Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Philosophy Club

[Seetha E]

Surprisingly, life is simple. In answering these questions, the idea presented in #In It Together proves to be practical (many thanks to Ray for the question!).

[Alida Spies]

Hi Scott,

My question is about the following sentence in your book: If you were fully in their shoes, you would do exactly as they do, so there is nothing to forgive. Hughes, Eckhart Aurelius. In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All (p. 170). OnlineBookClub.org. Kindle Edition.

What exactly does "fully in their shoes" mean?

Kind Regards
Alida

[Jenna Padayachee]

Regarding parenting, what is your approach to raising your children in terms of realizing " The real you" in a world of information overload, influence, and delusion?
Do you perhaps give them your book at some point as reading material and provide support to the questions they raise, allowing them the liberty to make their own choices in terms of the 11 suggestions provided in the end?

Do you have a formula approach instead that is laid out in a manner of strategy for application based on their scientifically researched development phases?

Or is it something you approach moment to moment with conscious intuition?

As a parent myself, I have noted a lot of pressure ( derived from and/ or tradition) on how our children " should be." Sometimes, this arises from the schooling system, social clubs, or general interaction with life and circumstances. As an adult who has read your book, I suspect that perhaps there are ways to bring such awareness to my daughter at a young age with an approach I may not have considered ( note: I rely strongly on my intuition in terms of my parenting approach and I lean on some scientific and spiritual exploration as well).

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Regardless of what happens outside my control (i.e. regardless of what proverbial cards I happen to be dealt in my future), the criteria I will employ to decide how I want to and will move forward are the criteria explained and listed in detail in my book, "In It Together", namely the eleven numbered easy-to-follow suggestions at the end.
 

The question was meant to address how you would decide on addressing the physical aspects. I've read your book and I don't need to ask how you would deal with it mentally.

Hi, Alida Spies,


Thank you for your question!


I don't fully understand the dichotomy you are referencing or creating between physical and mental, at least not in this context, namely since you are using the word "decide".

Deciding is an inherently mental activity. So if you are asking 'how I would decide' about something or 'how I would make a decision', then you are inherently asking a question about an entirely mental activity.

The main criteria I use when making any decision are explained in detail in my book.

Namely, I won't decide to do anything that would contradict any of the teachings.

Presumably, everything has a mental and a physical component, and mostly they are really just two ways of describing the same thing. This is especially the case considering that we each live in a VR world created by our brain from inside a dark, quiet skull.

For example, if someone cuts me off in traffic and perhaps even bumps my car while they do it, causing a big dent and causing my head to snap back in a whiplash fashion, that is a physical description of a physical event. But my experience of it is entirely mental and fundamentally indistinguishable from a dream I would be having while sleeping at night. I could even be in The Matrix, where I am the only real driver, and the other driver and the cars don't exist but are just made-up aspects of that video-game-like Matrix world. If I talk about the pain from the whiplash and the fear and frustration of the event, that's all mental, but I'd still really be describing the same thing. It's not merely that parts of the event(s) are mental and a different part is physical; rather, it's generally the whole thing, and each part is simultaneously both. They are just two ways of describing the same thing. Even feelings like pain and fear and such can alternatively be described via the atoms and molecules and electrical waves moving around in my brain at a purely physical level.

However, if you ask, how will I decide on addressing and reacting to the physical aspects of that incident in my car? The answer is still that, primarily, I would as always, proceed by following the teachings of my book.

Will I hate the person who hit my car? Will I get out of my car and, in a rage-filled, resentful road rage incident, murder the man? No, because that would violate the teachings of my book.

Would the physical actions of my body correspond to those of someone who has consistent, unwavering inner peace and who practices unconditional forgiveness and unconditional love for everyone and everything? Yes. 

Would my actions be loving, forgiving, and graceful? Yes.

Pain is mental. Discomfort is mental. Fear is mental. Anger is mental. The fear of death and the desire for the body you see in the mirror to live longer are mental.

That doesn't mean they aren't also physical, as it's not a zero-sum game. They can be both completely mental and completely physical, because those are two ways of describing the same thing. 

Whether later today I (1) get diagnosed with severe cancer or (2) get in a car accident with an angry reckless driver or (3) experience neither of those things or (4) experience both of them, afterward I will follow the teachings of my book, which will likewise manifest in almost the exact same way regardless of which of those four things happens to me: 

I will happily drive home with inner peace, holding onto no resentment, hate, or unforgiveness towards anyone such as the driver, or anything such as cancer itself, or the inevitable human death that's coming for me soon, whether I get cancer or not. Regardless of which of those four things happens, I will hug my kids multiple times later today like it's my last, just as my book teaches.

Here is a quote from page 162 of my book:

One day when you tuck your beloved child into bed, it will be the last time you do, for one reason or another. Accepting that inevitable fact each time you tuck in the child—whether it later turns out to be the last or not—makes the moment so much sweeter and precious, like a one-of-a-kind collector item. Even if you have 100 times left to kiss and hug that child, or your beloved spouse, you gain so much by savoring each time like it was the last.

How would I address the physical aspects of getting into a car accident later today, or getting diagnosed with cancer later today, or neither of those things happening, or both of them happening? I would address it the same way, such as by hugging my kids repeatedly today as if each hug was going to be the last hug I ever get to have with them before one of us dies.

That is one of the teachings of my book. 

I would likewise follow the other teachings of my book, many of which are physical and generally all of which apply equally to responding to mental events and mental aspects of things versus physical events and physical aspects of things, especially considering the seeming difference between mental and physical is typically no different at all and they are just two ways of describing the same thing.

Perhaps the key lesson here in this post is this: Per the teachings of my book, I choose to not get caught up in, trapped by, or enslaved to karmic cycles. I don't let matters of happenstance or external events affect my overall behavior or mood much at all. I typically think of almost any reaction as being an overreaction when it comes to matters of happenstance or external events, such as getting diagnosed with cancer or encountering a reckless angry hate-filled driver on the road. 

Either way, I am going to hug my kids the same number of times tonight, each time like it's the last ever.

