Take Your Life Back, Own It
Channel: Prof. Sam Vaknin
Date: 2021-12-26

Derek Walcott: Love After Love https://therapoetic.wordpress.com/2013/06/02/derek-walcott-love-after-love/

Micro-relationships: casual and stranger sex, including modern "dates" (glorified hookups)

Real relationships: vulnerability and hurt acceptance; dreams, goals, and planning - not fantasy; realistic perception of the partner, not idealization or devaluation; 

Pseudo-relationships: shared fantasies

This is the age of victimhood. No one takes personal responsibility or agrees to be held accountable. Bad things mysteriously just “happen”. The passive voice is all the rage.

Well, here is some breaking news for you:

You are nothing but the sum of your informed choices and decisions. They define you for good and for life;

There is no going back in time and there is never a second chance. Your present shapes your future inexorably;

You bear full responsibility for the foreseeable outcomes of your informed choices and decisions;

Past behavior is the only infallible prognosticator of future conduct: you WILL relapse into old behavior patterns and habits. It is only a question of time and the right circumstances. Don’t trust people to change: they won’t;

The world couldn’t care less about you. You are on your own, in charge, alone forever. Get a grip. Wake up. Think before you act. Strangers are not kind, they are predators. Don’t be their prey.

Abuse Victim's New Year Resolutions

New Year resolutions are notoriously fragile and ephemeral. But victims of abuse cannot afford this cavalier attitude: their mental - and too often physical - health depends on strictly observing the following promises to themselves:

1. I will treat myself with dignity and demand respect from others. I will not allow anyone to disrespect me.

2. I will set clear boundaries and make known to others what I regard as permissible and acceptable behavior and what is out of bounds.

3. I will not tolerate abuse and aggression in any form or guise. I will seek to terminate such misconduct instantly and unequivocally.

4. I will be assertive and unambiguous about my needs, wishes, and expectations from others. I will not be arrogant - but I will be confident. I will not be selfish and narcissistic - but I will love and care for myself.

5. I will get to know myself better.

6. I will treat others as I want them to treat me. I will try to lead by way of self-example.

7. If I am habitually disrespected, abused, or if my boundaries are ignored and breached I will terminate the relationship with the abuser forthwith. Zero tolerance and no second chance will be my maxims of self-preservation.

Happiness comes naturally, from the inside.

It is a slow, steady, and safe unfolding, not the ephemeral pyrotechnics of fireworks.

It never depends on anything external.

It cannot be bought - or sold.

It is a state of mind, not a state of affairs.

It is self-love and self-acceptance without the narcissism.

It flowers in the least expected moments, brings to life the moribund, and refreshes the stale.

Happiness is Being AND Nothingness at once.

Nothing is more sad and lonely than having casual sex in order to feel less sad and lonely.

Nothing is more deceitful than brutal honesty: it pretends to offer empathy and succor, but is mere camouflaged sadism.

Nothing is more vainglorious than false modesty and pseudo-humility.

Nothing is more hateful than the ineluctable expiry of love.

Nothing is more wrong than being right all the time.

Nothing is faster than life or slower than dying.

Nothing is more attractive than the self-sufficient, nothing more repellent than the clinging and the needy.

Nothing is more corrupt than conformity and nothing more noble than being oneself.

Nothing is more dignified than honoring others.

Nothing is more hopeful than what we already have.

Nothing is more blind than merely observing and nothing more deaf than merely hearing.

Nothing is more present than the past. Nothing less certain than the future.

No gift is greater than a smile and no harm is more deleterious than rejection.

No risk is grander and no reward more substantial than to live life to its fullest. Only the craven and the foolish extol death or asceticism as bravery or wisdom.

Reality is in our mind alone and what is out there is solely what we make of it.

Go forth to this New Year and make it love you. The way out is your only entrance.

What did Life teach me? I am 63 years old and have led the combined lives of 10 people. At least.

I have learned that Life doesn’t always accommodate our plans and wishes — but it always turns out to be far better than our fears.

Trust life, do not fight it. Plan flexibly, execute wisely, retreat smartly, advance promptly, and invariably celebrate all these steps on the path that is your being.

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