What is the best way to live?

Do you ever have a situation in front of you and you genuinely don’t know the best way to get through it? Like a difficult situation but the question is do you grind it out or use self compassion and give yourself breaks? There are so many different philosophies to follow, even if they’re not formal philosophies. For example, I have watched a lot of David Goggins and Jocko Willink on YouTube. Both of them have very extreme philosophies of discipline and how to handle hardship. Both of their philosophies have helped me during times of hardships in my life. But other philosophies have also helped me at other times of hardships in my life, philosophies that have more to do with self kindness and self compassion. So sometimes it seems like there’s so many approaches to how to live life that it’s paralyzing. Were any of y’all able to overcome the seemingly endless amount of choices towards mindsets to approach life with? How were y’all able to overcome this?

Username: Katie Ham.Katie Ham.

Date posted: 8w ago

Yes - I fall into obsessing over the “best” or most “efficient” way to live and make the most of every opportunity. Through accepting my imperfect approach to life, I have come to understand the balance and beauty in enjoying life with a variety of insights I hear rather than one single approach to use for every experience. My faith has also provided me with peace in the belief that I don’t have to fill in all the gaps and have all the answers to live a full and whole life.

Username: hanysm@gmail.comhanysm@gmail...

Date posted: 8w ago

The perspective that resonates most with me is recognizing a higher Source that embodies Absolute Truth and All-Knowing, which I identify as God. As a Muslim, I believe we, as limited beings, are destined to live in a state of uncertainty. Therefore, I place my trust in God, who knows the future and the past, where uncertainty from my prospective resides. I focus on the present moment, where things are relatively certain

Username: brooksisanxiousbrooksisanxious

Date posted: 8w ago

Thank you both for your responses!

Username: brooksisanxiousbrooksisanxious

Date posted: 8w ago

I resonate with both of the things y’all said. I also am a person of faith and was raised Christian. My parents did not always treat me well and sometimes used and twisted Christianity to manipulate me and make me afraid. I’m now a young adult and struggling. I have learned about true Christianity by listening to true teachers and pastors and none of the things my parents used to control me were true aspects of Christianity. But now I’m really having trouble differentiating from true Christianity and what they taught me. It makes me question what if they lied about it all? This crushes me because my faith has been the only thing to get me through every one of life’s trials. And times when I questioned my faith I was always the weakest. Times when I knew God was with my I was braver than ever! Does any one have any advice on this? What to do when you realized your parents used faith to manipulate you and make you afraid? So you wondering if they made it all up to trick you. Or maybe your faith is real they just twisted it for their own devices, because truly any philosophy can be twisted and used for reasons.

Username: Katie Ham.Katie Ham.

Date posted: 8w ago

@brooksisanxious I experienced this as well - manipulation through the use of Scripture to bring about selfish purposes. Imperfect people teach imperfectly - that doesn’t mean the content is any less real or true. Our own experiences affect our “delivery” of the content we’re trying to convey and sometimes those in authority can be selfish or have impure motives. It doesn’t take away from the truthfulness of Message! God can handle your doubts and questions and His character doesn’t change based on our own thoughts, feelings, anxieties, obsessions, etc. continue seeking this out!

Username: brooksisanxiousbrooksisanxious

Date posted: 8w ago

@Katie Ham. Thank you for this encouragement. The reason why I still have faith is because I have studied the Scripture and compared it to historical evidence. I have found that the Scripture accurately represents the world around us. I have found that the Scriptures are consistent with logic and science. So even if I wanted to deny Christianity I couldn’t. Another thing is there are many examples in the Scriptures of narcissists misusing the Scriptures. The problem was then and not God. Even once Jesus was telling a story about the Pharisees and he talks about how the Pharisees prayed to themselves! They were their own gods.

