[winterglen]

I don't get how normal people operate.

How is it that easy for them?

How can they just decide to be good people and then actually become good people?

How do they get that much control over their own lives?

How do they always know what is the right thing to do?

Do they ever doubt their judgment or worry that they might fail? Does it ever occur to them that they might, even if through no fault of their own?

How do they learn to control their emotions and their thoughts? How do they take control over everything their bodies do? Am I the only one (or only one of the few) whose body disobeys their wishes? Or am I just weak?

How can they be so confident, so sure that they are the good guys and that they deserve good things?

There has to be some simple secret that nearly everyone else in the world knows except me. Why else would they be so pissed that I can't do what they do as easily as they can?

Sometimes I get mad, and I know I'm not supposed to. It's not their fault that they are functioning the way they are supposed to and I'm not. I'm the one in the wrong, so it's not fair for me to be mad.

It's just sometimes I wish they understood it's not that easy.

[Skeezyks]

Hello winterglen: Sometimes I read, or hear, about people who have led successful lives & I wonder how it is I ended up the way I did. I never intended to be a train wreck. I intended to be a good person... a very good person. Instead, I ended up being an extremely BAD person... a completely & totally useless waste of skin. How is it possible that this happened? I don't know.

I am a poor student of the Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön. And, in her writings, Ani Pema says that one can believe oneself to be the worst person in the world and still be a good candidate for enlightenment. "That's a great place to start," she has written. I take her at her word... but I don't know...

[ScientiaOmnisEst]

Hi, I'm normal. Or at least, I'm not abnormal enough to relate to abnormal people.

It's not that easy.

I frequently doubt whether I'm a good person or not, and live in fear of being reproachable. Change is hard, especially when I don't think I want it.

Internally, I don't feel like I have much control my life. My locus of control is largely external, because an internal locus is too much responsibility. If I appear in control, it's just that:appearances.

I don't always know the right thing to do. I guess.

I always doubt my own judgement, so much that I can appear mindless and sometimes think I am. I expect failure and it kills me, because I fear it so much at the same time.

I don't have much control over my thoughts, emotions, or body. I wish I did. I can just be good at not showing my reactions. Though even that fails at times.

I'm not confident. I want to be the good guy but I doubt every now and then. There's something inside that believes I don't deserve good things, quite the opposite. It makes me a bit of an empath at times because I feel so much guilt and anxiety over other people's suffering.

So....I don't know what normal people you're hanging out with.

[-jimi-]

They are not better than anyone at what they are doing.

Did you know that most people think they are more caring than most people? That is how most people's perception is skewed. Also they don't care if they make mistakes, they think it is human or they blame someone else for it. If they accidentally hurt someone else (even really bad), they just shrug it off.

THAT is the recipe for success, NOT being good at things.

The BELIEF that you are caring, warm, competent, knowledgeable, great! will make things so much easier for you. That is how it works. Also most people think they are more liked than they really are.

People in general are delusional. That is how they cope so well. Some researcher said, humans need to be a little hypomanic or they would see how things really are and that would be too hard.