I'll still follow this happy peaceful teaching of mine:

My HUGE TIP for decision paralysis: If it's that hard to decide, it doesn't really matter.


When one follows the teachings of my book, nothing is hard. Nothing is difficult.

Things can be uncomfortable, expensive, time-consuming, scary, painful, or pleasantly challenging, like a game where you do your best and see if that, plus luck, lets you win the game.

When it comes to everything else, i.e. that which you don’t control, that you cannot change, and that isn’t a matter of your choice, it’s not something you are doing, and it’s not something you can do anything about. Changing what you cannot change or controlling what you cannot control would be impossible. Doing what you cannot do would be impossible.

Everything is either infinitely easy or impossible.

Nothing is hard. Nothing is difficult.


I can provide more specifics about what I would do in any given situation if I am provided more specifics about the hypothetical situation, namely what options are available.

But whatever it is, it will be infinitely easy for me to decide how to respond to it, if I can even be said to respond to it at all. Most things I either ignore, or just passively appreciate without external action. For most things, any reaction would be an overreaction, and any thinking about it would be overthinking. Life is like being at a huge store with infinite different things on the shelves that you could buy, and you only have a few dollars and can only buy a small handful at most. You have to invest $0 in most things. You can only think about and/or respond to and/or react to so very few things, so be very careful and stingy about which few things you choose to make one of those few things, because by saying yes to one, you say no to countless others that may be more worth your very limited time, very limited money, and very limited energy.

Whatever options or decisions are presented to me will either be extremely easy to make or I'll effectively just flip a coin to decide them, which is also super easy. So, either way, whatever I decide when given two or more options will vary depending on what those options are specifically and what the rest of the situation is specifically and in detail. But, regardless, it will be super easy, if not infinitely easy, for me to decide. The decision will be obvious, because if it isn't obvious with a little bit of research, then the obvious answer becomes that I will just flip a coin.

I don't believe in hard decisions or difficult choices. I don't think they really exist. 

Likewise, I don't believe in "hard work" or trying. I don't believe it even exists.

Once we let go of all those burdensome distracting illusions, we are left with grace.


Whatever cards I am dealt, the cancer card or otherwise, I will then proceed by playing my cards gracefully. I will then simply be graceful, both inside and out, both physically and mentally, both in outward behavior and willful thought.



With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

“Everything is either infinitely easy or impossible. Nothing is hard. Nothing is difficult.”.png (860.75 KiB) Viewed 49492 times

In addition to having authored his book, In It Together, Eckhart Aurelius Hughes (a.k.a. Scott) runs a mentoring program, with a free option, that guarantees success. Success is guaranteed for anyone who follows the program.

[Alida Spies]

Regardless of what happens outside my control (i.e. regardless of what proverbial cards I happen to be dealt in my future), the criteria I will employ to decide how I want to and will move forward are the criteria explained and listed in detail in my book, "In It Together", namely the eleven numbered easy-to-follow suggestions at the end.
 

The question was meant to address how you would decide on addressing the physical aspects. I've read your book and I don't need to ask how you would deal with it mentally.

Hi, Alida Spies,


Thank you for your question!


I don't fully understand the dichotomy you are referencing or creating between physical and mental, at least not in this context, namely since you are using the word "decide".

Deciding is an inherently mental activity. So if you are asking 'how I would decide' about something or 'how I would make a decision', then you are inherently asking a question about an entirely mental activity.

The main criteria I use when making any decision are explained in detail in my book.

Namely, I won't decide to do anything that would contradict any of the teachings.

Presumably, everything has a mental and a physical component, and mostly they are really just two ways of describing the same thing. This is especially the case considering that we each live in a VR world created by our brain from inside a dark, quiet skull.

For example, if someone cuts me off in traffic and perhaps even bumps my car while they do it, causing a big dent and causing my head to snap back in a whiplash fashion, that is a physical description of a physical event. But my experience of it is entirely mental and fundamentally indistinguishable from a dream I would be having while sleeping at night. I could even be in The Matrix, where I am the only real driver, and the other driver and the cars don't exist but are just made-up aspects of that video-game-like Matrix world. If I talk about the pain from the whiplash and the fear and frustration of the event, that's all mental, but I'd still really be describing the same thing. It's not merely that parts of the event(s) are mental and a different part is physical; rather, it's generally the whole thing, and each part is simultaneously both. They are just two ways of describing the same thing. Even feelings like pain and fear and such can alternatively be described via the atoms and molecules and electrical waves moving around in my brain at a purely physical level.

However, if you ask, how will I decide on addressing and reacting to the physical aspects of that incident in my car? The answer is still that, primarily, I would as always, proceed by following the teachings of my book.

Will I hate the person who hit my car? Will I get out of my car and, in a rage-filled, resentful road rage incident, murder the man? No, because that would violate the teachings of my book.

Would the physical actions of my body correspond to those of someone who has consistent, unwavering inner peace and who practices unconditional forgiveness and unconditional love for everyone and everything? Yes. 

Would my actions be loving, forgiving, and graceful? Yes.

Pain is mental. Discomfort is mental. Fear is mental. Anger is mental. The fear of death and the desire for the body you see in the mirror to live longer are mental.

That doesn't mean they aren't also physical, as it's not a zero-sum game. They can be both completely mental and completely physical, because those are two ways of describing the same thing. 

Whether later today I (1) get diagnosed with severe cancer or (2) get in a car accident with an angry reckless driver or (3) experience neither of those things or (4) experience both of them, afterward I will follow the teachings of my book, which will likewise manifest in almost the exact same way regardless of which of those four things happens to me: 

I will happily drive home with inner peace, holding onto no resentment, hate, or unforgiveness towards anyone such as the driver, or anything such as cancer itself, or the inevitable human death that's coming for me soon, whether I get cancer or not. Regardless of which of those four things happens, I will hug my kids multiple times later today like it's my last, just as my book teaches.

