Disclaimer: I am much closer to an AFC than not. This is just something I wrote to remind myself when I am loosing track of my goals. I always felt like a moocher of this forum and now I want to contribute something to it. I welcome comments on it and the views I expressed in it. Till now they have been unilateral and I am sure more voice can only have a positive impact. These are only a few things I am doing, and I will add anything I feel like fits in here.
Alpha Male:
Who is an alpha male?
I think a person who is comfortable with themselves is inherently an alpha male. People have this innate idea that an alpha is the leader of the pack, he calls the shots, he influences the decisions of everyone around. I think this way of thinking is wrong. It would be a good description if we are living in packs like wolves or herds like elephants, but the truth is we don't. We live among people, and usually with people who are in similar situations and walks of life, so it is absurd to think that a person should be given the role of the leader. So, we have to stop thinking ourselves as part of a groups instead we should think of ourselves as leaders of our own personalities, minds and keep them under conscious control. Evolutionary, it might have helped to follow a leader in a pack or being in a pack for that matter, as it meant easier food and stuff, but now identifying yourself as part of a pack and trying to be the leader of the aforementioned pack is detrimental to your cause. So, instead of thinking of becoming a leader and control the situation, learn to control yourself in any situation. This will be much more easier and will make you feel like you are in control and at the same time you are not infringing on the will of others. The idea of self-validation through the ability to lead others is not ideal because there will be situations when you have to make the decisions for others, or when another "Alpha" comes in and you will be stuck in a battle that need not be fought and many others. If you validate your self through self-control you will not be influenced by these external variables, be happy and eventually have a happier and less stressful time.
Do you really have to pretend?
I always asked myself this question. Why pretend, when you can be. The quote that highly influenced this idea in me was from the book/movie Cloud Atlas by Dave Mitchell: "Truth is singular Its "versions" are mistruths". So, when you are pretending for the sake of achieving a certain distinction, you are not being truthful. You are just being a version of the truth and at the end of the day that still is a "mistruth" as it differs from the singular truth. I am not saying that you should be sulking for ever just because that is what you did, instead I am saying that you should change the singular truth and not perpetuate the mistruth. For example, think of when you are texting a girl, to not seem desperate you probably waited for a while and then texted back. Now think of it like this, was that necessary? What if instead of actually waiting you were indeed busy with something productive? Do something, and if you have nothing else to do just meditate even that is more interesting than simple waiting a while to not "seem" desperate. Actually become an interesting person, actually employ yourself in enlightening tasks, read a book and if you feel like what you are doing is menial and not interesting, stop doing it as it clearly is not worth it. So, stop thinking about the tips and tricks that you keep hearing, instead just become the mistruth that you aim to perpetuate and make that the singular truth.
How to control yourself?
Control. This is something that I always had a problem with. I was never in control of myself. I am always greatly influenced by things around me. I realized that this needed to stop. So, I made a bunch of rules for myself to control various reactions of mine. I will list a few and hopefully it will be much more clear.
Sound: Our ears I feel are one of our worst enemies when trying to be in control. They waver out attention easily, as you can hear something for all sides of your body and anything you hear will invoke some kind of reaction within it. I understood that if I am to control my reactions, I need to control my ears. So, I started doing that, I can now consciously direct my ears towards only thing that I want them to hear. The exercise that helped me the most was lowering the volume of everything that I consume. I started with my car stereo. I always had to listen it at 20 to enjoy it, at least that is what I thought. I brought it down to 5 after slowly acclimating myself to lower and lower volumes. This way, I can focus my hearing and my consciousness is not clouded by mind-thrashing noise. I felt much more calmer by just doing that. It also helped me control my volume when I am speaking. It made me a more pleasant person to be with, as my loud voice was a big thing I had to control. Lowering my volume also helped me control my responses, it somehow allowed me to provide much more calculated responses and overall making me a much less obnoxious person among my peers.
Time: I was always in a hurry. I never knew why, I just knew that whatever I had to get done should be done as soon as possible. I needed to finish anything I was doing, even though I wasn't on a deadline or have anything more interesting planned after that. For, example I was in a hurry during sex. This has always prevented me from enjoying anything I was doing and sometimes made matters worse. Easiest and most dramatic instance was consuming hot coffee. It was common practice for me to burn my tongue every time I had coffee, because I had to drink it as fast as I can. Then I had an epiphany, I seldom was in a hurry to drink coffee. So, one day I sat down at the coffee shop in the morning and I sipped on my coffee after a minute and just sat there just enjoying the warm feeling. I think that was one of the best and most memorable moments in my life. I learnt the importance of feeling and how it can be influenced positively just by giving it some attention. After 10 minutes of coffee, even to this day, I can visualize the effects of coffee on me and it makes me feel really good. It just baffles me that, all the time I was drinking coffee I was never able to feel this, so it made me realize that it wasn't the caffeine that influenced my mood greatly, it was the acknowledgement of experience. Since that realization, I have been trying to do things slowly and trying to experience each and every feeling associated with and it has changed my life forever. I am now seldom making mistakes in anything I do and I feel exponentially accomplished than before and I did not loose a thing. So, give time to everything you do and you will enjoy any seemingly menial task.
