For this article to make any sense, you should read THIS ARTICLE.

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God.  First, the believers who have died will rise from their graves.  Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.  Then we will be with the Lord forever.
-1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

That night two people will be asleep in one bed; one will be taken, the other left.  Two women will be grinding flour together at the mill; one will be taken, the other left.
-Luke 17:34-35

However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself.  Only the Father knows.
-Mark 13:32

If you know that something might not happen, should you spend any energy worrying about it?  Why worry about something that might never happen?  Why spend any of your precious emotional energy feeling down about an event that has no guarantee.  The future is as unpredictable as ever.  Just face it.  You might never die!  So do not worry about it.

~Sisyphus

I derived “The Commandments of Cancel Culture” from this video.  The video is long and it may appear to be nothing more than the ramblings of a drunken outcast, but I highly recommend listening to it.  Go put on your headphones and go about your business.  Listen to the whole thing!

For those of you in the furry community, you will probably recognize these words as the rule, not the exception.  This is the standard practice for our community now.  This is the environment we live in.  You experience it first hand every day.  If you have avoided anyone in this fandom for fear of being canceled, then you are fully aware of this culture of hate, and you are actively trying to avoid it.

I am going to use some ugly language in this article.  I used it, because it is the best real-world description of Cancel Culture and of those of you who are actively involved.  I would suggest that the more it bothers you to hear it, the more important it will be for you to make certain that you are not a part of this culture of hate.  I do have faith in you.  You can change, just as much as I can.  I believe that with all my heart.

It is equally probable that you are actively combating this culture of hate by being an example.  You are a loyal friend.  You may not see that as an act of heroism.  You will not behave any different than on any other day.  I genuinely hope that you are one of those friends who remains loyal to your friends, not in spite of their errors, but because you genuinely love your friends and neighbors and you want to see them get better.  You can inspire others to follow in your footsteps.  Your actions will inspire people who have done wrong to mend their ways.

Evil Ideas Vs Good Ideas

In the great movements of the past, the focus was always on the government, or extraordinarily large entities.  Those movements were designed to equalize the strength of the individual against the enormous, unchallenged strength of the powerful. That was how you could tell the movement was good.  The purpose was always to empower the individual.  The focus was always about “Who can we protect?”

Today’s movement focuses on the use of force by large groups against the individual.  Instead of protesting the government, or huge corporations, they focus all of their attention on one person. Cancel Culture mentality says, “Who can we destroy?”  In the past, good movements wanted to build and to protect, even if they accidentally protected a bad character.  That was an acceptable risk. Cancel Culture seeks to isolate and destroy. This culture of hate sees no one as innocent and no risk of protecting anyone by accident is acceptable, so no one is safe.  The mentality now is “If an innocent person is destroyed, that is the price of getting all of the bad people.”

Great movements of the past focused on non-violent protection of the individual and the building of coalitions among dissimilar groups.  Cancel Culture divides, isolates, threatens, and ruins any individual whom they have deemed unclean, and anyone who associates with them, even in the most trivial of ways.  If violence must be used to further this agenda, then violence is deemed not only acceptable, but necessary.  In the great movements of the past, violence was NEVER acceptable, even in self defense.  It takes a special kind of bravery to return good for evil – to return peace for violence.  I want to be the kind of person who is strong enough to do things like that.

The Commandments of Cancel Culture

Here are the principles of Cancel Culture.  These are the commandments of a culture of hate.

• Presumption of Guilt
• Abstraction
• Essentialism
• Pseudo-moralism & Pseudo-intellectualism
• No Forgiveness
• The Transitive Property of Cancellation
• Dualism

 

Presumption of Guilt

Guilty until proven innocent is a vital component to Cancel Culture.  You cannot justify the horrific treatment of other people without a 100% just cause for doing so.  Therefore, no one who calls for the cancellation of another will say, “Hey, guys, this person may have made a mistake, so we should do everything we can to ruin their reputation.”  The charge will always be 100% guilt with 0% chance of innocence.

Being involved in this type of lynching is evil.  You may not like the word that I used, but it conjures the image that it was meant to create.  You are involved in the same destructive, hateful activity that is embodied within that term.  That is you!  You are doing that!  Put yourself in that same environment.  You are one of those people in that crowd doing that thing.  If that bothers you, then you should reconsider any involvement in canceling another person, with or without evidence, and even before they have had the opportunity to defend or to clarify themselves.

“Evidence” given by Twitter or other social media platforms is notoriously unreliable.  Has anyone ever accused you of something that was completely false?  Your ability to read minds is as unreliable as their ability to read yours.  Social media creates false accusations from “evidence” that is completely unreliable.  You know this. You always have.  Assuming the guilt of a stranger on the premise that the internet gave you “proof” is a lie that despicable people tell themselves and others.

