For a minute there I thought I had to get off my couch, when all the while the fact is we don't have to do anything much but keep things afloat for just a few decades more! In fact, we'd best shut up about PO, because if our offspring finds out we knew about it all along, they'll turn and wring our necks come 2036!
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 8:30 pm Post subject: lower your expectations, problem solved!
I keep on coming back to this web site, out of fascination with the issue of peak oil. This part of the site in particular I find interesting, cause I like reading about the psychology as related to peak oil...
Personally I "feel" (I would have used the term "think" but this being peakoil psychology), the big issue many people face or rather "fear" here in the USA as well as in many parts of the developed world is a belief that the future is bleak and will not be as prosperous as the past....
IMHO this fear of a less prosperous future is having a paralyzing effect in all levels of society (from the common man on the street, up thru the highest levels of policy makers and elected officials).
Personally I've always tried to lower my own personal expectations, so I can concentrate on thinking about a solution in stead of being too afraid to actually try some kind of action...
There was a guy I use to study with back at university, and his philosphy was set a goal low enought and you'll accomplish that goal and move onto a slighly higher goal (and ramp your way gradually over a problem) instaed of initally setting the bar so damn high that it was pretty much impossible to overcome...
just a thought, I thought I'd share with people using this website and see nothing but doom and gloom and don't or can't seem to get over the initial realization that peak oil is a problem (in a long series of problems that mankind has encountered). _________________ "I'm 100% sure that unsustainable conspicuous consumption of natural basic resources will eventually lead to a proverbial hell on earth for those people who get stuck with the mismanagement mess of mankind not being stewards of the environment!"
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 8:41 pm Post subject: Re: lower your expectations, problem solved!
Quote:
There was a guy I use to study with back at university, and his philosophy was set a goal low enough and you'll accomplish that goal and move onto a slightly higher goal (and ramp your way gradually over a problem) instead of initially setting the bar so damn high that it was pretty much impossible to overcome..
I think I know this guy.
Last I checked he was in his 8th year and close to graduating.
Helpful hint - Firefox has a built-in spell checker. _________________ Massive Human Dieoff must occur as a result of Peak Oil. Many more than half will die. It will occur everywhere, including where you live. If you fail to recognize this, then your odds of living move toward the "going to die" group.
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:52 pm Post subject: Re: lower your expectations, problem solved!
Its kind of like dating. Although I think its more about having unrealistic expectrations then having high ones. If you're too googly eyed your going to get burned or develop dependency issues, which in our society, is generally concieved as negative. If you look at things more critically, you have a better chance of solving problems and getting the hell out in time.
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 8:35 am Post subject: Re: lower your expectations, problem solved!
phaster wrote:
I keep on comming back to this web site, out of fascination with the issue of peak oil. This part of the site in particular I find interesting, cause I like reading about the psychology as realed to peak oil...
Personally I "feel" (I would have used the term "think" but this being peakoil psychology), the big issue many people face or rather "fear" here in the USA as well as in many parts of the developed world is a belief that the future is bleak and will not be as prosperous as the past....
IMHO this fear of a less prosperous future is having a paralyzing effect in all levels of society (from the common man on the street, up thru the highest levels of policy makers and elected officials).
Personally I've always tried to lower my own personal expectations, so I can concentrate on thinking about a solution in stead of being too afraid to actually try some kind of action...
There was a guy I use to study with back at university, and his philosphy was set a goal low enought and you'll accomplish that goal and move onto a slighly higher goal (and ramp your way gradually over a problem) instaed of initally setting the bar so damn high that it was pretty much impossible to overcome...
just a thought, I thought I'd share with people using this website and see nothing but doom and gloom and don't or can't seem to get over the initial realization that peak oil is a problem (in a long series of problems that mankind has encountered).
They say that expectations are pre-planned resentments.
Yes, we can find peace by 'accepting our comfortable means' and living within them.
But some of us are worried we may not survive a PO meltdown - so our peace gets disturbed irrespective of how far we lower our expectations of accomplishments.
Here is an old post from another forum I wrote at Christmas that discusses your topic.
I try to be open to recovery lessons wherever I am and found quite a few from watching Scrooge on TV last night. When Scrooge and his nephew were having their argument over happiness, Scrooge said that the nephew "had no right to be happy because he was too poor." You have to wonder what was holding Scrooge back from happiness, as the nephew correctly noted that Scrooge was rich enough, but still was not able to achieve a state of happiness. I believe in Scrooge's mind, he thought there is no state of being "rich enough" unless that would mean he possessed all the wealth in the world. He saw himself as still not rich enough to be happy because he did not posses every last penny in existence. While Scrooge raised the bar for his supposed level of happiness to an unobtainable standard by anyone, he also left no room for his continual state of happiness even if he was able to possess all the world's wealth.
You see, even if scrooge somehow possessed all the money in the world, as soon as he would spend a dollar or even a penny of it he would not have all the money in the world any longer. Once Scrooge realized this point, his happiness would be non existent as he would be concentrating and grateful not on the rest of his remaining wealth, but on the missing penny he was not able to obtain that someone else possessed...when a man's mind is concentrated he is blind. People can confuse their net worth with their self worth. Sometimes wealthy people lose their fortunes and commit suicide. All their self worth was artificial and store bought. All their self worth was locked up in the bank vault and when it was gone they had no internal, real self worth to fall back on...nothing worth living for inside themselves.