Here is a quote from page 162 of my book:

One day when you tuck your beloved child into bed, it will be the last time you do, for one reason or another. Accepting that inevitable fact each time you tuck in the child—whether it later turns out to be the last or not—makes the moment so much sweeter and precious, like a one-of-a-kind collector item. Even if you have 100 times left to kiss and hug that child, or your beloved spouse, you gain so much by savoring each time like it was the last.

How would I address the physical aspects of getting into a car accident later today, or getting diagnosed with cancer later today, or neither of those things happening, or both of them happening? I would address it the same way, such as by hugging my kids repeatedly today as if each hug was going to be the last hug I ever get to have with them before one of us dies.

That is one of the teachings of my book. 

I would likewise follow the other teachings of my book, many of which are physical and generally all of which apply equally to responding to mental events and mental aspects of things versus physical events and physical aspects of things, especially considering the seeming difference between mental and physical is typically no different at all and they are just two ways of describing the same thing.

Perhaps the key lesson here in this post is this: Per the teachings of my book, I choose to not get caught up in, trapped by, or enslaved to karmic cycles. I don't let matters of happenstance or external events affect my overall behavior or mood much at all. I typically think of almost any reaction as being an overreaction when it comes to matters of happenstance or external events, such as getting diagnosed with cancer or encountering a reckless angry hate-filled driver on the road. 

Either way, I am going to hug my kids the same number of times tonight, each time like it's the last ever.

I'll still follow this happy peaceful teaching of mine:

My HUGE TIP for decision paralysis: If it's that hard to decide, it doesn't really matter.


When one follows the teachings of my book, nothing is hard. Nothing is difficult.

Things can be uncomfortable, expensive, time-consuming, scary, painful, or pleasantly challenging, like a game where you do your best and see if that, plus luck, lets you win the game.

When it comes to everything else, i.e. that which you don’t control, that you cannot change, and that isn’t a matter of your choice, it’s not something you are doing, and it’s not something you can do anything about. Changing what you cannot change or controlling what you cannot control would be impossible. Doing what you cannot do would be impossible.

Everything is either infinitely easy or impossible.

Nothing is hard. Nothing is difficult.


I can provide more specifics about what I would do in any given situation if I am provided more specifics about the hypothetical situation, namely what options are available.

But whatever it is, it will be infinitely easy for me to decide how to respond to it, if I can even be said to respond to it at all. Most things I either ignore, or just passively appreciate without external action. For most things, any reaction would be an overreaction, and any thinking about it would be overthinking. Life is like being at a huge store with infinite different things on the shelves that you could buy, and you only have a few dollars and can only buy a small handful at most. You have to invest $0 in most things. You can only think about and/or respond to and/or react to so very few things, so be very careful and stingy about which few things you choose to make one of those few things, because by saying yes to one, you say no to countless others that may be more worth your very limited time, very limited money, and very limited energy.

Whatever options or decisions are presented to me will either be extremely easy to make or I'll effectively just flip a coin to decide them, which is also super easy. So, either way, whatever I decide when given two or more options will vary depending on what those options are specifically and what the rest of the situation is specifically and in detail. But, regardless, it will be super easy, if not infinitely easy, for me to decide. The decision will be obvious, because if it isn't obvious with a little bit of research, then the obvious answer becomes that I will just flip a coin.

I don't believe in hard decisions or difficult choices. I don't think they really exist. 

Likewise, I don't believe in "hard work" or trying. I don't believe it even exists.

Once we let go of all those burdensome distracting illusions, we are left with grace.


Whatever cards I am dealt, the cancer card or otherwise, I will then proceed by playing my cards gracefully. I will then simply be graceful, both inside and out, both physically and mentally, both in outward behavior and willful thought.



With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott




“Everything is either infinitely easy or impossible. Nothing is hard. Nothing is difficult.”.png




In addition to having authored his book, In It Together, Eckhart Aurelius Hughes (a.k.a. Scott) runs a mentoring program, with a free option, that guarantees success. Success is guaranteed for anyone who follows the program.

Hi Scott,

By physical aspects, I mean treatment (or not) of the disease that's ravaging your body. The decision is of course a mental action. Extreme cases are easy to decide, e.g. if the cancer is going to kill you within a month or two (unless a miracle happens), so ignore those for purposes of this discussion. There are many options, I can't list them all (I don't even know them all). It's the same with many life-threatening diseases, not just cancer. Some options will make you very ill but have a good chance (60% or more) of curing you, scientifically proven by the medical industry. Other options claim it will cure you and have no side effects, but there's no scientific proof of a cure, or that it won't harm you in some way. Some options involve only eating certain foods, but some foods can be poisonous, especially if consumed in high quantities. Others are based on vitamin/mineral supplements which can also poison your body if taken in high quantities.

You can't control whether you have cancer or not, but you can control how you are going to treat it. You may decide not to treat it. What else you do or don't do, may or may not be affected, depending on how your body is affected. So please focus only on the treatment and how you will decide on treatment. Perhaps you have some high-level criteria, e.g.:

1. I won't take anything that will make me feel ill (or more ill)
2. I don't trust the medical industry so won't consider their options
3. The opposite of 2: I trust the medical industry and will do what my specialist/doctor tells me is best

Does that clarify the question?

Kind regards
Alida

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

If you haven't already, you can sign up to be personally mentored by Scott "Eckhart Aurelius" Hughes at this link.

Hi Scott,

My question is about the following sentence in your book: If you were fully in their shoes, you would do exactly as they do, so there is nothing to forgive. Hughes, Eckhart Aurelius. In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All (p. 170). OnlineBookClub.org. Kindle Edition.

What exactly does "fully in their shoes" mean?

Kind Regards
Alida

Hi, Alida Spies,


Thank you for your question!


When I say "if you were fully in their shoes", I mean if you were in their body with their bodily feelings, urges, fears, temptations, and memories, and you were in the exact same situation that they were.
 
In other words, by "if you were fully in their shoes", I mean, "if (and when) you were (or are) wearing their figurative clothes, you would behave (and do) exactly as they do.
 
Accepting so-called others is really an extension of (i.e. a part of) accepting yourself.
 
To hate so-called others is really to hate yourself.
 
To resent so-called others is really to resent yourself.
 
