CHANGING BACK TO LIVEJOURNAL

Okay, because i now know that i definitely don’t plan to turn this bloody blog to something that people will want to come consistently seeing as how i can’t be bothered to categorize my posts despite repeated attempts, i’ve decided to move back to livejournal. I think my posts can help people with some of their problems and people may not want to visit me through wordpress. If you want to continue reading my blogposts, you can add me legod.livejournal. I’ll be posting there from now on

BRSHT

Ahhh
i don’t know when it happened but for the past few weeks and months, i’ve gradually lost interest in blogging about myself and my life. I don’t know why. it just seems tiring to type out what happened to you and all that.

i think its a lot because of my practise with the relinquishment of my self. The more i relinquish my self, the less important and significant i feel i am and the less attention i pay to myself. Sometimes i like to just sit, be very still in my mind and just enjoy that stillness. Just sitting there not needing to do anything. And then when i feel like it, when it comes naturally, i might suddenly be bursting with energy and spontaneity.

My mind is still gettin in my way but the fact that its a lot more obvious now than before means that i’m a lot more aware of it. Meaning, i’m less identified with it, and more aware that it is separate from me and not me. I know how it affects me. Sometimes, i’ll be thinking of going up and doing something that’s cool or makes people laugh. Sometimes i’ll be thinking about the next performance i want to do to make people laugh and make myself more well-known and popular.

i know that in public, i really don’t dare to sing loudly if at all, even around my best friends. I can talk and open myself up by singing just makes me contract and withdraw within and my voice cramps up and i don’t dare to sing.

It’s very tempting to shout or yell or make rude comments to attract attention. I know my ego loves the attention and its like a struggle between trying to be aware of that need for attention and the need for attention itself.

One change i’ve noticed in myself is that i’m better at feeling and sensing a stranger as a human being, someone who i can feel a deep being and connection with rather than his outward appearance. I’ve always become less critical and a lot more aware of how i’m critical of others in order to streenthen my own sense of self. By criticsing people and makin them inferior, i am making myself superior.

Oh yeaaa and i’ve made a big improvement with iype. I feel very little, if any, discomfort around him anymore and can finally open up to him. In the past, i used to have bouts when i felt like i was alone and periods where i felt i belonged to this world. Now, i’m feelin a lot more at peace with the world no matter what. My lows are becoming higher and higher whereas my highs are either becoming higher and higher or the same, i can’t tell.

I’ve noticed that a lot of my friends have or are changing. It’s like, they are finally recognizing their ego and seeking to free themselves from it although they may not know it.

No self

Like when you have no self

It means you relinquish all attempts at defining yourself

when you do that, you can finally be yourself

you no longer need to struggle anymore

in school, people think about being popular, they think about being important or cool

they want to be seen as cool, they don’t want to look like losers, they hate that identity

so you see nervousness, fear, and stress. they don’t want to be seen as lousy students, they don’t want to be seen as failures in life, which is why they work so hard like bloody dogs but dogs have better lives than them

the struggle for coolness ends in nothing because when you’re cool, you’re only so in the eyes of the several hundred people who give a damn about you in the school and only so for a few years. once you go out, no one gives a flying shit about you and you’re back being a nobody again. sure thing you can try to be cool everywhere you go but you’ll be forever plagued with thoughts by how people think of you, trapped and restricted from doing the things you want in order to keep up with your identity, stress fear and end up doing things you hate to keep up your image

ever tried to fervently look for one damn thing after another, fervently hoping the next thing will solve all your problems and finally give you what you want and have it fail you one time after the other, forever frustrating you and making you sick of it all, sick of trying and failing, sick of being fed-up with nothing working, sick of struggling and looking like an idiot in spite of it all

well i did and when i look back i really pity my self back then but i guess that was what taught me and allowed me to learn and move on and teach other people

once we stop being so indulgent in ourselves, placing ourselves above all else; even when you are generous, maybe you’re just keeping up with the identity of being generous, afraid of how people will see you if you’re not nice and step on their toes; actually most people are selfish and self-centered; some know how to control their actions, but i know that their thoughts are all about them them them, me me me, and the happiest people are the ones who don’t give a fvck about themselves

