xangst – visions from a treadmill

real power is continuing on

do not give up

do not give in

do not stop

do not yield to evil

do not sacrifice yourself

do not follow bad thoughts

do not say bad thoughts

do not yield to bad people

the real power of life is to continue on in your life without giving in to bad things. stay on the right track. keep your tight grip on life. follow your strong good habits. follow your consistent good routine. keep getting out of bed. keep doing what you are supposed to do. do not give up your life when you still have life to live. this is real power. to stay in the fight of life. to not leave the ring until it is truly your time. if you can make it to the end with your honor intact – with your dignity intact – with your character intact – it will be then and only then when you have won the game of life. stay strong and stay in the game – do not yield to things that want to pull you out of the game. this is real power – staying the course no matter what.

the empty nest factor

this empty nest thing is very interesting. you spend 20 years raising kids to get ready for the world and then one day they are gone. you come home after dropping them off at college and the first thing that you do is cry like a baby. you cry because your life of the last 20 years has changed significantly – in what seems like an instant. it feels like a death in the family. the person is gone – time to clear out the food, the clothes, etc.

you devote so much of your time and energy into other people’s lives that it seems like a moment of shock when you don’t have to do that anymore. you suddenly realize that you have moved back into an earlier phase of your life – the life before kids. but this time you are 20-30 years older and you have become dependent on your dependents!

so what do you do when the tears dry up? many people keep crying and seem to go into mourning for some time. they can’t handle it – they want to have their old life back – when there were more people around the house – when life seemed more alive -when you were needed more by other people.

others jump for joy – freedom is finally here! – let’s go! let’s travel! let’s do whatever we want! we all eventually get to this feeling but sometimes it takes awhile. you have to reset your mind, you have to reset your habits, you have to reset your routines – and you have to get used to living with your spouse again – one on one.

at the end of the day, this is just another phase in life and like all phases – we must learn to adapt to the new phase. we must move forward and embrace this new empty nest phase. we must not look back – we must look forward and enjoy the life we have left.

20-40 years

once you hit 50 years old – that’s all you have left to live – 20-40 years if you are lucky. so think about life that way. think to yourself – “i have 20-40 years left in my life – and that’s it”

when you start to give a damn about what people think about you – think 20-40

when you start to care if you are not included in events, etc – think 20-40

when you have people that don’t reciprocate a friendship – think 20-40

when people don’t have time for you – think 20-40

when people don’t ask questions about your life – think 20-40

when people think they are better than you – think 20-40

when people show off – think 20-40

when people are rude to you – think 20-40

That’s it! 20-40 years left! so why do you give a shit about any of these things, when in 20-40 years, you will be dead!

in other words – do what makes you happy, do what makes your family happy, do whatever you want – and stop caring about anything else because in 20-40 years – you will be dead and the world will go on without you – and in a couple of generations, no one will know your name – live YOUR damn life the way you want to live it – and the sooner you figure this out, the sooner you will stop caring about things that don’t matter and you will stop worrying all the time – and you might actually do more with your life!

goodbye – nothing else to say here – the message is crystal clear!

time and human relationships

this is nothing new to the older generations but like everything – this is quite new to generations growing older.

which is – as we grow older, we start to care less about what others think or say – because we realize that our time on earth is running short and we can’t afford to waste anymore time

this then pushes us to react to people in a different way – a less tolerant way. we have always taken the tolerant path first -put with what we perceived to be people’s BS

but now as we grow older and start to care less and less – we shorten bad interactions and, in fact, end relationships altogether instead of staying nice and tolerant.

this leads to a list developing – of people that perhaps were once friends or acquaintances and now you have cut off

don’t be alarmed – this is normal – it goes hand in hand with the “i don’t care” mentality

if you don’t care and if time is running out – then you will move faster to judgment on human relationships – and a list of ex-friends will develop

accept this side effect to “i don’t care” and move on

the perceived nicest person in the world has a list – believe it

i don’t care – part 2

what does it mean to say “i don’t care”? it means actually not caring 100% about what other people are doing or saying or thinking. when you reach this state of not caring, then your mind is completely free. we talk about freedom and being free in the literal sense all of the time. democracies and societies are formed around the idea of physical freedom. we live for it and we die for it. without physical freedom, we can’t really move to the reality of mental freedom – which is saying “i don’t care”.

of course we care for our families and our close friends – that is natural and it doesn’t affect our mental state. i’m talking about caring for everyone else – for the people that don’t care about you -for the people that don’t give you a second thought – for the people that don’t care enough to ask you any questions about your life. these are the people that i am talking about – these are the people that we need to not care about. we need to not care about what they are doing – we need to not care about what they are thinking. this even goes for people that were more important in your life in the past but now seem not to care about you – let them go – let them all go.

but how do we not care -how do we reach a state of mind of not caring for the uncaring people. this is one of the great accomplishments in life – to reach 100% mental freedom. this doesn’t happen over night – this takes practice – this takes time – to reach this ultimate state of mind. a state of mind that gives your life back to you – that gives you a feeling of freedom and power.

the first step is recognizing this truth to a more powerful and free life. many don’t see it – but if you do see this path, then you must take it.

i don’t care – part 1

we must all reach this stage in life – where we say and believe “i don’t care” – but it is very hard to reach 100%. when we are young, we care about everything and everyone. we want everyone to like us. we want to go to every event – we want to be a part of everything. FOMO drives us crazy. we think that everyone is thinking about us – that they care about us – that they care about what we are doing. so we care about them – we think about them – we want to be with them or be like them. we think that we are special and that is why people should think and care about us.