Abstraction

The accusation will always become something vague.  This is driven by the inability (or unwillingness) to ask questions when you hear something bad.  Rather than saying, “This doesn’t sound right”, the statement becomes, “That sounds terrible, and it must be stopped!”  This lack of critical thinking feeds the dumbing down of specific accusations to more generic ones.

The generic accusation is particularly potent, because it allows the listener to imagine their own definition of just how bad this person must be in order to fit the accusation being presented.  That makes the next step all the easier.

Essentialism

Once you have been accused, the narrative becomes a statement of your being.  You did not just say something wrong, or make a mistake.  The error is the very definition of you.  You are a racist, bigot, Nazi, etc.  Your mistake “proves” that you were always this terrible person.

The point here is to hate the sinner, not the sin.  The goal is to attack an individual for who and what they ARE, even if what they ARE was fabricated from a single error.  And, of course, all errors are important, because there is no such thing as a mistake in Cancel Culture. Here, mistakes define you.  Nothing you have ever done before now has anything to do with the fact that you ARE your accusation.  This is how you will be defined so that belittling and demeaning you until you commit suicide can be seen as an act of justice.

The reality of being a human being is that you are a collection of everything you do and say.  Your life is filled with many decisions that will lead you in a direction.  Some things are good and some things are bad. No one decision will cast your soul into a mold that cannot be broken.  You are defined by your actions over an extended period of time.  You already know this.  This concept is not new to you.  And if anyone ever accused you of being a bad person, merely because you made a mistake, or had a bad moment, you would never accept that judgment.  You know there is more to who you are than “that one time”.  You are not defined by your mistakes.

If you are happily forcing this unreasonable standard onto others, you are part of the problem.  You are part of the destruction of your own community.  You are also building up a strong weapon against yourself.  You will suffer at the hands of this weapon some day, just like the other people you did this to.  He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.  Your time will come.  Are you going to say it is unfair?

Pseudo-moralism & Pseudo-intellectualism

“Call-outs” are the precursor to cancellation.  The argument will always be couched in something moral or intellectual.  No one will ever admit that their motives are less than angelic.  The goal here has nothing to do with forgiveness and reconciliation or the return to peace among friends.  The goal is to destroy and to hate. It may not feel that way at first, but once you realize that this is the only logical end to this method of confrontation, to continue using it is an admission that you really do not care if the outcome has any real moral value.  And we have all seen this method fail to produce positive results again and again.

Brave and moral people will confront others in a personal way.  This type of “confrontation” does not mean shouting and fighting, but refers to the somewhat uncomfortable environment of addressing your concerns one-on-one in a respectful and dignified way.  This method has the highest rate of return.  A personal confrontation will more often result in a sincere apology or an honest explanation.  If you have a real problem with someone, go talk to them.  If you need to, bring a mediator, or another friend who can be moral support.  This is not a mob!  This is two or three friends hashing out their differences in the hopes that they will find a path to reconciliation.  The goal here is forgiveness and the return to friendship.  There is nothing more Godly and Righteous than that.

Brave, honest, sincere people who care about helping others will always take this road.  Mobsters and lynch parties use “call-outs” and public shaming to drive the mob to character assassination, hate, and violence.

That was never you, and it should never be you.  You should be far away from anything that looks or feels like this behavior.  And you should never allow yourself to encourage this behavior by capitulating to the demands of the people and persons who do this.  Martin Luther King Jr. specifically mentions that anyone who participates in this behavior by giving in to these demands are just as culpable as the ones who throw bricks, commit violence, and call out demeaning words against their targets.

There is no moral or intellectual way to openly call for the perpetuation of toxic behavior.

No Forgiveness

It should come as no surprise that the previously defined tactics should be followed by the desire to see the “enemy” shunned and exiled, with no path to reconciliation. No apology, no good deed, will ever make the sin go away. Once you are unclean, you must remain unclean.

If you are wondering why Christianity is still so popular, look no further.  Cancel Culture will drive you to the Cross like nothing else.  The Gospel clearly defines sin as “forgivable”!  God says all have sinned, and claims that sin is a serious issue.  He then goes on to state in no uncertain terms that sin can AND WILL be forgiven.  He goes through great pains to illustrate just how willing He is to forgive sin.  God does not have an ideological purity test.  God saves, because God forgives.

This is in great contrast to Cancel Culture.  In Cancel Culture, there is no forgiveness of sins.  Once a Nazi, always a Nazi, and to become a Nazi, you only need to make one mistake.  There is, of course, a “mountain” of “evidence” to illustrate that you have made more than one mistake, but one is enough.

