My relationship with the word "please"

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be angry at X, whenever she tells me to do something without saying please.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to attach an incredible amount of value to the word "please", and judge/perceive/define people who do not use the word "please" as people without culture, as inferior, as uneducated and unsophisticated, and within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel superior to people who I perceive do not use the word please in their communication with me when they are asking/telling me to do something.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look down upon people who I don't hear using the word please in communication with other people when telling or asking them to do something.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive/define myself as having more culture, more manners, and therefore as superior because I use the word please in communication with other people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use the word please in a derogatory way, where I will pronounce it with a tone of superiority, which I have learned from my aunt, and speak it in a way that shows that I think that I am a better person than the one that I am directing the word at.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use the word please in an ordering manner, where I do not in fact ask the other person do to something, but am ordering them to do it by speaking the word in a demanding manner and tone, because I perceive that I have power over them and can afford to use the word please in an ordering tone, so as to strengthen my superiority over them by making myself still appear polite, which I define/perceive as a superior state of being to being impolite, and to at the same time strengthen my perceived power over them with being condescending and patronising.

When and as I see myself wanting to use the word please in order to appear superior to the person I am talking to, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am participating in emotional manipulation, I'm trying to subdue the other person, and since I wouldn't want to be treated that way, I commit myself to stopping myself and changing myself in the moment by applying and living understanding, gentleness and care.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to speak the word please angrily, wherever I perceive that I can afford to do so without serious consequences to the relationship with the person I am talking to, as a way of manipulation, to manipulate them with fear, to make them afraid of my anger, so that they would more readily comply with what I am asking of them, not realising and understanding that I am participating in a power play where I am trying to overpower the other person by speaking the word please in an angry tone and manner.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive/define speaking the word please angrily as cool and superior, and perceive it to be a way to strengthen my authority over people.

When and as I see myself wanting to speak the word please angrily, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I have picked up this behaviour from my father, whom I saw as an authority figure, and started emulating his way of speaking it in order to establish my own authority over people. I also realise and understand that I am with this manner of speaking the word please invoking negative emotions within people about themselves and about myself, which makes it impossible to have cooperation between us, therefore I commit myself to stop and to check my starting point for speaking the word please, am I asking for assistance or am I using it as a way of manipulating others, and to apply and live understanding and cooperation as I align myself to what is best for all.

I commit myself to be/become alert to the way I am speaking the word please, and to remove all energetic ties to the word with which I exert superiority or inferiority, and to learn to use it solely for asking for assistance when I self-honestly need it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel inferior, whenever I use the word please to ask for assistance a person that I in that moment define/perceive as more than myself, and within that I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel like I am begging them when I use the word please to ask them for something, and within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel fear, doubt, inferiority, insecurity, to feel less than, and to be afraid of how they will respond, and to feel negative and bad, whenever their response to my please is no.

When and as I see myself feeling inferior, insecure and frightened of/about the answer being no, whenever I use the word please, I stop and I breathe. I commit myself to investigating why I am feeling this way towards the person I am talking to, and aligning myself to become equal in my communication and expression towards them by self-forgiving anything and everything that comes up in that moment.

Buying something because I feel sorry for salespeople

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel sorry for salespeople, and to think/believe/perceive that they must be suffering tremendously because of having to sell stuff, and to therefore desire to buy the stuff that they are offering me in order to diminish their suffering.

When and as I see myself wanting to buy something solely because I want to diminish the salesperson's suffering, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am in that moment compromising myself, therefore I commit myself to realistically and commonsensically assessing whether I really need the product that is being offered to me, or am I wanting to please the salesperson by buying it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive/define selling stuff to people, offering them stuff and getting negative responses as a form of suffering since the times my mother was a book saleswoman, whom I used to feel sorry for and pity her.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel sorry for salespeople and pity them for having to be salespeople, and within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to therefore want to buy their products just to make them feel better about themselves for having made a sale.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel obliged to buy a product that is being offered to me, and responsible for the salesperson's happiness, and to therefore desire to buy their product in order to make them happy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel like shit, to feel bad, as a bad person, whenever I do not want to buy a product that is being offered to me, and that I know the salesperson is getting a percentage of, and to within that feel like I am diminishing their ability to survive comfortably in this world.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel sad, whenever I am trying to sell something and no one wants to buy it, and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to project this sadness onto other salespeople, to think/Believe/perceive that they will be sad if I do not buy their product, and to feel responsible for making them sad if/when I do not want to buy the product that they're offering me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to, whenever I am being offered a product, which I do not want to buy, imagine the salesperson not meeting their necessary quota for a decent survival, not being able to feed or clothe their children, and to with this imagination persuade and convince myself into buying their product, and to then within that feel like a good person, like I did something good for them, to feel morally superior.

