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Since You've Discovered O'ism Have You Become More Productive?

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Seems there was a glitch of some sort...

 

Anyway here is my post:

 

This guy on another forum makes a claim that philosophy has helped him become more productive:

 

Quote

Thank you so much for your kind words, honestly that was really touching.
The most important thing I believe is philosophy and emotion, and by this I mean how you choose to perceive the world and the events that occur and what you feel like you want to do.

A few years ago when things weren't going the way I wanted it to go, I noticed i was living in reaction to a lot of things, for example believing I am not attractive therefor not talking to that cute girl cause this triggered anxiety, procrastinating when I had a homework assignment cause i felt bored, or just unconsciously ignoring the rules of a healthy diet because i felt insecure knowing i could do something which would change me (unconscious only because I told myself I was eating fine and didn't know what to blame my lack of muscle building too.) As you see alot of what was the cause of any issues in my life were related to emotions which were not benefiting me, they were guiding me towards the wrong direction.

Thus I learnt the importance of logic and being conscious to outweigh emotion and unconscious processes. For example, I became conscious of the feelings and thoughts of inferiority which made me shy and thus decided to analyze and work it away using logic, which is simply acting by will and not letting the emotions control me by deciding consciously how i would behave and being conscious of the emotions that may arise due to past conditioning.
So now whenever I find myself sitting and watching tv or doing anything, I ask myself "Is this conducive to my outcomes and goal." And this is what use to happen, I would feel that emotion such as comfort (which would keep me in the shower too long, on the couch, Facebook or youtube too long) and I would be conscious of that emotion and affirm that the emotion isn't apart of who I am, and then I would act in accordance to my desired outcome. After a few weeks I noticed that I felt really good eating well, working out, talking to people, public speaking, studying, I noticed my emotions due to me affirming myself conditioned to my benefit. So I do find it less appealing to flik channels on tv, or to watch video clips on youtube. And with this new conditioning of emotions and behavior came a new life, new friends, new respect for myself and also me setting standards for myself which are higher. So the hours in the gym, the researching on what is good to eat and not, and eating it, has led me to consciously see myself as more attractive, feel more attractive, have more energy, better mood, higher s** drive etc.

Anyway, the summary is that I learnt its very valuable if one can distinguish between what is important and what FEELS important. Obviously this realization came from countless self help tapes on emotion, including sedona method, reading the bible, quran, learning meditation and realizing i don't need meditation or a book to be happy, i can regulate my own happiness with a philosophy which would allow such.

I am obviously young and still very proud about the little achievement I made in the last year, and i am sure with time my opinion will change. Though this was very important. And also just incase, it was valuable to have a belief such as "I am water" about myself, the reason I called myself water is cause water can take anyshape and form, i believed i could shift into whatever the environment required and I wanted and this may have benefitted me

I do realize I wrote alot though i do feel very passionately about this and am very glad to have inspired you in some way


BTW if you werent on self made vip asking me this question i would have said "Hunger" is the most important thing I learnt. By hunger I obviously mean drive and motivation to achieve higher standards. But since you already seem to have this I thought it may help to share another gem I learnt

 

 

http://selfmadevip.com/my-recent-success-s-college-student-t13998-5.html

 

I'm curious and wonder how many other people have become more productive because of philosophy.   Since discovering O'ism have you become more productive?

 

This could be another way to promote the philosophy.

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I guess a better way to put my question is... "Has your life improved because of Objectivism? If yes, then how so?"  I want to hear some more success stories/testimonials like the one I posted.

 

I never heard of Objectivism promoted as a "self-help" philosophy... it's the only philosophy that's tailor-made for that kind of thing, if your goal in life is to not only to live but to flourish.

 

I think we need to get O'ist books in the self- help sections in the bookstores.

 

People should be thinking "If I want to be as clear-minded, successful, and happy as so and so... I should start studying and practicing Objectivism!"

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I agree that the most important focus for an Objectivist should be on how best to enjoy this one life that he has. All the outward-looking things: like bad laws and politics are secondary to this. For the fan, Rand shines such a bright light on things that are wrong, that one must be conscious not the let this lead to a malevolent world view. Instead, one ought to take selfishness and the ultimate goal of happiness seriously, and work toward that end.

 

So, Objectivism would be a good basis for self-help books, but it would probably be the introduction. After that, the book would need to get into details of its narrower topic. With most topics, self-help books already have an implicit presumption that the reader is trying to better himself, or something he values. So, again, the focus is on the narrower topic.

 

There's been some previous discussion related to the topic in the title, but its a tough one to search for using keywords.  I found a thread, titled "How did Objectivism change your life?"

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  • 3 weeks later...

Since discovering O'ism have you become more productive?

Yes.

I think we need to get O'ist books in the self- help sections in the bookstores.

Yes, but...

1- Most people have no idea what impact (if any) their explicit philosophy has on their daily lives. That identification isn't obvious, at all; it requires mental effort and persistence to reach it (even with the tools Rand left for us). And without that, most people just aren't going to bother with it.

2- I don't know why, but the vast majority of the self-help books I've seen... They wouldn't be read by anyone who was still willing to put in the time and the effort, in order to help themselves understand. I guess this is a continuation of my first point; just that it seems to apply to a greater proportion of that segment of the population, than to the population at large. I think we'd have much better luck with the kids reading Minecraft manuals because that, at least, requires some sort of desire to enjoy something.

3- Regardless of all of that, I'm sure we could think of novel ways to reach out to people (like making a video game out of Atlas Shrugged). It could be done. The question that should really be asked is: for what purpose?

Most of the people in the world have earned the pain that they're suffering now, fair and square. The little wishes and fantasies they indulge in, which blind them to the truth, are the same ones which blind them to the beauty of the fact of their own existence.

When you spare the guilty, it's the innocent that you end up punishing. In this instance the innocent would be whoever sees IT and then wastes their irreplaceable time trying to give IT to the rest of humanity.

I'm speaking statistically about people, of course, and I don't mean to make any harder generalizations than that. And neither am I saying that it's wrong to help people, either; there absolutely are people who deserve help.

It's just that there's no reason to spend your time and effort trying to give the rewards of philosophy to people who've already given up on it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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