The "Get a Job, Have a Wife, Make a Child , Get a Life" Thread

[yangluchan]

I feel that I've grown as a human after getting a job. Since I work as a consultant, I have to work with different people, and I have to adapt and learn how to deal with different situations. I consider the people giving me a hard time sometimes as my teachers (in a spiritual sense), although I may not always think so at the moment...

 

As for the wife and kids, yeah, if the Tao puts these on my path, I will be happy about it. I guess societal conditioning made me yearn for these things when I was younger, and I guess I still do sometimes.

 

However, I don't see it as my birth right. An ex girlfriend of mine asked me about these things the other day, and I said "if Life puts these on my path, I will be happy about it, but if not, then so be it. I cannot despair if so doesn't happen". She was very baffled about my answer, and asked "what will you do if you don't marry and have children?". I answered "eat, sleep, work, meditate and work out (both physical and spiritual)". "Oh, so you'll make your life about work then?" she said. "No", I answered, "I won't make my life about anything, I'll just breathe in, breathe out and die", thinking I was being very clever, but also very true, as that's how I feel... There are things I want, but I have come to a point where I have accepted that I might never have these, and there's nothing I can do about that but accept it.

 

About the wife part, I hope I one day am so lucky to find a lady who I'll love enough and she'll love me enough that we get married, yes. But one of my problems is of course that I have BAD approach anxiety, and I don't even dare talk to (attractive) girls I don't know... A big hindrance, I'm trying to work through it, by no luck yet... So, at this point, unless I'm introduced to that girl through my friends (or she'll approach me) it doesn't look too good...

 

Most girlfriends I've had in the past have been interested in me and made contact/approached (which still today, most girls don't do), but for most of them, I wasn't as interested as they were, and so I didn't invest too much in the relationship... A certain amount of love has to be there too! I blame it on the combination of getting into relationships I shouldn't be in, and the folly of youth...

 

As for kids, I am good with kids, and I love playing with them and being around them, so I hope to one day to be able to care for a kid and share with him/her the things I've found and the things I hope will make them better off in this world!

 

Oh well, enough rambling!

[Trunk]

A relevant book by Marsha Sinetar: Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics.

[Taomeow]

Nice thread -- everyone is making sense! even when saying different/opposite things...

 

 

Complaining about the rules of society, and trying to break them, i dont think it's very smart.

It's because these rules are embedded in ourselves so deep, that the only easy "wu-wei" sollution would be to obey to them.

 

This might be the free-will test we're here for, methinks (I'm a believer in Chinese astrology's breakdown of fate into 40% written-in-the-stars, can't-change-if-you-try stuff, 40% free will, 20% pure chance even gods don't control... there's something a tad quantum-mechanical about this picture, no? ). How much of what's going on to obey so as not to make unnecessary waves, not to swim against the current, not to disturb the status quo --

and how much of it to resist, oppose, try to change, dissent about, do something about?.. Figuring out which part is "of the harmony" and which, "of the human free will applied poorly" would be the first step in determining one's own level of compliance. Blanket compliance is not wuwei, at least not to taoist sages many of whom were rebels! "You killed a king?" they asked, and the Zhou people replied, "No, we executed a tyrant." Meaning, the king was no longer king because he wasn't acting as one, he was acting out of totalitarian cruelty, and this took his "mandate from heaven" away from him in the eyes of the sage, so it was no longer "going against heaven's will" to battle him and kill him, it WAS heaven's mandate of the moment and the situation. I'm all for following the rules of harmony, but I wouldn't assume that "any" rules currently in existence are of harmony -- and if they aren't then harmony lies in changing them. What do you think?

[宁]

Nice thread -- everyone is making sense! even when saying different/opposite things...