The Transitive Property of Cancellation

The one mistake that you make to become a Nazi is very easy to make.  You only need to not hate someone who has been declared a Nazi.  If you support, or even if you are not openly hating, someone who has been declared a Nazi, you, are also a Nazi.  Once you are the enemy, there is no going back.  All of the previous principles of Cancel Culture and mob hatred will now be applied to you, because you did not pass the purity exam.

This principle can touch anyone. If you are a friend of a friend of an enemy, you, are also the enemy.  The six degrees applies to Cancel Culture, so you had better hope that you cannot be tied to anyone who has been canceled.  If you are, the mob will find you, and they will hate you as vigorously as anyone you are required to hate.  This is how the world works in a culture of hate.

This says nothing for the actual association with anyone who has been canceled.  Any feeling that you have allowed a Nazi to be in the same room with you will be seen as your public admission of guilt.  You will be declared an enemy, no different than the enemy who was with you.  If you associate in any way with someone who has ever done anything wrong, you are admitting that you agree with every evil thing they have ever said or done.  You are implicitly stating that you love Nazis and no apology or attempt to reconcile yourself will ever be accepted in any way except as, “damage control”, or “just doing it to save face”.

Dualism

There are no gray areas in Cancel Culture.  The culture of hate knows that if you are not with them, then you are the enemy.  You are a Nazi sympathizer, or an enabler.  If you are not willing to openly express your undying devotion to the hate mob, then you are no better than the one they hate, and they will hate you.  YOU are next on the chopping block.

What Will Be Your Story?

Anyone who has actively joined the mob in openly hating a friend is particularly despicable.  Be honest with yourself.  If this is you, then you were NEVER their friend.  There is no such thing as a fair weather friend.  Friends are friends by virtue of the fact that they will stand by you and support you when you need them the most. If your “friends” avoid you, or worse, join in with the lynch mob to libel and defame you, then they were never your friends.  You were just a convenient form of entertainment to them, until you weren’t.

If you have ever done this to one of your “friends”, I hope you take a genuine look at who you are.  If you find any form of satisfaction in the public shaming and discarding of someone you once called a friend, then you are not a good person.  Admitting that can hurt, but if you can see it, you are already well on your way to becoming a better person.  Seeing your own flaws can be hard, but not impossible.

One day this culture of hate will die.  That day is already on its way.  There are signs everywhere that Cancel Culture is nearing its end-of-life.  When that day comes, will you be remembered as one of “those people” who participated?  Will you be remembered as someone who avoided your friends, just to protect yourself?  Will you be remembered as a good friend who took the hits so that your friend would not have to stand alone?  Which of those stories would inspire you to become a stronger, better person?

Your Challenge

I am not going to assume that you are a terrible person.  As I have written at the beginning of this article, it is equally probable that you are one those awesome people who are inspiring others to do better.  God bless you for that!

If, however, you are one of those people who are actively seeking to ruin others by encouraging others to distance themselves and to participate in the cancellation of another person based on something you heard on the internet, then you have some work to do.  You are useless now, but you can turn that around in an instant.  You will have to be brave, but if you really want to change, you can.

I dare you to go back over the people you have canceled and undo what you have said.  Yes, you will get dog-piled.  You will face the very thing you have forced onto others.  However, the respect you gain from everyone who sees it is immeasurable.  Your story of genuine repentance will instantly gain forgiveness from the best parts of this community.  Those are the opinions you should care about the most.  God would be among them.

You can be anything you want to be.  The decision is up to you, and previous decisions can be undone by turning a new way and making new decisions.  If you are a bad person, you do not have to be.  You can be anything you want to be.

~Sisyphus

I learned how to hack the habit code by reading this book.  I found this process in the appendix.  The rest of book explains why this works.  If you do not feel that you need the “why” in this equation, then you can just use the equation to change anything you want about your life.

If you want to change a bad habit into a good habit, you will first need to figure out how your existing habit works.  You already know what your routine is.  You go to the fridge multiple times after supper, or you spend too much time on the internet, or something else that is causing you to hate yourself.  When this happens, write it down.  Be as detailed as you can about every step you go through whenever you are starting that old routine.

While you are investigating the details of your bad habit, do not feel guilty.  Allow yourself to indulge in the routine while you are actively trying to understand it.  During this process, you are a scientist working in a laboratory with a controlled experiment.  You are dissecting your routine to understand why it exists, and ultimately, how to defeat it, or rewrite it.

After you write down the details of your routine, break it into as many parts as you can.  When your habit kicks in, are you going somewhere?  Are you eating something in particular?  Are you meeting someone?  Are you doing something specific?  After you have broken your routine into as many smaller parts as possible, you can begin to swap out each part with something different to see if it still satisfies your craving.  Meet someone else.  Go somewhere different.  Eat something different.  But keep everything else the same.  Only change one thing at a time.  Keep the rest of your routing intact.

