Notes to myself from Notes to Myself....

Sorry for the mixture of tangled thoughts into one... Will write in detail about each one in the future...

                                    Today ,NOW, I want to do things to be doing them,not to be doing something else. Don't want to live for,I want to live. The anxiety running through my life is the tension between what I should be and what I am. Anxiety doesn't come from thinking about the future but from wanting to control it. Nothing I see will have an meaning ultimately.Nothing will even mean tomorrow what it did today. My meaningfullness is here,today.”What do I want in life?” Here I assume a reason for living that is seperate from life. But maybe we are not moving in a direction any more than the world is. The belief that the events of my life are supposed to “add up” causes me to justify my past actions and plan against the future.My only sure reward can be in my actions,not from them.A career will form behind me.All I can do is let this day come to me in peace.All I can do now is take the step before me now and not fear repeating an effort or making a new one..

                                      The past is over and the over and the future is not yet,the desires must therfore be in and for the present.

                                       Possibly the greatest crime we commit against each other is this daily show of normality.I have countless little conversations with people and the impression they give is that they dont have problems.Even complainers present themselves as victims. They dont suggest they're participating. They're all right ; its the circumstances that are wrong.The implication is that having a problem is a strange and aviodable weakness.When I come in repeated contact of this facade of normality I begin to assume that I too deserve such a life, and I get annoyed with the present and look upon my difficulties as unjust.Most people believe that their greatest weakness is their greatest strength.They attack in others what they themselves do in a different form.

                                        Once I recognize that I am feeling the same feelings as someone else,yet I consciously choose not to carry them out,I free myself from the possibility,provided I can also recognize that this is no sacrifice.

                                        Battling myself over so hard about how I should feel that I didn't pause long enough to see how I feel.Its not we fear the place of darkness but that we don't think we are worth the effort to find the place of light. Unless I accept my faults, I will unquestionably doubt my virtues.

                                         Next time I want to be more honest and state that I do what I do because I want to do it.If I have to do it, I dont have to admit that I want to, or look at my motive for why I want to.

                                         What I want are words that reflect my heart,not my cleverness.Fear is based on the belief that I am safer not seeing.Awareness is the first step to freeing the mind. I must not only hear the fear out but question it closely as to the answer it is suggesting. I want to be aware of what others expect but not despotized by it. The way to be most helpful to others is for me to do the thing that right now would be most helpful to me.

                                           Wanting to do something is a desire,not a sentence. When I decide what I want,I translate my desire into a sentece and then follow the sentence; I take the desire out of my heart and put it into my ego. Asking myself, “ What should I do?” brings to mind my habitual answers to that question,it brings in what the voices from my past would want me to do, and it ignores the fact that there are probably no adequate words to describe where my heart is leading me this instant.

                                              I can get more directly at what I am feeling most deeply if I think I instead of you.

                                               A healthier approach would be to accept the desire and simply seek to learn its direction,seek to clarify it rather than judge it. Believing that my intellect alone must choose makes my body into an object and splits me.

                                              I have two ways of discovering the areas where I fail myself. The first is acknowledging the qualities in others that irritate me. The second is acknowledging the comments that have made me defensive.I look for ways to justify attacking back- never fully admitting my true motive.

Now that I know when I criticize another I am seeing my own fault,I like to be very honest and very specific in my criticism. After I get it straight how I think this fault works in someone else,I can then look at my own behavior with a surprising new clarity. Remain aware of ur defensiveness, but yet be careful not to push the other person to behave in a way that would justify my desire to attack..

                               Its such a chore to talk to him,Why is he such a drag? Versus this: I make such a chore for myself when I talk to him.How do I make it so hard? People liking me was a comment on me, but it was a comment on them.

                                I don't feel “I want”. I feel “I lack”.I decide “I want”. I must be more careful now before making the jump from “I feel” to “I must have.”What I didnt realize that I hated having to shield myself, the hard and unpleasant work of acting without acknowledging it. Now that I feel freer to let myself alone and allow others to like or dislike me as they choose,I have lost much of this aversion.

                                 I wish I could love what humanity has built just because humanity has built it.How do I get love? I have it. I must drop my definitions of love. Love is not saying things to people or smiling or doing good deeds. Love is love. Don't strive for love. Be it.....