Meditate: This is a tricky topic. I love doing it but I have to tell you to stop thinking of meditation as some kind of mystical phenomenon or practice. It isn't. It can be be but it isn't what it is about. Meditation, I believe, is just enjoying everything you do and acknowledging the control you have over your tasks. The aforementioned coffee example can be considered a type of meditation according to my views. Just take some time and focus on something, anything just to be able to relax your mind from all the worries that are useless and control it from wandering to menial troubles. There are few things in the world that require immense worry, so just sit down and relax. Just stop worrying. It know it doesn't make sense to tell a person that is worrying to just not to worry but that is exactly what needs to be done. Just stop worrying. Realize the importance of any worry you have and think about how much worse it could be and you will understand. A tool that has helped me is meditation, as it helped me realized what not worrying feels like and it is much more awesome. I am not going to teach you meditation here, that is something you have to figure out yourself, just know that mediation is just a tool to control your emotions and mind and it is one of the best things that you can do for yourself.
Write: This is why I am writing this. Just write. Write down anything you feel is remotely important. It helps greatly in self reflection, creativity and productiveness. One of the best ways is just to write everything that comes to your mind. Don't worry about the readers interpreting your words, just keep writing coherent sentences and you will realize that you have just written you feelings. It is therapeutic to tell someone, why not make that someone you? When you are writing and reading what you have written, you are telling yourself about your thoughts, your feelings and emotions. These might allow you to gain a lot more insight into what you are and what you are capable of. I believe a person is his own best therapist and writing is one of the best therapeutic session you could ever have. I will give you an example with something I wrote when I was glanced at this women. It makes little sense to me now but it made me feel awesome when I did write that. Of-course I did not even know her and I was just seeing her through a window, but this woman made me really happy. So, you see, anything you notice or feel can make you happy when you write it down. I don't know why but it works. Just try it out for yourself.
Quote:
A bright blue shirt and a bright red faux leather bag, that is what she was wearing when I first saw her. The bright colors steered my eyes towards her, but what made me stay was her beauty. The beauty that was the result of flowing locks of long coal black hair, flowing over her shoulder where her tank top hanged, showing just enough tan skin that shone in under the lights of the bar to tease the senses. The eyes, the eyes they were with her eye lashes fighting to be darker than her hair, batting as if to innocently invite anything or anyone lost in them. My eyes wanted to wander down but they could hardly move, such was the captivating power of her eyes. I had to look at what else she has to offer for my boyish brain would never agree with leaving a beautiful girl unscanned. Eventually my eyes did wander about, slowly cruising towards her perfect breasts, ones that were just the right size: not too big and not too small, just the right size and shape. I felt like they were not staying idly, instead they were staring back at me as if they were loving the attention they were getting, but I had to move my gaze. It crawled further down, until it reached the end of her tank top. Which was about three inches above her pants, providing a beautiful window to look at her lovely waist. The waist too, was staring back at me using its belly button as an all seeing eye, through that window left there as if to serve just that purpose. If there ever was a time, I wanted to stick my tongue in a crevice, it was it. My gaze lingered there for a little more time, it was again reluctant to move even at the prospect of a better object to gaze. Soon it did move, towards the legs that seemed to run for ever. Is it the velocity of my gaze slowed while staring at those beautiful, long and curve legs being hugged by her jeans? I did not know, but I did know that I was not irritated by the blatant illusion, it was instead feeding my curiosity to see the curves these legs were hiding behind them.
Food: This is seems redundant, but it is true, food has taught me a lot about life and how to deal with it. There are two ways food has influenced me.First, just like the coffee food allowed me enjoy something that I always took for granted. It had me realize one of the best feelings in the world, enjoying what you eat. It can be anything, the sweetest sweet to the bitterest thing, I loved tasting it. Try it out yourself, next time you eat just stop talking or thinking and just pay attention to your mouth and the explosion of feelings you are having in there. You will realize that you don't need some kind of special food to indulge yourself instead you just need to pay attention to anything you are eating.
The second way food influenced me was that it invoked in me a sense of adventure like never before. I know it is stupid, even childish but it is true. I used to be a picky eater and set unimportant boundaries on my palate. This made me feel like a tough person to please, but what I actually was just afraid of the unknown. I broke this habit and it made me realize that most things in life deserve at least a try. This is how I see it, what is the worst that can happen if I order the live eel, I might not like it but I can always to choose to not order it from the next time. So the same eel on the menu could be an experience I never had due to my discomfort or it could be something I would love. How will I ever know without trying it out first? So, cut down your inhibitions and try it out first. If you don't like what you are doing, their needn't be a second time, but you will know the reason for it.
CHAT