Hi @Emp,
Thank you for this timely reminder @Vineeto. I probably mistranslated “appreciate” to a more anaemic word in my mind and then proceeded to run with it for a good 15 years. link
You very likely did – something like ‘noticing in a positive way’. Never mind that you used the anaemic meaning for 15 years – it’s always great to start afresh with a new insight and enjoy that it works.
To emphasize how significant the word “appreciate”/ “appreciation” is, to everyone who had similar misconceptions about it, let me start by saying that it appears five times in the running banners of “This Moment of Being Alive” – the very article that has the succinct instructions how to become free from the human condition –
“Consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is the actualism method.”
“The means to the end – an ongoing enjoyment and appreciation – are no different to the end.”
“Enjoyment and appreciation are facilitated by feeling as happy and as harmless as possible.”
“A slightest diminishment of enjoyment and appreciation automatically activates attentiveness.”
“Attentiveness to the cause of diminished enjoyment and appreciation restores felicity/innocuity.”
“Consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is what the actualism method is.”
Appreciation is the most potent aspect of the actualism method because as I said before – it “is the very key to exponentially increase the level of your enjoyment, expand it in scope and depth” […] to the point of excellence being the norm. It is the key to upgrade your “hedonic adaptation set-point" from feeling grumpy, to feeling neutral, to feeling good and to feeling excellent as the new set-point to fall back upon, so that even when ‘you’ come back from a PCE you no longer fall back to feeling bad/neutral, but you ‘fall back’ to feeling good/excellent. Consistently appreciating the world and people and events around you can and will enable you to reset your genetically/socially inherited hedonic set-point.
It took me until about a month ago to realize that it’s anything but anaemic. It’s funny how this understanding has leaked through lately even though I’ve been bad at actively engaging it (down to getting comments about how positive I am, which is as close to a personality transplant as you’d get).
It seems to have already worked marvellous for you, Emp – “a personality transplant” is no small thing to bring about. Now when you do it more actively and consciously, perhaps even as a deliberate decision and commitment to feel good/excellent for the rest of your life, it will be even more of a palpable “personality transplant” beyond recognition of the old Emp.
And it is such fun!
Cheers Vineeto