Acceptance and forgiveness aren't something you do. It's something you don't do, namely, it's to not resent or hate aspects of reality that you don't control. It's like savings. It's like not spending money. It doesn't cost you anything to accept or forgive, but it costs you dearly and causes great misery for you to instead choose to spend any of your very limited time or energy on resentment and unforgiveness.
 
Unforgiveness is exhausting and miserable, and inherently based on false beliefs and self-deceiving illusions, such as the miserable illusions of 'they could have done differently' or "I/you would have done differently". No, it could not have happened differently. And, no, you would not have done differently than they did, and I would not have done differently than they did, which speaks to the fact that the difference between the real you, the real me, and the real them is also an illusion. We are one. Our spirits are identical, and to even call them spirits in the plural is a misleading misnomer.



With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

If you were fully in their shoes, you would do exactly as they do..jpg (309.06 KiB) Viewed 49413 times

In addition to having authored his book, In It Together, Eckhart Aurelius Hughes (a.k.a. Scott) runs a mentoring program, with a free option, that guarantees success. Success is guaranteed for anyone who follows the program.

[Alida Spies]

Hi Scott,

Thank you for your reply. I agree that it's exhausting and miserable to not forgive anyone. You are only stealing your own joy, the other person doesn't care whether you forgive them or not, sometimes doesn't even know they've done something that you think requires your forgiveness.

Kind regards
Alida

[Alida Spies]

Hi Scott, my question relates to this sentence in your book: Enabling is not kindness.

Hughes, Eckhart Aurelius. In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All (p. 69). OnlineBookClub.org. Kindle Edition.

Is all enabling bad? As an example, if you meet someone who can't read or write, and you enable the person to read and write, is that not good for both of you?

Kind regards
Alida

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

If you haven't already, you can sign up to be personally mentored by Scott "Eckhart Aurelius" Hughes at this link.

Regarding parenting, what is your approach to raising your children in terms of realizing " The real you" in a world of information overload, influence, and delusion?
Do you perhaps give them your book at some point as reading material and provide support to the questions they raise, allowing them the liberty to make their own choices in terms of the 11 suggestions provided in the end?

Do you have a formula approach instead that is laid out in a manner of strategy for application based on their scientifically researched development phases?

Or is it something you approach moment to moment with conscious intuition?

As a parent myself, I have noted a lot of pressure ( derived from and/ or tradition) on how our children " should be." Sometimes, this arises from the schooling system, social clubs, or general interaction with life and circumstances. As an adult who has read your book, I suspect that perhaps there are ways to bring such awareness to my daughter at a young age with an approach I may not have considered ( note: I rely strongly on my intuition in terms of my parenting approach and I lean on some scientific and spiritual exploration as well).

Hi, Jenna Padayachee,


Thank you for your question!


I have given each of my children a copy of my book, In It Together, to optionally read it if they so desire.
 
I know my daughter read at least some of it. In fact, here is a video of her reading it aloud to me.
 
However, anything I wrote in the book is likely something I have said to them in person repeatedly, if not in the same exact words then in similar words that mean the same exact thing.
 
But here is the most important thing to remember about parenting, in my opinion:
 
Kids learn from what you do, not what you say.
 
 
For example, if you tell your child to not eat chocolate and you spank him every time he eats chocolate, you don't teach him to not eat chocolate; you teach him to hit people and be violent. You teach him to try to control other people by threatening them with violence and then committing violence when they disobey.
 
The most important and influential aspect of teaching a kid to not do something (e.g. eat chocolate, lie, etc.) is to not do it yourself, and let them be very aware that you don't do it with open honest explanations about why you don't do it.
 
The most important and influential aspect of teaching a kid to do something is to do it yourself in front of them so they can see.
 
If you are a stinky person who almost never showers and almost never brushes your teeth, you will almost certainly raise children with equally poor hygiene.
 
If you are someone who overeats to the point of morbid obesity while your kids are young, they will almost certainly grow up to be dangerously overweight themselves, regardless of what you say.
 
If you are an alcoholic, gambling addict, sex addict, or drug addict when your kids are young, they will almost certainly grow up to be addicts too.
 
If you sexually and/or physically abuse them, they will almost certainly grow up to be abusers who similarly abuse their kids.
 
Even in the rare exceptional case where they do grow up to be one of those statistically few cycle-breakers we see in the world who don't follow in their parent's example, it won't be thanks to you or anything you did.
 
When it comes to raising kids, it's not about what you say; it's about what you do. It's not about what you tell them to do; it's about the example you are as a role model. They will repeat what you do, not follow what you say.
 
What you tell them to do, or what you order them to do, or what you threaten them with if they don't do it (e.g. spankings) is almost entirely irrelevant, at least in the long term.
 
What kind of example you set and what kind of role model you are is what has the biggest effect by far. It's almost the only thing that matters.
 
The best and only effective way to teach one's child to follow the 11 suggestions at the end of my book is by following them yourself.
 
The only effective way to teach one's child to have spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) is by having extreme self-discipline (a.k.a. spiritual freedom) yourself.
 
The only effective way to teach one's child to have consistent unwavering inner peace (a.k.a. consistent unwavering true happiness) is by having it yourself.
 
If a parent does not have the free-spirited inner peace (a.k.a. unwavering invincible true happiness) about which my book teaches one to have, then that parent is sentencing their child to a life of misery, anxiety, and/or full-fledged depression—conditions that are typically treated with the chemical equivalent of a lobotomy, be it through illegal self-medication, legal recreational self-medication through addictive indulgences, or by over-prescribing psychiatrists who demonstrate the truth of this wisdom: To a hammer, everything is a nail.
 
If you are a parent of young children, I ask you to remember that your choice to not follow the teachings of my book not only damns you to misery, addiction, and spiritual slavery, but it also almost certainly damns your children to a life of the same.
 
How do I teach my kids to be happy, free-spirited individuals who consistently enjoy the true happiness that is free-spirited inner peace?
 
Easy. I simply am a role model for them by being a consistently truly happy free-spirited person who consistently and openly has the wonderful amazing invincible free-spirited inner peace (a.k.a. true happiness and spiritual fulfillment) about which my book teaches readers to have.
 
