Can life have meaning if your dreams are unattainable?

Stacy invited you to her wedding, she wanted to share her special day with you, however, you in turn made it all about your misery of having to see Mary and not wanting her fiance there and so on....
Stacy was right in asking you to stay away, you only would dampen the joyous occasion - by your own admission.

You can sulk all you want but you brought this upon yourself and as long as you don't change your way of thinking, you always will have to live with people reacting negatively towards you. You reap what you sow, or simply put, it's karma!

Mary isn't causing you to miss Stacy's wedding. It's your inability to handle seeing her again, with her fiancé, that's the reason Stacy fears you will probably get drunk and create unpleasant "drama" at her wedding. It might actually be good for you to see Mary with her fiancé, perhaps then the reality might really sink in for you--she's gone from your life, despite your constant obsessing about her--but your inability to fully accept the end of the relationship, without becoming unhinged, has caused both Mary and Stacy to not have to want to deal with your emotional melodramas and your neediness. It's your emotional problems that are crapping up your friendships.

The world will not end if you don't go to Stacy's wedding. If you can't emotionally handle being there in an adult manner you should not attend. Your emotional and personality problems are causing you to miss out on a great many things in life and you are responsible for not getting yourself professional help with those problems. You had those problems long before Mary came into your life and you will continue to have those problems if you don't acknowledge them, and try to change how you think and react, so that you are able to cope better and function more effectively.

You can't control external events or other people's behavior. The one thing you can control is how you choose to view, and interpret, and react to, events and the behavior of others--the one thing you can control is yourself, and what goes on inside your own head. And that's what you are not recognizing. You persist in the same maladaptive thought patterns, that continue to bolster your dysfunctional emotional reactions, and you wonder why you continue to be miserable. You are creating your own misery by the way you think and react. And you won't be able to gain control over that until you realize that you're doing that and that it is within your power to change the way you think and react--and that's what seeing a therapist is about, getting help in understanding and changing yourself.

Life is not a joke, and you should start regarding your own more seriously. You are incredibly passive in dealing with your problems, and all your rationalizing and externalizing blame helps you to remain passive and feeling victimized. It is a self-perpetuating cycle that only you can stop. Instead of constantly considering suicide as an escape from your difficulties, try actually trying to overcome those difficulties so that you can stop screwing up your own life. Stop acting helpless and start taking action to get yourself some professional help.

Life will continue to pass you by, and your sense of loneliness will continue, if your emotional and personality problems continue to interfere with your ability to form and maintain close interpersonal relationships, and your ability to navigate conflicts within those relationships, and your ability to deal with the end of those relationships whether due to either break-ups or death. Our lives are filled with both attachments and losses, of all kinds, and we have to develop the capacity to handle both without losing our bearings or sense of inner direction. Your passivity makes you feel like a victim, you view things as happening to you without your ability to exert control over what is happening. But it is your attitude, and your thinking, that actually determines how those things affect you, and not the events themselves. The day you realize that will be the day you start to feel in control of yourself and your life. You, and only you, can control how you choose to think about things and react to them--and you definitely have a choice about such things. You create and maintain your own emotional turmoil by continuing to think and react in maladaptive and dysfunctional ways.

Drunks always think they have a good reason to get drunk.

You're not willing to acknowledge that you have a drinking problem, that you must gain control over, any more than you are willing to take charge of your life in any other areas. The drinking helps you to maintain your passivity--and misery--no matter how much you try to rationalize and justify it.

Your comments continue to be one long self-pitying whine. You need to cut the crap and give yourself a swift kick in the pants. Go to an AA meeting and learn how people cope without getting drunk, and find yourself a therapist and get a second job to pay for your therapy if that's what you need to do.

Too many bloody existentialists prophecizing false conepts of grandeur which will lead us to ruin in our endeavor to exist.

I don't think alcohol instills confidence, but rather, removes care/worry (there's a difference):
- If you're angry & suppressing it - it comes out (angry drunks). That's not about confidence
- If you're horny & suppressing it, it comes out (hence horny women). That too, isn't about confidence
- if you're obnoxious or condescending it comes out when you're drunk

Have a look for it next time. As I said, I've never known it to be wrong.

