Are you retarded? Maybe..

[sadavis00]

Do you intuitively feel that you are smart, but the world seems to think otherwise? That is basically the case with me. I do a lot of introspection, I do things deliberately, I apply my insights to my daily life immediately. I generally understand what is going on around me. I participate in life quiet efficiently. Well then, why is it that people who do no introspection, who follow their emotions (as far as I know), act very stupid (but not deliberately, as when acting stupid at a party), are able to keep pace with me and surpass me in areas that I care about (Love, Wealth, Great Experiences). I am sure everyone has had such an experience, what do you put in down to? Is it luck, or do they INTUITIVELY understand something that we are are too dumb to understand intuitively, and so have to use the crutch of CONSCIOUS reasoning to figure out? I mean, how are these intuitives able to do so well in most areas of life, without having an expressed purpose, without having a strategy to confront problems, without consciously trying to do something that will make their life better, without having a schedule. Are we who TRY to improve our lives deliberately just really really dumb?

[judge45]

That's really interesting.

A guy I know who can barely spell his name is a multi-millionaire.

What's interesting is his first wife hates his guts, he ignores his kids, who also resent him, his first son killed himself, his second wife is a slave and the kid they have has some serious mental/learning problems.

He has more money than God and yet seemingly everything else in his life is complete crap.

I don't think it's ever about 'smarts' it's more about focus.

You focus on every moment in your life, without getting caught up in other people's lives.

Don't look for answers, because all the answers are inside you.

HTH

Jeff

[theknightwhosaysni-NI]

this is really interesting indeed. Well maybe that :

-successful people actually DO introspection, only we don't see it. I am pretty sure that really successful people are people who have a special philosophy about life that they have worked on for a long time. It seems like it is intuitive but it is not really, unless they had a perfect childhood and no problem at all. (which is not common or even impossible)
Or maybe :

-People who think too much don't put enough action in their life. To some extent this is my problem. Lots of introspection allow us to understand "what is going on" around us, and what we should do in a given situtation. We don't act enough in the real world.
The best thing is to align THOUGHT + ACTION.
So what I am saying is that the people who seem to understand things INTUITIVELY actually have only the ACTION part. (whereas we rather have the THOUGHT part). They ACT, and this is where their success comes from.

If we compare the three kind of persons :
1-not afraid to ACT
2-introspective people, who understand things
3-introspective people, who understand things AND who are not afraid to ACT,
then number 3 are the most successful, then number 2 and number 1.

It is a simplistic model I am drawing here but well, you get the idea.

[judge45]

Thought will only take you so far.

It's the foundation, but because during the day we exist in a physical world, physical action on some level must take place to get what you desire.

That's why sitting on the couch all day using IM may bring alpha reflections, but the beta reflections will require work.

Jeff

[dorothy hanna]

I've noticed that action oriented people are more successful because they act on most everything. Much of which is a mistake, but some of it works, and it gets them to the next level of whatever their trying to accopmplish, or where they want to be in life. Almost like plating a ping pong machine. Just keep flapping those flappers, and shooring out a next ball, with little hesitation, and you rack up more points. They seem to only do very basic thinking, and then they ACT! Many times they flub up, but then the next thing occurs, and they ACT!
Being introspective is O.K., but While I'm ussually analyzing, and thinking about life, and pondering it's wonders, and even feeling very grateful etc...the chatty girl with no experience blurts out, "I want to do that", or, "I will", or "Pick me"! And sure enough, they get picked. They make lots of goofy mistakes, and seem to go out partying and living a fast life with little thought, but they are really moving out way ahead of me, and are not afraid to make those goofy mistakes. Hence, they don't hesitate.

They also don't stick with anything that doesn't turn out to be what they maybe had in mind, and for some reason, Their lack of sticking to it, is not held against them, as they are just as enthusiastic about the next thing that comes up, as they were, previously about the thing they've had a quick change of mind about. They just say, "That wasn't what I thought it was going to be, so no. I don't want to do that anymore." On with the next thing!

They also have a great habit of asking for help, and asking stupid question, that can be answered easily by others. They never ask about the fairness of, the rightness of anything. They never ponder the meaning of life. They just live it one foot in front of the other.

Maybe I should try that.

[billybrads]

Originally Posted by sadavis00

I participate in life quiet efficiently.

Well then, why is it that people who do no introspection, are able to keep pace with me and surpass me in areas that I care about (Love, Wealth, Great Experiences).

Are we who TRY to improve our lives deliberately just really really dumb?

I am having a little trouble figuring out where you are at, because you say you participate in life quite efficiently, but at the same time seem to feel shortchanged.

I would not encourage comparisons to others, but I would suggest opening yourself up to greater love, wealth, and great experiences if you feel life is not living up to your expectations in these areas.

As for the last part, at the risk of sounding cliche, remember YODA. There is no try only do or not do.

To answer your question from an objective point of view however, perhaps you had a deeper sense of insecurity and doubt than these other people which is why you turned to PD in the first place. Sounds like you have made progress in some areas, but not everywhere you want. I would just suggest, keep at it.

Also possibly these people have a clearer intention or goal than you, despite the fact that you might have put more effort into creating yours. For example, the naturally gifted athlete, who is quarterback of the football team, may not have had to stretch his imagination or do the emotional growing that someone else has to do to reach a perceived level of success. The path was laid out for him by thousands already. He doesn't have to define what success means to him. Success for him is playing well, scoring touchdowns, and winning games.