After each experiment, write down the first 3 things that come to mind.  They could be anything.  They can be 3 words, or feelings, or ideas, or any combination of things.  Just write down the first 3 things that come to mind after you execute your routine.  The reason you are doing this is to create an awareness of your thoughts and feelings at the time your habit is running.  This information will help you to understand your habit and why you keep doing it.

Then set your alarm for 15 minutes.  After 15 minutes, re-evaluate your craving.  Is it still there?  By isolating the different components of your routine, you will isolate the true source of the craving.  If the craving is about hunger, eating anything, including healthy food, will satisfy the craving.  If the craving is about a particular type of food, eating any food of that type will satisfy the craving.  If the craving is about companionship, meeting anyone will work.  If the craving is about boredom, doing anything to distract you will work.

Once you have identified the true source of your craving, you will be half way toward defeating your old routine.

Now you need to figure out what is triggering your habit.  There is always something that is telling you, “Now is the time to execute your old routine.”  Figure that out, and you will be able to figure out how to slay it.

Habit cues are located in 1 of 5 categories.  Those categories are (1) location, (2) time, (3) emotional state, (4) other people, (5) or immediately preceding action.  So, each time you suddenly get the craving to engage in your old habit, ask yourself these 5 questions and write down your answers.

1. Where am I?
2. What time is it?
3. What am I feeling?
4. Who is with me?
5. What was I just doing?

Do this for at least 3 days.  You can go longer if you need to, but by that time you will probably start seeing the forest for the trees.  That thing that is the most likely suspect will begin to become obvious.

The answer that emerges will be your cue.  That is the thing that is telling your lizard brain to run the routine.  The first sign of your routine will be the craving.  The craving is the fuel that runs your habit.  Once you identify that cue, you will be able to create an action plan to deal with that habit BEFORE the craving strikes.

Write down your new routine.  Plan out what you will do as an alternative to your normal routine when the craving hits you.  Armed with your predefined alternate plan, you can begin to test out new routines that are designed to satisfy your craving in a controlled way.  You are defining your habits, rather than allowing your habits to define you.

Keep this in mind while you are testing your new routine;  Never tell yourself, “This will never work”, or “I will never beat this habit”.  Habits are forged in belief.  Even if you do not believe you are capable of changing or eliminating your old habit, never admit it.  Do not admit it to yourself or to anyone else.  Never allow the thought in your head or the words on your lips.  Lie to yourself and lie to anyone who asks you.  Tell yourself that the change is inevitable.  Fake it ’til you make it.

Eventually, you will believe your own lie and you will destroy your old habit.

~Sisyphus

Leadership is a combination of your character and how much you know.  If you want to improve your leadership capabilities, work on your character and learn something new.

How To Improve Your Character

Your character can be improved by you, or by circumstances.  I recommend you do your own character development.  If you wait for the “universe” or God to do it, it will be a lot harder.

You can improve your character through practice.  Take on small challenges.  For example, if you have an issue with one of your friends, go talk to them about it.  It will be uncomfortable to bring it up, but do your best.  Talk it out.  Try to resolve the issue.  The end result will be a better friendship, and some personal experience to improve the quality of your character.

Also, take on scary things.  I have talked about this before, but it bears repeating.  Do something scary.  Anything works.  Whatever scares you, try it.  Roller-coasters, scary movies, haunted houses, swimming in deep water, public speaking, anything.  It does not have to be huge.  You do not have to go sky diving or wrestle alligators.  Even if your activity is only a little scary, it will help.  Building up a tolerance to fear will improve your character.

You can also try talking to someone you hate without losing your grip.  You could even try saying something nice, or just not saying something vitriolic.  That can be easy, but it can also be really, really hard.  But, you can guarantee it will build your character.

Bring your character to the weight room once in a while.  You will be a lot better off, and you will be a much better leader.

Life (universe/God) will test your character from time to time.  Those things will build your character as well.  However, it will be hard.  Real hard.  If you have been in the habit of building your character already, then those tests will be easier to pass.  You will still grow from them, but it will come as a result of putting into practice the things that you have already learned.  If you have not been in the practice of developing your own character, those trials will be extremely hard.  You will be trying to learn a brand new skill while simultaneously trying to put it into practice.  That will be a lot harder than simply applying what you already know.

How To Improve Your Knowledge

Read books!  If you read books about how to do anything, you will get a little smarter.  The more you know about the world, the more creative you will become.  This type of creativity will give you better tools to navigate those unforeseen circumstances that leaders can run into.