Username: brooksisanxiousbrooksisanxious

Date posted: 8w ago

I’m wondering if y’all have any advice as to what to do about narcissistic parents. Everything I read says to escape and go no contact. I’ve heard of people joining the military or even moving to another state and changing their name! I need to escape and live on my own but doing these things sounds terrifying. It makes me even more stuck in decision paralysis. What are y’all’s opinions on this? Is it necessary to go no contact? Do you have to do it all at once and in secret like moving to another state and changing your name? Or can you just work your way to financial independence? If there’s one thing I know it’s my father is an extremely cruel man, and he’s very vengeful. He had stopped at nothing to keep me from success and independence in the past and he’ll do it again. The only way for me to ever feel safe is to escape him. Even then I wouldn’t be surprised if he followed me and wouldn’t let go. I wouldn’t be surprised if he still tried to hurt me in some way. He’s not violent but he has a temper and makes threats of “there will be consequences” when he’s angry. If I moved away against his wishes I wouldn’t be surprised if he became violent. I truly live in constant fear. And the rest of my family just winks at his antics. They believe his fantasy. It’s like the matrix. I’m the only one who has taken the red pill and can see the truth. Everyone else pretends nothings happening. Any advice on this? I have no pleasure out of life any more just constant fear because my father controls me and tortures me and he took my friends away from me and he isolated me even though I’m 24. The only thing I want to do is escape. But also the thing I’m terrified to do is escape.

Username: AceJ

Date posted: 5y ago

The past year I’ve been dealing with OCD about free will, consciousness, and instincts. The latter two stem from the free will problem, but basically I’ve been having anxiety and OCD about having no control over my life on a biological basis. It all started because I watched a YouTube video called “Why we Don’t have Free Will and why that’s OK” from a health channel called “What I’ve Learned” about a year ago. After the video, I started panicking and thinking what if I have no control over my life? What I really am just a product of my environment and I have no freedom? I went and scoured the Internet for counters to these questions and actually found some really good stuff, but my search for answers kept leading me to other topics that threatened the idea of free will. This is where consciousness and instincts OCD come into play. From this research, I found out some scientists say that a lot of our actions are unconscious, but luckily however I did more research and found out that a growing number of psychologists don’t think the unconscious mind actually does not even exist. As for instincts, it all started because I saw a Quora questions that asked “Why is human instinct generally considered to be overriden?” I thought I would get more answers about how human have free will, but instead the top answer was the complete opposite. That answer to this question talked about how humans always act on instinct and that the reasons we give ourselves for acting a certain way are always an illusion. He claims to have done 20+ years of research on human instincts to further his business. The guy doesn’t have a bio degree or anything. I want to be suspicious about these thoughts, but I STILL think about the possibility of him being right about how humans might not be as free as we think. All my research and counterpoints to my own existential crises are nice to know, but I still haven’t been able to shake the thoughts “What if all these people are right? What if we really have less control than we think?” One thing I try to still tell myself is that pretty much everything we know is not a certainty. There is so much uncertainty in the world, and we shouldn’t try to find certainty all the time. I want to just live my life without thinking about all these existential things and just enjoy it. Please let me know if any of you have had similar thoughts or experiences. I’d love to hear your tips, tricks, and anything that can help. Thank you, and have a great day, wherever you are.

Username: licia

Date posted: 5y ago

Existential/philosophical obsessions? Anyone dealt with this before? I literally feel like I’m getting better with it and boom I get triggered by something I read unintentionally on the internet or talks with others, movies or tv and I feel like I’m back to square one with a new existential obsession that I feel like I need to solve. I just am so frustrated I’m trying to go about this in the right way I’m trying but I just don’t know how to go about it right. My ocd has taken many forms and everytime it’s one I wish for the other it’s so wierd. Like right now I rather be dealing with my health obsessions then this. But if it’s not one it’s the others it’s like I’m addicted to ocd and juggle obsessions. I just want peace but idk what to do. Does anyone else feel like they conquer one obsession and a new one pops up? I feel like I constantly am in a loop I look at old notebooks and realize I’ve been jumping around the same obsessions for over 3 years. Insanity. I would love to hear what has helped you guys and what I you think I should do?

"Pure" OCD

Username: Leanne

Date posted: 3y ago

Good morning, can I ask what other people do to keep their mind busy and to stop you ruminating? Do you use self talk about real life, whats happening now? Decisions to make, watching TV etc? I’m just so use to ruminating for hours on end, for years, I’ve forgot how to behave otherwise. It seems like I’m either paying attention to the mind and trying to stop ruminating or, my mind is quiet and I just go through the motions of the day. I’ve got no strategy on going forward/recovering. I try and leave the mind alone and do a Pilates class but my mind is elsewhere not on Pilates but thinking OCD thoughts, what my mind is doing etc, I think I need to keep it focused on real life but I don’t know how. Is self talk the key? Any advice would be HUGELY APPRECIATED 💕

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