If you have kids and you want them to be happy when they grow up, then immediately decide right now to strictly follow all eleven of the numbered suggestions at the end of my book.
 
Otherwise, they almost certainly won't be happy.
 
They might make a lot of money, get a fancy degree, a stable job, and even become famous. But they won't be happy.
 
They won't be happy unless you are, or at least unless you start being happy very soon.
 
And I'm not talking about the fleeting pseudo-happiness and bodily comfort that is merely an emotional high, such as what a gambling addict feels when gambling, or a sex addict feels when having sex, or an alcoholic feels when taking a drink. No, I'm talking about the unwavering consistent true happiness that is consistent invincible free-spirited inner peace, the kind one can have on both the ups and the downs of the inherently yin-yang-balanced roller coaster of life.
 
There's only one way to teach your kids to have that, and it is by consistently having it yourself when they are young.



With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

“When it comes to raising kids, it's not about what you say; it's about what you do.”.png (2.66 MiB) Viewed 49308 times

In addition to having authored his book, In It Together, Eckhart Aurelius Hughes (a.k.a. Scott) runs a mentoring program, with a free option, that guarantees success. Success is guaranteed for anyone who follows the program.

[Rupali Mishra]

Hello Scot,

I've read your book and found so many helpful things but I have a question, or two. How do you handle when life gets in your way? Kids move back in, struggles at work, motivation, unexpected charges (both good and bad have a butterfly effect), and did I mention motivation? I think every time life happens, I feel set back, even the good things. Financially I don't feel stable; I question my value at my workplace; I see changes in all of my relationships. I try to keep the toxic out and focus on positive but sometimes it just doesn't work the way we expect. Sometimes I feel as though I'm the toxic person but I'm not, it is the unanticipated struggles life.

Thank you for taking the time to read, even if you don't respond.

Respectfully,

Amanda

Hi, Amanda Brouillette Gladden,

Thank you for your question!

My exact answer would depend on exactly what you mean by the phrase "when life gets in your way".

To understand better, may I ask, as you use the terms, does life ever not get in your way?

In any case, right at the beginning of my book, on page 4, I wrote, "If the word “suffering” simply means having unfulfilled desire, then to be human is to suffer. [...] So long as you live as a human, you will have unfulfilled desires and unachieved goals, as the human body and mind will always want more and will invariably create new goals once old goals have been achieved. To be alive is in part to be at war and to struggle."

Another way of saying the same thing is to say that life is challenge. To be alive is to be constantly challenged.

In that sense of the words, having life in your way is simply what it means to be alive at all.

Life is like an endless boxing match, or an endless chess competition, or an endless marathon, against ever-harder and ever-tougher opponents. Life challenges you every day, and every day you will experience the "beautiful struggle" that is life itself, which in part means that generally every single day you will feel some pain, fear, and discomfort. And every single day you will be in a battle against death and a battle to fulfill your endless desires. Every day you will feel that feeling that is the feeling of having unfulfilled desires and unmet goals.

If "life being in my way" just means me being challenged in the ways I've described, then life is always in my way. Thus, to ask me what I do "when life gets in my way" is just to ask me what is it that I do every day of my life, since life is always in my way every day.

I think the best answer to that is given in my book, "In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All".

Thus, I do suggest you read it a second time if you haven't already read it twice.

Regardless, here is a a very relevant and short forum topic I wrote on this subject of the way life is always wonderfully challenging (a.k.a. the fact that life is always a beautiful struggle):

Life is challenge. Every single day life punches you in the face, repeatedly. That's what is so great about it!


To sum up, if what you mean by "life getting in my way" is what I mean by "life punching me in my face", then what I do when that happens is I smile and say, "thank you, Life!"

"Thank you, Life, for doing your best to punch me in my face, and often succeeding. Thank you, Life, for being a worthy opponent because if you were a less worthy (a.k.a. less tough or less challenging) opponent, I would be proportionally less happy due to the lack of challenge and the lack of having a worthy opponent. Thank you, Life, for constantly challenging me and never letting me rest for very long without a wake-up punch to the face. I love challenge! So thank you for constantly challenging me."

One of my favorite philosophers, Albert Camus, wrote that we must "imagine Sisyphus happy".


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott






one-must-imagine-Sisyphus-happy.jpg





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In addition to having authored his book, In It Together, Eckhart Aurelius Hughes (a.k.a. Scott) runs a mentoring program, with a free option, that guarantees success. Success is guaranteed for anyone who follows the program, both for the free option and the paid option.

very relevant question to everyone and extremely effectively answered.

[Adaboo]

This comes to a hated opportunity. I have been feeling such issues and is something many people are going through. First I would like to take my passion which isn't benefiting me but in the long run. Because your mind and heart are telling you you don't deserve it, but went on to do it. Do you know what comes after it, stressful days of emotions and bad influences? I'm not saying just quit whatever you're doing but just be conscious and manipulate situations to your best. This life is full of manipulation.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi Scott
No.1 is the advice I will be taking from you and I have taken full responsibility for my actions. Its wrong of me to diagnose another with a mental disorder. Thank you for the advice and one thing I have learnt is not to be judgemental in any situation. Even if I have an opinion on it, it's better to be silent.

Hi, Risper Ouma Lisa Anyango,

Thank you for your reply.

I did not and would not say that anything you have ever done is "wrong".

As I use the words:

Actions cannot be wrong.

Behaviors cannot be wrong.

Events cannot be wrong.


It's incoherent (i.e. meaningless) to say something like, "The hurricane that happened yesterday is wrong!"

For something to be "wrong"/"incorrect", it has to be untrue (i.e. false). Only propositions (i.e. sentences with truth values) can be true or untrue. The claim that a hurricane happened yesterday could be true (i.e. meaning a hurricane did not really happen yesterday), but the event itself (i.e. the hurricane itself) cannot be wrong, because it's an event not a sentence with a truth value.