If you want to know what sort of things you should be reading about, here is a list of topics for you:

• Psychology
• Artistry (You probably have that on lock already.)
• History
• Engineering
• Leadership (You are already doing that now!)
• Science
• Entrepreneur-ism
• Economics

These topics are very specific.  A little knowledge from each of these topics will improve your ability to think like an adult.  Critical thinking and logic will also help you to navigate like a pro in a world that is driven by emotions.  Twitter, for example, is 100% emotional.  5th grader logic is perfect for Twitter, but if you want to succeed outside of that environment, I recommend learning to reason like an adult.  If you think Twitter is giving you only the logical arguments, then you definitely need to start working on this reading list!

Persuasion

You desperately need to know more about persuasion.  This could be categorized as psychology, but I was worried you might not find it right away.

Persuasion is a set of skills that will help you to understand people.  That means you will also be learning about yourself.  The better you understand human nature, the better equipped you will be to work on yourself, other individuals, and groups of people.

~Sisyphus

Twitter is your enemy.  If Twitter has decided that you are a monster, then you will be declared a monster.  Years of hard work and dedication will be ignored if the right person declares that you are miserable trash.  Your “friends” will deny you.  You will be ratio’d, de-platformed, and cancelled.

Maybe.

This system of discrediting works very well and it works every time it is tried.  I was not the first, and I will not be the last.  However, there is a greater system that you might not see unless you are in the hot seat.  It is actually very easy to completely negate the entire mob.  It works best if you have help.  Still, even if you are the only one, it only takes one to start the dominoes falling.  BE THE ONE!

Imagine that one of your friends has just been declared a Nazi, bigot, homophobe, white supremacist, or a sympathizer or an apologist.  The bell tolls.  Something wicked this way comes and their days are numbered.  So, you do what everyone else will do.  You escape the blast zone as quickly as possible to prevent yourself from becoming collateral damage.  This is how it normally works.

But, what if you did NOT do that?  What if you did the exact opposite?  What if you said, “I do not care what you say about my friend.  I know this person is not the monster you claim them to be.  They are still my friend!”  You would get mobbed, immediately.  That is the tactic.  Isolate a target, mob the individual, and mob any ONE who stands to defend them.  But, if you and your friends all stand up to be counted when just one of you is mobbed, that is much harder to defeat.  When a group stands together, it is almost impossible to mob a group.  This is especially true, because when you stand with just one friend, you are given strength and encouragement.  It is easy to stand with at least one person who will stand with you.  You feed each other.  A group who stands undivided is bullet proof.  You become invincible.

If you openly state your support of your friend in spite of the mob, you are wielding a power that the mob cannot stop.  If you and all of your friends stand up, you will win!  The more of you who stand, the greater the effect.  For every one of you who adds their voice to the resistance, the impact is increased 10 fold.

This is scary, but also very easy.  There is almost nothing easier than posting a reply to a disparaging remark on Twitter.  All you have to do, to save your friend, is add your comment to say, “I am still your friend.”  Do that in front of everyone!  Others will join you.  The bravest friend is the one who goes first.  The best friends are all of the ones who wish they were the one who went first.  Look for ANY opportunity to openly state your support for a friend.  Even if the smallest accusation is posted against your friend, post the reply, “I am still your friend”, and tag them in it.  Be the first one!  Be THAT friend.  If you stand with your friends when they need it, they will stand with you.

You must stand by your friends, especially when your friend is legitimately wrong.  When you are wrong, and your friend says, “You are still my friend”, there is a redeeming power in those words.  It makes you WANT to be different!  It makes you WANT to fix your mistake!  It makes you WANT to admit your wrongs!  The gratitude of being openly supported has the power to change stubborn hearts.  There are few powers in the universe this great.

When you openly support a friend, even a friend who is wrong, you are at once giving them strength, and giving them a path to redemption.  There is nothing like the power of open support when you need it the most.  When you are being mobbed by spite, you need it the most.  When you can not see where you are wrong, YOU NEED IT THE MOST!

Just in case you are wondering, I want to be very clear about something.  DO NOT SAVE ME!  I am doing VERY well.  I do not need saving, and I am not asking anyone to put themselves on the line for me.  I have a lot of good friends who are supporting me behind the scenes and I LOVE where all of this is going.  I did not know this would happen to me.  I could not have predicted how it would effect me.  There are mysteries that lie beyond the catastrophe, but now that I am here, I am grateful to God for being wise enough to bring me here.  I know it sounds weird, but I have opportunities now that I never had before.

If one of your friends is currently being ratio’d by Twitter.  Go post your reply, “I am still your friend!”  Go do it now!  Be the first one!  Take the heat.  Be the commodity that you crave the most.

