I am curious what you mean. I know you said it's private, it's a long story, etc, which is fair enough, your life is your business, but would you care to share a summary of a few key differences in how you are going to live after this transformation, compared to how you are living now?
For example, you said you were in college, are you going to keep going to the same college? Are your long term plans for your life in the future going to change at all? Are you going to keep the same friends? What about other pastimes, what kind of hobbies do you have now and what kind of stuff are you going to do instead in the future?
Obviously you don't need to answer all those questions, or even any of them, but since you've said you hope to change EVERYTHING in your life, I would be very interested if you could share a few of your more specific intentions... both to satisfy my own curiosity and perhaps that of others who have been following this thread.
I'm not sure how to answer your question. I tried earlier but I couldn't do it. I thought about your question though. I realized the other day that the parts of me that I want to change are the parts of me that are more when I get intoxicated. I'm not sure how to really explain that. I was just drunk and I realized everything that I was drunk, was what I disliked about myself. It's not the fact that I am drunk that I didn't like, it was the traits and part of me that shined stronger when I was drunk. That doesn't mean those parts aren't there when I'm sober though. But this was simply just a thought I had when I was drunk, so I'm not sure how much credibility I want to give it.
I'm not sure what changes I will make. I don't plan on making any specific changes, I just want the changes to occur naturally. I want the changes to be made because of something I think at the appropriate time I should change. Like I said, I won't be a new person doing old things. The old person is what I want to change, and the old person is attached to the things I do. In my document, I have used examples of things I used to do to identify traits about myself and elaborate on them. The 'old' me would be attached to the things that I do, and so the things that I do that makes the old me me, I would want to change it so that I am not the new me being made into the old me.
I guess a good example would be: (this is just an example, this does not apply to my life) say I have a girlfriend and I cheat on her with another girl. If I were to, as a new person, see the wrong in this, and want to be a better person who respects his girlfriend, love, and not be such an asshole (this example might not be as effective since again, it doesn't really apply to me), then I would want to change. Well, so what if I adapt this philosophy that I want to be this new person who respects all these things and sees the wrong in these things--yet I still, everyday, go see the same girl, expecting not to sleep with her and or I still sleep with her. Me doing that old thing that made the old me, me in that sense would be contradictory to the new me and in fact, make the new me the old me.
I hope I answered your question. Like I said, I don't really understand it and I don't really have any good examples I can put into words. But I tried.
Based on what you said previously about having no intention of taking up yoga, martial arts, meditation, or anything with any hint of a spiritual leaning, because it's "connected to what you're trying to get away from" or something, I'm now thinking that perhaps your intention here is not personal growth as everyone assumed, but instead to purposefully dumb yourself down... at the moment you are clearly a highly introspective and thoughtful but overall quite discontented individual, and perhaps you hope to be able to switch off those parts of yourself that are concerned with deeper meanings in life, and live in a shallower but more blissfully ignorant, hedonistic and carefree way from now on... am I close?
I mean, you're on the right track. I'm not trying to be blissfully ignorant. However, if all else fails that I want to be so I can just move on. However, what I am trying to do is not to be blissfully ignorant, but it's not necessarily primarily self-growth either. I am trying to achieve self-growth, yes. However, I am not trying to achieve self-growth for self-growth. If I am being honest, even though there are things I dislike about myself, I love myself. I am happy with who I am. That does not mean it's who I want to be. I've always wanted to be this certain person, but now I have a reason to be this new person. And that reason is not just because I want to be a new person or I dislike myself enough to not want to be the person that I am. There's a bigger reason. There is something I believe I can achieve. However, I do not believe I can achieve it as the person I am simply because of my flaws. This is not just speculation either for this belief has come from recent experience. However, I believe that this particular person that I have always wanted to be can achieve what it is I am trying to achieve. So therefore, I've decided to sit down and fully conceptualize this person, fully conceptualize me, fully conceptualize what I don't want to be and shouldn't be, and I want to take all of this and become the fully conceptualized person I want to be, which I believe is very possible since it's not radically different from who I am. However, nothing is ever sound. Everything is contingent. While I believe being this particular person will help achieve what it is I want to achieve, I do not think that there is not a possibility it will not. I am aware that there is as much possibility of me achieving what I want to achieve if I were to be successful with this experiment as there is a possibility of me not achieving what I want to achieve if I were to be successful with this experiment. However, I am still willing to undergo the experiment, for it is the very act of me trying to achieve what I want to achieve in the biggest and, ideally, most effective way possible. And by trying to do something like this, I feel that I am putting all that I can, and doing all that I can in one instance; one experiment. I feel as if I am not willing to put this much effort into this, then I don't really deserve it in the first place. And so therefore, I feel by doing this experiment, my effort will more justify my deserving of this then me not putting any effort into this at all and just expecting it for I will feel as if I deserve it anyways. So, by doing this experiment, I am aware that there are risk, but I am also aware that there are rewards. And in this case, if something goes wrong, I will grow as a person. If something goes wrong, I will live blissfully ignorant. If something goes wrong, I will lose my mind. If something goes wrong, I will die. If something goes wrong, I will be fucked up for the rest of my life. Yet, if everything goes right, I will achieve what it is I am trying to achieve. Yet, if something goes right, and I achieve what I am trying to achieve but it is not worth it, then I might regret it, and regret doing any of this, and miss the way things were. However, all of these are risks I am willing to take for I see the thing I am trying to achieve as something that will make everything worth it if I achieve it.
Strong ties to what?? Self-improvement, self-discovery, psychological and emotional strength and stability? This sentence is just incomprehensible to me.
