I Think Life Is Empty And Meaningless. Still Want My Advice On Life?
Life is empty and meaningless and it’s empty and meaningless that it’s empty and meaningless.
When I posted that Life is empty and meaningless, I was just curious to see what type of comments I would get. I could have explained what I meant then, but I thought it would serve me better to wait.
Some people thought I was being morbid, some were offended, some thought I would attract more emptiness and meaningless into my life, while others saw the possibilities, and to my surprise and amusement someone actually called me out on being a landmark forum graduate. This only adds to the fact that I’m sharing these concepts with you because I believe you deserve to know them.
Perhaps defining what I mean by the above sentence is a huge contradiction. Why define something that I say is empty and meaningless. The reason I do this is because I want you to receive the benefit of this belief. This paradigm suits me well in life, and enables me to be happy, experience unconditional love, as well as push myself to new and exciting limits.
My paradigm of life liberates me from past fears, traumas, and self-limiting beliefs. Thoughts that dictate that I might fail, won’t make it, aren’t good enough, not smart or good-looking enough, and any other onslaught of beliefs that could potentially stop me from reaching my goals and fully enjoying life are absolutely unacceptable.
I’ve decided to take a zero-tolerance policy towards thoughts that aren’t being conducive to my happiness. When I think of thoughts as either pro-joy, or anti-joy, without a gray area, it helps me to filter out what I do not consider an adequate use of my time, resources, and thought processes.
I do believe there is an adequate purpose in studying ourselves and looking at why we have certain negative beliefs and emotions. I do not believe such thoughts have any other practical use in our daily lives. It is fun to have a breakthrough, in which you realize that you’ve been limiting your joy by holding onto a self-limiting belief. At the same time, it is important to stop dwelling on these thoughts soon after your a-ha! moment.
It’s true, what you think about expands, so why is it that I think about life being empty and meaningless? What most people do not realize is that we have a special mental and spiritual ability to start our lives with a blank-slate, whenever the urge strikes us or the need arises. Letting go of the past enables us to create our future. With emptiness and meaninglessness, we are armed with a future of endless possibilities.
By having such beliefs, you create a reality for yourself where there are no excuses. Surely there will still be challenges, but they’ll no longer be problems or impenetrable walls. Instead, life will be a game, in which you pick your thoughts, your activities, and go on a journey that is fun, challenging, and exciting. Once you adopt this paradigm, there is no more looking back (unless that’s what you want).
Who would you be without self limiting beliefs?
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Posted by Alex Shalman in Personal Development, Thinking | January 21, 2008 | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumble | Print | 24 comments
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Hi Alex,
I like this ..
I’ve decided to take a zero-tolerance policy towards thoughts that aren’t being conducive to my happiness.
Stumbled !
Gamy
After years of trying I think I finally assimilated this attitude when I had kids. When my son spilled a plate of spaghetti and sauce on the floor he was surprised that I wasn’t angry, but I pointed out that there are way more important things to care about than a mess on the floor. He and I and his sister cheerfully cleaned up and moved on.
Thanks for your concise illustration of this philosophy.
“I’ve decided to take a zero-tolerance policy towards thoughts that aren’t being conducive to my happiness.”
That’s all good and well, but I can’t get to that place with your outlook.
I must ask because I believe that your answer will explain a lot: What are your spiritual / religious beliefs? Do you have any?
In my opinion, a Christian would never adopt your “paradigm” / mantra as it contradicts our belief system. I appreciate what feefifoto said but, in my estimation / interpretation, what she expressed is consistent with but not exactly like your slogan. What she described is, for me, merely a system of prioritization: “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” For me, that’s not the same as “life is empty and meaningless.”
The point is that life is empty and meaningless until you give it substance and meaning, so choose that substance and meaning according to what you desire. I don’t know all the ins and outs of Christianity, but I’m not sure I follow how this paradigm can’t exist in a person that has the Christianity paradigm. If you get a chance to explain, I would love to know.
Ah, as I suspected. (No, that’s not an indictment or criticism.) I will have to write a post about your paradigm from a Christian perspective. So thanks for the inspiration!
I think responding in a full post is a great idea, and I look forward to reading it. Just let me know when it’s up.
Hi Alex,
I agree with you that nothing has meaning except for the meaning we give it. We are the ones who affix the meaning to anything. Reality just is….our thoughts and paradigms are what give it meaning.
