You Are NOT Responsible For Your Laziness

[Joely]

I love your attitude, Angela! I've come to find in my life that when I choose to take responsibility for how I act and what I do with my life - regardless of my circumstances or context - I feel more deeply empowered. When we feel bound by a particular context, just seeing one tiny window as the way out starts to open up the boundaries. You can move from a state where you're totally constrained by circumstances, but just making a different choice, taking that responsibility, changes everything.

I think it's a matter of awareness. It's very easy to blame circumstances or other people and claim that you have no choice, because taking responsibility involves stepping back and making a new choice for yourself. I went to a school where violence and drug-taking was rife, and nobody ever considered going to university. Yet I and other children made a conscious choice not to take the drugs or mess up our lives. It's about being aware that we don't have to be victims of circumstance. You can always choose to turn the TV off and do something more productive. It's not like somebody's standing there with a gun forcing you to watch it.

[Cyndi]

Very interesting thread...I am just wondering if the biggest differences of opinion here could be gender related? Kind of like the "Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus" syndrome? HAHA

There is no doubt in my mind that anyone regardless of background or circumstances, context or environment can have, do or be anything they want in life. The key is wanting it bad enough. Some people are just not willing to step outside of their comfort zone, regardless of where that might be. I have met people in the past that seem truly happy being unhappy with their lives...Isn't that a personal choice? The path of least resistance seems to carry a lot of weight, and in order to have things change we all must face the fact that we need to change paths...it takes hard work, determination and a willingness to committ to change no matter what the obstacles are.

And focus...if we focus on our environment instead of our own beliefs and values, then that environment becomes our beliefs and values...hmmmm scary thought!

Angela, I think you are right on. People need to start taking responsibility for their actions/reactions, for that is what creates our reality.

To Living Your Dreams,
Cyndi

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Adrian

While you can control the borders, filter, etc., of your context to some extent, how often do you deliberately choose each and every environment and people you are going to encounter on your day to day life?

I touched on my view of free will at the end - "I like to think it’s (laziness / you behaviors / your views) a bit of both. Your environment creates who you are, but you actually do have some way in the realm of free will and thinking." The blog entry was written more context-driven to make a strong point and get people to think and debate. (Success!)

What about thinking and seeing the environment as a reflection of your inner state? That change happens from within? Free will is over rated. It is for the ego to "use". Free will gets us in trouble and makes us think we can force the environment or context to change. Our brains are habitual and there's weighted neuronal firings that make a choice based on how the brain has been trained. The brain does learn from the environment/context, but the context is a reflection of our inner state anyway. All the habits and addictions we have are really the context mechanically making choices for us based on what we choose last time a similar something occurred. But all those automatic choices are based on being asleep and letting our brains and neurons do all the work. The other way is to unhook from the habits and addictions and allow spirit to guide us. I'm not sure how that goes but have glimpsed such a way of being. Taking 100% responsibility is really giving up on free will or surrendering to what is, right now, and to not disagree with the context. After all the context is our inner self reflected outside. But it's not our normal way of realizing the outside world. The outside world is really us in a form that we separate from- project those parts of us that we are in denial of or addicted to. To be awake and conscious of oneness would be 100% responsibility.

While I don't think you have 100%, complete free will to do whatever you want, I think you have the power to exercise choices in the realm of your context. Context tells you "these things are acceptable behavior, these things are not acceptable behavior." You choose - with your free will - what to act out on, based on your context. Context tells you that casual drug use is okay? You'll probably engage in that behavior. Context tells you X? You'll start believing and acting out X. (It's kind of basic when you think about it - why don't parents want their kids to hang around the wrong crowd?)

Choose with free will based on context - not sure. If choice is based on context, you are partly asleep, unconscious. We think it's free will but it's some algorithm in our neurons. If we could be, just be, our actions will be in the present moment and not reactive and not based on context but based on our inner light and spirit. The more conscious and present one is, the easier it is to not be lead all over the place by context and habits, reactionary ways of acting out reduce too. Fully conscious would allow one to act with spirit and be part of finding peace and harmony, regardless of context. And context changes plenty with inner awareness.

The guy that gets tempted by drugs, when more aware, will not see that temptation in his context.

It's something interesting to think about. If you had no context, no rules, no boundaries, would you still have 100% free will, or would other forces pull you to take certain actions?

Forces that pull on you are part of the unconscious way of being. The Conscious way of being merges your will with the spiritual world and is not free will. Free will is the ego trying to make sure the context is a certain way so that the ego's fear will go away. No context, no boundaries - not possible. The context and boundaries are there at the level of one's consciousness or rather unconsciousness. The more unconscious the more context and boundaries show up that seem like one has to act a certain way because of that outside world. the more conscious one is, the less context matters or the less context is something that drives behavior or habitual thought or addictions. The rules that show in the environment are still there when being conscious but those rules are not really rules but ease and harmony and peace and joy.

