How do you become a calm and serene person?

One thing I realized that helped me not be super defensive and lighten up around people was that you must strike a balance between pride and respect.

If you have to defend your pride at every little joke, noone will respect you.

If you have to demand respect from people, odds are you have an over abundance of pride that if you're smart, you'll exchange for respect.

/thread

Can you explain further? I feel like this is a problem I have, having too much pride and being butthurt about every other joke at my expense. I used to be great at rolling with those punches but it kinda led me to being pushed around too much and now I have to reset it so I'm not pissed at my friends for joking wioth me and they aren't annoyed at me for not taking their jokes well enough. TLDR: how to get rid of my pride and exchange it for "respect" as you put it?

It took me basically having world flipped upside down to see my problem because I was using it to reinforce a sense of pride.

Later on I met a dude who acted like me in the past. Every "nice guy" thing they did always carried this sting of the trying to hard or expecting a form of respect or acknowledgement in return.

If they set up a server for Skype or a game with their good connection it meant that they had the right in their mind to boot people off of it if they got messed with, even if it was in good fun.

If they're talking about their job, they'll incessantly mention how they have a job title and other people should just defer to them because their title automatically proves their competence.

If say you watch a movie with them and they don't get the movie from a message standpoint, and other people try to explain it, they'll get REALLY violently defensive because their intelligence is brought into question. Eventually this person intellectualized/bullshitted themselves into abandoning this group of friends.

What's hilarious is that he basically acts likely a prideful tsundere anime character in a way I wish I actually had to exaggerate more to make fit.

Sometimes you can be taken advantage of by friends and they won't realize it but if you can stick around and not cling to them laugh at your own expense, I feel like you can build up A resistance, I don't know user.

No it's a girl (male)

But then, how do you back up your confidence if not through perceived competence?

If you can't admit that you're wrong, people won't tend to believe you if you're right.

If you know your shit then do something without your ego depending on other's response.

I think of myself as only knowing what I know, and not knowing what I don't know - the latter obviously being much more than the former. Just be honest with yourself, comparing your own perceived competence with those you would judge as more and less competent in any and every given field or situation. It takes time, and I still find myself grossly overestimatig my own abilities while underestimating others'.

My problem is more with being frustrated with how incompetent I am in most areas, so I end up overcompensating on very specific areas of expertise.

That's where I get defensive, because all my self-worth hangs on those few things I feel slightly confident about.

stoicism

this

Stoicism
It's highly overrated and you become a floor mat to be walked on

By not caring about anything. Desire is the root of all suffering.

I would suggest broadening your interests then, or practicing more in the areas you are unproficient in.

By killing yourself. Death will give you eternal peace and serenity.

If you know your problems you can work on it.

Don't let knowledge of your problems lead to too much insecurity.

Ignorance of your problems can mean you use them to prop up a sense of pride that sources itself from other people instead of deep in yourself.

Ignorance of your problems can lead to development of an /r9k/tier victim complex, you can't learn from your mistakes if you're always the victim.

Over reliance on a constant drove for self improvement can lead to depression when things get difficult.

The key is to be chill in balancing all these emotions.

If you realize you have problems you're already over a major hurdle. The next step is dealing with them.

It took me getting kicked out of a nice prep school thanks to an Eliot Rodger tier victim complex I got from getting bullied to realize I was at fault.

It took losing my father and Evangelion of all things to reassess how I interact with people, how I might be interacting with them in a way that uses them parasitically as apposed to mutually.

It took even a few more years to stop being self conscious about relating heavily to a well written weeb cartoon.

It's all a process my man. Being comfortable with yourself, such that your able to open up to other people meaningfully and risk being hurt emotionally. Take your time.

>and you become a floor mat to be walked on

Validate your claim. My money is you don't know anything about stoicism besides what little bit of shit-talk you picked up in your Niezsche cliffnotes.

What's wrong with using people? Some people won't grow as people until they are abused, so why not profit in the process of helping them?

I will admit, I am not very well read in Stoicism
By showing indifference to suffering and pain, you become a target to others for abuse by appearing as if you can handle it

Because forming bonds with people is a two way street, you're not truly connected.

Also you can't abuse people into change, in that instance you are the instigator. Their pride will identify you as the enemy. It has to be an outside authority figure or some thing that leaves no where for their pride to shift blame.

That guy I mentioned before that acted t like my younger self? I've tried to point out what he does wrong, warn him, but you can't truly instigate self understanding, it must come from within.

