THE PLAN (The Upward Spiral of Motivation)

This could become an UBER solution and the printed paper is to end up in my NLP file paper-clipped to "How to Motivate Yourself to do Anything"...

The Plan

Early today was VERY hard. The big win is that I became aware of and identified a few patterns of thought that were essentially "broken", and I made progress towards fixing them.

For example, anything I think about, 25 - 50% chance that I'll go negative. I think or feel something bad in regards to ANY subject.

In June, that was probably around 1% chance of going negative, and I always saw the good in just about anything, which empowered me greatly.

...

It's fun identifying all the BS coming from my mind. 40,000 thoughts a day, and we make a choice to think about hardly any of them -- so they're not really YOU so much as your MIND. Your mind is just another muscle and you can choose how to apply it, same as using other muscles, there's a lot of control there.

So when the mind is shooting out 20,000 negative thoughts... even though you CHOOSE to think postively... it can be a lot of fun to laugh at some of the incredibly pointless, mind numbing, stupid negative thoughts that the mind thinks about. I didn't choose those thoughts, and they're crippling me, and all I have to do is go "that was a stupid thought, how would I change it to something worthy of being chosen?"

I can't help but laugh at some of the self-sabotage my mind is creating. It's just so stupid and makes no sense it humors me. And that gives me a lot of power over it.

So tomorrow, I'm going push harder, which will cause more resistance and more stupid thoughts, which will cause more laughter and fun. That's the plan.

I may end up "settling down" in Oregon

Where I may live when I decide to "settle down"...

Likely OREGON.

Why?

1. Not far from CA, but still has the "northern" feel without the bad weather, AND has world-class ALL SEASON snowboarding (Mt. Hood) without the trip into the backcountry of the Sierras (Mammoth; it wouldn't be worth it to live in the Mono Basin).

2. Great, homey people, great drivers, pretty Libertarian politics, and my very favorite scenery with the pines and cliffs.

3. Cheap living, unpopulated (although harder to find work)

4. Rated "Best State" by an author who wrote, "The Best and Worst of the 50 States", and I agree with almost everything the author thinks.

Here's what they said,

"Overall Best State: Every state is wonderful in its own way, and hopefully every person will think their own state is the best, because that's why they live there. And so I think Oregon is the best state, despite its drab winters. Oregon has nice folks, generally good weather, progressive politics, great scenery, it's uncrowded and, unlike California, people there can actually afford to buy houses. Yes, it has an ugly capitol building, but overall there's no state that can top Oregon. But to paraphrase former Oregon governor Tom McCall, just don't move there, o.k.?"

THE KEY:

The key thing to remember is that the state isn't going to determine your experience so much as you are going to determine your own experience.

If you move to a different state, you'll want to do it with the right attitude & state of mind. You'll want that adventure spirit where change is good and new challenges are fun.

A state can be amazing if you adapt to it in a way that is AWESOME.

A state can be strait shit if you fail to adapt and bitch instead.

It's really more ON YOU. You can turn the worst state into your favorite one, and you can turn the best state into your most hated one.

So here's another quote from that same author...

A Fable

Regarding the unending American quest to find the "perfect place," here's a story that I read a few years ago:

A bitter young man named James once wandered through the countryside in search of a place to live. He arrived in a town and asked an elderly gentleman there what the people in the town were like. The older man asked, "What were the people like in the place you used to live?" James said, "They were rude and unfriendly." The older man said, "Well, that's what the people here are like, too." Upon hearing this, James moved on.

A while later, a kind young man named George, also in search of a place to live, arrived in the same town. He asked the same elderly gentleman what the people in that town were like. Once again, the older man asked, "What were the people like in the place you used to live?" George said, "They were polite and warm." The older man said, "Well, that's what the people here are like, too." Upon hearing this, George decided to stay.