~Sisyphus

Parables are metaphorical stories told by Jesus.  They are meant to convey meaning by comparing spiritual concepts with everyday life.  They were also intended to be riddles.  The effort of trying to understand was part of the value in learning their meaning.  If you were not willing to even try, then the meaning of the story would always be hidden from you.  This is a parable told by Jesus.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field.  In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field.  Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant on the lookout for choice pearls.  When he discovered a pearl of great value, he sold everything he owned and bought it!

-Mathew 13:44,45

God is the man who discovered the treasure in the field.  You are the treasure.  God is the merchant.  You are the pearl.

~Sisyphus

If I gave you a gift and said, “Here, this is for you.  It is a gift”, what would you expect to pay?  Do you owe me a gift in return?  Do you owe me any money or property?  Do you owe me labor, blood, sweat, or tears?  What do you owe me for receiving a gift – for free?

The Gospel goes out of its way to express that the salvation of God is a free gift.  That means you owe nothing.  That means that if you look at what Christ has done on the Cross and you are able to say, “I can see that this means I am free”, then you owe nothing in return.  You do not need to give up a single thing.  Just accept what has been done and be done with it.

If you accept what Christ has done, you have God’s permission to change nothing.  Those are His words, not mine!

Do not make any changes to your life.  Do not start a Bible reading regimen.  Do not stop swearing.  Do not leave your friends or make new ones.  Do not force yourself to attend church every week.  Do not join a Bible study.  Do not pay tithes.  Do not give up drinking or smoking pot.  Do not change a single thing.  Not-one-thing.

If you do change anything, I want you to promise that you will only make changes that you want to make.  If you want to do something differently, or if you want to give something up, or if you want to take on a new habit, then do what you want, but only do it if you want to.  Only do what you have already been doing.  Only do that which you honestly desire and nothing more.

I am not joking, being facetious, or sarcastic.  I am absolutely serious.  DO NOT CHANGE A SINGLE THING!  Test God.  See if he means it.  Make Him prove to you that His gift is actually free, like He says it is.  If there are any details to be worried about, then let God worry about the details.

You have my permission to be bold.  Put it to Him exactly this way.  Say to God, “Is this really a gift, or do I owe you something?  If it is free, as you say it is, then it does not rely on my effort in any way.  Right?”

Right.

~Sisyphus

No God

I hate to tell you this, but you are Godless.  I understand that this is a very combative thing to say.  I am not trying to make you upset.  That is not the purpose.  I am just trying to get you to think about the bigger picture.

Normally, I would recommend to anyone in a state of anxiety that they should stop thinking about the bigger picture.  In a moment of anxiety, you should focus on only those things that exist in your moment.  Think about things like, “What am I wearing?”, or “Where am I standing?”, and focus on your breathing.  This can kill off an anxiety attack.

However, when it comes to your overall mental well-being, you need to consider that there are things much, much bigger than you in the universe.  Contemplating the existence of God is not going to kill you.  I promise.  Even if you know you are only pursuing a fantasy, it is ok.  The mental exercise that comes from considering the idea that you have a greater purpose in life will give you a sense of belonging.

Consider those who are suicidal.  They have no sense of belonging.  They do not feel as though they belong anywhere, so they remove themselves from the equation.  You must recognize that you are a valuable component to a greater good and that your goal in life is to seek out the meaning of that greater good.  Looking for God is a noble pursuit for the mentally and spiritually flexible.

The focus on seeking out such a profound truth will provide you with a greater distraction from the constant abuse that comes from the idea that you are nothing and that you are not going anywhere.

No Purpose

What are you really doing with your life?  This is not some kind of guilt trip.  If you do not work, go out with your friends, attend a club or a church, or donate your time to a charity, then what are you doing with your life?  Being idle is a massive drain on your sense of purpose.  By doing nothing, you are telling yourself that you have nothing to contribute.  You are using resources that could be going to someone else.  These are the worst things you could ever say to anyone else.  Why do you tell them to yourself?  You need to stop!

If you are out of work and you are having trouble finding work, then do something smaller that you can do.  Go and volunteer for an hour at an animal shelter, or a homeless shelter, or anywhere you can do something helpful.  You could even volunteer to help staff a convention.

Be part of the work.  You do not need to do a lot.  Even the smallest amount of effort will have a profoundly positive effect on your mind and on your soul.

While you are looking for work, go volunteer.  And while you are volunteering, look for anything that you can do to be helpful.  Take on a helpful mentality.  This means staying behind after the meet to do the dishes, or to help pick up the trash, or to help clean up the meeting space by putting away chairs and tables.

