Stanley
Master Don Juan
- Joined
- Nov 6, 2022
- Messages
- 1,115
- Reaction score
- 1,320
It is important to take breaks from here.
I will have been here for nearly 6 months and in that time I have taken away a considerable amount of knowledge, new perspectives and tested my own beliefs and thought processes. I also can’t fathom the amount of time i’ve spent here.
(ironic how this is my 999 message, how fitting)
I’ve challenged and tested my mental conditioning and recognized my most significant insecurities. I am at a point where I am satisfied as my motivations for coming to this board have been fulfilled and I got what I wanted from it. (and then some)
I believe this forum can be an extremely useful tool, but it is a potentially slippery slope.
You can quickly find yourself falling down the rabbit hole. Whether you intend to or not you pick up on what others are putting out there and that isn’t always a great thing...
-You begin to spend more time at your desk searching up queries.
-You waste time and energy getting into arguments not worth arguing.
-You find yourself contesting your morals and principals.
-You find yourself getting into long winded fruitless discussions.
-You spend time on the internet ‘socializing’ and engaging in mental gymnastics with strangers
-You find reasons to justify the distraction
-You spend more and more time online and not in reality, not in the present moment.
Many come here to learn, some to teach, others to vent, some to gloat, some to hate, some to troll, some to bring others down and a few who aim to bring others up. But one major takeaway I have from this all is that many here are not doing, they are thinking, not doing.
(I have at times found myself guilty of this.)
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This board (for some) is a brief respite from their unpleasant thoughts and day to day life. A place where they can exist in a different way from the real world. Perhaps more unfiltered, perhaps more unhinged, perhaps with more anonymous bravado behind their keyboard and monitor.
We all came here for a certain reason, but with the passage of time I think we stay due to reasons often entirely unrelated from our initial spur of motivation to join the board. When we get to that point, I think it is best to reassess what this board means to you.
Is the time you spend here valuable to you? Is it time well spent? Is it helping you? Or dragging you down? Why have you not solved the underlying reason for coming here? And if you have, why are you still here?
Now, I'm not saying one should leave, but I am encouraging reflection. If this site is not serving you in your present state then I think it is important to take breaks and retain your sense of objectivity. If you’ve got what you came for then your motivations to stay should be different from the initial catalyst to join in the first place. Also to be weary of empathy and helping others too much and not prioritizing yourself
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I’ve seen posters come and go.
Some asking to be banned, others self sabotaging to do so, some who float in and out, those who make alternate accounts and come back, those who lurk. The guests viewing at every hour on the verge of making an account when the moment feels right. I see those willing to improve themselves and those who fall to victimhood and self pity. I see the expressed views of others and consider them even if I disagree. I’ve seen through the nonsense and have learned how to pan out the gold nuggets of wisdom from some here and leave behind the mud.
We all have our reasons for coming here, for being here, for leaving here.
I think it is best to take a break when you’ve had your fill. Leave satiated and come back when you find yourself hungry and slipping backwards in need of the supplement that is SoSuave. The more time you spend here ‘learning’ in excess the less time you spend out there getting after it. The more you ‘know’ the less you are ‘doing’. It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
“We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.”
-John Archibald Wheeler
-John Archibald Wheeler
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