Reyaj said:
So is marriage or an LTR a goal for you? Or do you just live with the notion everything is temporary and you just want to enjoy girls for a short while?
Of course LTRs are a goal (and eventually, marriage, if I find the right chick for me). Seeing this life for what it truly is doesn’t mean that you just have to throw up your hands and go “well oh shyt, guess I should just go hang myself and get it over with faster.” If you know that that everything is subject to change and that what you have today may not be there tomorrow, it does two things: If forces you to be more mindful and appreciative of the blessings that you do currently have in your life, and it helps to remind you that the negative things you have in your life won’t be around forever.
You’d do well to study the nature of suffering a bit. Most people think of suffering as only a bad thing. After all, who wants to suffer? These same people go through life with all of its ups and downs complaining bitterly and blaming others for their misfortunes. They do not learn, and they do not grow. What they don’t see is that CONCIOUS, AWARE SUFFERING is the path to true freedom and enlightenment. Whether it be with that date that dumped you, losing your job, poor health, or whatever, when we suffer, we ALWAYS have a choice: We can learn and grow from the experience, or we can put our heads in the sand and make excuses. If we choose to learn, we find that suffering changes us in amazing ways and progressively loosens our plug into the matrix, so to say. Tolle said (and I’m paraphrasing him here) that suffering is necessary, until it is not.
As an example of this, I have Crohn’s disease, which is a chronic intestinal disease. Although I have this well under control and take no meds for it now, I have to live with this every day. However, at least a few times a month, something is up with my health that reminds me of how mortal I am. When I was first diagnosed with this, over 10 years ago, I saw it entirely as a curse. I had to totally change my lifestyle and diet. I had to teach myself about medicine, nutrition, immunology, and so forth. I went through years of issues, frustrations, and even contemplated suicide on more than a few occasions. Throughout all of this however, this disease has taught me patience and prodded me to seek what lies behind the curtain, and the benefits of this have bled over into other parts of my life, including my interactions with women. Most of my growth has undoubtedly come in the past year and a half, when I was in a dysfunctional relationship with a BPD, totally broke and in debt, working all the time, managing a failing business (had to lay numerous folks off) and dealing with this disease and overall bad health from the stress. All at the same, damn, time. I took the opportunity to read and learn, and channel my suffering into change, and it helped! It was a horrible time in my life, but if I had to do it all over again, I would, just because of the mindset it has brought me today....far from some perfect Buddha, but happier and more clear than I've ever been in my life.
All of the benefits to becoming more grounded and aware not only will help you personally with your happiness, they will also greatly increase your attractiveness to women. You are naturally controlled and are a “mystery” to her not because you have practiced gimmicks up your sleeve, but because you simply have nothing to prove to yourself or her. Your mind will be more quiet, because you know the true nature of thought (that it is just empty words, not your identity) and have trained yourself through meditation. Without that nagging voice in my head, you can naturally focus more on the person you are with, not on your fears and inhibitions. Also, most women become awfully transparent and easier to understand, especially if they themselves are still firmly plugged into the illusion.
And lastly, if she dumps you, it will hurt still, but it won’t be such a big deal as before, since you’ll be confident in who you are, and will know that someone else will come into your life soon enough.
(Tolle has a slightly different view that focuses more on the present and affords more power for change in this life, rather than just seeing it as a means to acquire better karma and be set free, as the Buddhists do.)
