That takes too much effort. If you are trying to fool others, then it takes remembering the first lie and having to pretend over and over. I’m 70 years old and I don’t have that kind of time, or memory.
I try to change my weight, but even that is hard to do at 70. I heard of a diet that you take a certain diet pill in the morning with a cup of tea that you have added a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. Well, that sounded like a simple thing to do. However, I enjoy my morning coffee, as well. So, I drink the tea with the vinegar in it and swallow the pills. The vinegar burns my esophagus so badly that my morning is plagued with pain. I sit here at the breakfast table in heartburn hell. Eating anything for breakfast after that tea is very painful. I finish the tea and try to enjoy my morning coffee —- I can’t enjoy coffee with a burning esophagus and the coffee has to be sipped so slowly that I am still trying to finish it hours later. I lost no weight. I could not eat breakfast without pain. I could not eat lunch without pain. My esophagus stops hurting somewhere around 6:00 pm and I am so starved that I pick up the opened refrigerator and empty it into my mouth.
I finally had to ask myself —- If I am not losing weight after giving this tea-thing a month, then why am I making my mornings a living hell of pain? I was getting where I had inflamed esophagus 7/24 and eating citrus burned me. Maybe the idea of the diet was to rip the hell out of your esophagus, so that eating anything would be painful.
I stopped drinking the tea one morning and had one pain-free morning to enjoy my cup of coffee in peace. I went back on the vinegar and tea the next morning and the burning esophagus returned.
My cup of coffee each morning means so much to me. It is important for it to be a pleasurable morning ritual. It is too important to me to savor and enjoy the flavor. I stopped drinking the vinegar tea. I stopped having pain. I was able to go back to a nibble at breakfast, a little lunch, and a dinner that was moderate. Still no weight loss. With a sigh, I said to Immortal Pirate, “I guess I will have to resort to eating less and moving more.”
But, on topic, I am not trying to fool others. They can still see me.
As a person who has a sales orientation, it is my function to persuade people to see things from my point of view. To do that effectively, I need to be able to understand their point of view.
My nature is to talk AT people, but I completely understand that that is completely ineffective as a way to understand others, so I have to sometimes put my fingers over my lips as a reminder to shut up.
In here, my fingers are being used for tapping on the keyboard, so its harder to shut up.
If I see a flaw with myself, I typically tend to try to change it. Me changing isn’t meant to fool anyone. It is to get my mind to behave differently than it was previously. I mean, I could keep giving in to my anger and eventually/potentially end up in prison for something terribly stupid, or I could change that part of me to the best of my ability before I really lose it. Is giving in to that my true nature? If I get to a point where I can control myself better, is that not my true nature? Would fooling people with that be a bad thing?
I guess one thing I “fool” others with is (mainly family) not cursing in front of them. I do it quite a bit around friends or for more emotion on sites, but I tend to not in front of family because it just isn’t really needed. I don’t talk to them much anyway. Like, when I hang out with them, I am silent for the most part. Just nothing to say. So, I guess I “fool” them with the goody-goody act.
My default nature was killing me. It was depressive destructive and even suicidal. Apparently I had been a nice kid, but something had gone wrong.
I tried different religions, belief systems, tactics of willpower, even mind control to try to change aspects of my nature that were working against me. None of them had great success for very long. They amounted to little more than the fooling of myself and others that you spoke of.
I had been well trained — and perhaps even indoctrinated — in the logistics of the Christ religion. But there was no spark (Or Spirit) of Life to it. It was still just performance; duty; a business contract where I worked for I desired wage, promised at some point in the future.
I was stubborn, and had to reach a point of having totally exhausted all of my resources, all of my games and ploys, all of my effort, all of my exercises of my faith, all of my life.
It was only then that I could accept that it was so very simple.
‘Seek first, right relationship with God and his kingdom of Life; accept the gift of substitutionary righteousness that Christ provided; and stop trying to do it all myself. That’s it!
Then, all of these other things (like self-improvement and setting your own psychological and emotional house in order) will be added unto you. Almost without effort; in good measure; pressed down, shaken together and running over’. (A paraphrase of Matthew 6:33 and Luke 6:38).
Get the core foundation right; and everything built upon it will be good and sound and amazing.
