Why Is My Life So Boring?

Michael LaRocca
Copyright 2013

Contents

Chapter One Who Can I Blame?

Chapter Two When Does Life Begin?

Chapter Three Learning

Chapter Four Programming

Chapter Five Why Is My Life So Boring?

Chapter Six Why Am I Here?

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Chapter One
Who Can I Blame?

You can blame anybody you want to, actually, but
youre probably lying.

Are you shaped by nature or by nurture? It doesnt
matter, because you control neither of them.
However, you can choose how to react to them.
Thats how you get past fatalistic victim thinking and
start living in earnest. Inertia may be (or seem)
easier, but its never as satisfying.

Whatever it is, own it. If you dont own it, you cant
change it.

Heres something from The Chronicles of a Lost Soul,
which I wrote over 30 years ago:

All that we are is the result of what we
have thought. Excuses such as religion,
race, heredity and upbringing are exactly
that excuses. What we are comes from
what we think. So we should learn how
to think. The wise man will neither
swallow everything blindly nor rebel for
the mere sake of rebellion. He will strive
to discriminate, to separate the wheat
from the chaff, to decide for himself.

Obviously, there is a shortage of wise
men.

As a novelist, Ive written more than one book
around the subject of free will versus biochemical
determinism. We want so much to believe in free
will, but science finds more evidence every day that
our feelings and our actions are just the result of our
brains chemicals reacting to the physical
environment. Damn convincing evidence, too. But if
free will is naught but an illusion, damn if it aint a
convincing one.

Im going to conclude that both are right. If light can
be both a wave and a particle, we can be both free
and predetermined. Act like youre free, dont use
any sort of determinism as an excuse to keep
making the same old mistakes, and go on about your
business.

In other words, quit blaming. Blaming yourself, your
family, your biology, or your deity isnt getting the
job done. It isnt changing anything.

Whatevers wrong with you is not your fault.
However, it is your problem.

It doesnt matter how you got where you are now.
Fix it.


A Chinese proverb states that its easier to light a
candle than to curse the darkness. Even if you dont
always agree with easier, I guarantee you the
candles more effective.

And wow, I skipped a lot of emotions to string those
fortune cookies together.

I never said that its easy, but it is necessary.



Chapter Two
When Does Life Begin?

For a long time it seemed to me that life
was about to begin real life. But there
was always some obstacle in the way,
something to be gotten through first,
some unfinished business, time to still be
served, a debt to be paid. Then life would
begin. At last it dawned on me that these
obstacles were my life....

So stop waiting; until you finish school,
until you go back to school, until you lose
ten pounds, until you gain ten pounds,
until you have kids, until your kids leave
the house, until you start work, until you
retire, until you get married, until you
get divorced, until Friday night, until
Sunday morning, until you get a new car
or home, until your car or home is paid
off, until spring, until summer, until fall,
until winter, until you are off welfare,
until the first or fifteenth, until your song
comes on, until youve had a drink, until
youve sobered up, until you die, until
you are born again to decide that there is
no better time than right now to be

happy. Happiness is a journey, not a
destination.
Alfred DSouza

When you decide you need to do something, you
want to do something, its time to do something, and
then you dont do it...

In Stop Saying Youre Fine, Mel Robbins compares
this to hitting the snooze button. You are going to do
it, but not right this minute...

I dont think its always a crime to hit the snooze
button. Just be aware that, if you do hit the snooze
button, it means youre not doing what you need to
do to be where you want to be.

Own that.

Feelings are a guide. Listen to them. If youre
constantly hitting the snooze button, never starting
on that new thing, maybe you dont want to do that
new thing.

Or maybe youre just lazy.

Deciding what you want can be harder than
obtaining it, and you are allowed to change your
goals at any time. But if you dont have any goals,
you wont achieve your goals. Logical, innit?

The key is to know when to listen to your feelings
and when to overcome them and act anyway. The
only way to get where you want to get is through
action. To say otherwise is just clinging to a victim
mentality that is not truthful.

