Projection

I spent some time with some friends at a funfair. Two of them managed to see nine fortune-tellers between them. Palm readers, tarot card readers and looking into a crystal ball. They kept going until they found the future that suited them.

The person in debt looks for answers in some distant future, without addressing their miserable present.

This way of being, of living, is a common symptom of those who keep taking on debt. Manipulating the future for better or worse until it suits, without ever looking at the present. The present is so awful, with so little hope, that we focus on the future.

Or, our ability to project is so strong, that we get offered something or someone suggests something and before we know it, we have lost the job that has only been suggested, fallen out with the mate who wants us to work with them, and the career is going to be pointless in the end anyway. People with a history of debt have the most amazing way of using their mind to destroy any future that the rest of the world accepts as normal.

I found everything I did such a struggle and worked so hard pulling in the wrong direction that I was totally exhausted. This confirmed that all work was a nightmare and so investing in it was pointless. I jumped from project to project, failing to claim expenses, failing to plan my next move and keep in touch with those I had already worked with. If I had been asked why I was no longer in touch with someone who could give me work I presented political differences or some personal slight. I could not see that I was setting myself up by cutting off all potential futures.

I felt I was throwing myself at a concrete wall of a future and the only thing for it was to throw myself at it harder. It's what we're told to do: “if you try and try and try again, you will eventually succeed." “If you really want something then you will succeed.” Well in my experience that is total tosh.

I needed to stop trying to succeed. I needed to stop digging a hole. One day. That was what I had to train myself to see my future as, no more and no less

So if in a day, all I did was open my post, tidy up, have a shower and make two real phone calls around earning money, then that was enough. If I felt the need to apply for a Masters degree, leave the country or suddenly get married, it meant I was projecting.

A friend suggested I started reciting some affirmations every time my thoughts turned to projecting anything, whether good or bad. Many people swear by this. I have no idea if it helped but I did it anyway: it stopped me jumping into a projection, where I would get caught up and miss out on the present. Projection is just escaping reality.