@griz You can’t seek what’s not physically there, and as to your idea that it’s a spiritual thing… It’s like trying to contain the sum of all the world’s winds in a bag. Nothing you do will be very effective, and if you do manage to catch some of it it for a moment, it’s gone, not really caught at all, as the nature of wind is movement…
@Jear77
We’ve already been here several times. There are plenty of things one can seek — that you yourself seek — that physical science can only see the aftermath of.
Moving air can raise a house or stop an 80,000 lb truck. And there are several places in the Bible where God’s spirit is likened to a rushing wind. One cannot physically see it but the effects can be extreme.
@griz but the point is without large machinery one really can’t control air… and weather systems while they may be influenced, that’s an inexact science. If I have no ability to control it, study it, bend it to my own purpose, I have no use for it. And now we get back to the amount of money which has gone up another $20,000 thanks to your part in these conversations. Keep at it and it will continue to go up even faster.
And what now; if you find you have no ability to influence, bend or control me according to your own purpose??
This is the first of mindset one has to learn to control, in accepting Christ is one’s personal Savior. Without this, one doesn’t even leave the starting blocks.
@griz Not the point. I am not going to get involved with something I have no say over. With a person I can agree to disagree, but even to that I can say… “hey, keep talking about this and it actually HURTS your case.” And I have done so time and again. I’m simply giving you a financial figure how much it hurts your case. With god it’s my way or hell. You don’t get the point that I’ve spent so much time giving up things in my life that I can no longer do so where I had no say — at least not without significant financial compensation. I make the rules here, in this instance.
@Jear77
You have every say in whether you want to participate in an established Kingdom that you could have never established. do you want to participate and benefit or not?
Or do you want to try to control it and everything else to your liking?
@griz So? what’s your point? Unless or until I get the what I require, I will pass. You know what the cost of gold is? About $1200/ oz. You know how much the larger of the bars weighs? 420 oz. (about 26 lbs.) Do the math.
@griz You think I think that gold in and of itself is useful? No, it’s not. I can’t eat /drink it — it has no nutritional value. I can’t wear it, as an outfit made of it would be too heavy to move around in. I can’t build any sort of shelter with it. Think! Why would I want gold, if not for those purposes?
People tend to crave gold for what they feel it will give them: money.
And people tend to crave money for what they feel it will give them: possessions, “ease”, power and security.
And people tend to crave these entirely for the feelings they think they will get from them.
But anything gained, is fleeting; and comes with the fear of losing what one has gained (things, or just feelings?)
It’s less the gold then the imagined feelings one hopes will come with it.
@griz I don’t believe in gaudy fashion. I wear absolutely no jewelry. Even were I to marry, I would not. Neither would I buy something like that for others. If they want it, they can buy it themselves.
The reason I require it for belief (or rather the equivalency in currency, for me to obtain such) is simple. Four words, “Streets paved with gold.” The picture above are called “pavers” or “paving bricks.” As they didn’t have asphalt technology in biblical times, I shouldn’t have had to spell that out to you. And you think that heaven would actually *miss* a few pavers when god can simply will more into existence?
Gold, It’s a universally recognized valuable commodity. If society were to collapse, the dollar to become useless, I could go literally anywhere around the world and have the ability to buy goods and services with gold bars. But would it REALLY be able to be used? Probably not, as how would one go about cashing in such a thing, while the dollar (US American currency, mind you). Basically it’d act untouchable reserve “just in case” that would sit in a closet and collect dust. MANY well-known economists have suggested to stockpile gold in case of financial instability. And if it never comes to that? It can be passed onto someone who needs it… oh, let’s say the federal government, housing-food-shelter-jobs for the homeless, etc. And in terms of display: no. I display nothing. I’m perfectly happy living in a plain, completely undecorated room, with a few things I call necessities.
The saying is “money can’t buy happiness” but a recent article I read stated that it CAN buy comfort, which is an important factor when it comes to being truly happy.
@Jear77
Is it logical to presume that a spiritual reality is going to have physical streets of gold? Or “many mansions”? Is there a chance this could have just been allegory; and one little people obsessed with money might relate to?
Both happiness and comfort are temporal (temporary) concerns. There is no denying that they are nice. And niceness is . . . nice! But neither of these things is any kind of enduring paradigm. Both are downright fickle and fleeting!
