Day 45 - Know Thyself, Correct Thyself

6. The realisation that for me to be able to change myself in thought, word and deed to the most effective living being that I can be and become – I first have to ‘know thyself’ and so commit myself to investigate, introspect and understand how I became who I am today, to prepare the road before me into self creation of a responsible, aware, self honest and trustworthy person for myself and so for all

I have come to realise that being consumed by emotion can be nothing but destructive in any given situation. I see that the emotion makes me spit out my backchat and points that I have observed to “attack” the other people in the situation and this is obviously hurtful to the other being and can possibly lead to the end of any relationship.

I practically apply this principle by observing myself in every moment and when I go into reaction I investigate the trigger of this reaction and clear it so that if and when similar situations arise I stop the reaction from coming up so as to see the situation clearly and direct from a stable standing instead of an emotional one.

In situations where I go into reaction I base my reaction off of my perception of certain points including the other person’s body language, their tonality, their words (or what I choose to hear) and my previous experiences.

For example:

When a person asks me for a tool and I tell them where to find it, then realise that I should ask them what they need it for. I ask them why they need it and the answer they give reveals to me that it is something that will damage the tool as it is not designed for it, so I explain to them that it will be damaged and that they should use something else and their reply is that they won’t – even though they do not need to use a tool like that and there are other tools that they could use makes me angry as they assume that they know better than me instead of hearing me on what I am trying to show them. I used to go straight into explosive anger but have now been able to stop myself from becoming angry and as such, I am able to show them that the tool is not right for the job without attacking them for wanting to be superior to me.

I have come to realise that I go into 3 “stages” of anger:

Stage 1: The anger sparks in me and I start trying to suppress it instead of directing myself to stop.

Stage 2: The anger starts to show by me starting to argue with the other person instead of explain the point clearly and hearing what the other person has to say.

Stage 3: I snap and go into what I call the “kicking and screaming” anger and start shouting to prove myself right.

I have been able to – using the practical application of this principle – successfully stop myself from allowing the anger to take hold and push me into stage 2 and 3 more and more as these types of situations come up.

I have realised that I have allowed myself to be consumed by anger more frequently than not and I have realised that it is simply a matter of stopping myself from allowing the anger to take over and directing the point from a stable point whilst considering the other persons position and not following my perception of who is “right or wrong”.

Day 13 - Group Gaming

A few years ago me and some of my friends used to get together on weekends to play some networked games. In the beginning of our gaming “phase” we would start gaming on Saturday mornings all day and sometimes all through the night into Sunday mornings, and during these times we would take short bathroom breaks and food or coffee breaks, but otherwise we would be playing whatever we would want to play. It was a lot of fun, to say the least.

After a while of doing this, most of the people in our little group started getting tired of doing it so often and so long so they would leave earlier or not be really willing to play, which made me feel disappointed and also feel as if it was my fault as I would always try to push them to play longer or try to have as much fun as we used to have, in other words I tried my best to force enjoyment and socialization upon the people around me which I only realise now would probably have contributed to them being more reluctant to play as I would act like an annoying little child which would’ve frustrated them.

I was the youngest of the group so I was seen and treated like a child which I did not enjoy but I endured it because I saw the gaming point as the only way to connect and form relationships with the people in the group – as they were a lot older than me - so I tried to hold onto the point of group gaming for as long as I could and through doing that I inadvertently contributed to the eventual discontinuance of the regular gaming events and it turned into a fairly rare occasion. I would still play with one or two of them at a time but it wouldn’t have the same energy and feeling of a group playing a game and enjoying themselves together.

To Be Continued…

Day 12 - Beauty and the Nerd

A few years ago I went with some friends to a local computer networking game at a big warehouse where there was at least two hundred guys playing games like Quake 3, Warcraft 3 and others. The one person in our group was a pretty girl so as we entered the warehouse almost all the guys looked up at her with looks of pure amazement on their faces like – OH MY GOD It’s a GIRL!!!!!! Lol . It’s interesting that just because of the fact that you enjoy computers or computer games you believe that you cannot even speak to a girl or consider a relationship.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that because I enjoy computers I cannot have a relationship
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear having computers be in the way of a relationship
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that, since society displays anyone with computer knowledge as a socially unacceptable person known as a nerd
I forgive myself for acceptable and allowing myself to fear being seen or defined as a nerd
I forgive myself for acceptable and allowing myself to define anyone with computer knowledge and gaming skills as a nerd
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry at myself for allowing myself to be defined as a nerd
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that being a nerd is a “bad” thing
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that if I am seen as a nerd it will “damage my reputation” and limit my communication with people as they will see and define me as less than them
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being seen as less than anyone else
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being unable to get my point across since people won’t be able to take me seriously as they have defined me as less than by being a nerd
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear not being taken seriously when speaking to people
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see and define a nerd as less than me
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I need to be seen as more than “just a nerd”
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear damaging my reputation – which is in fact my ego
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear damaging my ego
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that people that see me as a nerd will be able to take advantage of me because I will become a nerd to please them as an alternative to damaging my ego and idea of self-importance
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that if I do not live up to the expectations of being a nerd to the people that already see me as a nerd, that I will be less than a nerd which will mean to me that I am not even a nerd to them so then I will have nothing and be useless
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that if I have no self-belief of importance at any level that I will be nothing and that I will be useless
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being seen as nothing
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being seen as useless at any level
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself for believing that if I have no use that I will have no purpose and will have no way of assisting others which will therefore make me completely redundant and expendable
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being seen as redundant and expendable
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being defined as purposeless
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear having no way to prove how useful I am
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear having people be disappointed in me
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to project my fear onto others so that I can use them as an excuse to hide from facing the real point which is that fact that I perceive myself as useless
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing to see and define myself as useless
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being seen as useless
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear losing my idea/believe of self-importance
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe the idea that I am important
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that without the secure belief of self-importance

When and as I see myself entering the nerd character I stop, breathe and I realise that I am going into the self-programmed definition of being a nerd and thus limiting who I am, how I see myself, what I can do and who I can be. I commit myself to stop defining myself as the self-programmed, self-defined definition of being a nerd just because I have knowledge about computers and I commit myself to stop defining others as nerds just because they have knowledge about computers

When and as I see myself going into the fear of losing self-importance I stop, breathe and I realise that this is just me trying to defend my self-proclaimed definition of honour. I commit myself to stop defining my self-importance in terms of how other people see me and to simply apply my skills in a way that is best for all