A few years ago I wrote about how it seemed that people had lost the ability to resolve a problem. This trend has gotten much worse from what I can observe. Here’s my question..
At what point does a person realize that what they are doing simply is not working and it’s not liable to begin working anytime soon, if ever? It seems people resist coming to this conclusion.
For example, another of their relationships fail. Too bad, so sad, and what do they do? They tee up a new partner, just like the old partner and they do with him or her what they did with the one before them and the one before that and my God! Is this not a broken record?
How come we don’t use that phrase anymore? “You sound like a broken record….” Does it hurt people? Is it too honest? Is it better to let your friends loved ones fail, endlessly? Is it polite? Does it make you feel better about your success? What?
I realize it’s pointless (and rude) to offer advice when it’s not been asked for but I am asking this in all seriousness. If you are failing and failing and failing, has it occurred to you that some drastic change is called for? That you might be completely deluded in your perceptions?
Er…Venus and Jupiter are conjunct my natal Uranus…this post is a result. But Saturn in Scorpio is squaring the whole mess so I’m deadly serious, asking this.
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
Venus and Jupiter are conjunct my natal Pluto. I’ve been watching that, and with Saturn, but not sure what to do. Sun and Mars are conjunct natal Uranus in Cancer – wouldn’t ya know The Big Issue happens to be the 4th house (although there are deeper issues, I’m sure, layers and layers of issue as you go deeper). I’d like to be hopeful (w/o rose colored glasses), because as goofy as it sounds, I do believe in believing. I need a consult!
Venus and Jupiter are in my twelfth right now and my ex-husband, a Leo sun and moon, is my greatest ally. He has been trying to teach me simple yet essential lessons since we met in 2004. Patience. Self-reliance. Empowerment. He has given me unconditional love and friendship for over ten years. I’m fortunate. And I am still trying to come into my power and be truly independent. I’m supposed to be single right now. No doubt in my mind.
Elsa, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I’m pretty sure the reason we don’t hear the expression “You sound like a broken record” anymore is because these days, not too many people play (or even own) records (LPs). Only us older folks use that expression and I often have to stop myself because I realize that if you’ve never owned a an LP and a turntable, you would not even know what a broken record WAS, much less know what it sounded like!
Ha ha! True. But we don’t hear the equivalent, either. Our culture watches people fail again and again in the same way they always do and we respond (collectively) with expressions of compassion that can’t possibly be real, the 10th, 12th, 40th, time.
I think the digital equivalent to “you sound like a broken record” might be, “You’re caught in a failure loop.”
Ha ha. You’d think people would get bored.
This goes for people looking for the same job, the same way in the same place…for literally years! I don’t it. I just absolutely do not get it.
Maybe the problem isn’t that they can’t resolve their problem but that alternatives aren’t better than the existing problem. For instance, you might hate your job and wish you had different kind of work but that different kind of work is not in demand, not hiring, or not making enough money to pay even basic bills. So you go right on back to the same type of work you hated before because, at the very least, it paid your bills. With the way our economic system is setup options are few. Small businesses are more likely to fail in today’s climate due to corporate competitors. You might be an established astrologer but astrologers new to the game will probably have a hard time paying their bills struggling to establish reputation with a customer base. From personal experience, I’ve noticed employers tend to shuffle me into positions related to my past jobs (even though I’ve hated them) instead of paying attention to where I’ve stated I want to end up working. It’s pretty universal among employers to screen applicants based on past experience. That’s why it ends up being same job, same way, same place. Employers choose you that way. What’s the alternative when you’re not in a position to open your own business and employers aren’t interested in paying to train you in something you have no experience with? Same job, same way, same places.
“Er…” Hum… Oddly, the above post dovetails a conversation this evening with a friend. She cards for they f enough, to overcome her Virgo-evolved reluctance to say what she said.
Thank you, for also daring, to saying things that risk shocking some folks. 🙂
(autocorrect, and “short break” suddenly even shorter)
The Virgo friend “cares for me enough to…” :s
In my experience, spirituality can help a person change their perception/patterns…I also feel like being open-minded helps. Some people don’t want to look at their issues as theirs; they want to point the finger all the time. I for one, wish to work on my own issues so I don’t repeatedly make the same mistakes over and over. I’m aware of my issues, and know exactly where they come from. For instance, I tend to choose dominating and controlling men as partners and later wonder why I feel so oppressed. If I chose to leave my marriage, I think the key for me not to continue this pattern, and to feel like I have an equal instead of a dictator, is to become completely independant before even thinking about entering into another relationship. To find out what it is I love to do and establish who I am first. I never had a chance to do this since I haven’t been not in a commited relationship for more than a year since I was 16 years old…and I’m 32 now. I think it’s possible for a person to change patterns, but it takes a certain level of awareness…it takes a lot of inner work to be able to do this successfully. We all have negative patterns we tend to fall into, and if we dont have awareness of them, or we refuse to do the inner work to conquer them, they tend to repeat themselves over and over.
yup- thats exactly what I did at 32- divorced and fought my way to independance before true love. It works. Its true. and its the real spiritualy deal. I deeply recomand. good luck and love PIseas314!!!
I don’t know that it’s action that’s required so much as understanding. If you examine the pattern and reach an understanding of what’s causing it then things will change. I don’t think it occurs to a lot of people to look in that direction though – they think if they change their circumstances their luck will change, not realising it’s what’s inside that creates the circumstances they continually find themselves in. Yeah, broken records. Time to score a new groove 🙂
Venus and Jupiter are in my 12th now, heading toward my tightly packed (4 degrees apart) Pluto, Sun and Mars. I am assessing lots of “this didn’t work after three tries, now move on” sorts of things with regard to family and work issues.
