I wonder how much different life would have gone, if I had just...

[GYX_Kid]

done something in the past at a particular moment, and then general life would be indisputably better. Obviously. This is only actually true as a self-fulfilling/defeating prophecy if you let a regret/curiosity of an unknown that can't ever be known, consume your present and erase more opportunities in its path.

coulda, shoulda, woulda, nothing possible measures up to the same level of attractiveness of "seeming worth getting"...


"The INTJ resembles a chess player, ruminating on the possibilites and then making decisive accurate moves. If the INTP played life as chess, he would keep wishing to modify the allowed-move-properties of his various pieces to optimise his strategy, find that that isn't allowed, and ask to start the game afresh! The ENTP chess player would indeed modify the rules to his advantage and complain that the standard rules were inadequate! The ENTJ would play by the standard rules but insist on making the moves for his opponent as well !"


Anyone know of a good quick method for fucking the hypothetical and accepting the present (as THE only existable present), other than trying to "believe in" pure fatalism

"memories are nothing other than fantasies, since the past has ceased to exist"

Having a lot of experiences to dilute the perceived worth of bullshit probably does something, right?

 

[boondockbabe]

Honey, you're gonna drive yourself crazy doin that. Coming from a broken home with an abusive drunk for a mother and a deadbeat dad.I wasted ten years of my life trying to sve my mom.and then at 15 I let my collage dreams go so I could help care for my younger siblings. Which turned out to be a total waste of time.
after I met my husband, I wasted another ten years of my life speculating on what could have been. Had a nervous breakdown at 28 cause I shoulda had my doctorate by then. I'm still training horses , but just because thats all I have...I'm gonna quit. I'm tired of the politics and games. I spend alot of time wondering what to do now before its too late.
Try to let your past go.focus on your future. I really want to believe we can still be who we once wanted to be...I have to believe that the best is yet to come.
try not to think about how life could have been..thats a dark twisted road and you dont want to go there. Its hard to come back. and if you're worried about mistakes...I consider them life lessons...you learn from life lessons you regret mistakes. look at the way it went and try to figure out what went wrong and how you could have made the situation better or avoidid whoever, learn from it and you wont wonder how things could have been. You'll be stronger for them happening hope this helps

 

[Hadoblado]

Personally I remove myself from the motives of self. By not felling that my consciousness is simply a tool for fulfilling desires, I remove any fantasizing about how good 'my' life could have been, and be content that there are people out there leading content lives.

Well that's how it works in theory anyway.

 

[P.H.]

Whenever I go down that road, I realise there is no use to thinking about what could have been because you can't change the past. It's basically wasted energy.

 

[EditorOne]

"Anyone know of a good quick method for fucking the hypothetical and accepting the present (as THE only existable present), other than trying to "believe in" pure fatalism"

Sure. Go back to the decisive moment, project an alternative, apparently preferable action to the one you actually took, and then, rationally and without bias, work it forward until you reach the point where you realize the path not taken would have had its own pitfalls, shortcomings and disappointments.

There's no better path, only the one you're on right now.

I acknowledge curiosity about paths not taken. I can write entire books on them, which is moderately useful. In my case it's usually curiosity about emotional decisions made before I gained some degree of self-awareness, but still: I could go back 'home' and ask people what they might have done if I'd reacted a different way at a particular point of time and you know what I'll probably find? They don't remember what I'm talking about, the whole thing didn't even register on them even though it looms as a huge fork in the road in my version of the past. Humbling, huh?

 

[Haiduc]

I believe this is called counterfactual thinking. It's quite a powerful thing.

Without trying to sound like some patronising, self-help guru, there's nothing you can do about the past. However, you can use it as a tool to look forward. You've also got to remember that you made good decisions in the past, not just bad ones. Consider those. And there's also an infinite amount of completely random bad things that could've happened to you but didn't.

So, as much as counterfactual thinking can re-create positive alternatives, there's no reason it can't re-create negative alternatives that make us feel better for the position we're currently in. God knows why we pick on some events and not others.

Beyond that, I'm personally trying to work on my long-term vision/planning. It's not easy, but if you can project into the future, then at least you've got something to work back from. In addition, I just generally try and reconcile myself with my previous decisions: they were all made to the best of my ability with the knowledge I had at the time.

I don't know if that helps in any way. If nothing else, counterfactual thinking is quite interesting to have a quick read about.