They are no kind of foundation to build anything lasting upon.
@griz what you’re saying is akin to the joke about the righteous man who asked God for a highway from somewhere to Hawaii, but then after God asked are you sure, and explaining the resources, and was told to ask for something more spiritual, he asked for understanding his wife completely. God’s response? Do you want two lanes or four?
@griz None of which I’ll ever have again as I’m going to be spending the rest of my life because of the fact that the prayer of being able to take care of myself was never answered. Which means I’ll be very likely working a minimum wage job less than 40 hours a week the rest of my life, living, quite literally hand to mouth. As it is I’ll be working until the day I die.
@Jear77
Religion lead you astray. You learned to pray with ego and not in the Spirit.
Welcome to the club; and hopefully to the process of learning from our mistakes and not making the same ones over again!
Your task now is to try not to apply the same religious process to the worship of capital as your “god” that will “fix everything”. You’ve just switched from trying to control things with God, to wanting to control things with money.
Nobody can say whether the future you envisioned is the one set aside for you.
The future I envisioned just six years ago, looked a lot like the one you now envision. I never imagined a house in my own name, a car I paid cash for, and being able to help out my parents as I now do. (None of these things were things I actively sought after. I simply sought God’s will for my life. These things were “side effects”.)
There are possibilities and futures that we cannot see; and that science cannot predict!
@griz That’s the key point: It’s completely useless talking about that while the money keeps going up a minimum of$10K weekly, more if i get disgusted with the way things are going. If my year to date earnings MATCH it (keep in mind this is AFTER taxes), the increase stops at that point. But these are cumulative figures. So that’s really the number really needs to be about 35% MORE than that. I don’t need much; That money I demand would be for retirement so I could stop working sooner rather than later.
24 responses to “How much do you try to change your nature?”
That takes too much effort. If you are trying to fool others, then it takes remembering the first lie and having to pretend over and over. I’m 70 years old and I don’t have that kind of time, or memory.
I try to change my weight, but even that is hard to do at 70. I heard of a diet that you take a certain diet pill in the morning with a cup of tea that you have added a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. Well, that sounded like a simple thing to do. However, I enjoy my morning coffee, as well. So, I drink the tea with the vinegar in it and swallow the pills. The vinegar burns my esophagus so badly that my morning is plagued with pain. I sit here at the breakfast table in heartburn hell. Eating anything for breakfast after that tea is very painful. I finish the tea and try to enjoy my morning coffee —- I can’t enjoy coffee with a burning esophagus and the coffee has to be sipped so slowly that I am still trying to finish it hours later. I lost no weight. I could not eat breakfast without pain. I could not eat lunch without pain. My esophagus stops hurting somewhere around 6:00 pm and I am so starved that I pick up the opened refrigerator and empty it into my mouth.
I finally had to ask myself —- If I am not losing weight after giving this tea-thing a month, then why am I making my mornings a living hell of pain? I was getting where I had inflamed esophagus 7/24 and eating citrus burned me. Maybe the idea of the diet was to rip the hell out of your esophagus, so that eating anything would be painful.
I stopped drinking the tea one morning and had one pain-free morning to enjoy my cup of coffee in peace. I went back on the vinegar and tea the next morning and the burning esophagus returned.
My cup of coffee each morning means so much to me. It is important for it to be a pleasurable morning ritual. It is too important to me to savor and enjoy the flavor. I stopped drinking the vinegar tea. I stopped having pain. I was able to go back to a nibble at breakfast, a little lunch, and a dinner that was moderate. Still no weight loss. With a sigh, I said to Immortal Pirate, “I guess I will have to resort to eating less and moving more.”
But, on topic, I am not trying to fool others. They can still see me.
A lot.
As a person who has a sales orientation, it is my function to persuade people to see things from my point of view. To do that effectively, I need to be able to understand their point of view.
My nature is to talk AT people, but I completely understand that that is completely ineffective as a way to understand others, so I have to sometimes put my fingers over my lips as a reminder to shut up.
In here, my fingers are being used for tapping on the keyboard, so its harder to shut up.
I do try to adjust through out my day. I dont think i try to change my nature exactly, but i do try, when i am being mindful, to control my ways?