In other words, a sentence such as the following could be false (a.k.a. wrong/untrue/incorrect):

- "2 + 2 = 5"

- "My cat ate some of my dog's food on July 5th, 2023."



That's it.

That's not to say all sentences have truth values and that all sentences can be wrong or right.

No, rather, many sentences are also neither true nor false. A proposition (i.e. a sentence with a truth value) is a special type of sentence. Not all sentences are propositions (i.e. sentences with truth values).

For an example of a sentence that doesn't have a truth value, consider Noam Chomsky's famous sentence:

"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."


That sentence is meaningless (a.k.a. incoherent) so it doesn't have a truth. It cannot be wrong nor right.

Similarly, any kind of subjective sentence or opinion (e.g. "ice cream tastes good") does not have a truth value, at least not in and of itself.




With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

This comes to a hated opportunity. I have been feeling such issues and is something many people are going through. First I would like to take my passion which isn't benefiting me but in the long run. Because your mind and heart are telling you you don't deserve it, but went on to do it. Do you know what comes after it, stressful days of emotions and bad influences? I'm not saying just quit whatever you're doing but just be conscious and manipulate situations to your best. This life is full of manipulation.

Hi, Adaboo,

I'm sorry; I don't understand what you mean or if you are even asking a question.

If you don't mind, please proofread your posts and questions much more thoroughly before posting them, to make sure they written very clearly in explicit clear fluent English.


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

If you haven't already, you can sign up to be personally mentored by Scott "Eckhart Aurelius" Hughes at this link.

Hi Scott

If you get cancer, what criteria would you employ to decide on the best way forward to deal with it?

The question [is] meant to address how you would decide on addressing the physical aspects. I've read your book and I don't need to ask how you would deal with it mentally.

By physical aspects, I mean treatment (or not) of the disease that's ravaging your body. [...] There are many options, I can't list them all (I don't even know them all). It's the same with many life-threatening diseases, not just cancer. [...]
You can't control whether you have cancer or not, but you can control how you are going to treat it. You may decide not to treat it.

Hi, Alida Spies,

Thank you for your question!

If I understand correctly, this is what you are asking:

"If you were diagnosed with a disease such as cancer and multiple different treatment options were available to you (including the option of forgoing any treatment), how would you decide which treatment option to choose?"


That question can then be simplified and generalized to this:

"When you have multiple options to choose from and you must choose one and can only choose one, how do you choose?"

The second variation is one with which everyone can relate and with which everyone has tons of experience. That is because human life is just an endless constant barrage of coming to proverbial forks in the road where you have two or more different paths forward and you must choose one path forward and can only choose one path forward. Unlike on real roads, on the proverbial road that is human life, you can never go backward and, in fact, cannot stop going forward. You have to choose one of the paths and can only choose one of the paths, and by selecting one path, you thereby say NO to all the other paths.

To both questions, my answer is the same, and it is a three-step plan.


Step One: Get my pre-existing written priority list that was already written and is thus not biased by current circumstances and the heat of the moment.

Essentially, the first step is something that I would have already completed long before I happened to arrive at that one proverbial fork in the road (e.g. before I was diagnosed with the disease and presented with multiple treatment options from which to choose).

Indeed, I've already completed that first step now in real life even though I haven't been diagnosed with cancer (yet), so if I do get cancer and am presented with multiple treatment options from which to choose, I'll already instantly be 1/3rd of the way through my step-by-step plan on how to decide.

And that first already completed step would be this:

Write down all my current top priorities in life, including at least the top 10, if not more. (My list is actually over 20+.) To do this, I start by brainstorming and writing down priorities in random order as they come to me. To get a top-ten list, I write down more than 10 in the initial brainstorming. Then, once I've brainstormed all the priorities I can think of that might be in or remotely near the top 10, I start ordering them by priority from the highest priority (i.e. the absolute #1 top priority) to the lower and lower and ever-lower other priorities.

Once you have the unordered list of priorities (or candidates thereof), it is super easy to order them from absolute #1 top priority to lowest. That's because if you have any two (or more) that are close such that at first glance you aren't sure which of two priorities is above the other, then just ask yourself hypothetically, "If I could only have one of these two and thus by choosing one of these two would thus have to give up the other, which of the two would I choose?"

For example, if you wanted to decide which was a bigger priority between (1) not feeling hunger (which is uncomfortable) versus (2) losing weight, you would ask yourself if you had to choose between (1) losing weight but constantly feeling significant hunger and discomfort versus (2) being fat and staying fat but never ever feeling hunger, which would you choose? The hypothetical doesn't have to be realistic, and typically it won't be. Instead, the point of the hypothetical is to come up with the philosophical analogue of a controlled scientific experiment. Scientists do their experiments in the lab, and philosophers do their experiments with thoughts in the mind, which are called thought experiments.

It's very important that you do this right away, ideally (1) right now at the latest and (2) ideally long before any kind of important decision or allegedly tough decision comes up in your life, meaning before you actually encounter any kind of major life event that will call for your decision-making (e.g. getting diagnosed with cancer and being presented with different treatment options from which to choose).

There are two main reasons why it is so important that you already have the list fully completed before the unanticipated life event occurs (e.g. being diagnosed with cancer). These are the two reasons:

- To save time and be prepared when faster decision-making is desirable.

- To avoid bias, sloppiness, and/or temporal selfishness when making the priority list. Otherwise, it's analogous to waiting to write your diet plan until you are already hungry at the buffet, smelling the delicious dessert bar. A list of priorities is going to be biased by the current circumstances if one waits to write it down until one is already in those circumstances, such as being at the bar deciding whether or not to have a drink or one waiting until one is already on a date with another woman behind their wife's back, or if someone waits until they have a Nazi pointing a gun at their head and ordering them to rape an innocent person at the threat of being shot if they don't. It's nearly pointless to start deciding what your priorities are once you are already in a situation like that, meaning already in the heat of the moment. Among other places, I discuss the reasoning for that on page 202 of my book, In It Together, when I wrote "take perspective unbiased from the heat of the moment" (page 202).


