![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Although it is often unreliable to do, but I've looking back over the last 45 years and categorizing the good times and bad times. I'm hunting down the similarities. What external and internal circumstances always existed in the bad times or always the same in the good times.
In all the bad times, I had what looked like an impossible future. An immediate future that I wouldn't be able to survive or that wasn't worth surviving. My immediate circumstances were overwhelming. In all the good times, my circumstances never overwhelmed -- even when basically the same as in the bad times. Certainly my response to my circumstances is a matter of my perception of them. In the good times, nothing seems impossible. In the bad times life is to be overcome and in the good times life is an adventure.
Seeing this, however, still left me with no useful categories. Why were my perceptions of similar external events different? There must have been a common thread that would hold the bad times together in one group and the good times in another.
Then I figured it out. Friends and Sweeties. Times were good when I was part of a large social organization. Times were bad when I was being a lone wolf. The more I tried to do things on my own without help, the worse the times became.
And it isn't just being social or being surrounded by lots of people. I was in the Navy for 20 years. Although I was surrounded by people all the time and married for much of that time, it was mostly Bad Times.
Bad Times happened when I was not accepting of those around me. Every single Bad Times in my memory is connected to my judgment about people and my inability to accept them as they were.
The common thread in all the Bad Times was my attitude. The common thread in the Good Times has been my acceptance of people and of myself. Nothing like being cause in the matter of my life.
I had learned this philosophically, but hadn't really applied the knowledge to my life history. Memories are unreliable and finding this pattern isn't a Truth with scientific accuracy. But it fits. And it provides hope for the future. Bad Times are mine to NOT create. Good times are mine to create. Circumstances aren't the ruling factor.
I love my life. I love the people in my life.
(group hug)
In all the bad times, I had what looked like an impossible future. An immediate future that I wouldn't be able to survive or that wasn't worth surviving. My immediate circumstances were overwhelming. In all the good times, my circumstances never overwhelmed -- even when basically the same as in the bad times. Certainly my response to my circumstances is a matter of my perception of them. In the good times, nothing seems impossible. In the bad times life is to be overcome and in the good times life is an adventure.
Seeing this, however, still left me with no useful categories. Why were my perceptions of similar external events different? There must have been a common thread that would hold the bad times together in one group and the good times in another.
Then I figured it out. Friends and Sweeties. Times were good when I was part of a large social organization. Times were bad when I was being a lone wolf. The more I tried to do things on my own without help, the worse the times became.
And it isn't just being social or being surrounded by lots of people. I was in the Navy for 20 years. Although I was surrounded by people all the time and married for much of that time, it was mostly Bad Times.
Bad Times happened when I was not accepting of those around me. Every single Bad Times in my memory is connected to my judgment about people and my inability to accept them as they were.
The common thread in all the Bad Times was my attitude. The common thread in the Good Times has been my acceptance of people and of myself. Nothing like being cause in the matter of my life.
I had learned this philosophically, but hadn't really applied the knowledge to my life history. Memories are unreliable and finding this pattern isn't a Truth with scientific accuracy. But it fits. And it provides hope for the future. Bad Times are mine to NOT create. Good times are mine to create. Circumstances aren't the ruling factor.
I love my life. I love the people in my life.
(group hug)
patterns
it's pretty much the opposite for me. i could be as accepting as possible (and i used to be very accepting, more so than i am now) but as long as people didn't accept me as well, i had miserable times in social structures.
still do. don't much care for social structures. IME somehow they can't seem to exist without coming to form some sort of group-think, even when they start out vehemently against the prevailing group-think. very small structures can manage. but even when they do, i still like my times alone a lot; that is how i regain energy and inner peace.
which is sorta too bad because i find people fascinating. :)
Re: patterns
I have much more freedom of movement now, though. I don't have to be around groups who don't accept me. Not so when I was a teen or in the Navy.
Still, because I do have groups and individuals who accept me, I can be with groups of people who don't accept me with much greater ease and grace.
Lots of people on the planet. I guess, though, I am a product of (parts of) my generation. I have bits of pieces of song lyrics running through my head.
After all those years in the Navy, I have a flowerchild sensibility. :)
no subject
*hugs back*