Casual friends and acquaintances

[serenac]

Hello all! I was wondering about your opinions and experiences about this subject.

Do you find that while you are using Paths or after you have been on Paths for a while that your relationships with casual friends and acquaintances change? Do you think that maybe we are getting stuffy or snobby?

I find that I don't enjoy the company of my casual friends and acquaintances that I used to hang out with every once in a while before. I'm not talking about good friends or close friends, we remain good and close friends. I mean people that I never had too much in common with to begin with, but we still used to get together maybe once in a while to chat and catch up on our lives. I find the conversations with them boring, going round in circles going over the same kind of talk over and over and over again, I feel like they drag me down and just generally I get bored being with them. And that didn't used to happen before, I mean I still think they are wonderful people but it just bores me now to be around them! It's not like we were intimate before or shared our deepest secrets or told each other everything that happened in our lives before I started with Paths, but I also wasn't so bored with them either.

For example I spent one afternoon with a casual girlfriend, she had a lot of problems but they were all relationship problems with the different people in her life. She spent her time telling me all about these problems, she got very mad at things that really didn't seem all that important to me and spent the whole afternoon blaming the other people in her life for her disagreements with them. Although I sympathized with her the truth was I found the conversation quite boring. I spent some time suggesting some possible solutions to her problems, which didn't interest her very much. In the end I couldn't wait to get away from her and when I finally left her it was like getting untied from a stone! That is so unusual for me! I usually love to spend the whole day hanging around with my girlfriends and doing a bunch of things with them, I like to go out and have tea and a snack with them and then go shopping, stroll around and people watch, etc. And now the only thing I wanted to do was get away from these girlfriends (although the one who was really dragging me down was the one with all these relationship problems) and go off on my own and do things that I enjoy doing, but do them alone by myself!

Don't get me wrong I still think they are wonderful people and I remember that we used to have lots of fun together. I just don't have fun with them now!

Do you think maybe I am getting stuffy and snobby? Or do you find these kinds of experiences fairly common?

Well I'm off all! See you! Serena

[BobBrown]

Information over load

I've become addicted

Last few days, I've been swamped with unbelievable subjects. David Icke, Pete Peterson, and the dozen or so Camalot videos. OU circuits and coils. The Economy and how to deal with it. Paths, Meditation, and a whole host of modules in the other theater I'm using. MMS, MMSO. Rat fish liver ( Vitamin K1? )

Saterday I was with my cousin, and had knowthing to say to him. His wife's sister and hubby came by , and I had even less to say. All I could think was how do I prove or disprove to myself that all this is true, or not. Let me get back to my computer turminal, so I can see the next thread post !
How do you talk to those who are not into Meditation, esp, human energy, huge all encompassing conspierecy theories, or Over Unity devices ? I spent 10 years telling everybody to be careful with thier money. ( I believe there is a 1929 type depression around the corner ) NOBODY listened then, except those who came across the information, by other channels. Kinda all cry wolfed out.

Well thats me.
Thankyou for letting me post.
Andrew T.
PATHS ~ Mind Energetics

[serenac]

Hi Andrew! Well I didn't mean that I only like to chat with people who are into meditation or spirituality or that sort of thing. On the contrary often I find I don't have much to say to people who are into that sort of thing either. Especially when they follow certain streams of thought quite strictly and are not very open to other possibilities (for example people who ONLY like Transcendental Meditation but not other forms of meditation, people who ONLY like Buddhism for example but are not interested in other religions or other spiritual currents, etc.). I just mean that I find my friends boring now, they continue to battle with the same problems they had a year ago and they seem to be moving around in circles, their problems and lives were interesting a year ago but now after a year of hearing them say the same things all the times I find it gets boring for me, whereas before I didn't really mind hearing the same things over and over and over again, for example. Or if they continue to say the same things, express the same attitudes and (negative) beliefs, etc. now as they did a year ago, I feel bored listening to these things now. Whereas before, well it wasn't like I found such topics to be especially thrilling conversation subjects before in the past, but on the other hand I also didn't mind it so much if you get what I mean. For example I have a friend who is always blaming the bad economy on the political party that is in power, who is always complaining that there are no jobs, etc. Before even though I really didn't agree with her I also didn't mind that she went on and on and on about these same subjects all the time and expressed the same attitudes all the time. But now I find it boring, like it's like I want to tell her, well when are you going to move on with your life??? You've been like this for a year without changing and if you continue this way you'll spend the rest of your life like this and nothing will ever change for you!!! I respect her desire to continue living her life the way that she does, but I find now that it drags me down to listen to her complaining all the time and blaming other people all the time, for example. Because I really don't agree with her anymore and I've already heard her say the same things a million times, but before I thought it was just normal to be this way just a normal part of life and a normal way to live, like everyone is this way and that's the way we ought to be, and there's not much alternative out there anyways. So it really made no difference to me to be spending time listening to people complaining as to be listening for example to the weather report on the radio. It wasn't like there was much else more interesting to listen to. But it's like now I don't feel like listening to the same old stories anymore. I want to hear things that are a bit more uplifting and positive if you get what I mean, stories about people who have made it and have been successful, instead of hearing the same old tales about all these people that don't have jobs and think they will never get a job for as long as they live, or who have been spending the last 5 years of their lives arguing with the same people in their lives and will probably spend the next 5 years continuing to argue with these same people, etc.