It’s interesting as I have been seeing a three-year-long blackout curtain open (Virgo Sun, is Jupiter peeking in already?) and new ideas for change, or shifts, are clearly glow on the horizon.
LOL, I was ranting about this a few weeks ago, having become convinced that a large number of people do not really want to solve their problems. I am a person who cuts to the chase pretty quickly, and I was suddently noticing that people would literally keep on talking after I said something that cut to the chase. It was as if they couldn’t or wouldn’t hear me… they just kept narcissistically wandering–both mentally and verbally–through their own hall of mirrors. A friend of mine informed me there is such a thing as an “askhole.” It’s a known thing, apparently.
Yep. They do not want to solve their problems. End of story.
I got a fortune cookie once. It floored me. This was 15 years ago but I think about it daily.
“How do your problems serve you?”
Whoa.
Yep. So, now when I see a friend struggling, I offer a clear perspective, often pointing out how they’re spinning, even trying to help talk out the payoff. But I know it’s mostly pointless. If they want to solve the problem they will, pretty quickly. Usually they don’t, and that problem is allowing them access to an experience they need on a deeper level. I respect that. I know the roots of my illness run very deep, and that it has taught me crucial lessons in dealing with vulnerability and pacing instead of shunning it. So I do it too. Doesn’t mean it’s easy not to. But yeah, I know the problem isn’t likely to be solved until its usefulness is completed. So I lend a sympathetic ear, but don’t try too hard after the third or fourth time. I am not under the mistaken impression that being supportive is the same as enabling, and I definitely draw the line at enabling because I feel manipulated by their self delusion if I go along with it, and frankly it doesn’t ever help. I call it out with compassion and patience. That seems to work best for me.
After overthinking for way to long, I made a choice and it turned out lousy. I had several opportunities to sort of undo it, but in each case I vacillated, still considering ways to make the poor choice work. I think it’s because I don’t like to be wrong, don’t like to be defeated, so I couldn’t take the way out until I was absolutely sure it was necessary. Pride, hubris, ego.
Better to not be enslaved to a poor choice.
In a relationship, only being self-sufficient financially and emotionally can prevent caving to a controlling partner due to fear of losing the support. When you’re fine on your own to begin with, you’re in the driver’s seat; that scenario simply can’t develop.
I am watching my ex do this very thing. He has hooked up with another me, and I was just like the one before, but more tenacious and fertile 😉 I am changing my pattern and plan on being on my own until I figure some things out. One reason I think this happens is the response. Most of his friends are supportive of this new relationship even though they were both married, it has cost them their jobs (he was her boss) and they chose to spend all time with each other and none with their respective children. I feel like Alice in Wonderland in the Red Queen’s garden. . .does no one see this trainwreck?! But they all want to be “happy” and it would take work to fix things and that just doesn’t happen in our instant gratification, you can have anything you want kind of world!
Not that I’m perfect, I am not, but at least I have vowed to chose more wisely if I ever decide to date or get married again. Done with my series of man-children.
This is a great subject, that just baffles the mind,it’s everywhere, it’s called “spinning” and do anything to avoid yourself ( thinking, alone time, actual issues)
Oh yeah there’s lots of I guess “women child” to , I don’t know which is worse, I say equal in annoyance and stupidity.
I am soooo focused on problem-solving, I just can’t understand it. I like to resolve things…graduate, on to the next lesson / level / task / whatever. Anything but “spin” as you say.
Which is another old saying – “Sit and spin on it…”
This implies the person saying it is moving on!! 🙂
I try to put to use in life my favorite Einstein quote:
” You can’t solve a problem with the tools that created the problem”
That said- I also try to find conpassison for others and mine reacuring problems in the understanding that it is a process – which sometimes means that some problems make you climb the steps to solving them step by step….
***sponsered by my aries saturn in 1st house 🙂
That’s an excellent question, Elsa!
If it works, I do it. If it doesn’t, I move on.
Maybe some people are emotionally invested in the dramas they create, therefore they repeat the same patterns over and over. If you change your thinking, your life changes. ‘Free your mind and the rest will follow’, as the song goes.
Yeah, Venus and Jupiter are on my Uranus also, with a lovely fat trine from transiting Uranus in my 9th.
Oh man! This post is definitely about me. All of my life has been a Uranian ride. I have never lived in one place longer than four years my entire life. If it hasn’t been other things causing a move, for instance, the local highway bought out the home I was in on one occasion and the others have been due to weird things and might I add that the strangest things happen around me all the time. Anyone in my sphere gets affected by my weirdness too. My husband and I started out nearly 18 years ago having a home and a lot of things, we had good jobs at the time and then suddenly poof something went wrong and after that, we have thrown most of our things away and have been moving from place to place since. Even out of state and back. And I can always tell when a new move is about to happen; I get the urgent feeling that I need to run anywhere but where I am. Yes, the patterns are with me, but I really have no clue as to how to stop it. I have come to believe that I will never have a permanent home. So, I told my husband that when I die, I want to be cremated and thrown to the wind.
I think of growth as an upward spiral. Sometimes you come back to the same place but with a higher perspective. I don’t know that it’s so linear. The growth might not be obvious sometimes. Just another perspective. Don’t know if that’s what you’re talking about.
In relationships, some people are acting out a scenario they witnessed as children between their parents, trying to “make it right” with a happier ending, over and over.
Sometimes a goal seems worthwhile only if there are huge obstacles to overcome.
And some find what they want, but feel unworthy, or that it’s a mirage, or self-indulgent, or fear it will be snatched away, so don’t trust enough to take the leap.