Self-enlightenment versus women

[Arioch]

I am a person who has trouble knowing what he wants. The currect question is, am I a Don Juan for self-enlightenment (improvement), or am I a Don Juan because I want women?

Perhaps I am thinking in too much absolutes. I suppose it is possible to devote, say, 80% of one's energies to self-improvement, and 20% to getting women, but then what do I want my proportions to be? Even before that, though, the question is, do I need a woman before I will find contentment, or can I become content without one?

Buddhists believe that only through giving up material posessions and other attachments can one stop suffering and become enlightened. Well, women are included there. To need a woman is to continue a life of suffering.

However, I'm not Buddhist. I can take a little suffering. But do I want to? Can I be content living only to improve myself? Would I not mind dying alone?

To now answer my own question, no. I want women. Of course, I want to improve myself too, but to live only to improve oneself is to live a lie. One must ask, to improve oneself to what end? I will never be perfect. I will never be satisfied. I had a roommate over the summer that instead of going out to bars and living it up like I was, he sat in the room all the time and studied for the GREs. He was improving himself. He's going to go places. But will he ever be happy?

Why do I even care?

There is one reason to live: happiness. Living only to improve oneself is to live to be perpetually unhappy. Being stagnent makes me unhappy too, but I do not live to improve myself, I live to be happy.

Women make me happy. I can be happy without women, but I can be happier with them.

I think that is the point. There is the moderation. Being able to be happy without women is important. Being able to be happy with oneself just the way it is, and taking some time NOT to improve, is also important. But improving will make one happier, so one must do that sometimes too.

Thank you gentlemen for listening to me think out loud. I hope if anyone gets into some of the same dillemmas, this helps.

Tune in next time when I ask the question, "Do I want women to date and form relationships with or do I want to **** as many of them as I can?" But right now, I'm tired as hell, and going to bed.

 

[backbreaker]

read my sticky post at the top of the page.. I had this same problem...

YOu should always care more about yourself... Self Improvement is soo much more fufilling then a woman could ever be, and when you improve yourself, the less you have to try to get women

 

[DrMetallica]

I disagree about the "living is okay as long as you're happy" party. I was happy when I lived back home with my parents. I was comfortable. But I don't live my life to be happy, I live it to be proud of my accomplishments and I live it to be satisfied. For example, I could party at uni, do XYZ drugs with my friends and have my entire weekends be a blur in rememberance, but I truely find more meaningful activities in studying, reading, and learning.

 

[Jariel]

You raise some very good points in this post and I believe that seeking happiness is really what counts above all else.

However, DJs are always best trying to find the right balance. Even Buddhism is about finding balance (aka the middle path) between extremes.

Self-improvement plays a big role in my life as it gives me a major sense of purpose and fulfillment. Women are a part of my life that bring pleasure and also help inspire my improvements. In a relationship, some women even help me feel a sense of contentment and rid me of those negative feelings of disatisfaction, emptiness, greed and desire.

 

[Arioch]

Originally posted by DrMetallica
I disagree about the "living is okay as long as you're happy" party. I was happy when I lived back home with my parents. I was comfortable. But I don't live my life to be happy, I live it to be proud of my accomplishments and I live it to be satisfied.

"Comfortable" seems more like being content. I'm talking about being happy--feeling joy at just being alive, and being glad that you are, because you feel fulfilled in your existence.

Also, ignorance is bliss. Reading this board, and hearing stories people tell, makes me aware of the greater world, of stuff that I may not be experiencing. I might be happy not knowing what I'm missing, but now I know (at least, some of it), and I can be happy even then.

 

[SamePendo]

When you focus on self enlightment, progress etc, you focus on youurself.

When you focus on women, you put the focus on somebody else.

The women will follow.

(read carefully: women, not woman... women.)

 

[backbreaker]

my point exactly

 

[Arioch]

Originally posted by SamePendo
When you focus on women, you put the focus on somebody else.

If what I want is women, then focusing on women is focusing on me and what I want. And I don't mean obsessing over women or one woman, I mean deciding that I am going to, say, make sure I talk to a hot one today, or do a cold approach, or work on my kino, etc. Focusing on getting women is focusing on the aspect of being a Don Juan that gets women.