This might be the free-will test we're here for, methinks (I'm a believer in Chinese astrology's breakdown of fate into 40% written-in-the-stars, can't-change-if-you-try stuff, 40% free will, 20% pure chance even gods don't control... there's something a tad quantum-mechanical about this picture, no? ). How much of what's going on to obey so as not to make unnecessary waves, not to swim against the current, not to disturb the status quo --

and how much of it to resist, oppose, try to change, dissent about, do something about?.. Figuring out which part is "of the harmony" and which, "of the human free will applied poorly" would be the first step in determining one's own level of compliance. Blanket compliance is not wuwei, at least not to taoist sages many of whom were rebels! "You killed a king?" they asked, and the Zhou people replied, "No, we executed a tyrant." Meaning, the king was no longer king because he wasn't acting as one, he was acting out of totalitarian cruelty, and this took his "mandate from heaven" away from him in the eyes of the sage, so it was no longer "going against heaven's will" to battle him and kill him, it WAS heaven's mandate of the moment and the situation. I'm all for following the rules of harmony, but I wouldn't assume that "any" rules currently in existence are of harmony -- and if they aren't then harmony lies in changing them. What do you think?

 

 

how about this: justice belongs to the strongest. power games, power games...

 

 

thelearner's posts on family stuff are wonderful, so are yoda's....

[mantis]

i got more respect for someone who lives in society and still practices over some weirdo monk who has been in some monastery his whole life and has never experienced nothing.

[Sahaj Nath]

this thread is acting as a really powerful mirror for me.

 

lots of abuse growing up. lots of scars that i carry still. and for all of my growth and transformation, it still bothers me to read so much about how wonderful and spiritually beneficial having a family can be.

 

it strikes me as utterly shallow and illusory. i even feel a little bit of anger stirred up. and now i can only smile at my own absurdity.

 

the love of my life died 5 years ago, shortly after i came to realize the meaning of Surrender. in the 3.5 years that we had together, i wasn't a very good partner. all of the criticism i throw around on this site pales in comparison to the biting criticism i would spew back then. breaking things down and exposing the flaws & inconsistencies & unspoken implications was what saved my sanity growing up. it's also what kept me alone for a good chunk of my life.

 

i just don't see the job, wife, family stuff ever being a value of mine in the future. and i'm in my 30's. even though i remember what it was like to be in love and to believe that i would spend the rest of my life with someone, i feel as if my highest calling involves being alone. i have never met anyone who speaks my language, not even when i was in love. i was accepted, but not understood. and the kind of woman who could truly understand me would not likely make for a good partnership.

 

i don't know. part of the reason this thread disturbs me is because i feel judged for the way that i live. and part of the reason i feel that way is because i judge myself for it, as if i should want the wife and kids and good-paying job if i'm a healthy person. but i don't. i value my freedom above all the rest of it. i feel better able to serve my students and friends and clients because of the life that i lead. and i like that there are times when i need to leave the world and will spend weeks or months in seclusion somewhere as i travel deeper inward. even if that part of me was born out of a broken youth, i still like it. i feel more complete when i'm alone.

 

or maybe it's just a convenient belief system to protect me from future pain. i may not be in the best position to discern which one it is.

 

 

 

 

if you are not complete without them, you will never be complete with them, if fact you will be more broken becasue you will be stealing energy from them and putting them under pressure for the short comings in your life.

 

 

you know, sometimes it just might take the building and nurturing of a family to discover that you've always been complete.

Edited June 20, 2008 by Hundun

[xenolith]

We're all damaged. To what degree one can heal one's self is a metric of one's awareness of the Tao.

 

Truly it is a case of "physician, heal thyself".

Edited June 21, 2008 by xenolith

[soundhunter]

how did your kids help you undestand more about the Tao?

 

how did maternal pregnancy help you figure out more about spiritual pregnancy?

 

For me, pregnancy, children, they led me to Taoism, the desire to be a better parent, to still the violence and impatience and high strung emotions that curse through my veins after a childhood full of these things. The only way I can see myself changing my reactions is to become still first, if I can't still myself before I react to things I don't see how I'll ever be able to change them. So, this is what I seek, inner stillness, the ability to still myself and I believe that Taoism offers a beautiful language to describe what I'm seeking to accomplish.