Also by use, I'm also referring to how "clingy" friends can be interpreted as people who use others so they won't be alone or to infodump whatever nerdy shit they have bouncing around their head onto whomever is around that won't automatically reject them.

Using someone is inherently wrong if you actually care about them.

What can I say, I have patrician taste.

Oh wow user. This hits hard. I've turned down so many opportunities to interact with other people over the years because I was afraid of them realizing this or that about me. I've been like a hermit who only comes down the mountain when I need contact or feel like dipping my toe into the water. I play stupid video games on easy to protect my fragile ego.

>relating heavily to a well written weeb cartoon
It's comforting to hear a successful transition from someone else. Thanks user.

Being a stoic doesn't mean "bend over buddy you gotta willingly take any unpleasantness even if it's preventable."
It merely emphasizes ways of accepting the shit that happens to you, particularly things outside your control. It means "in the event someone insults you, don't lose your cool, and don't let it hurt you." That doesn't mean you can't (preferably calmly) tell the guy to shove it.

Essentially it's preventing feeling miserable when someone insults you, that doesn't mean it's encouraging someone to insult you. Stoics aren't the masochists they're often portrayed as, the philosophy isn't about inviting unpleasantness so much as preparing for when unpleasantness inevitably invites itself. And you'll actually find that most people who abuse people get off on the reaction, if you don't give a shit 9/10 they give up.

see: 95% of shitposters on Veeky Forums. The easy targets are the emotional ones, those are the ones that get targeted.

I mean, I'm still a faggot about it but I do think animation is underrated in how it can be used to get through to people's emotions. Since characters are inherently idealized.

I mean, watching Eva is a really good exercise just because everyone's personal problems are reflected in how they use each other, how they replace other people with ideals of others.

It's great because animation allows for characters to be just exaggerated, larger than than life stand ins of personal problems, that work without coming across as totally melodramatic. And then the (JP) voice actors can switch into modes of acting that actually sound relatively realistic which fucks with your emotional investment, as your brain doesn't expect the realism.

Highly recommend watching Evangelion and end of Evangelion as it's very much designed for people like your average Veeky Forums faggot, to call them out on their problems.

Your ego must be shattered to a certain degree before it can be built stronger. Third impact yourself senpai.

> "If you make money, you lose."
> ~ Canadian Economist

So this is why we have "& Humanities". Thanks for the quality post user

Thanks

Blaze it.

Mindfulness meditation
Accepting reality no matter what
Compassion

I see some posts advocating compassion/understanding/connectedness and all the new age hippie shit that shut-in house wives eat up.

In the real world, there are lots of different people and not everyone is going to fit into your ideal of what an interaction should be. As much as there is commonality between us as humans there remains a similar degree of uncertainty.

I believe that to be a serene and calm person is not one who meditates and is "one with the universe" but rather someone who has experience and a strong sense of adaptability.

So get out into the real world and experience things. Adapt/learn/grow.

Through a sincere belief in God. I recommend Spinoza to help you wrap your mind around the perfection of every moment which is the creation of a perfect being. He does not write of the God in Abrahamic religions, but this quality of perfection can be understood in the God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; the sole creator of all.

To understand and believe in a perfect God is to be content with literally everything. To want becomes unreasonable because it means discontent with the will of God, which is perfect--discontent with perfection is absurd and contemptible. Not to mention that belief in an impending eternity, which disparages this transient, material world of ours, helps to grant a serenity that can only be found through a sincere faith in God. I think things like Stoicism and Buddhism might help the individual through petty nuisances, but should something drastic happen (e.g. the loss of your home or spouse of three decades) then I think unless you perceive these as being no less perfect than anything else, you might suffer.

If this is something you can put up with, I'd recommend mindfulness.

If you want to give it a try and see what it's all about, here's a guided meditation for you, just sit back relax and put your headphones on: calm.com/session/fEG3tLEsAP

Of course this is not for everybody, but if you can imagine doing this every day for the next let's say two months or longer then take a look at pic related, it's a good beginners book on the subject.

Other than that, to put up with all the bullshit life serves you is a long process of learning and gathering life experience, but mindfulness is a useful tool to have in your toolbox when it comes to dealing with said bullshit.

You may be appealed by it cause it's meditation, but it's not so much in the realm of new age hippie housewife esoteric bullshit, as it is in the realm of science and medicine, there are many studies showing its effectiveness and it's scientifically understood to work, so maybe give it a try.

