Surprise, Cult Leader Steve Pavlina is going to divorce his wife. I tell you it's just shocking! Utterly shocking that the guy who would come out and publicly announce that he will be cheating on his wife isn't going to stay married to her. He insisted that she was okay with it, including a mind numbing podcast on the issue of polyamory where HE said how she was just fine with the arrangement, and SHE would say Uh huh.
Who ever would have guessed that his marital strategy wasn't really going to work? Hmm, it's almost as if sex changes things. Steve rejected the notion that there was anything wrong with sleeping with women other than your wife, even though many told him it wasn't going to work. I figured that Erin was okay with the deal under the assumption that she must have a low sense of self worth, but I guess she values herself more than I had given her credit for. Good for her.
Steve Pavlina is a person that has some good fundamental ideas, but they are all tainted by two things. One is that he has a very poor ability to express his ideas. The other is that his only strategy is to move towards pleasure.
Moving towards pleasure is great, but having that as your ONLY strategy is very self limiting. Steve even recently wrote a series of articles about encouraging people to quit their day jobs under the premise that it's a waste of your life to do something day in and day out that you hate. I agree with that, but a better strategy is to find ways to enjoy things instead of making them unpleasant.
It's funny how it occurred to me that his polyamory announcement was entirely predictable considering his inflexibility towards making things simply be enjoyable, rather than limiting himself to only moving towards pleasure.
Here's what I mean. If you hate going to work everyday, you could quit your job and do what you love, as Steve suggests, OR... You could learn to enjoy life regardless of what you are doing. This is what I like to do with my life. I used to hate my job, but now I wake up and think, "Awesome! I'm in great health and I get to go to work and contribute to society. I wonder what will happen today that will make me laugh so hard it makes tears come out my eyes." It's the same job. I've been there 9 years. Smae job, different attitude.
By loving what you do, regardless of what that is, it gives you much more flexibility in what you are capable of doing. You are not limited to only doing things that seem fun. You can take anything and MAKE it fun.
Think about that. That means you don't have to avoid doing your taxes, or inviting with Uncle Bert for Christmas dinner. You can do those things and know that you can find a way to make it enjoyable. It's still good to aim for doing those things you love, but you're not limited by doing ONLY those things.
By Steve's philosophy, if it seems like it would feel good to sleep with a woman that is not your wife, then you have to do that, because that is moving towards pleasure. My attitude is to spend as much time as you can thinking about how wonderful your wife is and why you married her. If you compare her weakenesses ot another woman's strengths, then you're not going to feel good about her, but if you compare her strengths to another woman's weaknesses, then it is a big win for the wife.
My wife has an amazing ability to create perfect moments. We went on vacation and she insisted on going to this one restaurant that was a 45 minute drive to get to. We got there, and it happened to be the one night of the year that they had this local celebration. The moon rose over the lake, and it was big, orange and full, reflecting off the lake. The food was great, and it was a magical moment to remember. It was amazing. You can't plan that sort of thing.
And I sure as hell would never risk that for a fling with a younger girl. Fuck no. Never.
She'd probably be some horrible had that makes everything miserable and tedious. Oh, yay. But shed be temporarily more physically attractive. Screw that.
Magical memories, or quick fling. It's no contest. My wife wins every time. As a result, I continue to fall even MORE in love with her as time goes by.
You see, but I chose to do that. I made a choice to make the most of what my life IS, then move forward, rather than take Steve's approach and ditch anything that is mildly unpleasant, I make it be the best that I can make it, and then I make it better and better until it evolves into something even greater.
Instead of wishing for the perfect woman and leaving people in my wake, like Steve does, I made a choice to realize that my wife IS the perfect woman, flaws and all.
This sort of mentality simply doesn't occur to Steve. I'm not the least bit surprised he and Erin are going their separate ways.
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Shocked we are not.
ReplyDeletewow!
ReplyDeletelet's hope steve reads this so he can get it right next time, eh? eh?
j
How spiteful a blog you have. You really spend your time beating down people for living their life the way they want to? What'd he do to you for you to be so nasty and uptight?
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you stop verbally bashing other people and start a fresh new blog full of your own original advice? Oh wait... that's why you're projecting, huh. Silly me.
Give my own advice? You mean like what I did from the entire third paragraph on? What exactly am I "projecting?" That is the type of "declare people who disagree with me as having a mental illness" that I expect from a Pavlinite.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that IF you had read the post, you would see that I used Steve Pavlina's divorce as an example to give my own thoughts on how to improve a marriage. As for my distaste for Steve as a human, he did not do anything to me, however, many people look up to him as a role model, and I personally think that Steve Pavlina SUCKS as a role model.