Creating your own intentions and definitions for success is a step that most people don't consciously think about. By going after society's standard set of goals they give themselves a framework to achieve in.

Perhaps, for better or for worse, you are making situations more complex for yourself than those you compare yourself to. Perhaps you are more afraid of making a mistake than these others. Dorothy alluded to this in her post as well. She talked of the girls who just do whatever and if they don't like it they move on to something else. Maybe you need a little bit more of this in your life. If you're afraid to, and I'm not insinuating that you are, only presenting it as a possibility, then maybe you need to address what you're afraid of.

[theknightwhosaysni-NI]

Originally Posted by dorothy hanna

I've noticed that action oriented people are more successful because they act on most everything. Much of which is a mistake, but some of it works, and it gets them to the next level of whatever their trying to accopmplish, or where they want to be in life. Almost like plating a ping pong machine. Just keep flapping those flappers, and shooring out a next ball, with little hesitation, and you rack up more points. They seem to only do very basic thinking, and then they ACT! Many times they flub up, but then the next thing occurs, and they ACT!
Being introspective is O.K., but While I'm ussually analyzing, and thinking about life, and pondering it's wonders, and even feeling very grateful etc...the chatty girl with no experience blurts out, "I want to do that", or, "I will", or "Pick me"! And sure enough, they get picked. They make lots of goofy mistakes, and seem to go out partying and living a fast life with little thought, but they are really moving out way ahead of me, and are not afraid to make those goofy mistakes. Hence, they don't hesitate.

They also don't stick with anything that doesn't turn out to be what they maybe had in mind, and for some reason, Their lack of sticking to it, is not held against them, as they are just as enthusiastic about the next thing that comes up, as they were, previously about the thing they've had a quick change of mind about. They just say, "That wasn't what I thought it was going to be, so no. I don't want to do that anymore." On with the next thing!

They also have a great habit of asking for help, and asking stupid question, that can be answered easily by others. They never ask about the fairness of, the rightness of anything. They never ponder the meaning of life. They just live it one foot in front of the other.

Maybe I should try that.

That's a great description you're doing here. It could apply to children actually!
I do believe that if some people live like that, without any bad thought or low vibrations, then they are really LIVING. They must be very successful and excited about life, just like children.

[sadavis00]

billybrads,

I do have a problem of thinking all or nothing when it comes to success, which makes me afraid to explore options since I think there is no other other way. I will work this problem out, and also take some of Dorothy's advice. And when I was talking of living efficiently, I meant that knowing my physical and mental constraints, I maximize my achievement, and I know I do this because my consciously monitor my patterns of performance and time use.
I don't feel shortchanged, just feel things are not right when people do as well as me, even though I conciously try to do well, while they don't.

The people I am talking about are mainly my friends, who I know don't live consciously, instead when I ask them why they do something, they say it is because they have to, or it makes them feel good. If someone asks me why I do something, I could go on for hours explaining my philosophy of life, and how what I am doing is related to my philosophy. My friends work as much as me, have as many great experiences as me, and have as many loving relationships as me, if not more. To succeed in life, it seems that I don't need to have a philosophy at all, but I can't imagine doing anything without having a fundamental self-created philosophy supporting it. Your example of the gifted athlete made sense. These people have an intuitive understanding of what they need to do, so they don't need to create conciously create a purpose like I do. It is kind of like the difference between the scientist and the engineer, a scientist knows how things work in depth, while an engineer know how things work superfically, enough to actually make the things. If success in life is a thing, then it seems that having a superficial understanding of life may be enough. Having the willpower to do something without having an in depth understanding of "why" may also be necessary.

[mtrimpe]

OK, say you, as a human being, are both a computer and it's programmer. You as a whole have a limit amount of processing capacity.

It sounds like you spend most of your processing power on programming and improving the computer. That way you get a really smart computer capable of doing all kinds of things. That is true.

What you are forgetting however, is that the system you are designing doesn't really get a lot of the processing power to actually do what you've designed it to do. If you never never actually actually start up the application and let it run, you're not going to be serving a lot of people. You will be capable of serving a great many people, but until you start running the application that actually helps people, you won't be doing much good for the world.

Say for example you want to build a computer that provides an answer to every question in the world. Now compare these two different approaches:

1. You create a system that accept questions from all other systems in the world and in return gives 10 random suggestions. It then asks the recipients to say which answer they liked best and the next time the question is asked, it puts the best liked answer at the top of the suggestion list. The system does this for 80 years; giving the best liked answer.

2. You create a system that perpetually scours the Internet for actual question-answer scenarios. It stores all the results, analyses the underlying causes, analyses what happens, attempts to understand everything, poses itself hypothetical questions and verifies them according to other actual scenarios, creating an immensely complex and accurate view of the world in the process. The system does this for 80 years; giving no answers at all.

Which of the two has helped more people? Which of the two will be rewarded more? Which of the two will be appreciated more? Which of the two will actually achieve more results?

[billybrads]

Mtrimpe-That is a very wise analogy. This has been my problem too, which is probably why I felt inclined to respond to this post. I have used my capabilities in fits and spurts, but am currently hardly using them at all. Now I do not even feel like I have the same capabilities. This is another reason for putting your abilities into action. It is very true that if you don't use them, you lose them. (at least they become harder to access)