the less self you have, the less you expect of the world; the world moves on, the rain comes and go, but when you expect it to be sunny just because you plan to go out and swear at the fucking thing cause it starts to rain, thats where your expectation brings you disappointment and upset. and then when you lose your self, where does your attention go? to others, to the world, where true kindness, love and creativity can come in

and when you start losing your self, it becomes easier and easier to do cool stuffl you don’t try to do it, you do what you want and what you want will happen to be cool because the coolest things are the ones that come spontaneously, naturally, without artificiality or effort

since there’s no self to worry about, achieve or protect, then you finally have freedom. people call you shit and you go bullshit cause you don’t give a shit what they call you. when you have nothing to do to enhance your self, then you literally have nothing to worry about, to stress about, you become truly peaceful and happy because everything is fine; you have nothing defined, nothing expected, nothing needed. and that’s true freedom because you see it everyday, its easy to see how people can get controlled by their emotions, by other people’s actions and words

call him ugly shit and he becomes really upset, says he sucks at football or whine at him and he feels self-conscious and anxious, kick him and he gets overwhlemed by anger. see its all reaction, you don’t control your emotions, your emotions are controlled by others so how is there freedom? real freedom comes when you have no self

no self? how do you have no self,…i try to have no self and every passing moment, i am less and less of my self- once you see this, see how there’s the true real you, and the self that you can think about, the self that you can define and protect, that’s the false self, the one that causes you suffering. so what to do about it; first give up trying to protect or define that self and let it crumble, it will take time, people will say you’re a shithole and you let yourself feel the anger, the emotions, and after that, some of your false self will crumble

whenever you feel upset, its be cause your self is threatened, so one thing you can do is just let yourself be, and feel all your emotions without trying to fight it or align yourself with it and thats the simplicity of it, the beauty, the easiest thing possible; to do nothing is the right thing

and if you’re feeling fine, you can look at your thoughts and see how they are focused on that false self whether its thinking about how your false self was like in the past or what its going to be later on; are you worried that you suck at soccer or dance? your false self is worried see, if you’re afraid of making mistakes, you’re afraid you’ll look like an idiot, thats the self again, HOW CAN HE DO THIS? hidden behind that is the words “to me” utterly ridiculous

when you stop thinking, you experience your true self because your false self can be defined in terms of thoughts, your true self is just there, aware, no need to define, impossible to define, only can be felt and experieneced. the more you stop thinking, the more you are yourself and you recognize who you are, and who you are is undefined but very real and alive,

so stop thinking and struggling, just do no-thing. thinking is something. resisting is something. doing no-thing is the best. this applies only internally, externally you can walk run play dance but the quality of your walking, running, playing and dancing hinges upon your internal state, when you do so with complete awareness, then you truly play for the sake of playing, walk for the sake of walking, run for the sake of running, dance forthe sake of dancing, and live the life you were meant to enjoy

TADAM

Ohohoho

I thought that these few days, i would have to experiencce and stay present with boredom but it turns out that thats not the case. I’ve become involved once again, with lucid dreaming, spring forest qigong and self-hypnosis.

The reason i went back to spring forest qigong is because i wasn’t finding success with the healing modalities i was previously using. The Feeling Meditation still resonates very strongly with me; intuitively, i feel it works but i decided to take a more proactive stance and practise SFQ which increases my own healing abilities and allow me to become a healer as well. The feeling meditation probably requires me to feels for a long time before i see significant improvement, maybe do it for a few hours continuously or something…if it gave me results fast, i would have the motivation to do it, but after 1 or 2 months of doing it, no such thing happened so i decided to turn to SFQ

I think one of the main reasons i stopped doing it previously was because i was bored and impatient while doing it. I’d be thinking, when does this end, let it end, and couldn’t just go with the flow and be still. But after practising surrendering and just letting things be, i feel a lot less resistance and even enjoy the stillness that comes with the sitting meditation

As for Lucid Dreaming…ITS JUST DAMN COOL YOU CAN RAPE GIRLS AND FLY AROUND THE WORLD AND DO BACK FLIPS AND…..!!!

