Sit With It: A New Paradigm for Living - Xavier Vazquez

Partial Excerpts (antilibrary)

Book Description The relentless pursuit of happiness is causing us harm. We are obsessed with happiness seeking and consumed by constant avoidance of discomfort. This makes life seem meaningless and dull.

Asking one simple question can disrupt this Status Quo: What do I feel when I sit quietly without distractions? (meditation)

The reader is asked to put its message to the test. Is it possible to gain freedom from the Status Quo?

2020

The Message

This book presents a new paradigm for relating to the people, objects, and situations in our lives

The inspiration for this text came from an unexpected encounter outside of a Starbucks in May 2015

This book is for those of us who feel that there must be more to life than the drudgery we face day-to-day. It seems that we are never quite satisfied with our circumstances. This message is for anyone who is curious to explore what lies just beneath the surface of our everyday lives. The Perspective Game

place your focus on your own personal subjective experience of being alive.

there seems to be no place left in society for the exploration of firsthand subjective experience. Many of us experience difficulty shifting from what I’ll call a 3rd Person Perspective (objectivity, worldly knowledge) to a 1st Person Perspective (subjectivity, firsthand experience). With this in mind, I anticipate that a reader may relate to this material in different ways:

3rd Person

2nd Person

In the 2nd Person, some of the content in this book will resonate with you, some will not

1st Person

You are one of the two players. The controller is in your hand and you are actively engaged

In the 1st Person, the message will resonate with you in a satisfying way.

Our Inheritance: Problems

Our Inheritance: The Big Questions & Solutions

The Trinity of Mind

Using subjective experience as a guide, I have observed that what I call “my mind” has three primary components

I call them The Trinity of Mind.

The Intellect

The Body

The Observer

The Status Quo

The Demand for Pleasure

The Categories

The Intellect fetches solutions from six broad categories

what follows is a surface level review of each category.

Attention: Family, Romantic/Sexual Partners, Co-Workers, Strangers, Pets

Status: Comparison Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, Societal Accomplishments, Material Wealth, Asceticism, Pride, Physical Attributes

Intoxicants: Food, Sexual Stimulation, Drugs

Emotional Coping: Pessimism, Cynicism, Anger, Retaliation, Complaining, Escapism, Self-Pity, Self-Harm, Grief

Distraction

Imaginary Time: Recalling Past Experiences (pleasurable and unpleasurable), Imagining Future Experiences (pleasurable and unpleasurable

No Problem, Only Solutions

Riding The Life Wave

The Thought-Storm

Slow Your Wave

Sit With It

In order to slow The Life Wave, we must cultivate a transformative habit: Sit quietly without distractions once a day, every day.

Moving Closer to Truth

By-Products

Living in the 1st Person

Your life becomes an artistic canvas.

Courage