 

[xbox]

Honey, you're gonna drive yourself crazy doin that. Coming from a broken home with an abusive drunk for a mother and a deadbeat dad.I wasted ten years of my life trying to sve my mom.and then at 15 I let my collage dreams go so I could help care for my younger siblings. Which turned out to be a total waste of time.
after I met my husband, I wasted another ten years of my life speculating on what could have been. Had a nervous breakdown at 28 cause I shoulda had my doctorate by then. I'm still training horses , but just because thats all I have...I'm gonna quit. I'm tired of the politics and games. I spend alot of time wondering what to do now before its too late.
Try to let your past go.focus on your future. I really want to believe we can still be who we once wanted to be...I have to believe that the best is yet to come.
try not to think about how life could have been..thats a dark twisted road and you dont want to go there. Its hard to come back. and if you're worried about mistakes...I consider them life lessons...you learn from life lessons you regret mistakes. look at the way it went and try to figure out what went wrong and how you could have made the situation better or avoidid whoever, learn from it and you wont wonder how things could have been. You'll be stronger for them happening hope this helps

Sorry to hear that. I see myself in a lot of your posts. My nervous breakdown happened this past January. And still have a few now and then, but I am seeing them taper off.

I am just learning now to let go, so I can focus in the future. Maybe its just an INTP tendency to work out loose ends in our minds, and maybe fall into depression because of it.

This is probably a good place to talk it out.

 

[xbox]

GYX, your post kinda reminded me of my childhood habits. I used to read the "pick your own ending" books in the Goosebumps series. I put so many tabs to so many possible endings "just to see what happens", which resulted in utmost frustration and throwing the book against the wall.

 

[Wizardry]

I don't think its wasted effort to reflect on your failures or failed past experiences. For starters, I'm more iNTj...so I have a mirror perspective to intp. Do you even realize why we have brains the way we do? We are in a mouse maze basically. We live in a world according to cycles and circles, a system of patterns. Our brains developed in order to better predict the future first and foremost, then the power went into planning what to do with these predictions. These traits were our evolutionary advantage that our kind apparently maxed out in. You ever stop to notice how much your life repeats?

Basically, you take all that past experience and shave it down to the animal basics. Probably what you guys would consider "Ni" surfing. I can't really describe how that works, I do some weird voodoo shit in my head. I sort of see the past, present, and future from my singular existence and follow the different streams. The past is gone, the opportunity is gone...What did you learn? Where did you fuck up? I update my working strategy according to what I'm trying to achieve. Everyday you have to stand fresh and anew and do the life fight.
I used to routinely ask myself, "Will I regret this choice?". I'd do my balance and scales thing, wouldn't be able to sleep well without it figured out. Then I'd commit to my choice. When I look back I can tell myself I made the right choice, damn the consequences. This isn't 100% though because other people and their whims aren't 100%.

What exactly are you regretting or wishing was different?

 

[P.H.]

There's a difference between reflecting and worrying. There's nothing wrong with a healthy dose of reflectiveness, however, if you let it take over your life and have an impact on how you're feeling, it's a bad sign. That's what I sensed in the OP.

I think acceptance is the first step and if GYX wants to learn something from the situation, only then is there room for relfective learning.

 

[Jennywocky]

Sure. Go back to the decisive moment, project an alternative, apparently preferable action to the one you actually took, and then, rationally and without bias, work it forward until you reach the point where you realize the path not taken would have had its own pitfalls, shortcomings and disappointments.

Good advice.

I have a few big moments in my life where I wish I had far different choices, and my life would be much different right now... but at the same time this route had some good stuff along the way and made me who I am, and I like who I am.

Going back and projecting forward, I would have had a different set of pro's and a different set of con's.

Life is what it is, we made the choices we did, and what matters is what choice we make right in the Now.

I also continually tell myself that it's never too late to make a change. We are not trapped. Making a change might cost us dearly, but we are always free to make the change if we are willing to pay the cost.

I don't really consider this fatalism, GYX... it's just empowerment. Every moment, there are choices to be made. Gotta accept the stuff that we can't change, but recognize the stuff we can... and how maybe it's just one cobblestone in a long road whose direction we can change as we go.

They don't remember what I'm talking about, the whole thing didn't even register on them even though it looms as a huge fork in the road in my version of the past. Humbling, huh?

Isn't it ironic what to us can be a huge monumental, life-altering fork to others is nothing but a blip, if remembered at all?

It's helps put things in perspective for me, whenever I happen to be lost within a personal internal drama.

@boondock: you've been through a lot, hon, but you sound like you are still moving forward and have a positive attitude.