Accordingly, at any time, before I am even presented with a decision to make, I will already have a pre-existing and well-thought-out priority list that looks something like this:

1. Have and maintain my inner peace and spiritual freedom.

2. Respect my kids and their mom's autonomy and freedom.

3. Respecting every human's autonomy and freedom (e.g. not being a murderer, enslaver, or rapist, etc.).

4. My kids' happiness (i.e. their inner peace and free-spiritedness).

5. My kids' short-term physical safety.

6. My kids' mid-term to long-term physical safety and longevity, assuming they are happy. (For example, if my kids are happy, I'd rather they live 20 more happy years than just 10 more years before dying. If they aren't happy, then it's either irrelevant or actually opposite, meaning it could be preferable they die sooner if they are not happy, meaning not having inner peace and spiritual freedom.)

7. Making sure my kids' mom and her other kids and pets are safe and taken care of to the degree she is asking for and/or clearly wanting my help with that.

(I'll stop at 7 for now because my list goes far beyond just 10 before it even gets to anything explicitly related to my own physical health or the explicit prevention of my death, meaning there are a lot more than merely 10 things I would happily and eagerly die for.)


If you don't already have a list like the one above, which goes to at least 10, if not 20, or more, then make that list right now. Once you have thoroughly brainstormed all the items you want on the list, take a lot of time to carefully weigh which ones are the higher priorities, then arrange them in order by priority, from highest priority to lowest.

I recommend you print out several copies of your list of priorities and tape them up on the wall wherever you spend most of your time, such as on the wall right above your computer monitor, or on the wall next to your bed where you tend to be looking as you get out of bed in the morning, or right above your TV screen if you are someone who watches TV more than one day per week. You can even set it up as your wallpaper on your phone.

I think it's more helpful and important to have a priority list than a goal list (if you were only going to have one for some reason), but I think it's most helpful by far to have both. So at some point soon, I suggest you also make a goal list, print it out, and put it side by side with your priority list in all the same places.



Step Two: Do some brief research about each of the options, and create a data-driven pros and cons list for each option.

Typically, I would make a spreadsheet on a computer for this purpose, such as in a program like Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, or (most often) OpenOffice Calc.

You can create a row for each different option and a column for each different quality or potential pro/con.

For instance, if I were diagnosed with cancer, and there were 3 different mutually exclusive treatment options available to me, plus the option to not get any treatment and let the disease run its course naturally, then I would make a spreadsheet with five rows total, the first being a header row, and then one row for each of the treatment options, including the option of no treatment. Then I'd have columns along the lines of financial cost ($), average 1-year survival rate (%), average 5-year survival rate (%), average 10-year survival rate (%), side effects, risks with percentage of likelihood, other cons, other pros, etc.

In the spreadsheet, you can also add a column for each of the priorities from your list of top ten priorities. Then you can rate each one based on how well it accomplishes or how badly it hinders that priority. If only one is consistent with your top priority, then you can usually stop the research there and stop filling out the spreadsheet there. In other words, you don't even need to bother considering how the different options relate to the rest of your priorities if only one gives you your first priority.

That is why the unbiased pre-existing written list of priorities, written in order from absolutely most important to least important, is itself so important. The amount of research to do and the amount of information to consider will be relatively so little if you already have a list of priorities.

For example, if cost/money is not high on your priority list, you may not even need to look up or consider how much it costs. You might not even want a column on your spreadsheet of pros and cons for cost. Like a jury in a trial not being allowed to hear or see certain evidence because it's been excluded, having a list of priorities makes it so you can keep a lot of information off your spreadsheet and keep your spreadsheet simpler, which in turn means doing a lot less research and a lot less information gathering, and a lot less information organizing.

If you find yourself doing a lot of research and feeling like you are drowning in information with too many details to remember, it's often a sign you just don't have your priorities together and, thus, that you are putting the cart before the horse. In other words, it's often a sign that you have skipped step one and will want to go back to step one.


Step Three: If you still aren't sure which option to choose, either (1) flip a literal coin, or (2) allow someone you love most or someone most affected to choose.

For example, if you and your spouse have two options for where to go for dinner (e.g. Subway or Mcdonald's), and you see the two options as roughly equal or such that after doing the above two steps you aren't sure which you would prefer or can confidently say you don't care, then you can ask your spouse which they prefer or recommend and go with that.

If they don't care and/or insist you choose, or otherwise you don't want to defer to them or don't have anyone to whom to defer, then you can just flip a literal coin.

If you don't have a literal coin, you can just randomly choose in your head or find some other way to do the equivalent of flipping a coin (e.g. rolling a dice, playing eeny, meeny, miny, moe, etc.).


That's it. It's that simple and that quick.


For more on this topic, especially the reasoning behind Step Three, please read the following advice article of mine:

My HUGE TIP for decision paralysis: If it's that hard to decide, it doesn't really matter.



If you get stuck between the end of Step Two and the beginning of Step Three, meaning you initially think you have sufficiently completed Step Two but yet also contrarily think that it is premature to jump to Step Three, then that usually means one (or more) of the following things is the case:

- You rushed through or did not fully do or did not honestly do Step 1, meaning you may want to go back and work on your priority list.

- You are in self-deceiving delusional denial about the fact that your options are your only options. Here is part of what I wrote in my answer to Ray Thompson's question about passion vs money: "It's easy to falsely and/or self-deceivingly conflate (1) indecisiveness about two options with (2) unacceptance or resentment about the fact that those are your only two options." Similarly, here is part of what I wrote in my answer to Amy Jackson's question about strategies vs decisions: "Many people experiencing decision paralysis are probably treating a decision that doesn't matter as if it matters because it is conducive to a degree of denial about the seemingly unfortunate circumstances that make all available options so equally unpleasant."