You can do smaller things too.  Pay for someone’s lunch.  Pick up their keys if they drop them.  Pitch in a few dollars to help pay for snacks.  2 or 3 dollars can be a significant investment into your emotional health.

Being a part of any effort, no matter how small, will help you to gain a sense of purpose for being alive.  You need this to survive!

Radicalized Social Media

This point is going to be easy to believe and hard to do.

Social media is the worst thing we have ever done to ourselves.  I truly believe that perhaps the greatest evil that has ever been unleashed on our planet is social media.  Social media is no better than opioids, meth, and heroine.  It was designed to be addictive.  It was designed to enslave you.

Suicide is at an all-time high, because of social media.  Social media hates you.  Social media is a platform that encourages extremism in every topic.  If you are not saying what someone else wants you to say, then you will be berated with insults and “called out” for your stupidity and worthlessness.  If you listen to social media, everybody hates you and they want you to go kill yourself.  That is the message you receive every single day.  The things that social media says to you are absolutely unacceptable and you could never get away with saying those things to someone’s face.

I hate social media and I hate the way it treats you.  I want you to hate it too!

Social media is built on lies.  No one sees the world the way social media portrays it.  The real world is actually far better than the world that is being portrayed by social media.  Social media promised you a better life.  Social media promised you a world of stronger, deeper connections with other, like-minded folks.  Instead, social media has delivered mental instability, lies, hatred, and emotion and spiritual ruin.

Social media hates you.  I hate social media.  I want you to hate it too!

You should spend a lot less time on social media.  Replace your social media with physical interaction with other people.  Go to a furmeet.  Go volunteer with a charity.  Go outside and feel the air, the sun on your face, and see the natural beauty of the world around you.

If you can abandon social media entirely, then do that.  If you can just reduce your use of social media, do that.  If you can change the way you use social media by turning off comments, or by vowing never to read them, then do it.  If you can use social media in a way that lets you “get it off your chest”, and then completely forget you ever said it, then try that too.  Just do anything that gets you away from the garbage opinions of other, horrible people who do not even know you.

Social media is a horrible institution that will destroy you if it can.  If it cannot kill you, then it will settle for just ruining your life.

Kill your social media, before it kills you.

~Sisyphus

Becoming more confident is not a physical act.  It is mental.  It is even a little spiritual.  You have to rewire the way you see yourself.  Once you have broken out of the pack and left the gated yard, you can start to experience the world in a more satisfying way.

Change Your Environment

To change the way you think, you first need to get away from the environment that encourages group think.  Bubbles of thought isolation are the kryptonite of independence and independence is the juxtaposed to confidence.  Being held captive by the group means that you will depend on the group for “proper opinions” and for social sustenance.  Confident people are independent people and the opposite is also true.  Have the courage to strike out on your own, intellectually speaking, and you will become more confident.  Do not be afraid to think for yourself!

Defy The Group

The group will also lead you to rely on the group for your definition of self-worth.

Stop basing your self-worth on the group’s opinion.  Group think will always be misguided and almost impossible to derail.  Your best hope for defeating group think is to escape the group.  You are not the group.  You are not the collective.  You are an individual.  With or without a group, you have intrinsic value.  The group does not define you.  The whole world CAN be wrong!

Individuals can also be a source of bad opinions.  Other people will always have bad opinions!  You cannot change that.  However, you can change the weight of those opinions.  You do not have to listen to or believe in bad opinions.  Stop letting others define you.  Do not let anyone else declare your value.  People are self-centered.  You cannot trust their motives.

Start seeing your value as an individual.  Even if there were no one left but you, you would have intrinsic value that goes beyond what others can see.  Even you cannot change this.  The Christian faith is largely founded on this ancient truth.  Faith in God teaches the value of an individual soul.  You are your soul!  The Gospel teaches that the value of an individual is equal to the value of God’s highest sacrifice.  The Bible also teaches us that, even if you were the only person alive, God’s sacrifice would still be relevant, and He would still have done it.  The sacrifice illustrates that the value of obtaining the mere possibility of starting a relationship with you was worth the effort.  Your personal value cannot be overstated!

Ask Uncomfortable Questions

Do not be afraid to ask questions that are traditionally confined to religious circles.  Ask hard questions about yourself and God.  Who is God?  How do you know when you have found Him?  Who are you in relation to God?  Why does it matter?  Never just settle for an answer.  Keep asking and keep looking.  You have my permission to look for God.  You have His permission to ask Him directly!

Do not approach religion or God with fear, but with respect and curiosity.  Expect results!  Also keep in mind that the study of religion is quite often the study of yourself.  You will learn more about human nature and yourself than you will about anything else.  The better you understand you, the more confident you will be in the world.