ReplyDeleteThat is the only real gripe I have with him, and it's not even so much with him as it is with his dogmatic followers for whom he can do no wrong. Doesn't it occur to any of you to pick a better inspirational leader? Perhaps one that knows that when you are no longer interested with your wife, you divorce her FIRST, THEN intend to sleep with other women. I have nothing against divorce. My parents are divorced, my brother is divorced, my wife is twice divorced before meeting me, and my relationship before her was a divorced woman. Sometimes it is the right thing to do. In Steve's case, it's the right thing to do, in the wrong order of priority.
I also think that the biggest key to a successful relationship is to focus on what you love about each other, and forget about the pointless crap that couples make imaginary problems over. Why do so many people think marriages that last are a fairy tale. Steve likes to say how people with a traditional view of marriage are just "socially conditioned" but I find it far easier to find people that think successful marriages are a fairy tale, so I suggest that is the socially conditioned view.
The purpose of marriage is to literally take two individuals and have them become one spirit. That is what sex is. It's a literal physical and spiritual union of two bodies into one spirit. Sometimes it even results in the creation of a new physical being that is the union of two bodies and spirits into one new unique individual. Usually they are referred to as children.
THIS is what marriage is about. It's not about cheap flings, and it's not about arguments over who left the milk out of the refrigerator. That's all just stupid. It's about becoming ONE, and the more you focus on THAT aspect of your relationship, the better it will get.
Socially conditioned people think that marriage is the end and it's all downhill from there. I plan to be more in love with my wife in 30 years than I can even imagine today. By that time, we will share so many parts of our lives that the only thing separating us from being one magnificent person will be that we will each have our own separate bodies.
Tell me how that is anything BUT the most romantic notion you have ever read.
That's the key to a good relationship, and I doubt that Steve Pavlina will ever understand that idea. He's to busy becoming one with people that aren't his wife.
Comprende?
To some extent I agree with quite a bit of this, but I find the fact that this entire blog was created out of hate for a single man...disturbing and childish.
ReplyDeleteLet him be. Let Erin be. You're the one who comes off looking bad by attacking someone who shouldn't even be relevant to you.
Alex, do you find it "disturbing and childish" that I would be concerned for the well being of Steve Pavlina's followers? Of course, that's not how you phrased it because you're looking at things through the wrong lens. I don't give a shit about Steve Pavlina or his wife. I don't care what they do.
ReplyDeleteI do care, however, about the thousands of people that blindly cling to everything he says without considering whether it's actually even good advice.
The entire blog was not created "out of hate for a single man." It was created out of concern for his many followers.
Additionally, while many of you have one or two blogs that you meticulously fawn over on a daily basis, I have about 2 dozen website, out of which, this one is very near the bottom on my priority list.
I'm far from obsessive about Steve, and have not read anything he's written since the time this post was written, mostly because I have my own life to live. I haven't much got the time to devote to his 10,000 words of how stupid everyone who disagrees with him is.
From time to time I check in, because it really is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. So, it's simultaneously captivating, and gruesome. I can really only take so much, then it's back to living my own life.
You're free to think whatever you want of me. To the extent that one can actually form an opinion about an anonymous blogger on the Internet. I have twenty other sites to work on, so I don't really care.
Have fun.
Haha. I just counted. There are SIX posts to this blog in TEN months. TWO of which don't even have anything to do with Steve. That means (do the math) in TEN months - nearly a full year - I've devoted a whopping FOUR posts to Steve Pavlina. Meanwhile on my other sites, I have written a few HUNDRED posts.
ReplyDeleteWow! I really am just pathologically obsessed with Steve Pavlina, huh?
Enjoying your life as it is will not bring you far in most cases. We already have to accept our limits, why should we accept limits given to us by circustamces? It's way better to understand when you have choice, and that you can build the courage to switch.
ReplyDeleteCheers.
Are you sure you made those career choices, or are you just sucumbing to fear?
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I don't give a crap about Steve Pavlina, though I really liked some of his articles (most are crap, but some gives you insightful things, like: about productivity, fears, and NORMAL things everyone would like to read) but let's see it this way, if you had a little bit of "self-development stuff" in your brain, you wouldn't have created this page, and you would accept Pavlina how he is, and not give a fuck about him. You were a good, succesful, high self steem person, you are most likely to not having this site. (sorry my english, but you get the idea)
ReplyDeleteBesides, the idea of Lucid Dreaming is not total crap as you mentioned. I am a musician, so it's very important to have fantasies, dreams, creativity, and magical stuff in my life. well that's all what I think
I haven't read anything else in your blog (mind you :) but I completely agree with some of your points: the moment I read the post about polyamory I thought: "he is lying to us". And since then, his blog lost a lot of his "touch", for me at least.
ReplyDeleteMaybe just a subconscient thing, but he doesn't sound that convincing now.
Owner of Personal Development for Dummies, are you ever going to make new posts?
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see your other sites.