On the bad side - if you're depressed & trying to control/suppress it...

"Mary isn't causing you to miss Stacy's wedding. It's your inability to handle seeing her again, with her fiancé, that's the reason Stacy fears you will probably get drunk and create unpleasant "drama" at her wedding. It might actually be good for you to see Mary with her fiancé, perhaps then the reality might really sink in for you--she's gone from your life, despite your constant obsessing about her--but your inability to fully accept the end of the relationship, without becoming unhinged, has caused both Mary and Stacy to not have to want to deal with your emotional melodramas and your neediness. It's your emotional problems that are crapping up your friendships."

I told you what happened when Mary left. She fed me full of all this crap about how our friendship was important to her. She said things like "This isn't goodbye, you're not losing me.", "I want to work on our friendship." I have emails, and texts still.

I actually believed what she was saying. I told you before, I tried for months to talk to her. Swallowed my pride and tried to be an adult, tried to salvage our friendship. Every time I tried, no matter how nice I was to her, she responded with anger and refused to talk to me.

Maybe it wouldn't be such a hard thing to do to see her again IF we had been able to talk prior to Stacy's wedding. IF Mary had actually meant the words she said when she told me that she wanted to work on our friendship.

But Mary didn't have any intention of ever talking to me again when she left. She had no intention of salvaging our friendship as she said she did. Mary simply wanted an easier way of exiting. Like I said before, it's easier to tell someone you want to be single, and that you still care about them than to tell them the truth, that you don't love them or you love someone else.

Mary was a liar. Plain and simple.

Calamity Jane: "You reap what you sow, or simply put, it's karma!"

So if Karma exists, why isn't it biting Mary in the ass? She's certainly no more a saint than I am.

I actually was really affected by the very last post you posted firefly. I read it several times. I want to believe in alot of what you said there. I don't want to inflate your ego, but that post was very hard for me to read because I don't want to let go of my dream. I want you to be right.

The one thing I don't understand though is why didn't Mary have to do all these same things in order to meet someone else? She didn't have to take personal stock, change her attitudes and thinking. She didn't have to do any soul searching, personal inventory, or make big changes in her life to meet someone. Neither did my fiancee. And Mary has a whole host of psychiatric issues related to her undiagnosed bipolar disorder. She fully admits she has emotional problems, problems which have in the past led to her sabotaging her own interpersonal relationships.

Now how can I look at the dichotomy inherent in our two situations, and from a LOGICAL standpoint not draw the conclusion that because Mary is a woman, and women are more desired she doesn't have to put forth as much effort? In fact I doubt she put any effort at all into meeting that guy.

That's a logical conclusion firefly. How can you disagree with my reasoning? How can you tell me it makes sense that I have to make all these huge changes, when someone with just as many emotional and psychological problems doesn't have to? When that person gets the dream I desire without having to compromise herself or work hard for it at all?

"If you can't emotionally handle being there in an adult manner you should not attend."

If the shoe were on the other foot, would this be true? If I was engaged, and Mary was alone, would she feel comfortable attending? What if Jack was there too and he was also engaged?

It's all about game playing. This is Mary AGAIN exerting her power over men by "winning" against me. In public. Because whether I go or not, she gets to be the winner. Just like how she got to be the winner in public when she twisted my arm so hard to make sure I took her to the company Christmas party so she could "win" against Jack.

"The world will not end if you don't go to Stacy's wedding."

I know. But do I get to be a human being and feel deeply sad that I'll miss it? Stacy was my sunshine for so long. She has and always will make me feel better just by her presence. She's probably the most positive person I've ever known in my life. I don't know if I'll ever see her again after I move. Do I ever get to be allowed to feel human when I react to things???? You make it seem like I should process everything like a robot, deciding the best course of action like it's a math equation instead of taking into account my histories with these people and the emotional weight that comes with saying goodbye to them. Isn't there anybody in your life who makes you feel better just by their presence? If you had to say goodbye to them and you weren't sure if your friendship with them was severed for good; would you be able to separate yourself from your own emotional reaction???