I guess I have seen that, when all is said and done, the total responsibility for my life and my happiness rests only on my own shoulders. No one is going to fix my life for me or make me happy, it's all about my choices in action and attitude to make this worth living.

 

[Darby]

"The INTJ resembles a chess player, ruminating on the possibilites and then making decisive accurate moves. If the INTP played life as chess, he would keep wishing to modify the allowed-move-properties of his various pieces to optimise his strategy, find that that isn't allowed, and ask to start the game afresh! The ENTP chess player would indeed modify the rules to his advantage and complain that the standard rules were inadequate! The ENTJ would play by the standard rules but insist on making the moves for his opponent as well !"

Relatively Irrelevant, but I always enjoy playing a good match with my INTJ friend, and usually this is the case for me(see quote), HOWEVER, I have had times when for some reason I was actually able to focus on what the future held and those possibilities rather than the the past possibilities, and I must say that I can beat him quite handily when that happens. It's like all tha spaces that my pieces can move that are safe are a different color(lets use blue), all the places my pieces can move that aren't safe turn another color(red), and everything else stays black/white, I'm not sure why this happens, but then I repeat the process based on which piece I would like to move and see what the next turn looks like, and the next, and the next. Usually he just smashes me though, when I'm not in the right mindset it's like I'm playing blind.

 

[PennyRoyalty]

I'm sure my life would have turned out different for the better had I stuck in school and kept my shit together mentally, but I didn't.


Oh well.

 

[Awaken]

.......taken the blue pill as a kid.

 

[digital angel]

Try to focus on the future. You have real possibilities. You can achieve any thing you want to.

Unfortunately, there is no "do over" button in life. If there was, I would've found it a long time ago. Remember, being INTP is tough. I've been married and wasn't happy at all.

I still achieved my goal of being a tax attorney. I have more goals. For example, I want to be a law professor or be an adjunct law professor and a partner at a law firm.

Now, tell me what do you see yourself as? Where do you want your life to go?

 

[PennyRoyalty]

A hole in the ground. It's our inevitable end anyway, might as well get it over with now.

 

[boondockbabe]

Now, tell me what do you see yourself as? Where do you want your life to go?

Ok I'll bite.

I personally am not sure how I see myself. I think that is why this thread is so appealing. I'm not comfortable with who I am now and I wonder what things could have been like if they were different. I have incredibly low self esteem sometimes. I want to be someone that I respect. I want to not feel less than...
Getting there is the hard part.

 

[EditorOne]

Turn it all around. One of the ways the creative process works is to imagine a result you'd like to have, then work out the logical steps between where you are and where you want to go. Then start taking action on each of the steps. It seems to be particularly important for INTPs to break things down into small steps, because we often seem to get tired just considering everything at once.
It's how I write books, one doable step at a time. Then the discipline part is a modest effort every day rather than thinking that over the course of six months I'll spend 900 hours on it, or whatever. I need to know I'm making progress to keep from being bored or overcome by indifference. It's harder with life goals, but not impossible. And breaking it down takes advantage of one of our alleged strengths, analysis.
Look forward, not back. "Coulda been" might be fun for writing fiction, but "What's next?" is much more fun for life.

 

[boondockbabe]

I REALLY wish I had a "like" button for that EditorOne.

 

[Vrecknidj]

When I was a kid and walked to school every day, I used to have this OCD thing where I'd never look back at an intersection I walked through fearing that I'd see myself there, hit by a car. I figured if I denied that possibility, it wouldn't be real.

Hunh. That was a weird memory. This thread just took me back to the late 70s.

Thanks.

More seriously, there are several posts here that are on the right track, IMHO. Distill the advice here and consider it.

Dave

 

[digital angel]

Ok I'll bite.

I personally am not sure how I see myself. I think that is why this thread is so appealing. I'm not comfortable with who I am now and I wonder what things could have been like if they were different. I have incredibly low self esteem sometimes. I want to be someone that I respect. I want to not feel less than...
Getting there is the hard part.

We all have moments of low self esteem. I've had my share of moments.

Now, envision the person you would respect. Once you have that, put your face and body in that vision.

 

[JLMC]

I used to have two little refrains:

1. Never think about the past (regrets) more than necessary to see what you did wrong.
2. Never think about the future (anxiety) more than necessary to plan for it.

If you find yourself doing either repeatedly, tell yourself, "I've already thought about it this; my conclusion was X. I don't have to think about it again."