Re: TGIF!!! (7 reasons why you will never do anything amazing with your life)
I appreciate your breakdown of his list and I find yours more acceptable. A few points don't ring true for me....
Lies -- Every person alive tells themselves lies; I don't believe you can tell yourself not to do it and really not do it. Thoughts run a muck. You can tell yourself not to believe everything your mind thinks, but that's a process not many people mature into because thoughts are constant. Our inner lies form our ego (and we'll often seek external input to match whatever lies we buy into) and sometimes it's difficult to distinguish which we're doing with our own minds.
Reality -- we only know reality as we perceive it at any given moment. And perception is fluid, ever changing (if you're alive and don't buy into your own opinions too often). This, I believe, is the beginning point of stifling ourselves & our power, if we buy into "reality is..."
Those in power -- if the most important people to you have over-inflated egos (i.e., a really strong, power flinging sense of self), they will often (if not constantly) steer you toward their goals masking it as helping you achieve your own. NO ONE is so altruistic in your life to keep their own egos out of anything they tell you. That's where intuition is most valuable. Anytime I feel I'm being intimidated, I immediately know I'm being manipulated away from my own intuition (because it's powerful). When you're following your own path, you know it's your path when many people are dismayed by it. If you're making many people around you (with their own sense of selves which predominately involve fearing & wanting) happy & comfortable, chances are great you're not following your life's highest path (I think I heard that recently in a sermon).
Life's tests -- I don't believe life is a test or one difficult to pass. All of life is learning (I don't see it as "failure/successes," but I used to). I'm into achieving a greater awareness and higher levels of consciousness & many people don't understand egos, certainly I didn't, until I read the following.....This excerpt, to me, is interesting reading...
[B]The Egoic Self[/B] ("Stillness Speaks" by Eckhart Tolle)
[I]In your dealings with people, can you detect subtle feelings of either superiority or inferiority toward them? You are looking at the ego, which lives through comparison.
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[I]Envy is a by-product of the ego, which feels diminished if something good happens to someone else, or someone has more, knows more, or can do more than you. [B]The ego's identity depends on comparison and feeds on more. It will grasp at anything. [/B][/I]
[I]Do you carry feelings of guilt about something you did-or failed to do-in the past? This much is certain: you acted according to your level of consciousness or rather unconsciousness at that time. If you had been more aware, more conscious, you would have acted differently.[/I][I]Guilt is another attempt by the ego to create an identity, a sense of self. To the ego, it doesn't matter whether that self is positive or negative. What you did or failed to do was a manifestation of unconsciousness-human unconsciousness. The ego, however, personalizes it and says, "I did that," and so you carry a mental image of yourself as "bad."[/I]
[I]Throughout history humans have inflicted countless violent, cruel, and hurtful acts on each other, and continue to do so. Are they all to be condemned; are they all guilty? Or are those acts simply expressions of unconsciousness, an evolutionary stage that we are now growing out of?[/I]Jesus' words, "Forgive them for they know not what they do," also apply to yourself.
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Built into the very structure of the egoic self is a need to oppose, resist, and exclude to maintain the sense of separateness on which its continued survival depends. So there is "me" against the "other," "us" against "them."
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[I]The ego needs to be in conflict with something or someone. That explains why you are looking for peace and joy and love but cannot tolerate them for very long. You say you want happiness but are addicted to your unhappiness.
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[I]Your unhappiness ultimately arises not from the circumstances of your life but from the conditioning of your mind.
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[I]Almost every ego contains at least an element of what we might call "victim identity." Some people have such a strong victim image of themselves that it becomes the central core of their ego. Resentment and grievances form an essential part of their sense of self.
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[I]Even if your grievances are completely "justified," you have constructed an identity for yourself that is much like a prison whose bars are made of thought forms. See what you are doing to yourself, or rather what your mind is doing to you. Feel the emotional attachment you have to your victim story and become aware of the compulsion to think or talk about it. Be there as the witnessing presence of your inner state. You don't have to do anything. With the awareness comes transformation and freedom.
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[I]Complaining and reactivity are favorite mind patterns through which the ego strengthens itself. For many people, a large part of their mental-emotional activity consists of complaining and reacting against this or that. By doing this, you make others or a situation "wrong" and yourself "right." [B]Through being "right," you feel superior, and through feeling superior, you strengthen your sense of self. In reality, of course, you are only strengthening the illusion of ego.[/B]
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[I]Can you observe those patterns within yourself and recognize the complaining voice in your head for what it is?
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The egoic sense of self needs conflict because its sense of a separate identity gets strengthened in fighting against this or that, and in demonstrating that this is "me" and that is not "me."
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[I]Not infrequently, tribes, nations, and religions derive a strengthened sense of collective identity from having enemies. Who would the "believer" be without the "unbeliever?"[/I][I] ....................What are the stories, the fictions from which you derive your sense of self?[/I]
[I]When each thought absorbs your attention completely, it means you identify with the voice in your head. Thought then becomes invested with a sense of self. This is the ego, the mind-made "me." That mentally constructed self feels incomplete and precarious. That's why fearing and wanting are its predominant emotions and motivating forces.[/I]
[I]When you recognize that there is a voice in your head that pretends to be you and never stops speaking, you are awakening out of your unconscious identification with the stream of thinking. When you notice that voice, you realize that who you are is not the voice-the thinker-but the one who is aware of it.
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[I]Knowing yourself as the awareness behind the voice is freedom.[/I]