Why change is so hard 2

However, it is also something most of us have to try and find out for ourselves. And that is generally true (I think) for most things, that we have to find our own path, hopefully with the help of others. (Without the help of others it is misery whether or not we are successful.) But since we have to find our own path it normally involves slowly trying new ways of approaching things and finding which ones work for us. Then hopefully at some point along the way we figure out that we have found enough of new and better ways that our old self-injurious ways are no longer necessary. At this point we realize we have a new freedom and happiness and peace and sometimes we wrongly attribute it to one event or idea when in actuality it was a long time coming and the build up of the constant struggle and slowly trying to do and find better ways that led to it.

Anyway, my point with all this is that I am glad you are trying in whatever ways you are trying. If you keep trying, even if you screw up a lot or do not take the best or straightest path to where you and all of us hope to go and get, you will make it and you will be amazed. (Lord knows my path has been full of one screw up after another.) So try to resist the urge to say "fuck it, I cannot do this" because the truth is that at that time you might not have found yet all the ingredients to the life you are hoping for or really want, but if you keep pushing forward and looking for them, you will find them. Of course, like all of us, sometimes you will essentially say "fuck it, I cannot do this" but try not to stay there too long or believe it too deeply or for too long. Just realize that you need a few more ingredients or answers or solutions for it to all come together, and that you will find them if you keep looking and trying, as long as that involves in some way connecting to others and the world around us.

Now I would guess you might be thinking, well most people do not seem to have found this which you say is possible and even inevitable if someone continues to seek it. That is true, but I think it is because they stop looking and pushing forward trying to find what we are all looking for. They also look around and figure that what they are really looking for is not available and stay in the, fuck it this is probably as good as it is going to get so I guess I'll try to survive and eek out whatever enjoyment I can. It is also because it is nearly impossible to find it without mentors who have found at least a little bit of it, and unfortunately there are not that many of those mentors around. And even the mentors that are around and ready and hoping to help are often drowned out by the majority that say it is not possible.  And it is almost impossible for the person searching to determine which is truly the enlightened path.  Therefore, again generally we just have to start trying some new things and keep the ones that work and drop the ones that do not.  With time we get better at determining which are better for us.

Doing that sort of thing I think can and does completely change my life. I think it is because of what I discussed about at the deepest levels we really only believe (or at least most strongly believe) in our own experience and prior subconscious interpretation of (visceral beliefs about) our experience. So even if what we might feel up to doing today is vastly short of what may be necessary to permanently change what we do, it can and does at least slightly change us internally and makes it more possible at some future time.

Which brings us back to the what a spiritual adviser or mentor of mine often comes back to:

do not to let the fact that I do not have the energy/time/ability/etc to do something just right keep me from doing what I actually can do today, however feeble that may be.

My mentor credits the idea to Edward Everett Hale when he wrote
I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything; but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.