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The saying: "You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with" imo is a little misleading.
Someone might think about that idea, and consider gee I should upgrade my network. Or man, what's holding me back is my group of loser friends. This is certainly true, but it's only the tip of the iceberg.
You are, quite literally, the average of the things you do. Not the things you've done, as frames, or the accumulation of deeds, but the active procedural forms of your being TODAY. From how you sleep, to how you wake up, what you wear (or don't wear), the words you use, the way you engage with other people, how you spend your time, how you sit, how you walk, how you work, how you create things, how you help people, and yes ALSO who you surround yourself with.
The reason I decided to create this thread is to remind everyone that there is no escaping WHO you are if you do not change HOW you are. You quite literally cannot, and will not, be "healthy" if the average of how you are every day is the process of sitting down hunched over, doing busy work on Excel for a cause you don't care about. Because that's not the shape of a healthy human being. Your going "weightlifting" 3x/week does not change you, because it's a very small sum-part of your everyday being, consequently it does not significantly change the average of your shape.
Another example is that of an elusive concept we call "success". Even with a boat load of money accumulated, if the average of the process of your being throughout today and onwards is that of sitting around moping, endlessly consuming, not being engaged with a community of other people, then what you are cannot be anything else.
The words you use are a direct reflection of who you are. How you use words, is a reflection of who you are. This might seem obvious, but it escapes many of us.
Here's an example of how this idea escapes us with respect to how we understand our peers: put a dude in a suit, a degree from law school, and all of a sudden we treat this person differently from what he is in actuality. This person might spend his living life in a binge of drugs and alcohol, sex and prostitution, be fat and eat garbage, and then show up for a couple hours a day to an office, and we collectively treat this person by WHAT they present themselves as, rather than to consider HOW they exist habitually as a reflection of them.
Here's an example of how this idea escapes us with respect to ourselves: some of us believe we are what we wish for. Or perhaps we are a future version of ourselves. We might take a few minutes a day to dream about that future shape, or the ideal self. This is good practice, but the illusion takes place when we go back into auto-pilot and behave neurotically and at the slightest awareness of our inadequacy, we draw from these momentary daydreams of ourselves as a measure of our being. "I'm on the journey". "I'm working on myself". That's a load of bullshit my friend.
You are HOW you are. Change can take place immediately, by immediately changing the shape of your being. Change the things you do within your 24 hours a day, and you will become something else, because the average shapes of you are different. Any other form of "self-development" that doesn't result in a change of how you procedurally exist every day is horseshit, and you should become aware of it so you can stop kidding yourself.
Someone might think about that idea, and consider gee I should upgrade my network. Or man, what's holding me back is my group of loser friends. This is certainly true, but it's only the tip of the iceberg.
You are, quite literally, the average of the things you do. Not the things you've done, as frames, or the accumulation of deeds, but the active procedural forms of your being TODAY. From how you sleep, to how you wake up, what you wear (or don't wear), the words you use, the way you engage with other people, how you spend your time, how you sit, how you walk, how you work, how you create things, how you help people, and yes ALSO who you surround yourself with.
The reason I decided to create this thread is to remind everyone that there is no escaping WHO you are if you do not change HOW you are. You quite literally cannot, and will not, be "healthy" if the average of how you are every day is the process of sitting down hunched over, doing busy work on Excel for a cause you don't care about. Because that's not the shape of a healthy human being. Your going "weightlifting" 3x/week does not change you, because it's a very small sum-part of your everyday being, consequently it does not significantly change the average of your shape.
Another example is that of an elusive concept we call "success". Even with a boat load of money accumulated, if the average of the process of your being throughout today and onwards is that of sitting around moping, endlessly consuming, not being engaged with a community of other people, then what you are cannot be anything else.
The words you use are a direct reflection of who you are. How you use words, is a reflection of who you are. This might seem obvious, but it escapes many of us.
Here's an example of how this idea escapes us with respect to how we understand our peers: put a dude in a suit, a degree from law school, and all of a sudden we treat this person differently from what he is in actuality. This person might spend his living life in a binge of drugs and alcohol, sex and prostitution, be fat and eat garbage, and then show up for a couple hours a day to an office, and we collectively treat this person by WHAT they present themselves as, rather than to consider HOW they exist habitually as a reflection of them.
Here's an example of how this idea escapes us with respect to ourselves: some of us believe we are what we wish for. Or perhaps we are a future version of ourselves. We might take a few minutes a day to dream about that future shape, or the ideal self. This is good practice, but the illusion takes place when we go back into auto-pilot and behave neurotically and at the slightest awareness of our inadequacy, we draw from these momentary daydreams of ourselves as a measure of our being. "I'm on the journey". "I'm working on myself". That's a load of bullshit my friend.
You are HOW you are. Change can take place immediately, by immediately changing the shape of your being. Change the things you do within your 24 hours a day, and you will become something else, because the average shapes of you are different. Any other form of "self-development" that doesn't result in a change of how you procedurally exist every day is horseshit, and you should become aware of it so you can stop kidding yourself.
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