Being Happy Isn't Hard, Letting Go Of The Idea That You Need To Be Happy Is.

Taxes?

Their power grows

While you're right, entirely right, the thing is It shouldn't even be a 'i have to do x' in the first place. You should always get a reason for doing what it is that you are doing, otherwise dicipline will just be associated with negative feelings, and by that point it's back to square one of why we even go through the motions. The ironic exception is training dicipline itself, for which tasks that are inherently unnecessary are great.

You gotta want to do it, or failing that, at least convince yourself the task has meaning (If you're good enough at the skill of self-convincing, "getting the task done" can be meaning enough, too). Personally I just don't aknowledge the feeling of "I don't want to''. "I don't wanna go buy groceries" "Ah that's alright do it anyways"

So I guess what I really mean isn't that you can't recognise your own wish not to do something, but instead that you recognise it and just do the task instead of spending that expensive mental energy convincing yourself you HAVE to do it for your or someone elses sake.

Still, getting a free reason to want to do your tasks are a great thing, and is a boon you should cherish while you have it.

"How do you do, fellow alligators"

Moral duty.

"I do not believe in God, I believe in humans." This is usually what I say when people ask me if I'm religious, and there is meaning behind it. Religion is many things, but it is not neccesarry for humans. Most organised religions make a great deal out of the idea that we need to be good to each other, usually with the promise of a blissful heaving and/or the threat of a miserable hell. I do not believe such a sentiment, but moreover...

I do not believe we need a reason to be good.

Stoicism is sometimes described as 'positive nihilism' and that really shines here. I do not believe there will be consequences for our actions. I do not believe there needs to be. Because our actions will be judged, and are judged, by ourselves. And while there may be a heaven and hell, I do know for sure that I have a life, right now, so trying to make THAT a good experience is definitely worth it.

We have a moral duty to do good. To do our best. This moral duty transends.... absoloutely jack squat. This moral duty is one that we owe to ourselves, the 'promise' being that we can die at peace with our life choices, and the 'threat' being that we die with regrets. Personally, the thought of dying with regrets isn't even that scary, though I do go to great lengths to avoid it. But I know that if tomorrow was my last day, I would not have any real regrets (though my early passing would be regrettable).

Does this mean religion is total bs? No, not really. (i pressed post like the moron i am, editing in the remainder of the post now)

But Kant said "Do good things because they are good" and that is all you need to get started. If you find yourself asking why you are doing this, tell yourself: "because its good" and then do it.

Finally, we are about to go to some confusing places. See, the reason you do good things for good reasons is actually... inherently egotistical. You do it to feel good about yourself! This is a kinda nihilistic thing to think about, but I'll tell you how I rationally came to terms with it: A person is ONE person. So all that truly matters to that person is them being happy, satisfied, loved. Now, when you do what's best for society, you give up happiness but fortify your satisfaction and love, both recieved and given. How does any of it make sense? Well, here it is, straight from Niels Overgaard himself: "You are both the most and the least important person in the universe." What this means is that every action you take should, at the end of the day, go towards making you a happier, more complete person, but that you should recognise that being humble and treating yourself like the least important person in any social situation. This has some complex social implications which I won't go over right now, but just understand that you love yourself because litterally everything you do, you do to be either a happier, or a more complete person, however difficult that may be to believe.

With that, I love you all - Anthony

Remember to smile!

You are only as happy as you think you are!

Smile often, it makes you happier.

That is all.

Why do the tumblr gods punish me with such awful posts

The amount of ED bullshit I'm being recommended is insane. I've spent between 20 and 40 minutes trying to block the posts and DNI the tags. HOW MANY do you assholes have? Seriously, these people are the scum of the earth, trying to drag as many people down with them as they destroy their body for their own immedeate pleasure. It's disgusting, not to mention tragic. All those young girls and boys who will never grow up right, who will silently be avoided by those who are well adjousted and only end up with other victims or abusers who see their vulnerabilities. I see people trying to help in the comments, but they get called slurs and threatened. So deep goes the echo chamber, that, according to social theory, it classifies as a cult.