When and as I see myself persuading myself that I should buy an offered product in order to help the salesperson survive and make a living in this world, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am participating in moral superiority, that I am not really considering that person, but I am in fact rubbing my own ego by thinking that I am a good person for buying the product, therefore I commit myself to keeping it practical and assess whether I really physically need the product and direct myself accordingly.

I commit myself to being alert, whenever I am being offered a product which I did not ask for or look for myself, and to apply practical common sense when assessing whether I really need or could use the offered product, and to not give in to my desire to be seen as a good person by myself for buying the product and thus helping the salesperson meet their quota, to have a decent survival in this world.

Zakaj je UTD tako težko vpeljati?

V današnjem negotovem prekarnem delovnem sistemu se vse bolj obračamo k idejam, ki bi ga lahko nadomestile. Vodilna med temi idejami je UTD oziroma univerzalni temeljni dohodek, ki si jo že dobro desetletje podajamo po družabnih omrežjih.

A do uresničitve ideje kar ne pride, torej je nekaj očitno narobe.

Osnova ideje je, da vsi državljani, ne glede na premoženjsko stanje, mesečno dobijo enak znesek, kar naj bi med njimi zagotovilo večjo enakovrednost. Toda kaj se zgodi, ko ljudem v zelo neenakovrednih položajih damo enako vsoto denarja? Nič. V bistvu še vedno vzdržujemo to neenakost, ki naj bi jo univerzalnost odpravila. Torej se moramo najprej zavedeti, da univerzalnost NE pomeni enakovrednosti. Ja, najrevnejšim v družbi bi se stanje malce izboljšalo, vendar bi še vedno ostali najrevnejši v družbi. Menda v 21. stoletju zmoremo kaj boljšega.

Argument, zaradi katerega ideja UTD pogori in se je ne jemlje resno, je zelo realen: če ljudem zagotovimo denar za preživetje, ne bodo hoteli delati del, ki jih nihče noče delati. To je vsekakor absolutno res, to vsi vemo. Ravno zaradi tega temeljni dohodek ne bi smel biti univerzalen. Moral bi biti omejen na ljudi brez prihodkov, znašati bi moral toliko, da zagotovi osnovne potrebe, hkrati pa bi morala minimalna plača znašati dvakrat toliko kot temeljni dohodek, da bi ljudje hoteli delati dela, ki jih sicer nihče noče delati.

Za uvedbo temeljnega dohodka je treba upoštevati tako ekonomski kot psihološki sistem, iz katerega izhajamo in ga želimo spremeniti.

Preberite, kako bi bil videti neuniverzalni temeljni dohodek.

My profession

I am a translator. I like being a translator. I've always loved playing with words, I put my heart into it and I take pride in my work.

But the joy that my work brings me is countered by the fact that it has been devalued over the last few years, and I am now working insane hours for a measly pay. Because of this I am stressed out, and we probably all know what that is like.

But hey, at least I still like what I do. I can count myself as one of the lucky ones… That is just sad. I wonder for how long we will keep playing into this before realising that we're creating it by playing into it. Actually realising it. Knowing it is not enough.

I can not only imagine, but I fully well know, having worked multiple non-translating jobs, the unhappiness of working a job you hate. You barely survive those 8+ hours. It's pure agony. Your stress levels are through the roof. And that is the reality for the majority of people.

It there any wonder that the world is in such a sad state? The majority of people barely survive, but whose fault is this? Why do the MAJORITY of people allow themselves to barely survive in a world of opulence?