How much free will do you have in a given context? How far can you push the boundaries of certain contexts?

Free will is an illusion of the ego. So are pushing boundaries or contexts. It is trying to act as if the outside world is separate from us, when really it is a reflection of our inner state.

How do you decide on what contexts to put yourself in?

Deciding is habitual stuff. If one is really conscious it's not a decision to put yourself into a context or not. It's a guidance that your gut feelings and intuitions take you or even unfold the environment to be exactly the way it is, perfectly unfolding and existing right now.

How much influence does a given context have over your life? So many questions!

As much as I am asleep, the context has influence over me. The more I am feeling like a separate ego, the more outside contexts will knock me around. Context after all is just a defining of the outside world as not me. So if I was more conscious, that the outside world didn't feel like not me, then that context will not be influencing me so much as it is me.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Adrian

I wrote this article a week or two ago, I thought it would make for some interesting discussion on these forums:

Path to Your Destiny » You Are Not Responsible for Your Laziness

Basically, I don't think you're responsible for your laziness. While you can control your emotions to a certain extent, you're always locked within the bounds of your context. Your context directs your actions, which you then take. I elaborated on this concept here (social roles) and here (more on context).

I know, I know, a lot to read. I don't expect all of you to read everything, but it's a starkly contrasting viewpoint to most personal development mindsets out there.

Thoughts, comments, questions, discussion?

I disagree.

You ARE RESPONSIBLE for your laziness.

Laziness is software, not hardware.

We cant really do anything about our nuts and bolts, bits and bobs (hardware), but we can install or uninstall just about any software we desire in our brain.

So if we were born with a physical handicap then that is just what it is (that is not to say we cant challenge what that means to us)

However we are NOT BORN LAZY.

People think too much in modern society about the obvious. (As a philosophy graduate I am well aware of the weight of that last sentence) But it is true.

Some things we just have to get on with.

Just do it. Do it now. Seize the moment.

All simple truths.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Stephen

Cease the moment.

Do you mean to say "seize the moment"? Cease means to halt.

[rosewalbrugh]

Very interesting thread! Loving reading all of your views.

Incidentally I've written an article that I've published on another thread... have a look and let me know what you think??

Are you addicted to your emotions? | Free My Mind

It explores the possibility that we may be unconsciously shaping our realities to be able to rationally manifest addictive emotions...

Anyone think I may have a point?

Rose

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by rosewalbrugh

It explores the possibility that we may be unconsciously shaping our realities to be able to rationally manifest addictive emotions...

Anyone think I may have a point?

What does "unconsciously shaping our realities" mean?

What does "rationally manifest addictive emotions" mean?

Addictions are kind of like habitual behavior. We can have unconscious responses and behaviors to external events and then we think emotions happen to us from the outside. But really what is happening is we let the unconscious make the emotional/behavioral choice automatically for us.

The more conscious we are, the more we are able to choose our behavior with awareness, the less we will use our habitual (or addictive) responses. If we can pause a bit into our being before reacting, we could (I like to think)choose any response in emotions or behavior, including the habitual one.

[Keith]

Originally Posted by Stephen

Laziness is software, not hardware.

Basically this is true (though software vs hardware is a lot less clear cut with brains than it is with computers).

But the thing is that any new 'software' has to be compatible with the existing software or it won't run. This is what I was getting at earlier (albeit not very clearly).

Let me use a more extreme (and hopefully clearer) example: If you are a principled and ethical person you can't just add the program "It's just fine to murder people" to your brain. The existing software will immediately refuse to run that program because it's incompatible with existing software.

The same applies to 'laziness'. You have software running in your brain that indicates that 'laziness' is the best way to go. If you just try to run "We won't be lazy now!" software, your brain will reject it.

Originally Posted by Stephen

However we are NOT BORN LAZY.

IMO this is true. 'Lazy' is an adaptation. We've become lazy because somewhere along the line, our brain has programmed itself to recognise laziness as the best response to a particular situation (notice how we're always 'lazy' about some things but not others? They're individual learned 'programs' not one giant one). There are lots of reasons this can happen.

eg. Say you were supposed to clean your room as a child, but when you didn't bother your Mum cleaned it up anyway. This embeds a program (or model of reality) that "If I don't do the cleaning it'll go away anyway". You learn that inaction is the most efficient response.

You move out of home, Mum's nowhere to be seen, but you still have that learnt response - that program - running in your head that it's a waste of time to clean. You don't know why the program's there - it was self-installing - but it still directs your actions and it still restricts what new software can be installed.

You need a very good reason why cleaning is not a waste of time in order to overrule it. And even then, once you've finished the old 'lazy' software will move back to the top of the priority queue.

IMO Angela is the amazing person she is because she has, over time, systematically revised her mental programs to be as tolerant as possible of additional software. Ditto Steve (that is, in a nutshell what the "Subjective Reality" Operating System is about).