They tell a story about the Buddha and his monks who were sitting by a road when a distraught farmer wanders by and asks them if they have seen any cows. The farmer goes on to say how miserable he is and tells the monks his sesame crop has failed and now all of his 10 cows have wandered off and without them he knows he will die. The Buddha tells the farmer that they have not seen his cows and to look in another direction. When the farmer leaves, the Buddha tells his monks, "See how lucky you are that you have no cows, otherwise you would be suffering and in as much misery as that farmer." These lessons from Scrooge and the Buddha reinforces in me to be happy "as-is" and to not put too many demands or prerequisites on my happiness and contentment.
When we put too many demands on our happiness, we are sure to fail sooner or later. When we realize that happiness is our birth right and we have the potential to be happy as-is, with no outside demands, we are surer to find it. Or as Thoreau wrote: "I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contended one can be with nothing definite - only a sense of existence." When we wake up in the morning each day with a sense of gratitude, such as Thoreau wrote about, for just having the privilege to live life in that moment we will not be so dependent on all those "cows" we have tethered to ourselves with the false hope that they are required for our happiness.
When we have an engine that is too complex and has 1000 working parts and 1 part goes bad...the whole engine shuts down and 1 thing kills the other 999. So it goes with too many demands we place on ourselves for happiness and contentment...1 thing kills the other 999. Nowadays we can see this same mentality with how many people put their happiness on hold until sometime into the future, especially at Christmas. How much of our life is wasted by living in the future. The other day I saw a billboard in November advertising "summer" fun. It was late fall and the ad was talking summer - just bypassing the upcoming winter season altogether. Our society makes it a point to discount the present moment and live for the future, as if nothing is worthwhile for us to live for in the hear and now. We need to balance the future and the past with the present to live healthy lives, but we also need to be aware of how much of our supposed happiness is being put on hold until some future date that never seems to come.
We tell ourselves we will be happy when we get our Masters Degree, but then our happiness is postponed until we get our Ph.D. and then we need a fancy car to be happy and then we need a job to pay for the car to be happy and then we need a marriage to be happy and then we need a house to be happy and then we need furniture to be happy and then we need to redecorate our house to be happy and then we need kids to be happy and then we need a boat to be happy and then we need a new job to be happy and then we need a vacation to be happy and then we need a bigger house to be happy and then we need to redecorate our bigger house to be happy and then we need sleeping pills to be happy and then we need retirement to be happy and then we need our kids and grand kids to visit more often to be happy and then we need a vacation house to be happy and then we need to sell our big house to be happy and then we need an operation to be happy and finally we put our last hopes for the happiness that has been eluding us our entire lives in our hope of getting the right coffin...The Cult of Next!
Someday we will run out excuses for not being happy right here and right now ... in the present moment. Happiness is so elusive when it is always in the future. Mindfulness of the present moment is the cure for the cult of next. You can start by being mindful of your breath and everything you do whether eating, sitting, walking or standing - be mindful, grateful and happy in that moment. Voluntary simplicity or simple living helped me build a less complex engine with fewer parts to break down. Instead of 1000 parts, I now have only a handful of parts. Whenever we put our happiness in people, places or things we will sooner or later be let down. Happiness starts from within us and cannot come from anyplace else. We can achieve a "diminishing of pain" from people, places or things, but cannot find true happiness in these material things as the pleasure found in such things is impermanent and can easily be turned into pain.
True happiness has no limits, whereas the aforementioned do have limits and also contain qualities of pain in them. I'll give you a couple of quick examples. Eating a half gallon of ice cream quickly soon turns our mouth from feelings of pleasure into feelings of great pain. Through the suffering of change or impermanence our beautiful bride soon loses her physical beauty or our shiny new car gets keyed by a vandal and we can suffer greatly from both of these examples of change. While both the new bride and new car do possess some qualities of pleasure in them, they also both contain qualities of pain as well, so nothing of this sort can lead us to perfect and true happiness. We must search for true happiness someplace else, but still balance the material world with our real spiritual needs. Happiness lies within us and not in things. True happiness and contentment can only be found in the spiritual realm which is limitless.
I'll leave you with a timely quote for the holidays from Brother David Steindl-Rast a Christian - Buddhist practitioner from his book "Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer"
"Ordinary happiness depends on happenstance. Joy is that extraordinary happiness that is independent of what happens to us. Good luck can make us happy, but it cannot give us lasting joy. The root of joy is gratefulness. We tend to misunderstand the link between joy and gratefulness. We notice that joyful people are grateful and suppose that they are grateful for their joy. But the reverse is true: their joy springs from gratefulness. If one has all the good luck in the world, but takes it for granted, it will not give one joy. Yet even bad luck will give joy to those who manage to be grateful for it. We hold the key to lasting happiness in our own hands. For it is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful."
Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 6375 Location: My Grandkids' Farm
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 7:45 pm Post subject: Re: lower your expectations, problem solved!
phaster wrote:
I keep on comming back to this web site, out of fascination with the issue of peak oil. ... ...the big issue many people face or rather "fear" here in the USA as well as in many parts of the developed world is a belief that the future is bleak and will not be as prosperous as the past....
What I find interesting is how so many chose to think they will be immune to the results of PO and those here at PO.com actually doing something are like bugs under glass.
I guess too much Psy, and ittle Hst, leads to not much Do.
Those changing now will prosper just as those seeing change have always prospered. _________________ Make a plan and work it:
Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 1:31 am Post subject: Re: lower your expectations, problem solved!
Kristen wrote:
Its kind of like dating. Although I think its more about having unrealistic expectrations then having high ones. If you're too googly-eyed your going to get burned or develop dependency issues, which in our society, is generally concieved as negative. If you look at things more critically, you have a better chance of solving problems and getting the hell out in time.
Dating IMHO is the wrong analogy, in dating or the bar scene, its all about showing off, kinda a like what a peacock does when it shows off its tail feather, or when a guy buys a high end sports car like a porsche 997 turbo or ferarri 612 Scaglietti to show up at a club to try and find some tail for the the evening...
Lower expectation in the dating scene would be akin to beer goggles, in that they turn bow into wow!
what I tried to say in lowering your expectations, is that if eveyone realized that marketing was basically BS and IMHO the most harmful problem that faces the american public and people all around the world.
By this I mean if people looked at products rationally then we would not have such a large problem with the demand resource imbalance. For example if people looked at their choice of vehicle in a rational manner they would realize that the class of vehicles known as SUV would not have become such a big fashion fad. Same with landscaping choices in the suburbs, if ya do the analysis and lower your expectation of having the greenest lawn in the hood and look at alternatives, one would see that lawns are actually a non performing asset (in that a lawn takes lots of water resources, needs to be trimmed many times a month, needs lots of fertilizer, produces no real environment benefit, etc...) _________________ "I'm 100% sure that unsustainable conspicuous consumption of natural basic resources will eventually lead to a proverbial hell on earth for those people who get stuck with the mismanagement mess of mankind not being stewards of the environment!"
Joined: Nov 25, 2006 Posts: 1373 Location: New York area
Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 3:21 pm Post subject: Re: lower your expectations, problem solved!
Cashmere wrote:
Quote:
There was a guy I use to study with back at university, and his philosophy was set a goal low enough and you'll accomplish that goal and move onto a slightly higher goal (and ramp your way gradually over a problem) instead of initially setting the bar so damn high that it was pretty much impossible to overcome..
I think I know this guy.
Last I checked he was in his 8th year and close to graduating.
Helpful hint - Firefox has a built-in spell checker.
Another hint, phaster, beware the haters who will nip at your heels every step of the way (see above). _________________ My PO Amazon store (shameless plug).
Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 11:44 pm Post subject: Re: lower your expectations, problem solved!
Narz wrote:
Cashmere wrote:
Quote:
There was a guy I use to study with back at university, and his philosophy was set a goal low enough and you'll accomplish that goal and move onto a slightly higher goal (and ramp your way gradually over a problem) instead of initially setting the bar so damn high that it was pretty much impossible to overcome..
I think I know this guy.
Last I checked he was in his 8th year and close to graduating.
Helpful hint - Firefox has a built-in spell checker.
Another hint, phaster, beware the haters who will nip at your heels every step of the way (see above).
Ah no worries, I've always followed my own advise of "lower expectations" and ignored "haters" and individuals with limited mental facilities, and always try to see if they can show me another way of looking at a problem.
For example I actually think paris hilton (yup the blond rich bitch), actually has a more insightful energy policy than McCain or Obama...
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/64ad536a6d _________________ "I'm 100% sure that unsustainable conspicuous consumption of natural basic resources will eventually lead to a proverbial hell on earth for those people who get stuck with the mismanagement mess of mankind not being stewards of the environment!"
Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 11:56 pm Post subject: Re: lower your expectations, problem solved!
It ain't like you're going to live for ever, whatever you do or don't do. PO or no you're just going to think "crap..." sooner or later, then it's going to be all over.. So rant on while you can. Then shut up forever. Same for us all.
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 3:47 am Post subject: Re: lower your expectations, problem solved!
phaster wrote:
IMHO this fear of a less prosperous future is having a paralyzing effect in all levels of society
In my case it is a motivation. _________________ If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for ever."
-George Orwell, 1984
Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 12:20 am Post subject: Re: lower your expectations, problem solved!
Serial_Worrier wrote:
BTW who feeds those holier-than-thou Buddhist monks? I'm sure they must grow crops somehow, no?
in the east, by tradition they eat gifts of the community. they should provide a service in return, which IMO is roughly that of a psychologist in "primitive societies".
however, as buddhist that have considered becoming a monk the "free food" is the only real "but" that I can think of (besides relocation to a country with buddhist monasteries)... I think the "no work no food" is actually a zen saying, and I agree. _________________ anagami.net
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in the east, by tradition they eat gifts of the community. they should provide a service in return, which IMO is roughly that of a psychologist in "primitive societies".
