yehoshua wrote on 29 Nov 2012 09:13:
I am coming to work really late. It means that I have to stay longer than, and that is not so good if you have a little girl at home. I think I am not coping.
You have to argue with that thought. You don't
really know how today will go. If you keep an open mind, do your best and sort of watch what happens it won't become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But once I sat on my couch, at 1 o'clock in the morning or something, there was this movie with Robert de Niro (A Bronx Tale) - he even directed this one, on IMDb he got 7.7 points and I really don't know where he got them. Yes, I think it isn't a good movie and I think it was a waste of my time. But I sort of driffted in the feeling, hm let's see a mafia movie - Godfather is still worth watching - but this one isn't.
So that depressed me. I have Hitch waiting and I watch this.
This is such a great example of how to make an addict. Thank you. You obviously
enjoy mafia movies. But you have a belief that you are
worth more if you
enjoy Hitchcock. Translation: you only love yourself when you watch Hitchcock, because that is what refined, worthy, smart people do. But nobody forces you to have this belief. You can change it if you want to.
So in between comercials I looked through the channels and just got away. The night hour is dangerous. But that really isn't my main danger. More so, that I need to watch Hitch.
I think you rightly resent the fact that you want to watch what you like, which is mafia movies, and that in order to do that you have beat yourself, because that makes you a worthless person, so then you come back with a vengeance and feel like watching porn.
You can do a cost-benefit analysis here. What are the pros and cons of having the belief that worthy people enjoy some movies but not others? The main pro is that when you behave like that you tell yourself that you are worth a lot, but the con is that you tell yourself that you are worthless when you don't. If you drop this belief then you can watch the movies that you truly
enjoy and still feel good about yourself. And you may finally figure out how to enjoy those more refined movies that you
want to enjoy but obviously don't yet.
People do this with the Torah, l'havdil. We only celebrate the lives of talmidei chachamim. When they first learn about this they are not a talmid chacham yet, and they want to feel good about themselves, so they tell themselves that they are worthless if they don't learn Torah. But some people don't pay attention to whether they
enjoy learning. So in the end they end up learning because they are worthless if they don't. Then in order to finally get some enjoyment they go off and do some porn. We need to stop thinking about
levels and start figuring out to what extent learning is
good for us, how to enjoy it.
I work in the videotheque and film archive and I haven't seen Vertigo.
I have many holes like that and I am really ashamed. And that is also a big trigger. But p* isn't the main problem, of course it makes everything so much harder.
I am near tears right now. Because it feels like I will never reach that satisfactory point, where my EGO says, well you have seen the classics, you have a basis, now we can move on to ....
On to what?
I feel like this job is great, but I always wanted to be a critic. A literary or a film critic, I really wanted that. But never had the guts, cos I felt I don't have the basis.
Would that make you
happy, or would it allow you to tell yourself that you are
worth something now?
And yeah, that is a trigger too. Dreams that I didn't live up to. For a time as I was a student I felt that it's no big deal to write, no big deal to read that and see this, no I feel like it is a big deal and that my time is running out.
"No big deal" is a cognitive error called disqualifying the positive. In order to become
great you tell yourself "this is not such a big accomplishment." However thoughts cut in many different ways. That thought motivates you but it also undermines further progress. To some extent you have to acknowledge your achievements. One way to do this is to write down a goal before you work on it, then when it's done you put a check mark next to it. When you look at all the check marks your hard work will stop making you miserable.