Is This Normal?

[InbetweenDreams]

[MENTION=20947]MikeW[/MENTION] I see what you're saying...I've kind of looked at self confidence and self doubt sort of like a scale...I think it would be difficult to be confident in one's self while also at the same time doubting themselves...

I think of when I was a kid riding a bike on training wheels... As a kid always felt you needed to have them, even though the training wheels would bend out. Once they were taken off you realize you weren't really depending on the training wheels all that much. Can't say for sure how all that relates but kind of goes back to realizing as different and unique you might be you still have more in common with everyone else.

I think happiness is almost a choice, however life can deal you some pretty shitty hands sometimes. Also depends on one's perception of the bad things, for some, coping is easier than others.

[MikeW]

[MENTION=20947]MikeW[/MENTION] I see what you're saying...I've kind of looked at self confidence and self doubt sort of like a scale...I think it would be difficult to be confident in one's self while also at the same time doubting themselves...

While I want to agree with you, what I find for myself is I can be confident about some things and not others. Or, put differently, I'm not ONE thing. I'm many. I'm complicated. For example, it is WAY easier to give someone advice, and fairly good advice at that, than to give MYSELF -- or take the same advice -- I might give.

I think of when I was a kid riding a bike on training wheels... As a kid always felt you needed to have them, even though the training wheels would bend out. Once they were taken off you realize you weren't really depending on the training wheels all that much. Can't say for sure how all that relates but kind of goes back to realizing as different and unique you might be you still have more in common with everyone else.

Well, most everyone, anyway. ...

I think happiness is almost a choice, however life can deal you some pretty shitty hands sometimes. Also depends on one's perception of the bad things, for some, coping is easier than others.

Yes, this seems to be the case. It also changes through time... or at least it has for me. Had someone told me I'd have the experiences I've had in my life (both good -- some of them amazingly great -- and bad -- some of them truly traumatic -- I doubt I would have believed them. SO MUCh has happened to me, good to great, bad to horrible... and yet i'm still here, still me, and, much to my surprise, relatively "happy". And it does seem like a "choice". I *could* (theoretically) and *have* (at times) let it all get to me. Let it all upset me and make me feel totally like life is not worth living. I grew up a depressed child and it is very easy for me to fall into that trap. But what's interesting is that I don't *most* of the time. Most of the time I choose to look at life from the POV of, well, that it is truly fucking amazing. Really. When you stop to think about it. Yeah, sure, there is a lot of stuff I wish I had -- money, youth, good looks... hot sex on a regular basis LOL!.... but the fact is, I have what I have and what I have is alright. Hell, I'm in email contact with some guys who are just, IDK, just totally fucked up. So, by comparison, my life is a piece of cake.

[InbetweenDreams]

While I want to agree with you, what I find for myself is I can be confident about some things and not others. Or, put differently, I'm not ONE thing. I'm many. I'm complicated. For example, it is WAY easier to give someone advice, and fairly good advice at that, than to give MYSELF -- or take the same advice -- I might give.

Ok so now I see where you were going and yeah that's pretty much true. I guess for me I often felt both confident and doubting in the field I'm in and honestly if I had a little more confidence earlier I probably would have progressed a little quicker. Also was more easily influenced by other people which a fair share of folks had negative impacts on me...one of my ex-employers specifically.

Definitely more confident on some things than others and I think it is almost human nature to find it easier to give advice than to take what you're giving.

Yes, this seems to be the case. It also changes through time... or at least it has for me. Had someone told me I'd have the experiences I've had in my life (both good -- some of them amazingly great -- and bad -- some of them truly traumatic -- I doubt I would have believed them. SO MUCh has happened to me, good to great, bad to horrible... and yet i'm still here, still me, and, much to my surprise, relatively "happy". And it does seem like a "choice". I *could* (theoretically) and *have* (at times) let it all get to me. Let it all upset me and make me feel totally like life is not worth living. I grew up a depressed child and it is very easy for me to fall into that trap. But what's interesting is that I don't *most* of the time. Most of the time I choose to look at life from the POV of, well, that it is truly fucking amazing. Really. When you stop to think about it. Yeah, sure, there is a lot of stuff I wish I had -- money, youth, good looks... hot sex on a regular basis LOL!.... but the fact is, I have what I have and what I have is alright. Hell, I'm in email contact with some guys who are just, IDK, just totally fucked up. So, by comparison, my life is a piece of cake.

Same here, there are things I could cry about and make myself feel awful and depressed. However, when I step back and realize how freakishly well off I am compared to a lot of people around the globe does tend to make me appreciate that very fact. To some a life like mine, yours and many on the forums is something out of science fiction. I have lived a fairly stable life, there have been a few rough patches, bad and sad moments but I know better to think that I have had it bad because I honestly haven't.

This goes to say regardless of what someone believes when it comes to God, religion or spirituality. You do have to realize that life is something quite extraordinary and is not something to waste.

[MikeW]

...This goes to say regardless of what someone believes when it comes to God, religion or spirituality. You do have to realize that life is something quite extraordinary and is not something to waste.

When you think about it, this should be even more true for an atheist... from that POV, THIS IS IT. There ain't nothing else. But... the alternative? is N O T H I N G, the big zero, nada. Some will say in moments of trial and pain "but that is preferable"... well... perhaps in a given moment it might seem that way? But in the long look, it just ain't so. SOMETHING is always better than nothing. Moreover... I'll go so far, philosophically, to say that NOTHING is *impossible*. We can't "know" or "experience" nothing. So, it's an absolute nothing. A nonexistent nothing. A nothing with no possibilities. So, then, one has to come to the conclusion that, experientially, SOMETHING.... more specifically THIS... whatever "this" is for US... IS ALL THERE IS. (Subjectively speaking, of course.)