Dear xenopustex:

I see your point about finances and dating, and you driving the same car means to me you indeed don’t like to show off and maybe you are not very materialistic, maybe a bit frugal, I don’t know. Be the person you are, according to the values you hold dear. What I suggested when mentioning the attraction to lots of women is that it is reality. In real life you are possessing a big attraction to a lot of women. If you didn’t think much about this in the past, it is something to think about and be aware of. I always promote seeing more and more of what there is to see, of reality.

Regarding your last comment about it being refreshing to see somebody with a sense of direction, you are referring to the 27 year old? If so, and her being so attractive, why… this is a reason to ask her for a coffee date or a brunch date in an outdoors coffee house or restaurant on a relaxed Saturday or Sunday, isn’t it? In the late morning/ day time (something casual, less intimidating than the more suggestive of a date at night time)?

anita

Dear xenopustex:

Your comment about having a “happiness problem” makes me think of something I read and agree with, don’t remember the exact words, something like: we are not born to be happy; we are born to survive. What this means to me is the fact that indeed, every living thing in nature is there to keep living, at least until adequate reproduction. Animals are not born to be happy but to survive and reproduce. Having evolved from animals, and reproduction no longer a must (thanks to our brain thinking), still, we are not born to be happy.

Being happy, or mental well being is a great benefit and very desirable of course. But the reason we are not happy, and most people are not happy at any one time, it seems to me, is because we had to do something to survive and that something does not make us happy, but has kept us alive, surviving.

For example, and I will be guessing because I don’t have the facts of your childhood, only that you were raised by your grandparents and your mother worked and lived a distance away, your mother is living with you and makes negative comments regularly. You were not close to either her or your father (who intended to disinherit you later). That’s all I know, if I got these few details right. So I will be guessing (the following is therefore fiction, but let me know if anything happens to be true):

Living with your grandparents, they instilled in you a strong value of being industrious, of working hard and you took on that value, working hard, going through law school, and spending countless hours, most of your life in your legal career. Your grandparents also talked to you about honesty, integrity, honor… only they didn’t walk their talk in the relationships in their lives: maybe they gossiped, punished, bitter.. manipulated, hid the truth.

And so you focused on being industrious but the rest, you were confused about and wanted to simply avoid. If honesty, integrity and honor with people ends up in the dysfunctional relationship you saw between your grandparents, between them and their adult children, relatives, others… better stay away from all of that.

Later on, as a prosecutor, seeing the lack of honesty, integrity and honor day after day made your jaded self even more so.

And now you are indeed, pessimistic. That is an unhappy state of mind and you want to be happy, optimistic and so you want to learn how to be optimistic, how to be happy.

Let me know, if you will, if my fiction has a non fiction element for you, correct where needs to be corrected, elaborate if you’d like and we can take it further, in the search for happiness, perhaps.

anita

Dear xenopustex:

What kept you going all these years? What motivated you…?

anita

Dear xenopustex:

There is always a payoff, some satisfaction, some kind of pleasure that keeps people going. We can’t go on and on by “duty and obligation” alone. There must be someone patting us on the back for doing our duty and obligation; must be some good feeling. It is important to know what it is, to know what keeps you going and has kept you going all these years, so that you stop “scratching head” (title of your thread).

Here are my thoughts about what the payoff may be, what the good feeling may be:

You wrote how your grandfather made the .. not astute decision to turn down your great grand father financial offer and has lost an opportunity to have lots of money. I am thinking this story was probably repeated in that house, where you were a child growing up with your grandparents. You must have heard it again and again. And that made you feel strongly about you not making that mistake. Made you react with the resolution that you will make money and not waste it.

Earning money and not wasting it may be your motivation, seeing the numbers grow every month, that may be your good-feeling, the motivation- used to be my own. Not an uncommon motivation. Maybe, it is difficult for you to part from money, for the purpose of psychotherapy, or dating. Maybe your feeling of security, of well being is in making money and not wasting it, so much so, to such extent, that this motivation is keeping you stuck, living ineffectively.

What do you think?

anita