Doing unto others as I would do unto myself

[darkw0rker]

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Cliche. Did not believe it. Always hated the whole idea that you are the world, that you are one with people and the universe.

I have always been mean to people. Never cared a damn thing about a human being in my entire life so far. Please, it's not because I'm a DARKWORKER. When I look back at that polarity thing it seems so childish and naive to me.

Anyways, my life has been a complete mess for the last 3 years. On the inside I've felt sick, bored, apathetic toward myself and others, especially other close people.

I don't know if I am noticing these things or if something inside me has changed miraculously. I notice the exact way I behave toward people influences the way I feel about myself and the way I see myself.

I've noticed when I am kind to people, I am actually being kind to myself. When I am being fake and unauthentic to them, I am also being fake to myself. By manipulating others, I am manipulating myself. By not being responsible for others, I am not being responsible for myself.

But again I don't know if it's true or not that we are one with others since this is a subjective experience. There might be people who act wrongly with people and feel good about themselves, of course if they are not deluding themselves.

The first place I noticed it was the idea of education. I am in college. I realized that I cannot fully learn my subject if I cannot teach it to others. In other words, teaching a subject allows a deeper learning of it. So I concluded it is only by educating people at a certain place in my life that I am able to educate myself more deeply.

And the same is true with educating the public. If my goal is to educate the public, how can I do it without educating myself completely?

I have also had social anxiety/social phobia for several years. But I realized that it is not people that I am feared of and anxious about, but only myself. I am afraid of certain aspects of myself being known to others. It's not social anxiety but self anxiety.

Please make comment on whether I am deluding myself once again or not because I have found me deluding me in my entire life.

[Smartass]

I don't think you're deluding yourself here. You are doubting some of your own believes and that may eventually lead to discarding them completely and adapting to new believes and values. It's all growth and already in motion, there is nothing you can do anymore, because you will keep searching for the truth on autopilot from here on I think. You are not used to having doubt right?

Just wait for new believes to become convictions and your mentality and actions will be clear again.

[yossarian]

You're not deluding yourself.

Consider this. Basically every wise person in all of history who has found happiness has attested to certain basic facts.

One of the most common things they tell us is that the way you treat others, you are treating yourself that way. So when you're kind to other, they feel good about that, and you get to share in that good feeling.

It's not a zero-sum game, it's a win-win situation to serve others. The more you forget yourself and work to serve others, the more blissful and happy you feel.

Literally thousands upon thousands of saints throughout history have attested to this fact. A little experimentation and observation (as you have done) confirm their findings.

Stop doubting and trust the evidence you've seen, and trust the testimony of countless other. Start living that way.

Subjective reality is a tarpit if it causes you to doubt what is right in front of your own eyes. Steve's concept of subjective reality is meant to liberate you to follow your own experience, not meant as an excuse to reject your own experience.

Look at the logical contradiction you're making - on one hand you lament, "What if my experiences are just subjective and not objective, then they must be false."

Do you see how this is inherently self-contradictory? If you truly believed in subjective reality, then there would be no objective goal to judge your subjectivity against. You are clearly displaying to me that you in fact believe in an objective reality, but are using the rationalization of "subjective reality" to reject the things you've observed.

If you are able to dispassionately analyze the logic of your statement you'll see it contains an inherent contradiction. If there is no objective reality, then there is nothing for you to compare against, and your subjective experience is definitive and should not be doubted. If there is an objective reality, then your observations are of that reality and you must conform your thinking to that reality.

So either way, your only logical choice is to accept your observations about kindness.

The reason you've suffered for 3 years is because you've been violating the laws of objective reality. One of the laws of the universe is that you get back what you dish out. So if you dish out unhappiness, you receive unhappiness. Has your life not attested to this fact?

No matter how much you disbelieve in this fundamental law, it still exists, and it still works in your life.

For how long must you observe the law of karma in action before you decide that it is real, and that the testimony of those many millions was correct all along?

[James81]

Originally Posted by darkw0rker

I notice the exact way I behave toward people influences the way I feel about myself and the way I see myself.

I read your whole post, but this is what jumped out at me (and had a personal effect on me I might add).

You, my friend, have just stumbled onto a truth that most people may never truly understand.

You hit the nail on the head. When you treat others like you would yourself, it's not for THEM that you do it, it's for your own good. As simple and cliche as this belief is, it's one of the hardest for us to realize.

Can't forgive that person that hurt you? Look at what your choosing not to forgive is doing to YOU. You harbor negative feelings and those negative feelings take a very real personal toll on you.

I think you're on the right track, so stick with it. Not everything is going to be clear and easy. Some beliefs take time to become a part of us.

And thanks for posting this thread. The part that I quoted above really struck a chord with me.