If I see a flaw with myself, I typically tend to try to change it. Me changing isn’t meant to fool anyone. It is to get my mind to behave differently than it was previously. I mean, I could keep giving in to my anger and eventually/potentially end up in prison for something terribly stupid, or I could change that part of me to the best of my ability before I really lose it. Is giving in to that my true nature? If I get to a point where I can control myself better, is that not my true nature? Would fooling people with that be a bad thing?
I guess one thing I “fool” others with is (mainly family) not cursing in front of them. I do it quite a bit around friends or for more emotion on sites, but I tend to not in front of family because it just isn’t really needed. I don’t talk to them much anyway. Like, when I hang out with them, I am silent for the most part. Just nothing to say. So, I guess I “fool” them with the goody-goody act.
My default nature was killing me. It was depressive destructive and even suicidal. Apparently I had been a nice kid, but something had gone wrong.
I tried different religions, belief systems, tactics of willpower, even mind control to try to change aspects of my nature that were working against me. None of them had great success for very long. They amounted to little more than the fooling of myself and others that you spoke of.
I had been well trained — and perhaps even indoctrinated — in the logistics of the Christ religion. But there was no spark (Or Spirit) of Life to it. It was still just performance; duty; a business contract where I worked for I desired wage, promised at some point in the future.
I was stubborn, and had to reach a point of having totally exhausted all of my resources, all of my games and ploys, all of my effort, all of my exercises of my faith, all of my life.
It was only then that I could accept that it was so very simple.
‘Seek first, right relationship with God and his kingdom of Life; accept the gift of substitutionary righteousness that Christ provided; and stop trying to do it all myself. That’s it!
Then, all of these other things (like self-improvement and setting your own psychological and emotional house in order) will be added unto you. Almost without effort; in good measure; pressed down, shaken together and running over’. (A paraphrase of Matthew 6:33 and Luke 6:38).
Get the core foundation right; and everything built upon it will be good and sound and amazing.
@griz You can’t seek what’s not physically there, and as to your idea that it’s a spiritual thing… It’s like trying to contain the sum of all the world’s winds in a bag. Nothing you do will be very effective, and if you do manage to catch some of it it for a moment, it’s gone, not really caught at all, as the nature of wind is movement…
@Jear77
We’ve already been here several times. There are plenty of things one can seek — that you yourself seek — that physical science can only see the aftermath of.
Moving air can raise a house or stop an 80,000 lb truck. And there are several places in the Bible where God’s spirit is likened to a rushing wind. One cannot physically see it but the effects can be extreme.
@griz but the point is without large machinery one really can’t control air… and weather systems while they may be influenced, that’s an inexact science. If I have no ability to control it, study it, bend it to my own purpose, I have no use for it. And now we get back to the amount of money which has gone up another $20,000 thanks to your part in these conversations. Keep at it and it will continue to go up even faster.
@Jear77
Do you even hear yourself anymore?
And what now; if you find you have no ability to influence, bend or control me according to your own purpose??
This is the first of mindset one has to learn to control, in accepting Christ is one’s personal Savior. Without this, one doesn’t even leave the starting blocks.
@griz Not the point. I am not going to get involved with something I have no say over. With a person I can agree to disagree, but even to that I can say… “hey, keep talking about this and it actually HURTS your case.” And I have done so time and again. I’m simply giving you a financial figure how much it hurts your case. With god it’s my way or hell. You don’t get the point that I’ve spent so much time giving up things in my life that I can no longer do so where I had no say — at least not without significant financial compensation. I make the rules here, in this instance.
@Jear77
You have every say in whether you want to participate in an established Kingdom that you could have never established. do you want to participate and benefit or not?
Or do you want to try to control it and everything else to your liking?
@griz So? what’s your point? Unless or until I get the what I require, I will pass. You know what the cost of gold is? About $1200/ oz. You know how much the larger of the bars weighs? 420 oz. (about 26 lbs.) Do the math.
@Jear77
You seem like a man who confuses between “require” and “desire”.
@griz no. Require is the correct word. See here. Think of same thing in gold.
@Jear77
I wish you well with your new god.
It would be nice if it brings you everything you crave.
@griz You think I think that gold in and of itself is useful? No, it’s not. I can’t eat /drink it — it has no nutritional value. I can’t wear it, as an outfit made of it would be too heavy to move around in. I can’t build any sort of shelter with it. Think! Why would I want gold, if not for those purposes?