 

I discovered my interest in Taoism through a beautiful book called "The Tao of Motherhood" by Vimala McLure. Now some reviewers have mocked the book as not being real Tao and all that strange type of taoist snobbery I seem to encounter while out and about online, but the book really resonated with me, particularly the idea of stillness that I found she very beautifully wrote that made sense to someone nursing, nurturing and struggling with little people. I read this book when I was losing my marbles after the birth of my second child, my first was 3 and having a very hard time adjusting and was acting out almost violently, I suffered much abuse as a child and would react to this violence from my small daughter with pure rage, and i was also crazily sleep deprived and post partum blues had kicked in as well. The ideas of being still, non doing, going with things vs fighting everything, these ideas where balms to my temporary post partum crazies, and in that state of extreme exhaustion and post partum hormone craziness I was actually able to be still for moments in ways I haven't been able to since (though I'm expecting our third child anytime now and I wonder if I'll find it so easy to become still again)

Another wonderful parenting book is The Parent's Tao Te Ching by William Martin of StillPoint, are any of you familiar with their Taoism courses btw? anyways, that book is full of wonderful inspiring writings about letting our children be, not getting in their way so to speak, but quietly guiding them and keeping our expectations, and their lives simple. Not that I'm so good at these things, but I do try and for me, parenting and my spirituality are one and the same, my parenting practise IS my spiritual practise.

 

I think my goals, and my path are a bit simplistic compared to many of yours here, so I've read this board for a few months without contributing, this thread is the first to inspire me to say something

 

~ Rachel

[seadog]

I agree Xeno!It is amazing to what dergree the ego will go to protect itself from imagined further damage.Fear of relationships,the water element not realizing that thaw and spring will follow.I will be caustic and hide behind a venner of heightened intellect chosing sarcasm as my weapon the heart fire of summer burning anyone who dares draw close.Timid wood who is forever afraid to grow close to that which it desires (beauty love happiness) or Angery spring that resents anything or anyone curtailing her freedom.The melencoly of autumn metal that grieves for his lost and for future losses.

Why?

Simply because we have forgotton our orginal nature and the truest expression of our destiny.

[林愛偉]

[soundhunter]

As children we inherit the habits, thoughts and views of our family, especially parents. Once we enter school life, we inherit the same things from our classmates and teachers, and once we enter societal living, we again inherit the same from society. This inheritance is vast, and has a foundation of myriad emotions, views, desires, which lead one to feel obligated to uphold societal, familial and friendship impositions.

 

One of the recurring themes in the two books that I mentioned about applying Taoism to parenting is that children are not ours, and to avoid the parenting practises that involve putting our thoughts and views into their heads. So a big part of my parenting practise is to let my children find their own way, when it would be easier most of the time to enforce my ways on them. We are also choosing a form of homeschooling known as unschooling, which is basically child led education though that's a simplified and not completely accurate explanation, however it's based on the idea that we all learn best when we are interested in learning about something, so it's a form of childhood education that minimizes what the above paragraph describes. Interestingly, I know of a couple of other Taoist unschooling mammas, who also practise non-coercive parenting, where they try as hard as they can within the constraints of modern society to not actually force, or make their children do anything. Children are naturally present, naturally in the "now", newborn infants are the wisest sages I've personally ever met, so a big part of my practise is trying as hard as possible to avoid doing what the quoted paragraph describes, which can't be done perfectly, but which is worth striving for to protect the spiritual integrity of my children.

Edited June 21, 2008 by soundhunter

[宁]

Thank You Everyone for the wonderful contribution to a subject that is easily passed by, and hardly remembered by practicioners...

You are all a blessing... and Xeno, the answer to your question was largely given by Lin, no one can steal the right to be a father from you... if you dont find it from your parents, you can dig it out of the deep large ocean of your ancestor's energy and spirits... They are with you.