 

[izza]

This is a very important point, and obviously one that has been debated for a very long time, since there are so many possible answers.

Personally, I believe that complete happiness is possible, maybe not on earth though, because here the only law is that everything changes. We are constantly in a state of flux. Everyone agrees, however, that there is a state of optimal happiness, perhaps even maximal possible happiness, and it is possible to make this state of optimal happiness your way of life.

Again, how to achieve optimal happiness is a hotly debated question, but I agree with Jariel that balance is a key to the equation. A person cannot find love in accomplishments and buildings and completed dreams. People need parents (or parental figures), friends, lovers, sex, and a connection to some sort of greater divinity to feel full and cared for in this world.

But no amount of social bliss can make a person feel accomplished - and as such it is important for us to serve our world and to fulfill our destiny, to find our calling, our work that makes us happy and improves our world. In the end, we are all one and as such we exist to help each other. Most people don't live as servants though, most live as slaves but that is another thread.

Even money can help make us happy by making our dreams come true. It is true that we always want more than we have, but this is part of life, and it can be healthy in that we are always improving what we are, rather than settling for what is.

In my life, I find that I become happy more and more often as time goes by, and as I fulfill myself. Someday, I hope to achieve enlightenment, but that day is not today and I have to honor my desire for a full life first.

I believe that learning to be a Don Juan is an excellent marker for when a person is well on their way to optimal happiness. Being a Don Juan isn't a result of knowing a bunch of tricks. Being a DJ is having the confidence to take what you want. Being a DJ means you are comfortable being open with your sexuality, and that you have learned a lot about how people work and think and live. What comes with being a DJ also is a realization that most people live their lives extremely poorly, by any measurement. Most people are miserable and have no dreams. In short, being a DJ is part of a greater lifestyle of making dreams reality. When you feel capable of getting what you want, and making your desires true, you can change the world for the better. This is the essence of fulfillment.

Again, perfect happiness is unrealistic because our world is in a state of constant change. But enlightenment and optimal happiness well worth seeking. Both are possible for everyone. If you look in your heart, you know it's true.

 

[Jariel]

Originally posted by backbreaker
read my sticky post at the top of the page.. I had this same problem...

YOu should always care more about yourself... Self Improvement is soo much more fufilling then a woman could ever be, and when you improve yourself, the less you have to try to get women

I agree with this completely.

It's possible to attract women and be happy with them, without actively pursuing them.

 

[KarmaSutra]

Self enlightenment which engulfs your entire state of mind is comparable to chronic masturbation . . .Once you start it's a helluva deal to quit.

I've stopped being an armchair theorist and gotten off my ass. I'm walkin' the walk.

 

[I'm Joe Dirt]

You do need a woman to make yourself complete at some point in your life. That's your purpose in life.

Mystery calls it survival and replication, but you dont even have to look to a dating program to know that. Ask any biologist what is required of any living thing and he will tell you that it is a method of generating offspring. Every living thing has it.

A fulfilling relationship can also make you happy, and we're designed that way as people because fulfilling relationships generally result in reproduction, which is our goal in life.

I was watching David DeAngelo's Deep Inner Game series and he brought up how there was a study done and it found that the best indicator of how happy a person is wasn't how much money they had or what they did for a living, or anything like that, but rather those who had sex the most often were the happiest.

Is sex the only thing that can make a person happy? Of course not. You have to get all the areas of your life in order to be truley happy. That means being satisfied with your job, family, and ultimatley your relationship with a woman.

Sure, self improvement is great, I myself love learning new things and trying out new stuff to get a better understanding of humanity in general and me in particular.

Those things can also keep you occupied and happy for a while as you get a rush from learning about yourself and discovering who you really are, but ultimatley it wont shield you forever. You will find yourself desiring a partner.

 

[A-Unit]

Re:

Ask any biologist what is required of any living thing and he will tell you that it is a method of generating offspring. Every living thing has it.

You have a hard time-proving this point to a religious/spiritual zealot, such as myself, who does not belief we are here for that, Nor are we here. That's another rabbit-hole, though.