- You are trying to change what you cannot change and/or trying to control what you cannot control, or otherwise getting stuck in one of the stages of grief that comes before acceptance, or otherwise, you are not practicing the principle of fully and unconditionally accepting what you cannot control and cannot change. This can manifest as being a control freak, as being a perfectionist, and/or as being exceptionally conflict-ridden (e.g. excessively arguing with doctors, getting super frustrated with Google because it allegedly isn't giving you the information you want fast enough when you do your searches, so you then spend hours writing an angry letter to Google headquarters or such, etc.). It entails a lot of busying disgraceful distractions, namely self-deceiving distractions that help protect your delusions and dishonest coping mechanisms by doing the classic magician's trick of keeping your attention elsewhere so you don't notice and see through the otherwise obvious falsehoods of the lies, tricks, and illusions. A symptom that someone is tricking you with magic or pick-pocketing is flashiness and/or distractions; it's feeling like your available attention is all used up; it's a feeling of information overload. And, likewise, a symptom of anxiety-inducing self-deceiving self-delusion is constantly being super busy and having too much to do and having a lot of hate-worthy and/or angering enemies or conflicts and battling on all fronts and feeling like you are stretched too thin and feeling like you don't have enough time or that life is so hard, or so unfair, or too short. In other words, the sign of this would be displaying traits and behaviors that are the opposite of graceful. For more on that, I recommend reading my poem, What Grace Means to Me.

- You rushed through or did not fully do or did not honestly do Step 2, meaning you may want to go back and work on your spreadsheet to better organize the data. Organizing data is often more about eliminating details and making the data smaller. So sometimes the issue is that your spreadsheet is too big and you've collected too much, namely details about things that aren't explicitly on your priority list and/or don't directly relate to any of your very top priorities. A big part of the point of Step Two is to prevent information overload and reduce the noise and distractions to reveal the simple basic truths. Think of your true self as a high-performing CEO of a huge company and the person(s) creating the spreadsheet as one of the countless teams that work for you. They spend hours meeting and studying, and organizing data in order to create a one-sheet spreadsheet for you with highlighted bottom lines, and their team leader comes to you to present it. If that person spends more than even 5 minutes talking to you, you'd cut them off and tell them to either get to the point right now or go back and come back when they have a more concise presentation. Your time is too valuable to listen to anyone blabber, especially because there are countless different people who would all blabber at you if they had the chance. You couldn't listen to them all blabber. You couldn't even listen to 0.0001% of them do it. You can only deal with the big picture—the biggest of the big pictures. In your body and brain, there are many people and departments. Don't let low-level perfectionists waste the CEO's time; that's information overload. Send them back to the drawing board to get you a more concise presentation so that you can make a decision in seconds. As CEO of your ridiculously complicated body and brain, meaning your unfathomably complicated body and brain, you cannot do even the slightest bit of micromanagement. You just don't have the time. Simplify the spreadsheet, and make it focus more on the priorities. Make the data concise. Get more bang for the buck, where the bucks are each word or number on that spreadsheet and each second of the CEO's time you are going to take up when you present that spreadsheet to him or her.


Keep in mind that the point of Step Two is ultimately to be a time-saver. It's to make the data concise and to take the steps needed to prevent information overload (i.e. to prevent the proverbial magician from tricking you or the proverbial pickpocket from picketing you).

If you feel as if you are compelled to create a new step between step 2 and step 3 (a time-wasting step 2.5, we could say), then that means you may not have fully done Step 2 and that you may want to put more time towards it, but that's because in that case doing so is how you save time.

The goal is to collect, organize, and present the data (typically in spreadsheet form) to your CEO so he or she can make a quick easy decision with his or her extremely valuable time. That CEO has to run the whole company and do the same decision-making job for the whole company. All day long, there's a line out of his or her door of people begging for even just a minute of his or her time. Do step 2 properly so that step 3 is quick. Take long enough on step 2 that step 3 is super quick, and no longer. The point of step 2 is to save time, especially the proverbial CEO's time, not to be a perfectionist or waste time or over-optimize. You—the real you—are that CEO. If you waste time, it's your time that you are wasting.

Don't be like an anxious perfectionist or micro-managing control freak when you make your spreadsheet; be like a calm graceful CEO (or at least like someone who is presenting to a calm graceful time-conscious stingy CEO). That is a calm graceful CEO who always seems to have plenty of free time because he or she never takes time for the ********. One always seems to have plenty of money in the bank to spend when one always refuses to spend it. The irony of life is that the ones who would spend something like time or money on something, usually can't spend it because they don't have any of it left to spend. Their whole lives, they seem to have $0 or less in the bank in terms of time, money, attention, and energy. For them, there's never enough time and never enough money. For them, things are just never enough. Imagine being diagnosed with a deadly disease and told you only have six months to a year to live, and then spending all of it glued to a computer screen compiling research summaries that nobody but you will ever even look at, instead of spending it with your family and loved ones, or looking at a beautiful sunset, proverbially swimming in the beautiful infinite depths of the eternal present.

If it's that hard to decide, it doesn't really matter.

Most people spend their whole lives on things that don't really matter. For them, life is too short, even if it lasts a million years.

I'd rather have a minute of my time and my life and then die rather than a million years of their time and their life.

But to each their own.



With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

If it's that hard to decide, it doesn't really matter...png (1.39 MiB) Viewed 49236 times

In addition to having authored his book, In It Together, Eckhart Aurelius Hughes (a.k.a. Scott) runs a mentoring program, with a free option, that guarantees success. Success is guaranteed for anyone who follows the program.

[Adaboo]

This comes to a hated opportunity. I have been feeling such issues and is something many people are going through. First I would like to take my passion which isn't benefiting me but in the long run. Because your mind and heart are telling you you don't deserve it, but went on to do it. Do you know what comes after it, stressful days of emotions and bad influences? I'm not saying just quit whatever you're doing but just be conscious and manipulate situations to your best. This life is full of manipulation.

Hi, Adaboo,

I'm sorry; I don't understand what you mean or if you are even asking a question.

If you don't mind, please proofread your posts and questions much more thoroughly before posting them, to make sure they are written very clearly in explicit clear fluent English.


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

There's a question in the philosophy forum like "between something that is making you money which is not your passion and something which is your passion but you are not making enough out of it". What would you choose out of it? I was like, " I will take my passion which would not gain me many things now but later in the long run, I will benefit from it. I was speaking in proverbs that's why you don't understand it that way. I hope you will understand this.