Hung-up

SolitaryRoad.com

Website owner:  James Miller

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Hung-up

Many, many years ago (back in my late teens and twenties I would say), for a long time I was hung-up on a personal problem. I was trying to think my way out of it, use reason and logic to reason my way out of it, but to no avail. I don’t even remember now just what the problem was. I believe it was probably related to my lack of confidence, my concern about being mentally inferior. I was possibly trying to prove to be untrue what I feared was true. I was perhaps trying to figure out a way to dump my complex. (If one is inclined to be negative or doubtful about oneself, one can always find lots of evidence to support one’s worst fears i.e. “You are just dumb. Admit it. If not, prove it!”). It was a problem that I felt I absolutely had to solve, that solving it was absolutely essential. I kept going around and around with the problem. It was an obsession. It was a big worry — a big cause of concern for my mental health. I felt like a fly caught in a spider’s web. It was something I felt I had to do but couldn’t do. I was feeling desperate. Such an experience can produce very big and dangerous mental stresses. I kept asking myself what the solution was. Well, one day the thought occurred to me that perhaps the solution to the problem was not to solve it but to forget it. (On the surface that didn’t sound very good. I like to solve problems, not run from them. I didn’t like the sound of that “solution”.) Well, I can tell you now that that was the solution. Later I was able to just forget the problem and that solved the problem. And then after I was able to just put the problem aside and forget it, I understood much better what the real problem was. The real problem was not the problem itself, but the mental phenomenon of being hung up on something, obsessed with something. When you become hung up on anything, that phenomenon causes loss of perspective. My real problem had been a really serious lack of perspective on what is important in life and what isn’t. Once I was able to forget about that longstanding problem all my perspectives on things started changing. What I had thought was important before I now no longer regarded as important. The healthy mind is one that jumps from one topic to another easily and smoothly and isn’t preoccupied with any one thing. It is the ability to do this, thoughtfully, reflectively, that gives good perspective and mental health. The healthy mind is the mind that is free of all worry, fear, or hang-ups. It is the mind of a person without worries or problems. Basically, my mistake had been that I had been worrying about a thing that I ought not have been worrying about. It was something that wasn’t important. I thought it was important, I thought it was critically important, but it wasn’t. Things like worry, fear, anger, hatred, jealousy, arrogance, etc. lead to mental mechanisms that lead to emotional problems.

Back in those days I was hung up on my weaknesses. Now my outlook is completely different. I would now say, “Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. I don’t worry about my weaknesses!” It is all about attitude. I just now have a very different attitude. A much more healthy attitude.

Apr 2018