Landmark

If you’ve never heard of Landmark Forums, well, neither had I until maybe sometime last year. Go ahead and Google/Wikipedia them. You’ll read the good, bad, and that they’re banned in some countries for being some kind of new agey cult thing. Yeah, freaked the crap outta me for a while there! Basically though, I think they’re just a business. They teach people personal development stuff and a lot of it is founded on psychological concepts which aren’t new, but they break it down for you (or sometimes they make up words and turn them into jargon which irritates the crap out of me “racket,” “technology?” wtf?! English!?). For example, last night, they talked about our inner voices that tell us we can’t do this or that. These limitations we put on ourselves could stifle us achieving our dreams if we aren’t cognizant. Sounds familiar? Self-fulfilling prophecy. Then they talked about something they term “already always listening” which is (if I’m even explaining it correctly) – we hear what we wanna hear. So for example, if I’d read about the cult thing and decided they were evil, everything they said to me from that point forward would sound like “drink Kool-Aid, drink it!!” And I would’ve gotten nothing out of it. But I tried not to do that, so I got some interesting tidbits from it. Like you shouldn’t limit yourself by labeling yourself. Or don’t get stuck in a path thinking it’s the only way to go and there’s either right or wrong. You can explore other options. Kinda’ like negotiations. You don’t have to compromise if you can get to the underlying motivations. When you hear it, it’s very intuitive. Almost common sense-like but at the same time, why didn’t I think of that!? Duh! Until someone points out that classic example fo splitting the orange in half as a compromise when in fact one person wanted the rind to cook with and the other wanted the fruit center to eat.

So then we took a break, and that’s when they want you to register for their class. If you don’t sign up, random strangers, dubbed “volunteers” will harass you. Why not? Do you want to open a realm of possibilities to your life? Are you satisfied with all aspects of your life? Would you want to have the skills to achieve more? What are your reservations? It’s like an infomercial gone Chuck Norris on you. Granted I’ve never attended a full on class but part of that mysteriousness gives me the heebie jeebies. And definitely the hovering and pressuring creeps me out. They have days where you can listen in on part of a class such as last night, but I just sense that they’re holding back on the juicy parts. Maybe if they offered the class on a take it now, and pay what you want after. Like a volunteer payment thing. Say I think I got $100 value out of it, I’ll slip a $50 into the donation box, I would go to satisfy my curiosity. As it were, I’ll just have to let my life be less than better-than-it-could-be I guess.

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