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Intention.

It's too random that all the pieces of your personality, family, thoughts, chemistry, psychology, physiology, and so forth came together to create you. It's too random to explain away the elements of the galaxy coming together that created earth. But if that IS the case...

Explain what created space, thought, consciousness, being, the elements that In fact CAUSED a solar system, energy, heat, gravity, power, mass, and basically science. We take it for granted, like some BLANK CANVAS painted itself while the paint and brush just lay close by and by some accident or miracle it was all knocked together to create the Mona Lisa or Cystine Chapel. Please. A painting does not paint itself, and it originates in the mind, and then only with some stroke of hand-eye coordination is it made. Scientists should be grateful for whatever created this universe and the bazillions of questions it has, it gave them something to do and something to earn a wage at while diverting attention from the more important aspects of life.

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Nothing makes you happy.
Nothing makes you happy.
Nothing makes you happy.

You are happiness.
You are an energy of happiness or unhappiness.

To some rain is a miserable experience, to other's it's wonderful. That can be happiness or unhappiness. A woman can make a man happy, or unhappy, depending on what she brings to him, what she represents.

If she represents sex, and he wants sex, then he is happy.
If she represents companionship, and he wants companionship, then he is happy.
If she represents frustration, jealousy, or close-minded selfishness, then he will be unhappy until she changes or he leaves.

A woman, like any other mind connection we have, is an object representative of something. That's the basic sense.

She is external to happiness though. She cannot in fact bring anything you don't have, and given society's impression of man woman relationships, WE are the one's bringing more to the table.

IF you have a connection with someone, such as LTR or marriage, then she must UPLIFT you spiritually or mindfully. Otherwise you don't have love or a connection, we have need-expectation and someone who needs something. A giver and someone who receives.

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There's no going anywhere. The world we live in is physical and finite. Sure there's space, or there's the seas, or the inner earth, but the mind-body-soul connection holds many more unlocked secrets than we shall ever find anywhere else.

Improvement is improvement for the sake of improvement. Not for anything else. I opened my eyes to this through a book titled "mastery", recommended by David D of all guys. Read it and realized, it's the same thing I apply while golfing, or investing, or with women.

I do it for the sake of doing it. My natural inclination is to never sit still and I enjoy constantly seeking answers, growing, getting better, improving my results. But I am not unhappy how I play my game, I only improve because it's fun. It's fun to hit trick shots or drive the ball 300 yds, and have a few beers or cigars doing it.

Improvement is great, but one day you wake up and go "what am I doing this for?"

Most work to accumulate money to get free from some system, maybe the rat race, maybe their debt, maybe their country, or family, but all the while they're trapped, because they must do what they do to get out, when they're already out! It's their mind that's trapped, not them.

They're not living today for today. Tomorrow is an unused sum, yesterday is a spent check.

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What I hear alot of people say is...

"I'm unhappy now, but when I get this thing, I'll be happy. So for now I'll struggle and be upset, but once I have it, I'm happy."

Really?

1. You're turning off all the good things going on right now.
2. You miss life's opportunities that might be right in front of you.
3. You are WASTING today (and that's most important).

To me, each day is like a lottery ticket. You don't know what you'll cash in on that day. One thing I got in the habit of doing was taking down a journal of ideas, plans, goals, and dreams I have. I always found I had good ideas, but over time lost them. Or great quotes, so now I write down alot. Not only for myself, but my family, or potential family if I go that route.

Over time, it's like an autobiorgraphy of your own. I'd say do it, and keep one somewhere.

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See, we tend to look at the world around us and judge our perfection or happiness based on some arbitrary goal, usually imposted on us, or one we are struggling with now.

Maybe our finances are out of whack.
Or we want $100,000 of income by the age of 25.
Or maybe we want physical perfection NOW, or we'll approach hot women when we do attain it.

I agree, things are done for their enjoyment, and I believe WE each have our own natural things of enjoyment which others would view as bad or awful. So what? As I started out by saying, INTENTION. There's far too much specificity for this to be a joke, for each day to be wasted.



A-Unit