In order to change things, to improve things, to just
figure out where you are and where you want to be
and what the hecks going on, you need feedback.
You need information. Why would you want that
information to be anything but accurate?

Being authentic is easier than being any other way,
and its also more satisfying. Lying to others is
usually immoral, but lying to yourself is just plain
stupid.

If you dont like where you are, get over your
internal resistance and be somewhere else. Quit
snoozing, quit coasting, quit letting your internal
wimpiness hold you back. As Mr. Spock noted, there
are always options. If you choose not to take them,
Im going to quote my Chronicles again.

...it takes no strength of will to resist
temptation. It merely proves that the
desire to resist is the strongest
temptation.


Know what you really want, not what you think you
want or you kinda sorta think it might be nice to
have. Then take the action you need to take to get
it.

And by that, Im not talking about new cars and
houses and stuff. Let the law of attraction snake oil
peddlers help you with that. Im talking about
changing who you are and how you live. Thats all
that matters.

It is never too late to become what you might
have been.
George Eliot




Chapter Three
Learning

Edmund Burke noted that reading without thinking is
like eating without digesting.

If you swallow a bunch of stupid stuff from mentors
and peers, I dont blame them. I blame you.

But if fear of being brainwashed, or just plain
stubbornness, means you dont listen to peers and
mentors, Im gonna blame you for that too.

Use your common sense. You do have it. All
wisecracks aside, its called common for a reason.
You can trust your gut. Examine it from time to time,
since it aint perfect, but there are worse things to do
than to trust it.

One of the greatest things about being human is
being able to learn from others. Those like you,
those unlike you, those older than you, those
younger than you, those who strike you as
exceedingly stupid. What you read, what you hear,
what you see, what you write.

If you havent figured out the value of letting others
screw up so you dont have to, you have real
problems.


Chapter Four
Programming

The longer I live, the more I realize the
impact of attitude on life.

Attitude, to me, is more important than
facts. It is more important than the past,
the education, the money, than
circumstances, than failure, than
successes, than what other people think
or say or do. It is more important than
appearance, giftedness or skill. It will
make or break a company, a church, a
home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice
everyday regarding the attitude we will
embrace for that day. We cannot change
the fact that people will act in a certain
way. We cannot change the inevitable.

The only thing we can do is play on the
one string we have, and that is our
attitude.
Charles Swindoll


Blaming current problems on childhood traumas
drifts in and out of fashion, and the pendulum
usually swings too far in one direction or the other.

Unearthing every trauma youve ever suffered is a
waste of time and energy, distracting you from the
work that you need to be doing while providing the
illusion of progress.

However, unearthing the patterns and programming
that have resulted from those traumas will give you
the knowledge you need to change those patterns
and that programming. Ineffective or inappropriate
coping mechanisms and so forth. But dwelling on
that stuff is not effective, efficient, useful, or fun.

Program yourself to be positive. You are changed by
all that you surround yourself with, so choose wisely.

If you dont program yourself, youre letting others
program you. Why?

All experiences fire neurons.

Repeated experiences cause groups of neurons to
wire together more strongly.

Over time, with repetition, especially when
accompanied by emotional intensity, these neural

circuits develop a greater probability of firing,
forming habitual responses to experiences.

Any state of mind can become a trait of being with
sufficient reinforcement.

So, which state of mind will you program your mind
to favor?



Chapter Five
Why Is My Life So Boring?

All of humanity's problems stem from
man's inability to sit quietly in a room
alone.
Blaise Pascal, Penses

What a terrible burden it is to have
nothing to do!
Nicolas Boileau-Despraux

If something in your life is causing you stress, and
you cannot address the cause of that stress, its
usually unpleasant enough to distract you from what
youd rather be doing. But at least it isnt boring.

Why do you do what you do? Are you enjoying
yourself, or are you simply trying to fill the
emptiness?

Tolkien (and Chris Thile) reminded us that not all
who wander are lost. But if you have no destination,
and youre not enjoying your wanderings, that may
be why your life is so boring.