 

The practical pointer of it is: Our energy is not really ours. That's why many practicioners dont get too far, other than learning a fiew energy tricks. The deep, core issues, are to resolve the pending affairs with Heaven, Earth and Ancestors. Only with their support we can go and fulfill our mission.

 

Our energy is not really ours, we cannot do with it as we please, not yet... remember that.

 

I am still waiting for other contributions to this thread, there are many more that i feel must have valuable insight on this. Please dont be shy, come and share with us, it has such a healing effect on us all.

 

Many many thanks to all of you

 

L1

[Sherry]

Just a tiny thought about this subject...

I find value in every way of learning ore remembering, as I like to call it also

If ure path is family: children, partner etc ore ure path is the loner. U will get wath u want ore need. We have more power and meaning in the happening than we are aware of...

 

I have experienced both, the loner, life without family and friends and now: a child, a partner and regaining/making family and friends... I just cant say some of it is more worthless to gain wath may be gained... there is meaning and value in everything.

 

We can learn also frome others way of life by listening with respect and admiration.

 

Was not so tiny thoughts huh...? hi hi... sorry..

[宁]

how much more important is to learn these things... but people are more atracted in learning how to spit fire and crap thunder... with or without lineage

 

Edited June 23, 2008 by Little1

[SiliconValley]

Not really related to this thread but here's someone selling his life on the internet: here and here.

Edited June 25, 2008 by SiliconValley

[Sunya]

not really worried about having a wife or child.. but a job, thats becoming important.

i'm only 22.. so a little worried about the future. will be done with college soon with asian studies and philosophy and have no idea what to do after. i can't just go live in the forest, i need some sort of job that pays me. i can't just be a waiter and live in a studio apartment. i'm thinking of learning to program python to possibly get into web development... so i'm trying to tackle this issue of desire. without desire i wouldn't care about money and what would happen to me? so i don't know.. but there's no I to know.. fuck. all this spiritual stuff is making it hard to function in this day and age. i envy the ancient taoist masters and hindu yogis

[Sahaj Nath]

not really worried about having a wife or child.. but a job, thats becoming important.

i'm only 22.. so a little worried about the future. will be done with college soon with asian studies and philosophy and have no idea what to do after. i can't just go live in the forest, i need some sort of job that pays me. i can't just be a waiter and live in a studio apartment. i'm thinking of learning to program python to possibly get into web development... so i'm trying to tackle this issue of desire. without desire i wouldn't care about money and what would happen to me? so i don't know.. but there's no I to know.. fuck. all this spiritual stuff is making it hard to function in this day and age. i envy the ancient taoist masters and hindu yogis

 

there IS an "I" to know. this world is here, too. you write as if you've been wrestling with deep spiritual concepts. but it's NOT a concept. it's SO much simpler and closer to you than that.

 

try to believe that you cannot do wrong. just try it. and choose happiness.

[宁]

there IS an "I" to know. this world is here, too. you write as if you've been wrestling with deep spiritual concepts. but it's NOT a concept. it's SO much simpler and closer to you than that.

 

try to believe that you cannot do wrong. just try it. and choose happiness.

 

 

yes!

[宁]

Not really related to this thread but here's someone selling his life on the internet: here and here.

 

 

 

90% of the people i know would do the same, so the guy is the bravest, because he did it, not just spoke of it

 

...which makes us ponder, doesnt it...

 

if this is the really tough part, really hard to master, then why are we all chasing for spirits up in the air

 

i think it's exactly because of that: spiritual adventures that help you run away from the real world, searching for a Reality that no one knows for real how it looks like

 

by all means, go ahead, and count me out

Edited June 25, 2008 by Little1

[CosmoGeek]

I'm a man who's been married for over a decade and has three kids. Here are some thoughts:

 

* Marriage is a tough son-of-a-bitch and isn't for wussies!

 

* Family life severely limits your freedom, money and time.