Our mind-freedom has been hijacked with and by money, which is so obviously weird, because money isn't even paper anymore. It's only an abstract concept by now, but it causes real suffering. And we ALL simply just take it. Why is that?

It is because we were born into and brought up in a system where money is god. Our minds operate on that system's program. We do not see the possibilities beyond that program, because we are the system and our minds are the program.

Most of us see only: "You must make money to buy stuff to survive"

That is a very limited view of life. It is a result of a lifetime of reduced freedom. First we, as the system, trap ourselves as individuals into schools where we do not have authority over our own time, and thus the input which we will take in in that time. We take in boring information that we forget because we're not interested, and our desire for exploration is stifled because we're forced to sit still for a good third of the day. And as if that wasn't enough, we further limit our time at home by giving ourselves homework. By the time of the day we're allowed to explore on our own, we're too damn exhausted to give a damn about exploration, and we just want to counter the horrible prison-like  experience we just went through in school, so as soon as we get home, we do some or other instant gratification act.

We all went through this and we all knowingly and willingly send our children into it. We all know it sucks, yet we do not seek to create an alternative. Why? Because to create an alternative we have to work together. And that is something that the limiting institution of school has made impossible for the human mind - by grading it. Grades create comparison and competition, not cooperation.

Then we further limit ourselves by educating ourselves in one single field, which is so smart, because if a catastrophe strikes, I cannot rebuild my home or fix (let alone build) my car, but hey, at least I can translate.

And, finally, we trap ourselves into a job, which we decided on in our ignorant and highly hormonal teenage/adolescent years, so that by the time we uncover our true talents and passions, it is too late. We have allowed our creativity to silently die.

Is it ridiculous enough for us to stop and see it yet?

It is us that need to change our program and so the system.

Click here if you are ready to start.

Day 214: Putting things off

One of my most prominent and tenacious behaviour patterns is procrastination. I remember once writing a blog on it with self-forgiveness, where I was forgiving myself for procrastinating, but afterwards I didn't change. Today I realised why. Because I am not living the word procrastination. This is an English word that is only part of my knowledge. I know what it means and I know how to use it, but I don't say to myself: "I'm gonna procrastinate now." What I do live is the statement: "I don't feel like it right now." There's many other statements that make up my procrastination pattern, like:
"I still have time to do it.
I will do it later.
If I don't do it now, the consequences are not going to be that bad, I hope.
I will do this first thing in the morning, but now I am going to do something I enjoy."
I'm going to tackle this pattern for real now.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to, whenever I have work, duties and obligations, and feel resistance towards doing them, use the statements "I do not feel like it right now, I still have time to do it, I will do it later, I hope the consequences are not going to be that bad if I don't do it now, I will do this first thing in the morning, but now I am going to do something I enjoy" in order to persuade myself and justify not doing them immediately.

When and as I see myself trying to use those statements to persuade myself into and justify not doing my work, obligations and duties, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am compromising myself and the quality of my life by putting off my work until the last minute, where I will often be late with completing it, therefore I commit myself to push myself and push through the resistance I might be feeling to get the work done in time.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look for excuses, justifications and explanations for why it is ok for me to be late with work or fulfilling my obligations/duties.

I've always taken my duties and obligations lightly, ever since elementary school. I never really took them seriously, I never really worried about them, because all my capacity for worrying was used up by the situation at home. Compared to what was going on at home, the consequences of not doing my schoolwork on time seemed laughably small. I used to worry that my mother one day simply wouldn't come home anymore. Schoolwork was the last thing on my mind. That is why I never developed self-discipline.
In my teenage years I started using the situation at home as an excuse to not do my schoolwork or to get special treatment, when I learned that teachers and adults in general tend to be more lenient, when they know what is going on in my life. I remember being really surprised, when this method didn't work on our social worker in high school.
This all lead to me never developing real working skills, which is biting me in the ass today, and I want to rectify it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel sorry for myself for having a hard situation at home, and in that feeling sorry for myself say "fuckit, I'm not going to do my obligations, what's the point anyway", not realising and understanding at the time that I should be doing my schoolwork for myself and not because it is being asked of me by adults.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take my obligations/duties/work lightly and avoid doing them until the last minute or until it is already too late.