Please, alorithm, give me ANYTHING but this shit. Give me Beatles fanart, stuck up philosophical quotes, people complaining about their lives, just not this radicalisation of young teens which I am powerless to stop.

And, god forbid, should you have Anorexia or any other ED's and be reading this... Please stop. Your body doesn't hate you, it's litterally doing everything in it's power to keep you alive, and while it's good to take control over your life, this isn't the way to go. If you are struggling, talk to someone you trust, or a stranger, but don't believe those who shame/encourage your fasting. They don't care about you or your life. They just need you to be doing worse than them so that they can push themselves onwards and tell themselves they are getting sloppy.

That is all.

3 am motivation

Guys, do NOT get motivated at 3 am!!! (gone wrong)

Yeah so basically, it's a little tragic to think about. Why do we get it? I can't say I know with certainty, but it's either that we run out of distractions and our brain thinks it's finally time to be productive (which is sad in the way watching a puppy try to play with a cat that's not having it, is sad). The other reason is that our brain doesn't want to send the motivation until it feels confident enough that you won't actually do it, so it does it late at night when you want to sleep. In this case, that's just a serious lack of self-dicipline where it feels uncomfortable to do something productive due the Feeling of Resistance.

I do think it's the first one, which sadly is the less straightforward one of the two to solve. I don't know exactly how to overcome it, but I do know that I have overcome it myself, so it is possible. Make your own conclusions on this one, I'll just explain how productive work usually goes for me (when it goes right)

I get something assigned. I mentally make a note of it, when it's due, and how long it will take.

Later on, I decide when to do it. This may be immedeately after the first step but not always.

5-15 minutes before it's time to do the task, I pull it up and ready myself for it. This basically just means reading up on it, remembering what it's about, and letting my subconsious work a little.

Here's where I usually get that motivation. While I technically don't have to get started yet, I will often pick up on a good way to start, and decide to go immedeately. The entire feeling of resistance is eliminated and the work ends up not being that difficult.

When the time for the task has come, I clear my mind and start working. If I don't know how to get started (meaning that no sudden burst of flow and motivation hit me), I write something terrible until it gets me on a road of productivity, and then I fix the start later.

For the record: This does not always work. At all. Litterally today, as I was writing this, I should have been getting started on an assignment.

So yeah probably don't believe anything you hear me say, the hell do I know.

Love, as always, from Anthony

You don't deserve your empathy.

This is a pretty provokative statement. But you don't deserve to feel bad. It is not a privilege you deserve. And the sooner you accept it, the faster you'll be capable of properly take responsibility of yourslef and your life. It may be the case that your parents are fucked up and/or idiots, that you have had to experience and endure some messed up shit, that your health isn't perfect, or that you wish you looked or felt a different way. But nobody promised you that life would be easy. And if they did, then I'm sorry, but they lied. There is only degrees of imperfect lives. Your life is exactly your specific degree of imperfect. Danish poet Dan Turéll said that "it's not easy to be anyone". The only certain part of human existence is misery and death, according to buddhism. That's why you shouldn't view the adversity that will (and it will) be forced upon you in life, and the same goes for hardships and mistakes. That's what life is. If you wanted to have a life without adversity, go play Homescapes. I can feel bad for you, if you perhaps grew up in a home with alcohol abuse and mistreatment, or if you have experiences severe disease or death in your close family at a young age. I am aware that some people get a shitty hand in the great card game of life. And it's never a childs fault, no matter what they are subject to. But that doesn't mean you are going to benefit in any particular way from feeling bad for yourself. At least not for long. Maybe you're capable of taking an objective look at recent events and say "yeah, that was total horseshit", or "yeah, that was millions to one, how unlucky". That you should feel bad for yourself, just like you would for any other person who went through those events. But once you've recognised that, leave it. Because if you keep it around, it'll weaken you up. The road to pitytown is a slippery slope, and once you're there, you let go of your responsibilities.

Because they are sure as shit looking at you.

Eyes of the forest. Aspen trees