" It might actually be good for you to see Mary with her fiancé, perhaps then the reality might really sink in for you"

Again, you expect me to separate myself from my own self and process this like a robot. No, it will most certainly not be good for me to see this, especially as part of my last memory of all these people.

If I were to believe in Karma - I would say that it bites in different ways...and the timing can be short or ...rather long in the tooth.

I've never thought of karma as a nasty thing - but another way of phrasing :
- what goes around comes around
- you reap what you sow
- for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction

but most accurately of all : everything we do has consequences

vikorr,

I also re-read a lot of your posts.

I'm very upset right now, so I'm not going to comment on them too much, but one thing has bothered me greatly.

You said "The reason I used the term ‘creative’ intelligence, is that I recall reading that most of the greatest scientific thoughts were made by people prior to their 30’s, and that significant discoveries become quite rare after that."

I'm no scientist, but I rely on my creativity immensely for my job. In fact I'm supposed to be making a short film for a competition right now. I'm very frustrated because for once I have GREAT equipment and talented people to work with, but my creativity feels drained. I know the script is solid (I wrote it 3 years ago), but shooting has left me frustrated. I want this to be a great project, there's no reason it shouldn't be...

At 33 though, perhaps I'm too old? Perhaps my well is dry?

I also want to say,

Life is short. Relatively speaking it is. It really is...

Why then must so much time be spent laboring towards some betterment of self that may or may not even come to fruition? Why can't good intentions ever be enough?

I love Stacy. If the world had ended 1 year ago, she would've died knowing that. Knowing that I considered her to be my family. If the world ends today however, maybe she would die thinking I didn't love her because I told her I wasn't coming to her wedding.

It seems that whatever is going to happen will happen. NONE of us has any control over when the curtain comes down, unless we pull that curtain down ourselves.

Several months ago I wrote out these "suicide notes", I guess for lack of better term. They're all in a folder under my bed. There's a whole slew of them.

But it really doesn't matter what I said in them because people will draw their own conclusions about me. No matter how many glowing things I have to say about people, people will form their own opinions.

Their is so little control in life, such little personal control. Whether you adjust your reactions inside your own being or not. You can have the best intentions and mean well... people will still judge and misinterpret...

(horrible video for a great song)



I was about to write a song about the fear and the doubt
But my pen ran out
It captured the emotions of a lover and a lout
But my pen ran out
So the picture wasn't painted and the story wasn't told
No one knows the author 'cause the record never sold
And I know they never will until he's bitter and he's old
His time ran out

I was gonna share my blues with a nation full of blues
But my pen ran out
I was gonna spread the news of the way I always lose
But my pen ran out
So I'll keep an envelope with all the words I should have said
Hide it in a tiny box underneath my bed
And written on the outside will be 'open when he's dead'
And written on the outside will be 'open when he's dead'

His time ran out, his time ran out
His time ran out, his time ran out

Grow the **** up....good intentions is exactly like the promise of youth, it has a small amount of relevance for a short amount of time. You are judged on success or failure, all the rest is chin wagging. You dont get the girl because you are not currently good enough to get the girl, if you would own this and maybe get better you might get the girl one day. As things stand now you can expect to have a short and unhappy life. If that is what you want then keep doing what you are doing. If you want something else then do something else.

The post you quoted me from, I wasn't speaking about "getting the girl" at all. I was making reference to friendships gone awry.

And more than that it was in reference to good intentions period. In anything, business, anything. People spend so much of their short lives doing things they probably wouldn't be doing if they knew for sure that the world was going to end tomorrow. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you think about it. If people didn't worry so much about potential future happiness (which may never even happen), maybe they'd just do what they really wanted to do all the time.

What I was saying really wasn't specific to issues addressed in this thread by myself or anyone else. It was more of an existential thought out loud. I don't even know if I personally think this would be a better way to look at things or not. I just know that life is very short and a WHOLE lot of that short life is spent doing things in preparation for rewards that may or may not even happen, even with the best intentions and the hardest work.

But then again you haven't read this whole thread or even enough of it to fully understand where I'm really coming from when I say things.

