Doing nothing to make this world better

[sunspot1982]

I am quite happy with doing nothing with my life to make the world a better place. I don't believe in self improvement. I'm looking for a woman who shares my views on self improvement. What hope do I have?

[greensleeves]

In a thread you started a couple of days ago you said that you have weight loss goals and that you're working to change your eating and exercise habits. Don't you consider that self-improvement?

[sunspot1982]

Yes but I'm losing the drive to persevere with it.

[shes2smart]

After a quick review of your previous threads, I'm noticing an underlying theme of not wanting to take responsibility for yourself/your life.

 

Granted, there's nothing that says you need to do that at all. You, in fact, have the option to not do that. Thing is, people who don't take responsibility for themselves/their lives tend to end up in situations and lives that they don't really like very much.

 

Expecting someone else to "do your thinking for you" (as you mentioned in a thread regarding who should be the head of household) or hold you accountable for things that are basic to taking care of yourself (as you mentioned in the thread about changing your eating and exercise habits) is pretty much a recipe for disaster. Most folks are pretty busy managing those things for themselves. The ones who'd be interested in voluntarily taking on those tasks for another adult (who is reasonably mentally and physically healthy/able-bodied) likely have their own agenda. It's also likely their agenda isn't going to have "Your Best Interests" anywhere near the top of the list.

 

It's kinda the easy way out, though, isn't it? I mean, you hand all that over to someone else, and if you don't like how things turn out, you can lay all the blame on them.

[greensleeves]

It's difficult...that's for sure. Instead of thinking about whether or not you can find a woman who doesn't believe in self improvement, maybe you could focus on how much better you'll feel if you keep trying to improve your eating and exercise habits. It doesn't mean you have to be perfect every day or that you won't slip up from time to time...you're only human. Just keep chipping away at things and do the best you can in any given moment.

 

I find it hard to understand how you'd be happy doing nothing with your life. Do you think maybe you're only feeling that way right now because you're frustrated or discouraged with the weight loss?

[sunspot1982]

Well maybe it is worth it to give power & control over to someone else. I mean with increased freedom comes increased responsibility right? If I don't want the responsibility all I have to do is be willing to give up my freedoms.

[Nixee]

So basically you are admitting that you are lazy and you want someone to take care of you?

 

That doesn't sound like you want someone who shares your views... you want someone with opposite but complementary views who will carry your dead weight. You want a mother.

[itsallgrand]

Whoa, well I think you could find a woman who shares your current view.

 

And together, it'd be ten times as miserable. Both blaming each other, resentment, watching each other and the relationship fall deeper into a hole and disintegrate.

 

So you could find someone, but the chances of long lasting happiness in a relationship with those views? Very, very slim if not zero.

[Puddincup]

Well there are slugs out there (no offense) but two slugs are not necessarily better than one. So if you want someone to take care of you (is that the case?), then they can't be a slug so why would they want to date a slug?

 

It's ok to be a part-time slug but you gotta move and improve some of the time for your own contentment in life.

[shes2smart]

I've been active in the out/public BDSM community for about a dozen years now. Know a little bit about relationships based on an intentional, pre-negotiated, unequal power structure. In the context of this post, I am using the phrase "power exchange relationship" to refer to the non-kinky-sex portions of the interaction in a BDSM relationship.

 

I've had a lot of discussions with people about power exchange relationships and the non-sexual dynamics of BDSM lifestyle relationships. I've met a number of people who have expressed sentiments similar to this:

Well maybe it is worth it to give power & control over to someone else. I mean with increased freedom comes increased responsibility right? If I don't want the responsibility all I have to do is be willing to give up my freedoms.

In the situations where I've had on-going contact with those folks, I've seen them get into situations with (depending on their orientation) a "True Dominant" or a "true slave." Things start off great, as in most relationships...but then the reality of that extremely unequal power structure rears its ugly head and they go crashing headlong into the reality that it's not sustainable. After some period of time, I've heard the "True Dominant" having a rude awakening about how much work it really is to take on that level of responsibility for another person....and I've heard the "true slave" run smack into the fact that they *do* actually want to have autonomy and say in what they do, and they don't want someone's will imposed on them all the time.

 

At that point, after they shake off their disappointment, they either choose to stay somewhat delusional and blame their now-ex-partner ("He/She wasn't a Real Dominant" or "She/He wasn't a True Submissive") and go off looking for someone else OR they start figurin' out how to make a power exchange relationship work in the real world.

 

That's if they're lucky. If they're not-so-lucky, they end up with one of those whack-job Dominants who prey on the BDSM community and give responsible and reasonably sane kinky folk a bad name when they end up abusing or killing their submissive.

 

Not wanting to take responsibility for yourself makes you vulnerable to those who will gladly use/abuse you (and not in a happy fun way) for their own purposes.

 

Knowing that it takes all types...and there are a lot of people with (I'll be kind) odd ideas out there....I cannot honestly say that you aren't going to find what you claim to want.

 

What I can tell you with reasonable certainty is that the reality of what you claim to want is far, far different than what you think it's going to be.

[sunspot1982]

One of my friends has a girlfriend who exhibits some signs of controlling behavior. He tells me that she checks his phone all the time they're together to see who he has been calling & who has called him. She doesn't want him talking to any of his female friends anymore.

 

I told him that if he's so unhappy then just hand her over to me to date. He doesn't realize how lucky he is to have a girlfriend like that. I mean at least she's faithful to him. I give her credit for that.

[hexaemeron]

One of my friends has a girlfriend who exhibits some signs of controlling behavior. He tells me that she checks his phone all the time they're together to see who he has been calling & who has called him. She doesn't want him talking to any of his female friends anymore.

 

I told him that if he's so unhappy then just hand her over to me to date. He doesn't realize how lucky he is to have a girlfriend like that. I mean at least she's faithful to him. I give her credit for that.

 

You do realize that her behavior, most likely, is extremely unhealthy. And toxic.

[SnowFox]

Its truly hard to have much of a life as an adult if one abjectly rejects responsibility, in subtle or even not so subtle ways.

 

From what I have observed, people who have this belief system, even if they are not conscious of it, tend to have generally unsatisfying lives.

 

One way to understand why this is so is to look at what happens when babies and children are developing.

 

Much of their time is spent being cute and cuddly and being loved and hugged and having their needs taken care of - diapers changed, food cooked for them, etc. But even from a very young age, starting in the first year of life, babies also show independence, autonomy, and a desire master skills and do things on their own - examples of this are learning how to walk, learning how to use the toilet, learning how to feed themselves, etc. Anyone who has spent time around young children will attest that children want to do things for themselves. They want to show everyone their new skills and abilities and prove that they can do things on their own without help. It is a way that they form their self-esteem- mastering new skills as they grow.

 

So even from birth, humans have two opposing needs built into them- the need to be dependent on others and the need to assert themselves and be autonomous.

 

The rest of our lives is spent bouncing back and forth between these two needs and hopefully keeping them in a balance that leads to a satisfying life.

 

That is why an adult desiring to essentially reject one half of his or her basic nature (the side that wants to master, achieve, and be autonomous) is bound to end up with a very unbalanced life in one or many realms of his or her life. I don't believe over the long run it can be sustained.