1. It's not all about me.
Each of us has to grow up our own way at our own pace. When we regain our balance we can be of help to other people. Life doesn't even begin until we learn to be of help. Then, it becomes a skillset of "how" each individual we try to help CAN be helped.
2. Leaving the JW's creates extreme unbalance which has to be restored.
Jehovah's Witnesses walk a tightrope. Inside that cult things make a certain kind of ironclad "sense." When you unplug from it--you lose your mental and emotional balance! Just finding out it isn't the be-all and end-all "Truth" isn't enough. The roots go so deep it can take a lifetime to sort out. What does it mean to be a balanced person, anyway? That's task Numero Uno!
3. Knowing religious "information" means almost absolutely NOTHING. How you treat people means almost EVERYTHING.
JW's think "accurate knowledge" is an excuse for lip-service kinds of love. But, it is an awfully empty and cold substitute. Once you leave the Kingdom Hall for good, you must adjust. Kindness to others, charity, and a helpful attitude are very hard for JW's to develop. DOING GOOD beats "knowing Truth" by a mile.
4. Angry people, negative attitudes= trouble for everybody.
A therapist once told me something which really turned me around. "When you catch yourself saying something negative; immediately say three positive things!" What happens then? You find yourself struggling to find 3 positive things because you are in a different place inside your own head.
But, climbing out of that pit, and reaching the positive location lets in the light. IT DOES CHANGE HOW YOU FEEL.
5. Find people who know more than you and listen to them. Copy good habits in others. Stop bothering with what's wrong with others, and concentrate on really effective people and HOW they do what they do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks-_Mh1QhMc
6. Intellectual honesty means you are WILLING to be WRONG if facts and evidence go against your cherished beliefs and opinions.
We all know people who think they are right. But, that's US too! Avoid confirmation bias by becoming humble enough to accept all the little (and not so little) errors we commit. Acknowledge when you are wrong. Say it out loud: I WAS WRONG. Now, the hard part--change your mind!
7. The things you think you know are usually the things you never really think about again.
Have you ever arrived home and suddenly realized you don't remember the trip? You were deep in thought and the driving was AUTOMATIC.
We all develop habits. Those habits become ingrained. We just KNOW how to ride a bike. We just know how to drive home. This can be dangerous in many ways. Why? We can't afford to STOP THINKING . . . not ever. Our most deeply accepted "truths" may have frayed edges. Only if we actively investigate our own "givens" can we have reason for confidence. Be open to seeing things with fresh eyes.
8. STOP SEEKING APPROVAL
Discussion Boards can be a crutch when we first leave a cult religion behind us. We are soooooo accustomed to everybody thinking the same way. We are soooooo comfortable allowing the "other" to tell us what is "good" and bad. How will we learn to live our own life if we don't think our own thoughts?
Stop asking for advice. Making important decisions about your own life is YOUR OWN job. Start with what you value most. What DO you value and why?
That is your standard for making decisions: achieving the closest you can get to your ideal values. The rest is silly opinion.
9. A lot of what we think is EVIL is really laziness and stupidity.
When I was in prison all those years ago, I met a great many different kinds of "bad guys". Only one or two were EVIL. Evil people cannot empathize.
They feel only their own pain. They have sympathy for none but themselves. Being a sociopath or psychopath is about 3 out of 100 people's natural temperament and mindset. What does this mean? The other 97% do bad things mostly because they are so fucking stupid or lazy!!
Developing lazy habits makes you stop trying to be better or do better.
Never testing what you think is true leads you to never notice when you are wrong. If you don't notice it is you who is wrong you are likely to BLAME OTHERS when things go wrong.
I never met a criminal in prison who thought he was at fault! Not one!
10. The most dangerous person in the world is one who makes excuses!
When I say "dangerous" I don't just mean physically threatening. I mean: likely to cause trouble for themselves and others.
People who don't examine their own shortcomings, wrong opinions, ignorance and bad habits CANNOT IMPROVE. They won't look for a better solution to a problem they keep having over and over.
Take the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses, for instance.
They refuse to face the fact they have always been wrong about predicting Armageddon. Instead, they make childish and insincere excuses for themselves. They won't say: WE WERE WRONG when they can be moral cowards and say: We have, at times, made adjustments.
Without humility, you become a danger to yourself and others. In time, you become a force of destruction.
11. Unless you find ways to help people, you will confuse the "desire" to help others with actual help.
I was riding with a friend of mine in his car when we saw a homeless guy lying on the sidewalk next to a bus stop. I said out loud, "That's terrible,
I hope he's not dead." My friend stopped the car and ran over to the man and helped him up. We ended up driving the man (who smelled awful) in my friend's car to the emergency room of the local hospital. My friend insisted we stay until we knew the homeless guy was okay.
Now, why do I tell you this.
Here is why.
I had just been released from two years in prison as a gung-ho super-Christian Jehovah's Witness.
My friend was not a JW. He was a plain vanilla Christian.
He and I both thought the thought: "How awful."
But, the difference between him and myself was a world apart!
It would NEVER have occurred to me as a JW to actually DO ANYTHING for that man!
He shamed me. He actually actively MADE A DIFFERENCE while I was patting myself on the back for "thinking" charitable thoughts.
That incident made a deep impression on my which lasts until this day.
In my JW mind, I confused feeling pity with "Christian love" on my part.
Once I saw how empty and meaningless my "love" was---it was like cold water thrown in my face.
We really must learn the difference. It has taken me a lifetime to become a giving person who will take any kind of step toward
reaching out. It came slow and hard. I was a hollow Christian from my years in the Kingdom Hall.
If we try every day to do at least one little ACTUAL HELPFUL THING our awareness will grow.
It is deeply, movingly satisfying to help another person . . . once you get the hang of it!
12. The busiest, most important person in the world has the same number of hours in the day as the least effective person does.
How we choose to spend our time is really what our life IS.
What did we learn today we didn't know yesterday?
How many times did we discover we were wrong? Learning you are wrong is WONDERFUL! Why? Because you can fix that and change.
But, if you are only "right" you don't grow.
Being effective in our use of 24 hours to our day is the difference between a good life well-lived, and an empty life wasted.
Busy, important, successful people use their time to improve little by little.
If we aren't improving . . . what do you think is really happening?
13. Even the smartest person still believes really stupid things!
No matter how well educated you are, there is something you hold dear and true which is a totally bogus lump of crap!
Superstition?
Astrology?
Politics?
Religion?
Medical or health quackery?
Urban legends?
How can you discover what your CRAZY beliefs are in order to change them/
Try visiting websites created for the purpose of exposing these phony beliefs.
http://whatculture.com/offbeat/35-false-facts-wrongly-believe-1.php