Once you master it, you can go to places you’ve never thought possible, like outer space…talk to your spirit guides, talk to your subconscious, use it for healing, guidance, live a second life in your dreams, have special powers you always dreamt of, practise your skills or planning etceeeeeeeeetra

Since its so fun and has so many possibilities, i became interested and excited again. But this time, by releasing attachment from the outcome of whether i succeed or fail, i don’t feel frustrated even though i don’t have imba lucid dreams and am ready to keep trying and practising. Oh, i also read this tutorial on Dream Yoga which teaches a way of having better, more frequeunt, more realistic, vivid lucid dreams and the method is simply to stay present and observe reality rather than living in our own minds as most people commonly do. That way, in your dreams, you will realise any oddities and become lucid easily. More power to me!

And finally, self-hypnosis. Many, many applications too but i ran out of interest the last time but am approaching it once again. This time, i’m going through some of the previous lessons i had gradually, making sure i absorb the info and actually practise self-hypnosis before jumping to the next lesson. Right now, i’ve been focusing on using hypnosis to help me attain lucid dreams.

FOS TOMORROW, WE’LL BEAT IYPE AND BECOME FLOORBALL CHAMP FOR ARES

Post-promos!

Okay, my low-carb diet hasn’t gone through many changes from the last post and its right now, it’s more like 30% carbs, 70% – the rest. At least, that’s what i hope hoho. I decided there wasn’t a need to go REALLY low carb because i figured out that was for people who really needed to lose weight or had a screwed up metabolism or diabetes. I’m already pretty lean so i really don’t need to be so anal about the diet, so for convenience’s sake, i eat about one carb meal everyday, most of the time breakfast if i’m at home, and probably lunch if i’m outside.

I haven’t been doing much sport so i don’t know if my body has fully switched to a fat-burning metabolism. I assume it has, because the carbs i eat are insufficient to provide for my daily energy needs, so my body ought to have already began burning fat for energy already. I haven’t experienced any incredible or significant changes in energy or health except that i’ve become leaner. The “warming up” of my body that i mentioned previously has passed.

It’s still a bit weird eating the fat of animal meat especially after having been conditioned for so long that fat was bad. My mom even though she read the low-carb articles i sent her, is still uncomfortable with eating fat. She peels off the skin and when i grab them, she goes “zhe!” and discourages me from eating so much. “All things in moderation” is what she says, but then i reply with a “ya, smoking a bit is good for your health”

Oh yes and i think i didn’t mention a single thing about promos in my blog. Aha, promos aren’t like promos for me. I don’t feel any stress or anxiety i feel about studying. There’s this conditioned sense of urgency to study more but it isn’t very strong and instinctively know its a conditioned emotion, something that occurs because of past experiences and right now, it can’t control me anymore. My subject combination is probably the freest- history, econs, lit, math h1 and a lot of it is ingrained in my head already so i don’t have to do too much revision. The only difference from promos period and a normal month is that i spend on average, 1-2 hours studying and revising when normally, i don’t spend any time.

Post-promos is an interesting period because that’s when our conditioned activity has stopped. Schooling is something that society conditions us to do, not necessarily something that we’d want to do given the time. Without this compulsory, conditioned activity, i think a lot of people will flounder here and there and look for something to fill up their free time; games, outings, jobs. If they don’t have anything to fill up their time, they will become extremely bored and become frustrated.

In fact, right after my last paper, the next day there was no need to do anything. Ahaha, i had nothing i needed to do. Actually, there was a lot of stuff i could learn, hypnosis, nlp, all of that but i didn’t feel like doing them. At the same time, i didn’t like to be doing nothing. In the end, i went on and off the com, fiddling with games but not really enjoying them. I wanted to do something “meaningful”, but i didn’t feel like doing the things i could think of.