@Jear77
For ostentatious display??
People tend to crave gold for what they feel it will give them: money.
And people tend to crave money for what they feel it will give them: possessions, “ease”, power and security.
And people tend to crave these entirely for the feelings they think they will get from them.
But anything gained, is fleeting; and comes with the fear of losing what one has gained (things, or just feelings?)
It’s less the gold then the imagined feelings one hopes will come with it.
@griz I don’t believe in gaudy fashion. I wear absolutely no jewelry. Even were I to marry, I would not. Neither would I buy something like that for others. If they want it, they can buy it themselves.
The reason I require it for belief (or rather the equivalency in currency, for me to obtain such) is simple. Four words, “Streets paved with gold.” The picture above are called “pavers” or “paving bricks.” As they didn’t have asphalt technology in biblical times, I shouldn’t have had to spell that out to you. And you think that heaven would actually *miss* a few pavers when god can simply will more into existence?
Gold, It’s a universally recognized valuable commodity. If society were to collapse, the dollar to become useless, I could go literally anywhere around the world and have the ability to buy goods and services with gold bars. But would it REALLY be able to be used? Probably not, as how would one go about cashing in such a thing, while the dollar (US American currency, mind you). Basically it’d act untouchable reserve “just in case” that would sit in a closet and collect dust. MANY well-known economists have suggested to stockpile gold in case of financial instability. And if it never comes to that? It can be passed onto someone who needs it… oh, let’s say the federal government, housing-food-shelter-jobs for the homeless, etc. And in terms of display: no. I display nothing. I’m perfectly happy living in a plain, completely undecorated room, with a few things I call necessities.
The saying is “money can’t buy happiness” but a recent article I read stated that it CAN buy comfort, which is an important factor when it comes to being truly happy.
@Jear77
Is it logical to presume that a spiritual reality is going to have physical streets of gold? Or “many mansions”? Is there a chance this could have just been allegory; and one little people obsessed with money might relate to?
Both happiness and comfort are temporal (temporary) concerns. There is no denying that they are nice. And niceness is . . . nice! But neither of these things is any kind of enduring paradigm. Both are downright fickle and fleeting!
They are no kind of foundation to build anything lasting upon.
@griz what you’re saying is akin to the joke about the righteous man who asked God for a highway from somewhere to Hawaii, but then after God asked are you sure, and explaining the resources, and was told to ask for something more spiritual, he asked for understanding his wife completely. God’s response? Do you want two lanes or four?
@Jear77
That’s a good one! Thanks for the remind and the chuckle.
It’s a good reminder though that physical things are far easier for us to wrap our minds and our hands around than spiritual ones.
Spiritual questing takes effort dedication patience and commitment; though not in ” physical deeds to earn spiritual favor” as religion teaches.
@griz None of which I’ll ever have again as I’m going to be spending the rest of my life because of the fact that the prayer of being able to take care of myself was never answered. Which means I’ll be very likely working a minimum wage job less than 40 hours a week the rest of my life, living, quite literally hand to mouth. As it is I’ll be working until the day I die.
@Jear77
Religion lead you astray. You learned to pray with ego and not in the Spirit.
Welcome to the club; and hopefully to the process of learning from our mistakes and not making the same ones over again!
Your task now is to try not to apply the same religious process to the worship of capital as your “god” that will “fix everything”. You’ve just switched from trying to control things with God, to wanting to control things with money.
Nobody can say whether the future you envisioned is the one set aside for you.
The future I envisioned just six years ago, looked a lot like the one you now envision. I never imagined a house in my own name, a car I paid cash for, and being able to help out my parents as I now do. (None of these things were things I actively sought after. I simply sought God’s will for my life. These things were “side effects”.)
There are possibilities and futures that we cannot see; and that science cannot predict!
@griz That’s the key point: It’s completely useless talking about that while the money keeps going up a minimum of$10K weekly, more if i get disgusted with the way things are going. If my year to date earnings MATCH it (keep in mind this is AFTER taxes), the increase stops at that point. But these are cumulative figures. So that’s really the number really needs to be about 35% MORE than that. I don’t need much; That money I demand would be for retirement so I could stop working sooner rather than later.