This is an excerpt from page 186 of my book, Overcoming A Mysterious Condition. It is from the chapter about loving our negative pleasures.
Thinking I can’t do something is one of my top negative pleasures. It is like the banner and billboard of my life saying “this is what is. It is who you are. Here is the motto of your life. Go ahead, believe it, dude, because it is true.”
It doesn’t matter how much I have accomplished or how far I’ve come. It doesn’t matter how much someone tells me that I can do something. No matter if all evidence pointed out to me is true that I can do something, it does not matter. The negative pleasure has convinced me in my mind that I cannot do it.
Who Are You Kidding?
I hear that little voice become powerful in my head. It tells me that “If you think you can do something, who are you kidding? What makes you think you can accomplish anything? You are worthless and if you need evidence, look at all your failures.”
It convinces me that there is no need to try because I am just going to fail. It leads me to believe that I should save myself the time and effort of looking for ways that I might succeed. The negative pleasure leads me to believe those ways are never going to work.
Negative Pleasures Twist And Distort
Negative pleasures know how to twist and distort what you see. They know how to convince you that you can’t do something even if the evidence points to the contrary. Trying to deceive them and prove that you can succeed is an exercise in extreme courage and determination.
Negative pleasures don’t want you to see the logical facts that everyone else sees. Negative pleasures want you to see things in the distorted way it has managed to get you to see.
After all, they are the supreme rulers of your life. Yes, it will allow you to observe other things that can control your life, but it knows that this is just an illusion since it has ultimate control.
Negative Pleasures Are Pulling The Strings
It will let you walk like you’re enlightened and all-knowing, powerful and conscious, but in the background, it is pulling the strings. It is like the man behind the curtain that plays with your emotions while toiling with your fears and convincing you that he is in control.
Sometimes I can get engrossed in whatever I’m doing, and although I’m accomplishing things, avoiding what I need to do becomes my negative pleasure. I can get stuck in the daily details and miss the big picture because it feels safe and normal. It looks like I am doing the responsible thing. It looks like I am doing something good when I’m just doing busy work.
Accomplishing things is good, but when I do one task to avoid another, then I have turned it into a negative pleasure. It keeps me busy. It keeps me focused on something, but at the same time, it takes me off the goal I am working toward achieving. Even more, it shows me that this is what I need to do, but at the same time, it hides the true intent from me.
Seduced By Negative Pleasures
If I own up to the true intent of where my life is going, then it may mean that I need to make changes that I do not want to make. It may mean that I want to sit in the security and safety of my current moment, rather than risk looking like a fool for what matters. While it is far too easy to be seduced by negative pleasure, I allow it to happen even when I know it is not in my best interest.
Thinking I am not good enough is another of my negative pleasures because it becomes the point where I stop myself from doing all that I can. It is the point where I convince myself that there is no sense in trying because I’m just not going to be good enough to make it happen, so what is the use?
Thinking I am not good enough goes hand in hand with some of my other negative pleasures. It becomes the fixer in my life, helping give credibility to the other things. When I know that I’m not good enough, it does not matter if I think I can do something. The decision about the outcome has already been made.
Holding Myself Back
It holds me back from all that I can become while it convinces me that I can never become all that in life. It gives me a sense of purpose, knowing that I never have to risk myself beyond the lines of all that I know.
If I argue with it and tell it that it does not dictate my life to me, it laughs and scoffs in my face. It tells me what an idiot I am. The negative pleasure tells me how stupid I am. It tells me how ordinary I am and I should never expect anymore from life. I listen to it, yet am disgusted by it, but it has its control over me. It knows how to manipulate me and shame me. Negative pleasures know which buttons to push at the right moment.
Negative pleasures give rise to not being vulnerable but being filled with shame. They show me that without them, I have no existence and I am nothing. The thing about negative pleasures is that they don’t want you to be conscious and aware because when you are, they no longer can live in you. They deceive you, and convince you, that you are aware.
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