Very true. Removing care in worry in certain situations does seem to be a precursor for confidence, but they in themselves are not. It's strange with me - I have spouts of depression during the day sometimes but I jump around alot. I'll go from being down and out to up and at it on a whim. I'm not bipolar, things just sadden me... And then I don't focus on them.

Bullshit, it was more whining, this time "But, but but...my intentions are good!"

Re your alleged philosophical question, I think most of us do good because we would rather be good than be the alternative. I know that I live by a pretty strict moral code, and I dont expect doing so to necessarily benefit me, but as the old saying goes I need to be able to look at myself in the mirror in the morning. Life is indeed very short, too short for me to be anyone but the person that I want to be.

Wrong hawkeye, but whatever...

"I need to be able to look at myself in the mirror in the morning."

Yep, and that's my attitude every single day. When I look back on my life I can't think of one single instance where I used someone else for my own benefit knowingly.

So we're in agreement there.

No one is to blame, the blame game is too easy.

We all have choices including those we include in our lives, and those we don't.

You were invited by a "friend" you chose not to go, due to past.. The friendship didn't go awry, you choose to lose it...

Personally, I would have gone to show how strong a person I am and that friends are important...

Can't sleep, just re-read this,

"One of the older gentlemen at my work informed me that most women of oriental backround were raised With media that pounded into their heads the idea that the harder a man tries to be kind and go out of his way the better a companion he will be"

My best friend spent the summer in Japan in 2010. He told me that Japanese women are much less "mind gamey" and do in fact appreciate 'nice guys". I've heard from a lot of people actually that American women are the most self centered and manipulative. Unfortunate...

I wouldn't say I'm a "nice guy" per say, but I'm not a manipulator. And I try to treat women with the same respect I'd like for myself.

I've enjoyed what you've had to say here. I would agree from what you've written that we have similar mindsets. How old are you if you don't mind me asking?

Not true at all.

You have considerable control over how you think and react--and that is what determines how events and other people affect you.

Throughout this entire thread, you have been whining and carrying on about the end of a relationship that was never going to work out in the long term, with a person you really didn't admire or respect, because you have irrationally decided this was your last shot at happiness. It's your crazy thinking that is your problem.
Either you have the capacity to love or you don't. And if you have that capacity, you are capable of loving many people.

You have problems interesting women in even going out with you, and the fact that you went 6 years without dating anyone prior to your last relationship, suggests that you don't really have a strong need to be involved with a woman because you've done little to try to understand or overcome your problems in that department.

It's not that women have more options, or an easier time in finding potential partners. That's bullshit, and more illogical thinking on your part. You're clearly not considering the fact that women are entering into those relationships with other men, and that other men are not as hampered as you are in finding women who consider them attractive, desirable, and the kind of person they want to be involved with. And perfectly ordinary men, who are not particularly good-looking, or well off financially, or shining lights in any area, are able to find women who love them and marry them.

Your views about women sound like the sort of sophomoric dialogue you hear between men in dumb romantic comedies about guys who have trouble finding a relationship. That you take that sort of thing as gospel simply reflects your lack of actual relationship experience with women and a level of thinking on your part that is both simplistic and extremely adolescent. You haven't got the foggiest idea of what makes a relationship work or not work, or why you, in particular, have considerably more difficulty than most men in even forming a relationship with a woman. By the age of 33, you really shouldn't be that clueless. You should have a pretty good idea what it is about you, about your personality and behavior, that makes you lack appeal--but you don't. Nor are you really willing to look at yourself honestly and do the necessary work that will help you mature into the kind of person a woman might want to spend her life with. You'd rather spend your time getting drunk and writing suicide notes, or rambling in threads like this one, than dealing with reality in anything approximating an effective manner.

There are many other threads on these boards where people are discussing their relationship problems, and I can't recall very many where the posters sound as downright immature as you are if they are over the age of 13. You are incredibly immature.

If you don't stop being so passive, and start taking control of yourself, and start shaping yourself, and your life, into something you can feel proud of, you will, indeed, find yourself unable to attain that "dream" of yours. Why on earth would anyone want to "forsake all others" and spend the rest of her life with you the way you are now?

Obviously YOU are the one repeating the same bullshit firefly.