When and as I see myself wanting to wait with my duties/work/obligations and wanting to put them off to a later time, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am with this sort of behaviour compromising myself, because other people involved usually do not have the patience/understanding for why I am being late with my work, therefore I commit myself to breathe through the resistance towards work and direct myself towards doing it in the first possible time slot I have available for it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive my life situation as hard in order to use it as an excuse to not do my work/duties/obligations immediately when I have the chance.

When and as I see myself trying to justify and look for excuses for not doing my work/duties/obligations immediately when I can by perceiving that my life situation is hard, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am with this compromising my own life and well-being, therefore I commit  myself to removing the excuses, stabilizing myself in breath and directing myself towards getting my work done.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe/think/perceive that I am not an organized person and that I lack self-discipline to do all my work on time, instead of realising and understanding that I am creating myself to be that way by believing it, therefore I commit myself to immediately stop myself with breath, when I notice myself thinking this about myself, and directing myself towards completing my work in the necessary time frame.

I also always had a great resistance towards schedules, because I perceive that they take freedom and spontaneity away from me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hate and loathe schedules and scheduling my days, my life, because I perceived/believed that scheduling takes the freedom and spontaneity out of life. Within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist making schedules for myself, instead of realising and understanding that they make life a lot easier, because then I can follow a list instead of deciding in the moment what I will be doing next, and losing time with it.

When and as I see myself resisting making a schedule for myself, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that making a schedule will make things much easier for me, therefore I commit myself to remove my resistances and direct myself to make the schedule and follow it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think/believe/perceive that I am a person who does not enjoy following schedules, not realising and understanding that I am manifesting and creating myself that way, thus I am limiting myself to a set of beliefs about what I should or shouldn't do, enjoy and be like.

When and as I see myself thinking/believing/perceiving that I do not enjoy making and following schedules, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I have never given myself the opportunity to expand myself by making schedules for myself and see how they impact my life, therefore I commit myself to try scheduling out for myself.

In the next blog I will be focusing on my tendency to not follow schedules and previously made arrangements with other people.

Day 213: The Middle of a Conflict

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become irritated, anxious and feel lost and trapped, whenever I perceive that I have little time and still need to work, but am not working due to some other activity I'm participating in.

When and as I see myself becoming emotional, irritated, anxious and feel lost and trapped due to perceiving that I am short on time, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am not helping myself by being emotional, but am in fact wasting even more time by being emotional about it, therefore I commit myself to stay here in breath and do not allow myself to dwell on the fact that I have little time.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel like other people are wasting my time, and them blame them for it, whenever I talk to them while having little time to spare, and the conversation is not taking the direction that I want it to take, instead of realising and understanding that I am the one that chooses what I will be doing with my time and am therefore fully responsible for organizing it.

When and as I see myself wanting to blame others for 'wasting my time', I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am fully responsible for arranging and organizing my time so I spend it as efficiently as I can, and by blaming others I am only trying to shift this responsibility onto them, thus I am taking my power over it away from myself. Therefore I commit myself to not go into blame towards other people for wasting my time, but direct myself in breath and prioritize my time with common sense.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel helpless and hopeless, whenever I participate in a (group) conversation, where things seem to have slipped out of hand and a conflict seems to arise. Within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want/need/desire to yell at the participants to stop it, and think/believe/perceive that this is the only way to stop a conflict from happening. I also forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to doubt my ability to resolve a conflict between people in a calm and civilized way.

I realise and understand that I would only be fueling the fire of conflict more by participating with yelling, therefore I commit myself to, whenever I see a conflict arising in a group around me, to ground myself with breathing and direct the conversation back to common sense with self-trust that I am able to do it.

I forgive myself  that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with annoyance and want/need/desire to lash out at people and shout at them, whenever I perceive that I am doing everything in my power to resolve issues in a calm and civilised way, instead of realising and understanding that I am in that moment participating with superiority by thinking how calm and civilised I am, and am then being bewildered as to why it is not working, start feeling inferior and want to compensate for that by lashing out, thus taking a superior stance. This all is then my participation within and as ego that is looking for energy.