I remembered The Power of Now which said that boredom is the mind being unable to be still. Yep. i’m unable to be at peace with inactivity. So, post-promos, i’m going to stay present and be at peace with my boredom. For so many years, i’ve been conditioned to think that “doing nothing” is a waste of time and i feel really uncomfortable when i’m not doing anything for a while. Even the idea of meditation is seen as “practising spirituality”; seen as a sort of doing rather than being.

Carb Flu

Lol…

After the first two days where the low-carb was smoothsailing besides me feeling warmer than usual, the next few days haven’t been as easy. For one or two days, there were periods where i felt sleepy and went to sleep a lot. I also felt a lack of energy, sluggish, didn’t feel like exercising much, but unlike during the raw food diet, i didn’t feel hungry or weak. Recently, i’ve also had mucus and flu and also been feeling very warm. I find i need more water than usual and i sweat a lot more because of my increased body temperature.

At first i thought hmm…is all this meat actually unhealthy, especially since they are commercial meats rather than organic ones?…but hey, i went on the internet to do some searching and found that there’s this thing called the carb flu, a phase where your body transits from burning glucose to fat, where your metabolism changes.

A possible reason for the ill-effects are that when changing from burning glucose to fat in the body, toxins that are usually stored away safely in the fat are now released into the bloodstream to be eliminated, hence the ill-effects.

Mmmhmm, okay, so with this in mind, i’d better get back to my low-carb diet for at least two weeks to see how things go! I’ve been eating much less carbs than i used to, but they’re still more than the 10-20% recommended on a low-carb diet.

Being and Doing

Lately, especially after that Ares Night speech, i’ve felt drawn to inactivity. When i’m outside,i feel like i want to participate and play with people. But alone, i don’t feel drawn to doing much.

I had been interested in various subjects and cool things to experiment. I have books(ebooks) on hypnosis and other cool stuff that i can learn from. But i don’t feel an urge to do these things. I used to imagine myself a few months or years down the road as a energy healer, a hypnotist, a great footballer or various great occupations or identities. But now, there’s no urge or push to be all of these things.

Football is a funny thing. I used to base my world around it and kept thinking about how to be better at it but now i seem to really not care much about how good i am at it. I still enjoy it, but like basketball, i really don’t feel like i want to get good at it or base my life around it.

I realised how ridiculous it is when people say that they want to be a lawyer or doctor or any occupation and i get this feeling that they are basing much of their lives around it as well. Right now, i perceive all these statements as the identity people want to become and take on. When you say “I’m going to be a lawyer”, or “i’m going to be rich”, it literally means that you want to become a lawyer or a “rich person”, so your very life is based upon your role as a lawyer to the amount of money you have.

When people say they want to help people, i don’t doubt that their feelings of compassion and sympathy are genuine. But at the same time, i sense that they are also trying to make an identity of being “loving” and ‘compassionate” and are subtly boasting about how “noble” and “loving” they are.

Is that wrong?:No. It’s just ridiculous. Rather than just being yourself, you look for an identity to become, an idea of being a lawyer, or being rich, or loving, or compassionate, or noble, or cool. Is it fake of course its fake in the sense that it isn’t you.

I used to have a few of such goals. I imagined myself as being a liverpool footballer, having a very inspiring story, going around the world and giving great speeches, urging them to be courageous, to dare to chase their dreams, doing a great lot of good to the world as well as being rich, famous and cool. They weren’t entirely false nor entire genuine, neither entirely self-centered nor selfless. I genuinely wanted people to have the courage to pursue whatever they wanted and abolish their fears. At the same time, i also craved for the admiration that would come with doing such “noble” work. I thought i really wanted to be a professional footballer, but now, i know that was something i had lied myself into believing.

It’s quite crazy how you can literally lose the ability to differentiate between truth and falsehood. I lied to myself and believed those lies and i see the same thing often. People prtending to be cool and posing when they really are shitting themselves over their own insecurities. People mocking other people, labelling them as posers, implying that they are above thoughts and intentions of wantin to impress people.