this is especially true for people born in the last half of the 1900’s. society turned more towards the “me” movement – with the baby boomers opening up their minds – believing they were special and then pitching this concept to their kids – with future generations cementing this idea into the fabric of western society through the family interaction. now we have a fully immersed society that only thinks about me,me,me – and this is further enhanced with the internet and social media. so instead of evolving away from the “me” society and the “i don’t care” attitude – where we can free our minds to live our lives without extra mental stress – we instead see a society that has more mental illness and depression. these issues are a direct result of the “me” movement filled with self indulgence, self importance, and arrogance. this is why we see more lashing out by teens, more violence, more people taking medication, etc.

what do we do? how do we break this cycle? society, as a whole, cannot break the cycle, because the roots are not at the society level but more at the individual level – where it started. as individuals, we don’t rely on society change to live our own lives – we rely on our own experiences and thoughts to live our individual lives. so we must make change at the individual level.

the first step is saying “i don’t care”

saying “i don’t care” –
-frees your mind
-helps you live your own life
-gives you self power
-removes mental anguish
-provides more focus
-allows you to live in the moment
-allows you to focus on the real people in your life
-gives you a reason not to care about everyone and everything

Be patient – don’t push

Being patient and actively waiting is one of the hardest things to do. You want to confront things, you want to ask more questions, you want to insert yourself into situations to get a response from people.

Don’t push yourself into things – but wait patiently.

It is hard – but it helps you in the long run.

If people don’t ask you to be a part of something – do not insert yourself – let it go.

To be quiet sometimes, to be in the background, to not be involved in everything is a good thing. This will only come if you resist the knee-jerk reaction to jump into things.

Don’t make everything about you.

Realizations in your 50s

the 50s are very interesting. yeah, you are getting old and yeah, the body starts to break a bit. but, the realizations about life that come to your mind are awesome!

here they are –

realize that you will die soon (in the next 10-30 years)
realize that because you will die soon, you need to stop giving a shit about stupid things
definitely stop caring about what others think
definitely start cutting out people from your life that don’t care about you
definitely remove all arrogant people from your life immediately
definitely avoid all arrogant people
focus more on family
focus more on your real friends
see that most people are acquaintances only
don’t try to go back in time to deliberately revive old friendships
realize that all friendships have a time and a place in your life
not all friendships are meant to last a lifetime
realize that routine is good for you and helps keep you alive
live in the moment – look at nature and understand this concept
go and do things now
tell your loved ones that you love them
understand that people, including friends, might not want to be around you anymore – that’s ok – keep moving forward
listen closely to your gut – and follow it
look at each day as a blessing and a victory
not every day is going to be exciting – that is ok

everyone will not like you and you won’t like everyone

it can’t be explained in any easy way. it goes back to the saying – “it is what it is and it ain’t what it ain’t”. so here it goes –

when you are young, you want everyone to like you and you think everyone should like you. but you quickly find that some people don’t like you through bullying, etc.

at that point, you don’t think about it too much – it’s like – on one hand, these are my friends and on the other hand,these are people that i don’t really know so they are not my friends – and some pick on me for no apparent reason so they must not like me. this is all very straight forward.

as time goes on, you do acquire many friends through various stages of life – but many of these friends move on -some because you physically move away and others because they don’t like you anymore or you don’t like them anymore. this is harder to explain and you start to wonder – “maybe everyone doesn’t like me” – and you start to wonder am i an asshole or a jackass?

the short answer is simple – YES! (we can all be assholes or jackasses sometimes – accept this – we are human!)

the long answer explains it more and is the root of this entire concept – Yes, you can be a jackass or asshole to people that are your friends without even knowing it.

this is because the longer we are friends with someone, the more time we have to see parts of that person that we do not like. and sometimes, we get tired of dealing with these things that we have discovered that we don’t like about this person and we move on – putting them on the non-friend list.

and definitely vice-versa – they do the same to us – and this is why you are not going to like everyone and everyone is not going to like you.

bottomline – no one is perfect or will be seen as perfect in our eyes or their eyes – and we determine that life is way too short so we move on.

we need to accept this reality – and not get upset for too long – and move on.

2nd bottomline – move on and don’t get upset – and keep spending time with the people who have not reached the point of no return.

side note – with family – you can’t move on – so get used to the things that you do not like and accept them.

friends change and don’t change

we all change over time. we are the same person but we do change. friends change too. you have friends that you think will last forever but some don’t. in fact, most don’t go all the way. every day we all go through different experiences and we react to those experiences in different ways. we can’t always be the same person anymore – these experiences change us. they move us towards new people and away from longtime friends and even relatives. the effects of society on the individual is ongoing and everchanging. we try to maintain who we are or who we once were – but is a continuous conscious process to try and do that – and inevitably we form new ideas and opinions based on these new experiences that shape our mindset. what didn’t offend you 20 years ago now seems like an obvious problem or mistake. we are quicker to judge because we feel that time is running out.

we can’t dwell on things that don’t work anymore – like old friendships or past friendships. we have to keep moving forward for the sake of self preservation because that is all we have in the end – keeping the self preserved as long as possible or as long as we want. some friends fade away or an abrupt end occurs because of these changes going on. what can we do? try and keep the friendship going? yes, we can try. but in the end, the friend or relative is also going through change and they will decide to focus on moving forward as well.

we also have friends that keep in sync with you and the relationship never changes – these are the friends that you keep until the end.

you can’t think too deeply on why some friends stay and some friends go. the ones that stay with you know who you are and love who you are – and you know who they are and love who they are – conflict never arises once you reach a certain age – you just go together.

but others don’t change with you – they get jealous of you – they want to keep testing you to get a reaction or want to keep inserting challenges into the relationship to try and affect you in a negative way. for these situations, you must smile and move on.

self preservation is priority number one – we can’t dwell too long on things that aren’t working

it can be sad but what other choice do we have – we must move forward not backward