Your premise reminds me of “the work” by Byron Katie. Her words are different but she basically says the same thing—that we assign the meaning and we have a choice of how we can think about things and situations.
While I like this….
“I’ve decided to take a zero-tolerance policy towards thoughts that aren’t being conducive to my happiness.”
I also value “contrast” and “intuition”. Those less than desirable thoughts that I sometimes have are usually telling me something of great value for my life…I wouldn’t just turn them off…..
I really enjoyed your article. Thank you!
Ah… finally someone blogs about a theory I’ve held for many years. Thanks for the article!
I think the abovementioned problems that Christians might have with this paradigm is that they believe that God has a plan for everything, no matter what we think. In essence- the idea that *we* decide the meaning of our life is contrary to their belief that *God* decides. So it would be hard for them to adopt this ‘me-based’ theory, because they are hung on a ‘God-based’ theory.
Good stuff. Keep up the posts!
- Jaden
http://www.undergroundunrest.com/blog
Thank you for the kind words guys, and I’m glad you are enjoying the blog.
Don’t worry, more is on the way, so come back soon. =)
Hah, brilliant! Perhaps being meaningless is to say that everything is okay, as it should be, right now. And so it is! Seems like you’re delving in non-duality, mate, am I right?
Cool, although I would have to say that life is meaning-less until we apply a meaning. But even that is because of the meaning I have attached to the word meaningless.
In love, light and abundance x x x
Lola Fayemi
Interesting philosophy Alex,
it’s like the story where a general burnt his ships so that his soldiers can fight all out.
I like this.
I love the zero tolerance policy. I think its a must to to weed out negativity.
Hey Alex, Still holding onto that Ipod…I really need to do a contest.
I thought you won it for you… You like how I sneakily had them engrave it? =)
Really, I still have yet to open it…lol…these days the only music I ever listen to is when I am driving. I don’t think my car is equipped to play MP3’s just yet.
Lol…too funny…I just opened it…got to love it…
Hey Alex!
Just checking out your blog tonight, and came across this post. It brought back great memories of the biggest AHA moment of my 3 days in the Landmark Forum. We spent hours on this one. I’m not sure if the one girl in our group was a plant, or if she really couldn’t grasp it - but….our moderator delivered this nugget of wisdom, and she completely came unglued.
“LIFE IS NOT EMPTY AND MEANINGLESS!!!” She exclaimed. “Right”, said the moderator. “Life is NOT empty and meaningless. BUT Life is empty and meaningless AND it’s empty and meaningless that it’s empty and meaningless.” Wow, she couldn’t let this nugget go for 3 days. On day 3, she finally “got it”, and brought in t-shirts for all the moderators to wear, and it was such a funny moment. The important thing is - And this is what she finally got - That this is not religious, and has nothing to do with G-d. It’s just that we all give our own meaning to things, and that meaning doesn’t automatically come along attached to the moment, but we assign our own meaning, to something that in its original form, had no meaning at all. So - everything we get is empty and meaningless - UNTIL we give it it’s meaning and purpose. OR until we give ourselves meaning and purpose. I haven’t had the opportunity to chew on this one lately, and the funny thing is, you reminded me of it at just the right time.
Today, I had a project I’d put my heart and soul into for four months fall apart at the very last moment. In that instant, it meant I had failed. It meant that the world was against me. It meant so many things - and now, after reading your blog, I just realized it didn’t mean any of those things at all. It meant nothing. It happened. Things happen. Some things work, some don’t. This didn’t. It was empty and meaningless, until I gave it meaning. Now, it just means I tried my best. And will continue to do so, regardless of the outcome.
thanks - I really needed that.
Debbi,
Thanks for stopping by. At the exact right time, because I’m doing the forum again tomorrow morning, and this just reminded me what a fun adventure the forum really is. I’m glad you got “nothing” out of this.
I have seen this article before. Interesting isn’t it.
You have good info on your site. Keep me posted of new info.
Thanks,
Cindy
A great post, this has given me a whole new way of trying to look at things. I cant remember the exact metamodel, but it strikes me as something in the NLP train of thought. We cant always control the external things that happen in our lives, but we can always control how we react to those things.
Life really is empty and meaningless, until you decide what you want to fill it up with.
Well said Dcrad.
I came across this post while googling “I Think Life Is Empty”. We are in the same boat!