Comment by hombre_fatal
9 months ago
The problem is that you are mainly restricted in the present by self-limiting beliefs and comfort zones that accomplish nothing but diminishing your experience.
That's why you didn't walk up and talk to her. That's why you didn't strike up more conversations. That's why you didn't buy the one-way plane ticket. That's why you didn't launch the idea. That's why you took the easy and safe and less fulfilling path. ...Or you just wandered down it in a zombie like haze.
It's trivial to see through this with hindsight, hence the deathbed meme. Hopefully you don't wait until your deathbed to figure it out, though.
I have a lot of respect for past me and what he got us through. Some of my past experiences gave me a profound distrust of others. Even today, while I can intellectually admit that most folks are good and decent people, and I am perfectly safe with them, there are all sorts of unconscious temperaments and behaviors that would work wonders to keep me safe in a dangerous world, but limit my ability to connect to others.
Likewise, my frugal asceticism might have helped me survive when I was living below the poverty line, but it's very much not helpful when I purposely make a 'fun money' budget today, and it either goes unspent or I feel guilty about spending it because my 'inner frugal bastard' sees money as safety.
I'm seeing someone to work through these issues, but it's slow going. I can intellectually see these behaviors aren't helpful, but stopping them from being my default script is hard.