But living in those lies, trying to live out those identities gave me a lot of energy and impetus to do. Do, do do, any spare time, spending it on improving my skills, plan my training, do do do. I remember a time where i would take every spare moment i had to visualize in order to train and improve my football.  And after playing, i’d look back and keep thinking about the things i did, how i looked like, how i compared, what other people were thinking of me. Whenever i thought about it, i became a little bit more stressful, a little bit more anxious. It was a really crazy life i led then, but i know there are many more people leading even crazier lives.

Now, i’ve lost a lot of those urges to become a certain identity. I doubt i’ll ever reach for another identity again but i may, who knows. But now, left with no identity to reach, i seem to not know what to do. When i have free time, what should i do?

When i’m in school, there’s lots of things to do. Games to play, people to talk to, lessons to learn. But when i’m at home, there’s no urge to do anything. But at the same time, there’s an uneasiness to do something. What is it? Boredom. I didn’t feel the need to do or learn anything, so i really don’t want to do anything. Yet when i don’t do anything, i feel like i’m wasting my time, wasting away.

Ahh, but finally, i realised the answer. I thought about what a human being would do if you took him out of his cultural, social context. What if you took a scholar in ancient china and placed him in modern singapore and vice versa? Or put him in the wild, like our caveman ancestors. Besides acquiring food and water, what would he do in his free time?

I figured out that my uneasiness of doing nothing could possibly be a sort of social conditioning. I look everywhere and people are doing something. Then, i remember eckhart tolle, who said that sometimes, he just sits in stillness for 2 hours. I think what i need to learn is to be at peace with inactivity, with not-doing. Perhaps i may waste away my entire life, and i ought to be at peace with that as well. Perhaps that after a period of inactivity, like what eckhart and the tao te ching says, spontaneous action and energy will arise.

More on the low-carb diet

Ok i’ll be talking about my progress as well as some more information about the low-carb diet.

According to studies (there are studies for nearly every kind of diet, but the evidence behind low-carb diet is one of the best and most scientifically-backed up ones), for a long, long time, (10000 years is considered very short) humans mainly subsisted on animal foods, with some vegetables, fruits and nuts mixed in. Going by evolution, we have evolved into a species which subsists mainly on animal foods.

Now animal foods are made up of fat and protein, and are also very nutritionally dense. Because its very rich nutritionally, there ought to be no problems with vitamin or mineral deficiencies if one mainly subsist on animal foods (70-100%). Fat is often blasted as something that causes all sorts of problems like heart disease etc. However, the research i’ve read says otherwise

Leaving protein out of the equation, you get your calories either from fat or carbohydrates. When taking carbohydrates, they have to be converted into sugar. With the increased levels of sugar, insulin has to be produced. Studies on centenarians show that diets, lifestyle and habits differ, with the oldest woman at 122 being a smoker and alcoholic, but one thing that is consistent is that they all had low levels of insulin. Also, insulin is a fat-storage kind of chemical.

Hence, when you take carbohydrates and it converts into sugar, much of the excess is converted into fat due to the insulin produced. Fats however, do not trigger any insulin response, and hence, are not stored. As such, you won’t get fat unless you eat copious amounts of fat and fats like transfat and polyunsaturated fats. Transfat is artificial and is a really bad fat. Saturated fats however, are completely fine.

So what about carbohydrates? Basically, they are nutritionally unnecessary. Proteins are the building blocks of our body, whereas fat is required for the healthy functioning of the body. The brain is made up of nearly 70% fat! Your body’s desired fuel is fat, not carbohydrates.

The low-carb diet i’m going on is one with minimal carbohydrates and unlimited protein and fat. As the researchers point out though, fat is highly satiety-inducing, meaning you get satisfied quickly, so you won’t consume copious amounts of it unless you pair it up additives or carbohydrates.  Also, it targets animal foods which are nutrition dense, and hence, is overall a very simple diet to follow.