Im not saying everything you do has to be goal-
driven. Being so compulsively driven is one way to
get things done, and an effective one at that. For

some people, oh yeah, thats the stuff. But others
travel that path until they burn out and find
themselves bored and empty again plus lethargic
besides.

Finding out which type of traveler you are is one of
the joys of living your life rather than letting
somebody else do it for you.

But regardless of who you are, it helps to have goals.
Vague and ongoing, small and easily reached, big
and audacious and needing years or decades.
Whatever suits you.

But once youve got goals, chunk them down into a
series of attainable steps. Make them measurable
steps, because if you cant measure it you cant
achieve it.

Set a time frame. If circumstances later require you
to change that time frame, were all too old to be
surprised by that. But still, someday isnt a time
frame that will motivate you. Set a time frame that
strikes you as realistic, and adjust as needed.

Planning is a good thing. Im guessing youve figured
that out by failing to plan a few times.


Id have sworn that what I just wrote was common
sense if I hadnt seen so many life coaches stressing
the importance of these simple statements.

Youre on this river bank and you want to be on the
other river bank. Would you rather take a big ol leap
or jump from stepping stone to stepping stone?
Those stones are the chunks of chunking things
down, and your plan is how you ensure that the
series of stones takes you to the other bank rather
than to some other place.

Prioritize. If everything is a rush job, then nothing is
a rush job. I think we all know that, but just in case
we dont, we do now because I just wrote it. And
doesnt that make us all feel better?

If something isnt working immediately, stick with it.
If it keeps failing, quit at the right time. Use failure
as feedback. You wont find your purpose if you dont
look for it.

Thats what you want. Purpose and meaning. Its
what gets you past the boredom. Rest when you
need it. Seek mindless non-driven pleasure when
you need it. But if youre just filling emptiness all the
time because you have nothing to strive for, you will
always be terminally bored and you will absolutely
hate it.



Chapter Six
Why Am I Here?

Two questions:

Have you found joy in this life?
Have you given joy to others?

Have you learned that the second might be the best
way to achieve the first?

Do no harm isnt just for the medical profession.
Beyond that, all the various debates about morality
and ethics are largely semantics. You know whats
right. Do it, or dont do it, but dont pretend youre
ignorant.

Judging others is bad. Its impossible to avoid, of
course, for practical reasons if nothing else, but be
aware that youre doing it, and keep it to a
minimum.

Give more than you take. Serve as many as you can,
as well as you can. Put others interests first
because, in truth, that serves you as well because it
makes you so gosh-darned happy.


Mark Vonnegut said were here to get each other
through this thing, whatever it is. And as his more
famous father noted, that ones a keeper.

It is not selfish to care for yourself, if your life is one
of service to others. If youre an asset to others,
then it only makes sense to care for yourself, so that
you can be an effective asset.

Being selfish isnt always bad. If you do something
you enjoy that doesnt hurt anyone else, thats
selfish but not bad. If it hurts others, then its bad. If
you help other people, for that really good feeling
you get when you help other people, thats selfish
and its also good. This is the type of selfishness you
can and should embrace.

If youve never helped anybody, I feel sorry for you.
Go try it now and youll see Im right. You can have
one of those epiphanies that the sentimental
novelists and script writers get so much mileage out
of. And then youll know why they get so much
mileage out of that stuff.

Adding value is a catch phrase that I actually have
no problem with. But I think of it in the sense of
adding value to the world. On a global scale were
probably feeling a bit impotent. So add value to one
persons world, one animals world, even your own

world as a last resort. That adds value to the world,
and wont that make you feel good? Yes, it will.

Have I told you anything you didnt already know?
Maybe not. Is it a lot easier to say all this stuff than
it is to actually do it? Of course it is. Do it anyway.
You know youll be glad you did.

Have you found joy in this life? Have you given joy
to others? Its never too late to start.

When you cease to make a contribution,
you begin to die.
Eleanor Roosevelt

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