 

* Family life forces you to grow up and develop yourself just for the sake of survival.

 

* If you don't grow up in time, you end up in divorce land like the other wussies.

 

* Marriage teaches you that love is more than just being horny.

 

* Having kids teaches you what unconditional love is all about.

 

* Your children are a guide to self-knowledge. Each one carries a random assortment of 50% of your genetic code. With two kids, 75% of your genetic code is represented among your offspring, 87.5 % with three, etc. Each child is a mirror that tells you something about the nature/nurture aspects of your personality.

 

* Your children teach you at least as much as you teach them, on many levels.

 

* I can't think of anything that builds character more than being a family man.

 

* A baby coming out of a vagina is the most amazing magic trick you will ever see.

[passenger1980]

I'm a man who's been married for over a decade and has three kids. Here are some thoughts:

 

* Marriage is a tough son-of-a-bitch and isn't for wussies!

 

* Family life severely limits your freedom, money and time.

 

* Family life forces you to grow up and develop yourself just for the sake of survival.

 

* If you don't grow up in time, you end up in divorce land like the other wussies.

 

* Marriage teaches you that love is more than just being horny.

 

* Having kids teaches you what unconditional love is all about.

 

* Your children are a guide to self-knowledge. Each one carries a random assortment of 50% of your genetic code. With two kids, 75% of your genetic code is represented among your offspring, 87.5 % with three, etc. Each child is a mirror that tells you something about the nature/nurture aspects of your personality.

 

* Your children teach you at least as much as you teach them, on many levels.

 

* I can't think of anything that builds character more than being a family man.

 

* A baby coming out of a vagina is the most amazing magic trick you will ever see.

 

Hahaha, that was awesome!

[Taomeow]

I'm a man who's been married for over a decade and has three kids. Here are some thoughts:

 

* Marriage is a tough son-of-a-bitch and isn't for wussies!

 

* Family life severely limits your freedom, money and time.

 

* Family life forces you to grow up and develop yourself just for the sake of survival.

 

* If you don't grow up in time, you end up in divorce land like the other wussies.

 

* Marriage teaches you that love is more than just being horny.

 

* Having kids teaches you what unconditional love is all about.

 

* Your children are a guide to self-knowledge. Each one carries a random assortment of 50% of your genetic code. With two kids, 75% of your genetic code is represented among your offspring, 87.5 % with three, etc. Each child is a mirror that tells you something about the nature/nurture aspects of your personality.

 

* Your children teach you at least as much as you teach them, on many levels.

 

* I can't think of anything that builds character more than being a family man.

 

* A baby coming out of a vagina is the most amazing magic trick you will ever see.

I think your wife and kids are lucky! -- and making sure wife and kids are fine means your kids' wives and husbands and kids stand a better chance of being fine, and the impact of what you do as a family man or woman keeps spreading wider and wider... And that's a daily 24/7 "practice," the don-t-let-them-down practice that can't be matched by any other in its efficiency for self and its impact on humanity.

 

Only one objection -- that's cultural, not personal. Watching a baby coming out has been taboo for men in all cultures since the dawn of time and till it was introduced here-now for reasons I don't want to go into so as not to start swearing. All healthy animals hide in a dark, quiet place in order to give birth. We the domesticated ones don't know better because we ourselves weren't born the right way.

 

The doctor who delivered my twins was a woman, but she was the wrong kind -- screaming, pushy, bossy, noisy, meddling... all kinds of wrong. And she didn't let me squat, which is something my body was begging me to do. Well, at least there were no drugs of any kind, epidurals, all that deadening horror. It was, of course, extremely painful, but the beauty of feeling it instead of not feeling it is, once it's over, it's gone -- only an hour later, I could retrieve no memory of the pain, it was nowhere in me anymore, even though I went through it fully conscious. "Felt" means processed, processed means released. "Not felt" means unprocessed, unprocessed means stuck. Anyway... Giving a natural birth to my son and daughter changed me on the spot into someone whom I instantly found way, way more interesting than who I was before. I've done many practices since, but nothing has ever come close.