I decided to go on this diet only recently, and today is day two. I’ve decided that i will approach it gradually, cutting out the main carbohydrates of meals such as rice, noodles, and all those starchy foods. However, when there’s no food at home, i’m going to eat my carbohydrates, in the form of healthier options like fruits. I’m telling my mom about it and her response seems to be good, probably because she already heard of some of it from her other friends, so i’m hoping she’ll buy more and more foods that support my diet which isn’t hard really. Also, this allows me to make a smooth transition since my body has time to adapt.

Here;s what i ate today and yesterday

Yesterday

Chicken chop with some lettuce, plus a bowl of bubo hitam

Vegetables, meatballs, luncheon meat, in a soup

One stick of milk chocolate because i was feeling a bit dizzy because i played some intense football and my body probably hasn’t addapted to the diet after two meals!

About 200 grams of low-fat yoghurt

A little bit of horfun, but i mostly ate the veggies, meat, and prawns in it

I felt hungry at night, so i ate a piece of bread with lots of butter on it. Also had a fruit-vegetable juice.

As you see, the first day i still ate quite a bit of carbohydrates, probably 800-1000 calories worth. A low-carb diet usually has about 200-300 calories worth of carbos. I estimate that on a normal day, i’d eat about 1500 worth of calories in carbohydrates. Still, it was a pretty significant shift in the foods.

Today, this was what my meal consisted of

A “healthshake”, 90 calories all of them coming from fat

Two bananas, totaling about 200-400 calories in the morning because i was hungry and had not much foods

Snacked on about 100 grams of almonds

Then i ate a mix of squid, chicken, vegetables and egg with no carbohydrates

At night, i had a fruit-vegetable juice drink

I felt a little bit hungry so i ate a slice of wholemal bread with lots of butter

Today my calorie intake from carbohydrates is more like 500-600. I felt fine, no serious hunger cravings, although i wanted lots of water. I felt i had slightly more energy than usual, and continued doing my exercises with no problems. I’ll be hoping to reduce my carbohydrate intake to around 200-300, leaving them for snacking (:!

This diet is much easier to employ than the raw food diet. I can go nearly anywhere and request a meal without the starchy component. I don’t think i’ll feel “left out” seeing i can gorge of meat, fat and all that tasty stuff. The only thing i’ll feel left out is sugary foods, but even then, i can snack on them as long as it comprises of a minimal component of my diet.

New low carb-high protein trial diet

Okay, so after that rather unsuccessful raw food diet which may have very well been due to my inability to prepare the sufficient amounts of fruit required for the diet to succeed, i’m going to test out a low-carb high-protein diet i’ve read about

Introduction

The most important thing to look at a diet is how it fufills our dietary requirements. Since this is a low-carb diet, our energy needs are going to have to be met by fats. As for vitamins and minerals, i’m still going to liberally consume vegetables to get them, but sticking to the non-starchy kinds.

The premise of this diet is that our body should burn fats rather than carbohydrates as fuel. Too much carbohydrates burdens the body and some of these carbohydrates create a a sort of “addiction” that make it easy to overeat. Fat, on the other hand, quickly satiates, and unless it is mixed with all additives, will not cause major food cravings. Protein is essential for building muscle and various functions of the body. I’m simplifying things a lot here, but this is the very basic picture.

With regards to our “natural” diet, this one looks at the Paleo diet, our caveman ancestors who ate mostly meat with some vegetables and seeds inbetween. One benefit of this diet is that you will supposedly lose fat while gaining muscle if you exercise, because your body turns to its fat stores for energy whilst building muscle with that protein! However, you ought to consume above 1.3k calories daily so that your body doesn’t drop into “starvation’ mode, where metabolism slows down in order to conserve the calorie stores.

Implementation

This is definitely going to be easier than the raw food diet because of the availibility of this diet as compared to the raw food diet. Basically, i’m going to eat a variety of meat, vegetables, nuts and other things, whilst eating minimal amounts of carbohydrates (no bread, rice, sugar) which shouldn’t be too hard besides the look of surprise when i tell the food-sellers that i want chicken rice without rice. I’ve asked my mom to not give me any carbohydrates and if she wants to be a bitch and do it, i’ll just refuse and she’ll waste her money. Woo!