If you are put off by the idea of selecting anything specific, try this:

“Here is my Creed. I believe in one God, creator of the Universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshiped. That the most acceptable service we render him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this.” -Benjamin Franklin

Fight Small And Win Big

Look for small victories.  You do not have to win a Nobel Peace Prize to benefit from the feeling that you have done something successful.  You will experience that dopamine hit that comes from winning, even if the victory is very small.  Small accomplishments are a great way to build a sense of personal victory.  Celebrate the small stuff!

To maximize the benefits of achieving small accomplishments, do them often!

Take Risks

Take more risks.  Experience failure!  This feels like the opposite to going after small victories, but it is actually juxtaposed.  Win small victories and go for bigger risks.  Small wins will fuel your will to try more.  When you fail, you will experience what DOES NOT happen.  You will see that failure is not that big of a deal.  You can fail and still survive.  Take risks, fail, and see what happens.  Do not be afraid of failure.  You will not die!

Take On The Growth Mindset

From here, you must admit something important before you can go on.  You must recognize that you are not the sum of your genetic parts.  Asians are not better at math.  They just work harder than you.  A “Fixed Mindset” believes that you either have it, or you do not.  A “Growth Mindset” knows that anyone can learn anything as long as they are willing to put in the effort.  A good system for learning new things and the will to try will always result in learning.  You must acknowledge that you are not in a fixed position.  You must be willing to see that your mind is capable of becoming more.  If you can admit that effort will make you better, then nothing is out of your reach.

Read More Books

Read more books.  Do not read garbage.  Read something that teaches you a new idea, skill, or reinforces something you already know.  Learning new things on a regular basis will not only make you smarter, but it will give you the confidence that knowledgeable people have.  The more you know, the less fear you will have.  People who know a lot have less fear, because they understand how the world works.  You will also have more confidence when you are faced with a unique situation, because you will have more ideas.  Reading will feed your creative thinking in all areas of your life.  Instead of being dismantled by an unknown problem, you will have the ability to overcome unique circumstances through creative problem solving.  Those skills come from amassing knowledge.  Go read more books!

Learn A New Skill

Learn a new skill.  Learning will always reinforce that feeling of being more capable.  Being skilled at anything will boost your confidence in ways that you will never get from anything else.  Get good at something.  Even just learning the basics of something new will give you that small hit of dopamine.  Prove to yourself that you are able to learn new things.  Just like reading, learning new skills will improve your ability to think.  The more you know, and the more you know how to do, the better you be in a new situation.

Learn To Be Brave

Do something scary – regularly!  The opposite to confidence is fear.  Confront fear in every possible way.  Go watch scary movies.  Ride big rollercoasters.  Go rock climbing.  Try public speaking.  Teach a class.  Do extracurricular activities that involve heights.  Do anything that you are afraid to do!  The more you confront fear, the more comfortable you will be when you are faced with it.  The more experience you have with fear, the better you will be able to handle it when it happens unexpectedly.

~Sisyphus

I lifted the contents of this article (paraphrased) from one of Scott Adams’ Periscope presentations.  Scott Adams is a trained hypnotist and an expert in persuasion, marketing, and social psychology.

You can program your own mind to help you accomplish a personal goal.  Often, half the battle is getting yourself past the first step.  Personal discipline is a major hang-up for most of us.  These methods should be combined as much as possible.  They will overcome the “I just don’t feel like doing it” moments that keep you from becoming what you want to be.

• Write down your goal on a regular basis to create focus.
• Control your mental shelf space.  If you don’t intentionally fill up your brain with thoughts, it will fill up with random, unintentional thoughts.  Fill your mind with good thoughts.
• Learn something useful.  To determine if you are using your body and brain efficiently, consider the following:  If you have trouble sleeping, you may not have worked hard enough.
• Brains are association machines.  Treat yourself like a dog.  Give yourself a treat for doing something you want to become a habit.  Make that treat part of the habit.
• If you cannot talk yourself into doing what you should do, talk yourself into doing some very small step in that direction (get yourself a little bit pregnant).
• Give yourself permission to do the smallest portion.  You are building a habit.  You are not failing.  You kept your habit intact, even if you only succeeded in doing the first, small part.
• Create fake reasons.  If you do not have a good reason, give yourself a fake reason.  It does not matter what the reason is.  A fake reason is just as effective as a real one.  Your brain cannot tell the difference.
• Visualize the end result in your mind.
• Any behavior you want to do, associate it with something positive.
• Repetition needs to be part of every one of these methods.

You do not have to wait until you “feel” like doing something.  Use these methods to create a habit that will force you to succeed, regardless of how you feel.  You no longer need to be “in the mood” to succeed.  You can obtain your goals, with or without the cooperation of your emotions.

I believe in you!

~Sisyphus