Get off the Internet and turn off social media, get rid of the TV, and worldly distractions. That is the first thing to do, and produces the quickest benefit. Use your spare time for prayer and reading, instead. Being that we are now in the Nativity Fast, it is a good idea to start now, anyhow.
Ironically, television is one of the few refuges that I still have. The algorithm that my searches have created on Netflix feeds me a steady stream of of Euro crime dramas and supernatural series, where the world that I knew still exists. By way of contrast, simply going outside and walking along the river into town is an ordeal. As for work, it is a nightmare world that I cannot even believe is real.
Amen, I have not owned a television in four years, the internet is another story altogether. I have started reading scripture, the saints, and the church fathers in my spare time instead of scrolling, and I have seen that personally these previous activities bear so much less weight and are truly meaningless when you detach from them.
You are attempting to escape from this world - but the True escape from this world is not in entertainment, it is in Him.
No one disagrees, but when you're not a monk, and living in the world (of distraction) ... balance does become something. I think that's why guys around here talk about women or a wife, because that's a more suitable sacrifice for clown world, that is a traditional path (or can be).
I do have that book but I have fallen out of the habit of reading it, so the alignment is purely providential
You really should shut your big fat stupid mouth because you don't know a damn thing.
I agree with everything you said except "get off the internet".
I very much agree. The fact we're in this forum with internet access means we're better off than 70% of the population. This is one of the worst forums to talk about self-pity since it used to be a status, sex, travel, etc. forum, and it still lingers a bit. Almost everyone here is also in a first world country or one where you don't have to pay "protection money" or other human atrocities. You should unironically "check your privilege" like the libtards say, to a certain extent. More towards gratefulness to God.
Let's keep this conversation civil. Lawrence was not attacking anyone, nor delegitimizing anyone's suffering. The Lord knows many are out there in agony, but what do they gain from self-pity? What help is it if they say "woe is me, I am the most miserable and wretched person alive"? That only adds to your suffering. The point is to turn to God and have faith that we can get through these trials.
Not all causes of suffering are material or physical. Rates of loneliness and mental illness are high, even in, and perhaps especially in, developed countries. Even very famous and successful people kill themselves from time to time. The anguish they feel is no less real than that felt by people who are starving or victims of violence, it is just of a different nature.
It's about the cards you're given. If you were born as a Congolese, amputated, deaf, starving child with leukemia, then you probably have some right to have "self-pity", however it's defined. If you're born into riches or something of the sorts, then it's pretty obvious you're better off than Tsulu Ngonge at South Sudan. Both sides can turn to Christ if God wills it, but that would be for another thread
I'm not saying you can't have problems if you're born in Germany and what not, just that you shouldn't put every human on an equal playing field in this, while also preaching to the choir about it.
I have seen enough suffering to know about the pain of suffering souls. When my wife was dying of cancer, my dad suddenly died two weeks before she did. I had to arrange for her sister to be there when hospice first started coming to care for her so I could travel home for my dad's funeral. There were other ins and outs to the situation that made it particularly hard for me beyond the immediately obvious unpleasantness.
You sound like an unhinged woman
I don't think this warrants more than the above but just for the sake of it I will respond in detail.
This is the part that is usually not noticed or is left unsaid. There are major psychological and isolation, let alone knowledge sources, of suffering that are also allowed so as to diminish some ego of people who otherwise are quite talented or successful in life. The random African person who appreciates food and suffers from material xyz also has very little expectations on life, to be honest. Some don't even have high enough IQ to worry about all the stuff others do, for better or worse.
