I'm nearly 60, & have survived 3 waves of rather massive brain-injury ( autism in the 1970's, literal brain-decimation in the 1980's leaving me much-of-the-time catatonic, for years, & a 1000-ish cudgel-concussions trying to break will-to-live from my brain, in the last 1.5-decades ), & 7+ years of outright homelessness.

Frame-of-reference is everything.

We need to compare what we're enduring with that the people in Ukraine, Palestine, or Sudan are enduring, & see that our whole ego-"world" is insignificant in the planet's scheme of things.

& that so long as our G-D-given potential still lives, then our life can make BIG difference, to someone, somewhere, somehow, somewhen.

You aren't gone, yet, are you?

If you aren't gone yet, then you can still make-good in some measure, and evil will try to prevent that.

Partly, what I'm saying is that we have to have our souls/continuums, and NOT our egos, be our frame-of-reference

( my soul is still unconscious: so it got itself caught in a life-abuse-toy "life", to "prove that that isn't real",

.. the same as some addicts obliterate their lives to "prove that addiction is the LORD and life isn't able to compete"..

I have wanted to embed a hammer in my soul's face, for many years, now, to CAUSE it learning/growing-up.

But the ONLY way to cause a continuum/soul to experience actual-learning, is to earn that underlying-change, that eternity-scale learning, through enduring decades of life:

which means that the ONLY weapon I've got is forcing growing-up into my unconscious-mind, as completely as I can, as long as I can, & then ..

.. hopefully that soul won't do the same thing to yet-another-life, in the future:

universe recycles souls: reincarnation.

I used to be Catholic, until I understood that the soul caught in "me" had lived multiple lives, before, & I'd experienced memories of some of those.

Since the Abrahamic religions disallow that, .. they .. don't have the objective-truth that I need.

Since the only religions which DID match the evidence were Buddhism & Hinduism, I was forced to make my worldview fit what the evidence backed.

Since I can't stand religiosity as an "answer", that ruled-out Hinduism.

Etc.

IOW, Empiricism is exactly what I found that Buddha/AwakeSoul Gautama did, & what he provided us with.

I'm NOT pushing that; I'm ONLY giving context/frame-of-reference, for my reasoning, logic, & reactions.

IF one doesn't understand WHY someone does something, then .. how the hell can one understand what their intended-consequences are, right? )

Anyways, in my perspective, either I keep living, keep enduring all the retarded shit that my life is, until I succeed in breaking the wrongness that my soul/continuum enforced on this-life,

XOR .. I'll have accommodated it .. onto future-lives, too.

Since I don't want them being subject to the same retarded abuse-life I got caught in, therefore I have obligation to make the soul/continuum that obliterated my-life's worth LEARN AND GROW UP, even if it costs me, ongoingly.

: )

So, as much as I may hate my life, much of the time,

& as much as I may spend much of my life wishing I had the guts to kill me ..

.. I'm glad I can keep making-difference, making-progress, even though it doesn't look like much of anything ( health problems are all I manage to fight, & I study & learn, so there's that ) .. & the future will be better, not for me, but for whomever this soul/continuum gets caught-in, it'll be better than it would have been, because I'm grinding-through the retarded karma that this-life got caught in.

( it is possible to experience little karma in a life, or much karma, or too-much.

There is a Buddhist prayer which goes something like:

"please let my-life experience as much of the adversity of my karma, as I can sanely bear, so that future-lives are released from that, for them to experience better fortune"

The root-guru of the Christians, benJoseph, gave the SAME concept, when he told his followers to face into their karma, to "take up their cross".

To remap it into normal-life, an old trucker told me, once:

"the difference between young truckers & old truckers is simple:

young truckers believe everything will always work in their favor, so they party until the last-possible-second, & then go do the work, but that often means they fail, when things go wrong, & they blew their opportunity.

Old truckers, however, KNOW that shit goes wrong, so they MOVE, as soon as they can, & get progressing on the work, and if things go wrong, they probably still get the work done on time.

Work 1st, party later.

The young don't understand that."

Anyways, it's true at all scales:

your life isn't finished, yet, so you CAN make-good on more of your potential than you have been doing, right?

The fact that you didn't understand what opportunity you were wasting .. so?

the past's gone.

That's only history, now.

You ONLY can change NOW & your-future: the past's gone.

So, do you value your potential?

Enough to make it real?

Enough to make it survive?

Enough to cause it to happen?

Face into your karma, & make it happen.

Feel free to deem everything I say to be worthless, or nonvalid: many do: it's normal.

But this I've found to be true, & maybe somebody, somewhere, will understand, & have harmonious-with-this perspective, & value the boost they get from seeing it plain in text.

: )

Salut, Namaste, & Kaizen, youngster: keep keeping getting-up.

PS:

People who fail a zillion times learn more than the privilege-idiots who have advantage handed to them on silver plates.

The stuff I've learned, that normal-life people never encounter, because they've never had to spend decades making their central-nervous-system approximate normal-level human function..

..unconscious-mind is much more herdbeast-like than people understand.

You have to be simple, plain, direct, forceful, & persistent with getting it working in right-direction..

& if your unconscious-mind is solidly-programmed to sabotage your-life, then you got work to do.

Addicts are in that boat, btw.

Find the support you need, & do it.

In both addictions & phobias, I think getting a good hypnotherapist to get into one's unconscious-mind and ASK IT WHY it is doing what it is doing, might well be the most-effective-treatment available: unconscious-mind doesn't generally understand that it can be seen to be doing what it's doing!

Books, videos, friends, particular kinds of music, whatever, a garden, ANYthing: it's the results that matter.

Stack-odds, & get making progress in owning YOUR life, because the unconsciousness-addiction/passtimes which have owned your-life, thus-far, seem to have robbed you, badly.

& why pretend that that's somehow "your" fault!

You were born in infant into this world, right?

How the hell could that be a "fair" rigging?

You're waking-up to responsibility-for-your-life NOW, so .. accept that many never even get that far!!

I once worked with a guy who told me that in Iran, in a rally ( for the Shah? ), he suddenly woke-up, & .. didn't understand why he was in this group, shouting slogans, & shaking his fist with everybody, against .. whatever.

He left.

He'd been born into programming, & woke-up in a rather life-threatening regime.

You are waking-up, to whatever degree, now.

Get pragmatic.

Get objective.

Invest in what you value.

KNOW, sort-out, work-out, what you value.

Discover what REALLY is in you, what YOU mean.

That likely will take decades, but too many never do it, only "getting along", instead.

& giving-up is what evil wants you to do:

keep getting-up again, just as a means of getting in evil's face.

shrug

maybe something in this'll be good for you, I don't know.

It's here for anyone who wants it, though.

_ /\ _