Time period

According to what i’ve read, carbohydrate addictions may take up to two weeks to disappear so i think two weeks is a fair period to test this thing out. Also, two weeks shouldn’t take too much a toll on my wonderfully perfect body so it ought to be safe.

I don’t want to make any judgements about whether this diet is right or wrong, i’m just going to try it out.

Six months after practising the power of now

The past week has been characterized by a strange feeling of lethargy. Its like all i want to do is just to laze around, rest or sleep. I don’t feel like writing, nor revising or even playing football. School is a bit of a chore, but i don’t get unhappy over it. It feels a bit like i’m an “old” man, disinterested in the material world and all i want to do is sit in a rocking chair and enjoy a book.

This year has been a wonderful year. I’ve probably learnt more and improved much more than the past 4 years combined. Girls have made life a little bit more interesting, but by far, the best thing about this year is reading the power of now and learning how to be aware of that awareness behind my thoughts. Ever since i read that book and delved into Eckhart Tolle’s teachings, the level of stress and unhappiness in my life has plummeted so much that its nearly absent nowadays. Sometimes i can’t believe how i lived that stressful, burdensome, competitive life just six months ago.

Six months ago

Six months ago, thrown into a somewhat different environment; girls as schoolmates, a slightly different education system, a drastic loss of form in football which made me terribly unhappy, attempts to “add” more to myself, to ‘become” and “achieve” more, to be seen as a “popular” person. Nearly every moment in my life was filled with thoughts, either reliving my past glories or horrors, otherwise thinking about the future, planning on how to become a good hypnotist, a good student, a good footballer, a popular guy, a girlfriend.

And then, reading the book, i realised the insanity of all of that. Trying to construct an identity i would be proud of, thinking that i would be satisfied when that happens, blinded to the unhappiness and stress i was causing to myself. In struggling to get so much, i missed out on that peace, that inner serenity that is always there. I saw that sometimes, because of those attempts to add to my ego, my relationships with people weren’t very genuine. I was trying to impress, trying to gain something from them.

Sure, i was still a pretty nice guy. I had some integrity and even prided myself on it. I had high EQ so i got along with everyone. I knew how to act most of the time, although occasionally my act fell apart when i was at a loss at what to do. More often than not, i was genuine in my relationships, i never really tried manipulating people unless you count trying to make a good impression as manipulation. Actually it is, but it isn’t considered manipulation in the conventional term. But hell, how much better i am now as a person when i drop my “self” and just BE my self.

The change didn’t come overnight. Gradually, i dropped more and more of my ego. My reactions became less severe. I became very conscious of when i was thinking and through observing and being aware of my thoughts, my thoughts lost their addictive, “trapping” power. Some situations i didn’t know how to deal with, some i learned quickly. I read more and learned more, deepened my understanding, and right now, i feel like i’ve reached a point where i know how to deal with nearly any situation.

Dealing with thoughts and emotions

I think the early changes were being more “aware” and being less fixated on my thoughts. Previously, i was addicted to thinking, but detachment from thoughts was the most obvious principle so i experienced more and more peace. I learned to surrender to my emotions, not to fight or hide my unhappiness, disappointment or frustration, but simply to yield to them. It was a relief, after spending so much of my time wondering what i should do to tackle my unhappiness, when all i needed to do was to just feel that unhappiness. So the first major step was learning to deal with my emotions and thoughts.

The peace and perfection that is always present

The next change probably came when i began to realise i didn’t need to become anything. Intellectually, i understood that, but only after a while, weeks or months before i really understood and “got” it. I experienced a certain level of peace during my first major step, and it opened me to a new perspective. The realisation that i didn’t need to be anything! What a relief! From struggling about what identity i should construct and how i was going to go about it, it dawned on me that all these identities were worthless, unncessary, and only created struggle and suffering. Whilst searching for all these identities, i had the greatest sense of self already within me; Myself!. An essence, a character that isn’t defined by anything, not be a job, not by popularity, not by talents or skills, yet a unique, wonderful Being that didn’t need any tinkering with. A perfection that was already there! The second major step was learning that i was already perfect.