When and as I see myself becoming annoyed that my calm approach to a conflict is not working, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am only trying to appear calm, but am in fact participating within and as ego wanting to direct others and take credit for it's/my 'efficiency'. Therefore I commit myself to stop myself first, ground myself with breath and direct myself with common sense towards what is best for all, thus I assess whether it is beneficial to all to keep participating in the conversation in that moment or not.

Day 212: Reactions towards knowledge and information that I do not agree with

A friend shared information about a herbalist who claims to be able to cure any disease with administering the right herbal mix. The friend quoted the herbalist, and the quote was in my perspective a bunch of words that were put together to sound educated to people who have no scientific training whatsoever. There were big words in the quote, but when put together, they don't really mean a damn thing to someone who really understands them. I reacted to this with anger, annoyance and frustration. I hate the fact that people can be so easily manipulated into believing anything simply because they lack the basic education/understanding on how things work. And I hate the fact that other people know this and use it to their advantage to make money on people who are desperate.

In all this it became apparent how different people see things differently according to their exposure to knowledge.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with anger, hatred, frustration, resentment, annoyance, whenever I see/perceive that someone is trying to scam people for money by using words that sound scientific, but in my view aren't. Within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want/need/desire to attack those words and destroy them, in that attacking the one who is saying them by labeling them as ignorant and uneducated, not realising and understanding that I am in that moment putting myself in a superior position because I apparently understand those words, and am thus not taking into consideration the other participant as an equal but as someone who is less than me for not understanding the words like I do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel insulted and infuriated, whenever I perceive that someone is trying to manipulate me and people in general with knowledge that I have some understanding of and do not agree with what is being said.

When and as I see myself reacting with anger due to hearing knowledge/information that I do not agree with and deem to be inaccurate, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that if I go into debate about the accurateness of the knowledge, I am playing a knowledge/information based power play in order to feed energy to my mind as ego. Therefore I commit myself to not reacting with anger anymore when I hear information I do not agree with, but remain here in breath and direct myself in common sense towards what is best for all and take into consideration the other person/people and their understanding.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with being incredulous and wanting to make fun of someone saying something that I do not agree with, not realising and understanding that I am doing so because I feel inferior because I perceive that the other person thinks that I am dumb enough to buy what they are saying, thus I am trying to compensate for the feeling of inferiority by trying to subdue the other person with making fun of them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with the statement "Do you expect me to believe this" either in thoughts or words, whenever someone is presenting to me knowledge/information that I do not agree with or have trouble accepting because it is outside of my scope of knowledge, instead of realising and understanding that I am in that moment feeling inferior because I perceive that I lack something in order to be on the same page with what the person is saying.

When and as I see myself feeling incredulous about someone trying to present something to me that i do not agree with, and reacting with the words "do you expect me to believe this", I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am trying to compensate with superiority the feeling of inferiority I experience whenever I am not on the same page with the person presenting the knowledge, therefore I commit myself to breathe, not allow myself to go into inferiority, but stay here and direct myself with common sense.

I commit myself to take a step back and breathe, whenever I hear knowledge and information that I do not agree with and I commit myself to stopping and removing my reactions of taking it personally whenever someone is presenting to me knowledge and information that I do not agree with, because I realise and understand that by taking it personally, I am trapping myself into an energetic power play where I will try to persuade the other person into adopting my knowledge and information and way of thinking, thus try to subdue them and will not regard them as equals, which I realise is unacceptable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with hatred and anger and resentment, frustration and annoyance towards people whom I perceive to be trying to scam other people out of their money by using big words that those other people do not fully understand, and label such people as evil and abusive, instead of realising and understanding that I am taking the 'moral high ground' and making myself superior to them in my mind, thus feeding my mind as ego energy.

When and as I see myself reacting with anger towards people whom I perceive are trying to scam other people out of their money, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am in that moment taking the moral high ground, trying to be superior to those people by labeling them as scammers, as evil and not to be trusted, not realising and understanding that they are just as much trying to survive in this world as anyone else. Therefore I commit myself to stopping and removing all my energetic reactions to those people and directing myself in breath with common sense towards what is best for all.