 

I don't think the numbed-out women hooked to IVs quite know what the process is about. I mean, they do get the child at the other end of the unfeeling ordeal, but they don't get to learn much about their bodies, their bodyminds, or any of the things that a woman can't really learn any other way. No practice is as closely monitored by tao herself, as guided by her, as embraced by her as this one. This takes you right where tao's at, causes you to merge with her and know her mind.

[xenolith]

This takes you right where tao's at, causes you to merge with her and know her mind.

S'pec so. Bloom out = bloom in. Most insightful post from the femalia far as I know. Muchas gracias hermana.

[hagar]

not really worried about having a wife or child.. but a job, thats becoming important.

i'm only 22.. so a little worried about the future. will be done with college soon with asian studies and philosophy and have no idea what to do after. i can't just go live in the forest, i need some sort of job that pays me. i can't just be a waiter and live in a studio apartment. i'm thinking of learning to program python to possibly get into web development... so i'm trying to tackle this issue of desire. without desire i wouldn't care about money and what would happen to me? so i don't know.. but there's no I to know.. fuck. all this spiritual stuff is making it hard to function in this day and age. i envy the ancient taoist masters and hindu yogis

 

I rolled around in these issues for years myself. There is nothing as irritating as wisdom in hinsight, or monday night quarterbacks, but choices are never "good choices" before you test them. There is never a sure thing, or a safe spot prior to running the risk of making a bad call. It's after you've made the plunge, chosen an education, a job, a spouse, a path that the certainty comes.

 

You really cannot go wrong. Only don't try to figure it all out or safeguard yourself against mistakes. Be brave.

It's actually a very good spiritual practice; life, that is...

 

h

[hagar]

I think your wife and kids are lucky! -- and making sure wife and kids are fine means your kids' wives and husbands and kids stand a better chance of being fine, and the impact of what you do as a family man or woman keeps spreading wider and wider... And that's a daily 24/7 "practice," the don-t-let-them-down practice that can't be matched by any other in its efficiency for self and its impact on humanity.

 

Only one objection -- that's cultural, not personal. Watching a baby coming out has been taboo for men in all cultures since the dawn of time and till it was introduced here-now for reasons I don't want to go into so as not to start swearing. All healthy animals hide in a dark, quiet place in order to give birth. We the domesticated ones don't know better because we ourselves weren't born the right way.

 

The doctor who delivered my twins was a woman, but she was the wrong kind -- screaming, pushy, bossy, noisy, meddling... all kinds of wrong. And she didn't let me squat, which is something my body was begging me to do. Well, at least there were no drugs of any kind, epidurals, all that deadening horror. It was, of course, extremely painful, but the beauty of feeling it instead of not feeling it is, once it's over, it's gone -- only an hour later, I could retrieve no memory of the pain, it was nowhere in me anymore, even though I went through it fully conscious. "Felt" means processed, processed means released. "Not felt" means unprocessed, unprocessed means stuck. Anyway... Giving a natural birth to my son and daughter changed me on the spot into someone whom I instantly found way, way more interesting than who I was before. I've done many practices since, but nothing has ever come close.

 

I don't think the numbed-out women hooked to IVs quite know what the process is about. I mean, they do get the child at the other end of the unfeeling ordeal, but they don't get to learn much about their bodies, their bodyminds, or any of the things that a woman can't really learn any other way. No practice is as closely monitored by tao herself, as guided by her, as embraced by her as this one. This takes you right where tao's at, causes you to merge with her and know her mind.

 

Wondeful post.

The birth of our son was kind of an ordeal, and eventhough we initally decided to make it a natural birth, after 8 hours in delivery, we chose epidural. It was not very pretty, and it almost made my girlfriend unable to go through with it. She has had trouble processing, as you said, the experience of birth, and she felt out of her body due to the drugs.

h