminded peeps.
Intellectual Reduction
I first mentioned this distinction in this note. Like how some girls need a breast reduction, I need a reduction of my intellectualizing. Now, as one of my core themes, I love being an intellectual and engaging in deep technical intellectual thinking. However, there is a problem with it, in that it negatively influences my overall mindset for all of my other core themes of sexuality, deep connection, eccentricity, hedonistic rebel, & creative self-expression. When desiring to indulge in the intellectual side of me, it is all good. However, when desiring to indulge in the other sides of me, my chronic intellectual thinking obsession often still lingers and reduces my capability to indulge in the mindset of these other sides of me. This means that my pleasure & happiness is reduced. So, that means that reducing the intellectual side of me, so that I can more fully indulge in the other sides of me, will yield more overall pleasure & happiness in my life experience. I’ve seen & felt a lot of evidence of this being true at different times, so if I can successfully reduce or potentially control my crazed intellectualizing, then the increased payoffs should predictably show up. I need to work on strategies & focuses for doing this.
So there you have it. This is my to do list for my own personal development. Most of these are going to take beyond 2011 to handle and I probably won’t get to working on all of them this year yet. But, I’m thinking about them and need to work on moving the ball forward.
Probably the biggest one that I’d like to solve is the “People Really Do Like Me” belief. I remember back before age 12 when I used to have this mindset and that is something that affects the core foundation of one’s happiness in life, so I want to give extra special attention to it.
To the future!!