I AM working on myself. In fact I started looking for jobs in the city I'm moving to. Sent out 3 resumes yesterday. That's me working on myself for ME, not for anyone else. And they are "Real" jobs by the way...

And I have thanked and acknowledged helpful advice here, including yours. I honestly am changing my own inner self even as I speak.

"You have problems interesting women in even going out with you, and the fact that you went 6 years without dating anyone prior to your last relationship, suggests that you don't really have a strong need to be involved with a woman because you've done little to try to understand or overcome your problems in that department. "

I'm so sick of you saying I don't try. That's simply not true. I've tried harder than most men ever do. That's why it's been so frustrating. Please quit insulting me. Do you really think it's simply a matter of not trying? Do you really think there are NO men out there who DO approach women, and who DO try to meet them, but just can't make anything come from it? The news director at my previous job is 38 and single, AND miserable about it. AND he's got a good job AND he tries hard to meet women. There's no reason he should be single. But unfortunately he's just not very smooth...

"Nor are you really willing to look at yourself honestly and do the necessary work that will help you mature into the kind of person a woman might want to spend her life with."

Like I said (which you didn't comment on probably because on some level you know I'm right),

"The one thing I don't understand though is why didn't Mary have to do all these same things in order to meet someone else? She didn't have to take personal stock, change her attitudes and thinking. She didn't have to do any soul searching, personal inventory, or make big changes in her life to meet someone. Neither did my fiancee. And Mary has a whole host of psychiatric issues related to her undiagnosed bipolar disorder. She fully admits she has emotional problems, problems which have in the past led to her sabotaging her own interpersonal relationships. Now how can I look at the dichotomy inherent in our two situations, and from a LOGICAL standpoint not draw the conclusion that because Mary is a woman, and women are more desired she doesn't have to put forth as much effort? In fact I doubt she put any effort at all into meeting that guy. That's a logical conclusion firefly. How can you disagree with my reasoning? How can you tell me it makes sense that I have to make all these huge changes, when someone with just as many emotional and psychological problems doesn't have to? When that person gets the dream I desire without having to compromise herself or work hard for it at all?"

That's valid firefly, and I'd REALLY like to see you try to poke a hole in my reasoning there.

Now even though that's valid reasoning, it doesn't mean I don't intend to do things for myself including bettering myself. Including working on my own personal faults. But I can still point out that there's a double standard in society. A double standard that you apparently buy into and think is OK...

"I told you what happened when Mary left. She fed me full of all this crap about how our friendship was important to her. She said things like "This isn't goodbye, you're not losing me.", "I want to work on our friendship." I have emails, and texts still. I actually believed what she was saying. I told you before, I tried for months to talk to her. Swallowed my pride and tried to be an adult, tried to salvage our friendship. Every time I tried, no matter how nice I was to her, she responded with anger and refused to talk to me. Maybe it wouldn't be such a hard thing to do to see her again IF we had been able to talk prior to Stacy's wedding. IF Mary had actually meant the words she said when she told me that she wanted to work on our friendship. But Mary didn't have any intention of ever talking to me again when she left. She had no intention of salvaging our friendship as she said she did. Mary simply wanted an easier way of exiting. Like I said before, it's easier to tell someone you want to be single, and that you still care about them than to tell them the truth, that you don't love them or you love someone else."

That's valid.

That's why it IS Mary's fault that I'll miss Stacy's wedding.

I have every right to be angry about that...

Did she get the dream? You don't know that, watch as the years go by, if it gets that far. The "guy" settled, or another guy like you, accepted Mary for who she was.

Does that mean that you have to change to get a woman? Why can't someone accept you? Mary stole your dream.. Your dream is marriage. Michael, Michael, Michale... Two women accepted you for you, however, at some point, they grew out of love.. Like everyone in life, it happens to everyone... They were simply just not the right one.. But, the changes are you attitude, from negative to positive, or else how could you possibly attract someone? It's that simple.

And no Mary is not stopping you from going to Stacy's wedding, you are being pig-headed and you are stopping you from going... Be a man, turn up, Stacy is your friend, to heck with Mary, smile and walk straight past.. This will be your closure.