[BobBrown]

Just to be clear, I am not a social animal. Wish I was. But I feel this is a good spot for one big HUG !

Andrew T.
Master of the Universe !
PATHS ~ Mind Energetics

[illusions]

Hi Serena

In my experience (and the experience of people I know who've gone through major self growth), you outgrow certain people in your life, as you grow within yourself.

Imagine you're running a marathon. You start out running with a group of friends. But after a while the route becomes really difficult - brambles, steep hills, swamps etc. (okay, it's a veeeerrrry long marathon lol ). And you struggle along with your group of friends. But then, you come across some runners who have found an easier route - still goes to the same place, still within the rules of the marathon, but much easier ground with not as much struggle. So you start taking that direction, and some of your group do the same. But when, occasionally, you decide to go and catch up with the others to find out how they're doing, and you spend some time back on their route - the route they've chosen to stick to - you find it more unpleasant than you ever did before, because now you know the difference!

You can't wait to get back to the pleasanter, more enjoyable route. Of course, the friends who chose to stay on the old route don't have that experience because they've chosen to struggle more this time. And that's okay. But it doesn't mean you have to stay on the old route with them, just because they've chosen it. You are free to go back to the nicer route, since that is your choice. Baring in mind.... they're free to join you on the nicer route if they did change their minds and made that choice.

So it's not about snobbery. It's about choosing what feeeeels good.

Hope this helps.
Love and Light and Magic xxx

[katka20]

Very nice comparision, I really like it

Katja

[serenac]

Oh that's so sweet of you Andrew!

[serenac]

Hi Odille! Ditto what Katka said!

Oh it is hard to explain, I don't want to sound like or think that I've become sort of like to my friends, nya nya I'm moving ahead and you're not ha ha! I think it's like, well before we were all like, oh well this and that happened to me and I think this and that, and I and all the rest of us would reply, oh yeah me too! Someone would say, oh I can't stand John he's so _______ (fill in with negative criticism), and all the rest of us would say, oh yeah me too I can't stand John either! Someone else would say, oh I've got this problem and Jane is to blame, and the rest of us would say, oh yeah I've got this problem too and you're right it's probably all Jane's fault! And we'd just go around spending our days more or less in this vein all the time. And commisserate with each other and feel like we were all in the same boat.

And now it's more like, well okay so I still don't like John but he's not so bad and I'm not going to blame him anymore. Or, well you know I don't have this problem anymore although I understand that you still do have this problem, but since I no longer have this problem you can do the same thing I did to solve this problem and it isn't Jane's fault. Because now they come at me, what do you mean it isn't Jane's fault??! Of course it's Jane's fault and I can prove it to you because Jane is bad in this and that way and people who are bad in so many ways have got to be the cause of all these problems! Or I might say, well I used to have the exact same problems that you have now but I did this and that and now things are going great for me. So then they have all sorts of objections, well we can't do what you did because of this and that, you're just lucky but that doesn't mean that what you did is the solution it just happened to work for you, etc.

Or I'll just simply be hanging out with my perpetually unemployed friends, all of us whom are always unemployed, and we exchange ideas about how to get out of unemployment, but I don't find anything enlightening there, mostly their advice consists of, oh there's no point in sending out CVs because jobs just don't exist. Or I'll say, oh but I sent out CVs and I got a job (a temp job)! And they'll say, we're tired of sending out CVs, or, we sent out CVs but we didn't get a job, you're just lucky you got one. And so on and so on, while I'm more interested in searching for solutions, in finding things to do that work and then carrying them out, they seem more intent on just hanging around together and commisserating together and talking a lot but later nothing gets done. And before that was okay with me, I was like that too. But now I feel more like, well let's DO something!

[illusions]

Good for you, Serena!

Now, you leave them where they choose to be, and get back to your nice route

[future pather]

It can be a little sad to realize you have assumed a different attitude than people you were more aligned with in the past, but I think it's always worth it to be true to you.

I've experienced what you are talking about at times before I ever did PATHS but I can see how doing PATHS could cause that kind of incompatibility and I'm sure I've experienced it as well.

It would be nice if the people we know and are used to would all grow right along with us, but unfortunately we can't chose the speed or direction of anyone else's growth for them.

I would guess that everyone goes through this stuff at some point in life in one way or another.

Keep doing you're thing, girlfriend