Yes I feel you understood my point exactly 🙂 I is just something to meditate on.

First, I know how you feel. I have felt the same way. There is a solution, being of service to others.

Try this, close your eyes and take a deep breath, as you slowly let it out think of the life you are feeling right now. At this very moment there is nothing to fear, nothing to be disappointed in, all that stuff is in the future, not right now. However, right now is all we have, the only time and place we can ever do anything. This moment is a blessing. Feel the Gratitude! Gratitude feels wonderful, it feels your soul, it is limitless. We always have the breath of life right now to feel grateful for, therefore this feeling is available to us always.

I carefully read every word you wrote looking for indications of your service to others (taking care of others, doing anything that did not provide you a direct reward). The fact that I did not see anything does not mean that you don’t do anything, but that it is not in your perspective, or the way you view your life.

This “pain” that you are feeling is a good thing, because now you are willing to change.

I spent most of my day yesterday volunteering for organizations, driving people around, calling family members offering to perform tasks. Yes I have done these things before but reluctantly, eager to get them over quickly. Now I pause several times each day and am thankful for this moment, at that time, and the freedom for Fear and Ego (self deprecation is just another for of Ego not the opposite that one would think it is).

A person such as me has to go deep into service and self-sacrifice to avoid the worry and depression that my Ego causes.

This woke me up a bit. I am 45 years old now but I used to be 23 flunking out of college (I went back and graduated at 34). So I sat here wondering what to say to my former self. I came up with this, “The only thing I don’t regret is what I did to help people”.

Just my $0.02…

When we imagine experiences and conversations with people it feels real to our mind, as if these things actually happened. Do this for years and we build a significant amount of memories. We then project into the future and make those projections based on “past experiences” that were not real.

I believe we do this because it allows our mind to “escape”. It is like taking a drug. But, it is not a “relationship”. That would require acceptance and giving, none of which is happening when we are imagining in our head.

Take heart that when we do see the person they cannot live up to our expectations, and when anything does not meet our expectations we become angry.

My advice is to perform the Buddhist teachings to be present. It will be painful to lose the “imagination drug” but the “drug” is blocking us off to the sunlight of the spirit.

Just the other day I was sitting there at my comfortable desk at the well paying job that I am not really happy at and said to myself “Why are you not happy and feeling joy right now?” I ran though the reason why I didn’t, things so trivial I can’t even recount them a week later. Even then I knew that *I* was blocking myself off to happiness. I mean really I have it so good, I am not seeing the blessings because I spend so much time feeling sorry for myself.

There is no end to my demands and expectations of life, they will never be satisfied because no mater how many blessings I have I only ask for “more”.

So I have been writing the gratitude list every morning for a few weeks now. It has helped tremendously.

Matt,

I just wanted to add one more thing on the forgiveness. I had not talked to my son’s mother in awhile because my son is now 19 and there is no longer child support ect. Well she is now dying of Cancer and her call was to see if I was going to fly out there when she passes to help my son with the burial (of course I will – I think the call was really about one parent saying goodbye to the other). We talked about other things but as we talked I realized that I am so happy I forgave her because, I have also been able to forgive myself for “may part”. Otherwise the guilt would be overwhelming for me right now. Guild like resentments is very painful. I can’t deal with guilt until I forgive myself. I can’t forgive myself without forgiving her first.

And we wonder why our heads get filled with all this suffering and we go round and round?

Anyway I just wanted to share that.

Take Care!

Matt, Thank you for the feedback on our feedback. We only want to help. We help ourselves by looking at your situation through our own experience.

I just want to add that I have ALWAYS been able to find forgiveness when I looked at “my side”. It is a well known suggestion that you pray for the person you feel you need to forgive (because you are in pain from the resentment) but you can’t. It is usually suggested that you give it 1-2 weeks daily. During this time you will usually see “your part” (however small).

As soon as you can see your part, you can see “Yes when I felt threatened I ran away/yelled/justified lying ect”. This small thread of forgiveness is all that is needed to start forgiving.

In the end we are all “humans” going through a “human experience”. This person who has hurt you so much is a human just like you and me who is full of fear and plenty of mistakes.

I want to know joy, I cannot when my heart is blocked by resentments and anger (anger is always some expectation that wasn’t met… she was suppose to love me forever and not ‘change’).