Relinquishment of the material

With that realisation also came the giving up of the material world. Money, fame, status, just didn’t seem that important anymore. Gradually, my attachment to these things weakened and faded away. And the related issues of a safe and secure job, ensuring a bright future, getting good grades or playing well in football naturally went away, or at least, decreased substantially in importance and attachment. During block tests, i had very little stress if at all.

Twice, my mother asked me what i was going to do in the future and why i took my current subject combination. I told her that i didn’t know and if my job required it, i would then learn it. I realised the illusory nature of our fears about poverty, future, or failure. I told her that the the worst that could happen was that i became a cleaner. If not, i’d just die. The worst that happens is death and what is to be feared about that? Compared with a lifetime of worry, stress and struggling, i’d take death anyday.

And then another wonderful realisation came to me. Now that i was free of all these fears, now that i was no longer limited or restricted by a need to have a “good” job or a secure future, i was truly free to pursue whatever i wanted. I could do the things i loved and enjoyed and not be affected by how secure or safe the job was. I realised that i could go into multiple careers, trying new things, new jobs, learning new skills, playing games, computer games, sports. I could go professional, be an olympian, a footballer, a hypnotist, a healer, a writer, an actor. Free of the illusory fears, i could finally lead a real life, a life that depends on what i want in that moment rather than one planned years ago.

And much of that was translated in reality. I spoke up and gave feedback in front of the school, something i never did during my four years in high school, and to top it off, made it funny. I went up and gave an inspirational speech, although that was also affected by my remaining ego and fears. I haven’t relinquished everything yet! For one friday afternoon and night, i hung out with the ares fac comm and got a free meal from Mr Teh who had meant to treat the entire fac comm but because i coincidentally happened to be hanging around them, he offered me to come along. What is special about that? It may sound silly and indeed, it is silly, but there was a voice in me that warned that i’d appear to be desperate to be part of the “fac comm”, the “in” gang, and honestly, i sensed that there was some of that feeling in the fac comm as well. But hey, i went “fuck it” in my head, let them think what they want and just went along.

Learning to surrender to every moment

During the past 2 months or so, i learned a new lesson. Previously, i felt awkward and uncomfortable around some people, probably because more often than not, they hurt my ego. For a while, i didn’t know what to do. I struggled with it for a while. And then, an insight came to me. Why not just surrender to the awkwardness and discomfort? So thats what i did. I just allowed myself to feel whatever i was feeling, and then, miraculously, i started communicating in a much more genuine, connected manner. I no longer tried to appear as if i was unaffected or put on a front of bravado. When i was at a loss at what to do, i just kept quiet and still and felt that awkwardness, that confusion. And automatically, i felt more and more comfortable around these people. When i saw people i knew, i no longer felt a need to say hi in a very obvious manner, but just nodded and acknowledged them as i felt like.

Simply put, the lesson learnt here was to surrender to every moment, and with this last lesson, it seems like i’ve found the answer to everything. In everything i do, just surrender to whatever i felt. No acting, no pretending, no avoiding, no distracting myself, just surrendering and letting myself feel and be whatever i felt like.

Life right now

Six months after reading and practising the power of now, my life has taken a really huge change. Externally, it seems very similar, but internally, i’ve transformed a life of stress, frustration, anxiety, superficiality, ego, into one that is predominantly peaceful, genuine and free from problems. I still have traces of the ego left, somtimes thoughts still interrupt me, i still feel a little bit uncomfortable around some people, although the discomfort has greatly diminished.

More and more, life looks more and more like a game, where i have nothing to lose but experiences and fun to gain. But right now, for the past week, i’ve just been feeling like lying down and resting peacefully. Some part of me urges me to study and revise and all, but i choose to go with the flow and do and be what i feel like doing. It doesn’t matter either way, anyway.