Caveat

There is a caveat to the previous posting that I am compelled to share. The idea of frustration and appreciation isn't quite as cut and dry as I portrayed it to be. It would seem as though I am saying don't ever get frustrated. The fact is that there isn't much benefit to suppressing emotions. In fact, the opposite could be true.

There is healthy frustration. It is even the kind of frustration that could lead to disgust. But it is central to the idea that I expressed when I am talking about how there is no 'you' in you. We should be frustrated and disgusted by the fact that we keep insisting that there is such a thing as an "I." Because it is that very misperception that leads us to all of the feelings that we generally don't want. Getting frustrated at the fact you get frustrated is generating energy that will help you bust through that kind of paradigm.

But the only healthy frustration is directed inward at the feelings that you don't want and the beliefs that have left you in an unsatisfying life. This inward frustration is NOT like self-blame. The self-defeating thoughts like, "Oh I shouldn't have done that" or "oh no maybe I said the wrong thing" aren't going to get you anywhere. I am talking about getting utterly fed up with the fact that things in the outside world have some sort of power to influence your emotional state of mind. It boggles my mind that I spent the majority of my life simply accepting the fact that an idiot on the road could shake my state of mind. That I would continue to allow a pattern of jealousy to take control of my feelings. That I would worry about the most inane things or that I would even worry at all. These are the types of things you should be sick of. Let them disgust you, rather than getting hung up on the external event that gives you the bad feeling. Look at the feeling itself and decide how you are fed up with it. Reupholster the interior of yourself.

Trying in vain to change the exterior environment by giving attitude or acting prideful will keep you on a hamster wheel rolling towards the nowhere destination of "I."