Just take it easy.

you're actually advocating the exact same thing you think you're rejecting, only the words you use are different.

you say

>real world
>Adapt/learn/grow
>experience
>reject the ideal
>accept uncertainty

that's exactly what mindfulness meditation is all about. i read this book and did the 8 week thing, really hepled me been doing it for over a year now, helped me get over generalised anxiety disorder and social anxiety disorder. i'm pretty chill these days whereas before i was a wreck.

>admitting you're not entirely well versed on the matter at hand instead of autistic sperging

Good show user
and very nice explanation

Stoicism really is beautiful in its simplicity and the coexistent possibility of verbose explanation. Marcus Aurelius basically wrote a whole book out of "shikata ga nai," and yet every page still gives effective, discrete advice.

But here's the thing. If someone knows you you act irrationally after the fact, they might not mess with you. The problem with most stoicism is that it generally seems to presume action happens at a singular point in time, and decision making happens in any given moment. Apply game theory to stoicism, and it becomes clear that to make something preventable, often the rational thing to do is openly broadcast that you will be irrational, because rational decisions making covers many points in time.

Lets say you have a nice big statue of Zeus. It's the only statue of Zeus actually. There's an angry cult that hates Zeus and only Zeus. If you're a stoic, and they know there's nothing you can do after the fact but accept it, and they will gain nothing by killing the cult and their families, they will destroy the statue of Zeus. If the statue owner were normal, that's what would happen. That means the stoic should really be broadcasting that he will get revenge, because that's how he prevents tragedy. But what happens if they destroy the statue anyways? The stoic doesn't get the statue back by murdering the cult. At that point in time, there's nothing he can do. The stoic's method of prevention was a threat. but if the cult can count on the threat being hollow, what good is the threat?

Now stoicism makes perfect sense when game theory is not applies, and there's no other decision maker.

There is no pride to be had in letting people treat you like a doormat, and they won't respect you, just continue to treat you like a doormat.

>balance between pride and respect
What balance? You can do nothing to defend your pride and never demand respect at the same time, there is nothing to balance here.

just b urself

just stop giving a fuck. unless something physically threatens you or someone you love, it doesn't matter

By becoming the Doge of The Most Serene Republic Of Venice.

My point is that if you're a loud insecure doormat people won't walk all over you, they'll just plain go around.

The exchange of pride for respect is just another way I phrase "humbling yourself."

I'm mainly putting things in terms of people who have a large ego, but depend on other's to reinforce that ego.

If your pride allready wells up from within you're right though.

Honestly my man, if religion helps you, then that's great, but what's important when your life is turned upside down is that you have people to feel with you and that you have time to reflect on life such that you can find a reason to keep on living.

I just can't believe. Its not like I never tried, just doesn't mesh well with my experiences.

You can lean on faith, people, philosophy for when life knocks a leg out from under you, lean on something, the most important thing is that you have that crutch so that when your world tumbles down you don't go down with it.

Or you could, you know, not give 2 shits, disregard opinion of another because its inferior, or avoid it altogether. It doesn't matter.
Serenity comes from avoiding unnecessary conflict. Not going out of your way to search for it and fight it.

Of course that's an option. But when you have an issue involving pride or ego it helps to have multiple methods by which you can look at a problem.

You might care about a person's opinion, out of friendship or otherwise.

You can tell someone to just stop caring, but it helps for to give them a reason to discard not just someone else's viewpoint, but the opinion of the voice in their head that tells them that they should care.

Your advice is the equivalent of telling a (non clinical) depressed person to just cheer up. Which of course is the answer in the end, but disregards the mental roadblocks that people will put up out of pride or ego.

Like a sign that tells you to take a detour but doesn't offer you a solution/route.

>falling for the social status spook

Reject the world, and let it reject you.

Is there anything morally wrong about liking traps?

wtf, you don't live there right?

Who is this semen demon?

Anyway, the truest answer is one which embraces The Tao.

Morality is an illusion my friend.

The dick makes it better anyways.

The Bible.

breaking moral principals boost the pleasures for women and thus men

>bible is full of rape, genocide, slavery, infanticide, patricide, demon possession, jesus literally turning people away from heaven because they weren't real christians despite claiming to be in life- which literally confirms canonically any so called christian could be headed to hell and they wouldn't know it

Move to a new place and find new people to start over your life. Then, try to become the person that you want to be. Sure it's harder nowadays with social media, but you can just turn them off and run away.

Like said, regardless of whether it's illusion or not, morality (e.g. prohibitions) is needed in order to boost the thrill and the pleasure. They're related to one another.

The lords prayer

Try to remember it. Worked wonders for me.

Japanese boy (girl)

Fall in love, then destroy that person