So second one of the week, I'm gonna get straight to it. People are stupid. I don't understand it. To a certain degree I can see the reason people are the way they are but I don't completely understand why it's so hard to see the things that I see and to learn the things I've learned. I mean they seem pretty basic to me. I don't know. One of the biggest things that gets me is people's constant need to be angry or show rage and aggression. Don't get it anymore, it's like people don't even think anymore. Are there moments where people just voluntarily shut off their brains? Do people want to be stupid? In a way, maybe they do. I can honestly say that sometimes I get to the point where I don't want to feel good. It's like, "Shut up, just let me be sad (or mad)" You know?
Unfortunately both feelings are highly destructive to everyone around you. Emotions are contagious, and if you have children they're even more dangerous, because children can pick up the emotions you show, if you're an angry person most of the time then they will learn to fear you or they will learn to be aggressive as a way to get what they want. Both, down the road, will put strains on your relationship as they put strains on all relationships that have had time to mature. Sadness is one of those emotions that you can never really predict when it will show up, because things happen, the world is a sad place it's not all rainbows and butterflies. But anger is one of the things that's more than controllable, it's completely unnecessary.
Now I know, what's going on in your head now, "What about when people are annoying, or I have a bad day, or what if I'm just under a lot of stress?" None of those are good reasons to get angry. If people are annoying, then be annoyed. If you're having a bad day, do something to make it better, it's not everyone else's fault that things are effecting you negatively. If you're under a lot of stress, be stressed, it's ok. These feelings aren't bad all by themselves, it's when you start taking it out on other people or you just start having a bad attitude is when it starts to be a problem. Still not convinced that you have a problem. Anger is a word that is overly used so I'm not surprised. What most people don't understand is that anger in the true sense of the word is better described as, rage, fury, wrath, or resentment, all of which I'm 100% all of us have felt towards someone at one point or another. So don't even try to start lying to me, or more importantly yourself. I don't need to go into defining any of these because we already know how serious these are. Take a look at what Wikipedia has to say about anger.
The physical effects of anger include increased heart rate, blood pressure, and levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline. Anger becomes the predominant feeling behaviorally, cognitively, and physiologically when a person makes the conscious choice to take action to immediately stop the threatening behavior of another outside force. Anger can have many physical and mental consequences. While most of those who experience anger explain its arousal as a result of "what has happened to them," psychologists point out that an angry person can be very well mistaken because anger causes a loss in self-monitoring capacity and objective observability.
Modern psychologists have labeled two types of anger: Passive and Aggressive. What you need to understand is that one is not better than the other. They both have the same destructive power. What is deceiving about anger is that the damage that we inflict occurs beneath the skin.
Passive anger can be expressed in a few ways, those being: stockpiling resentments that are expressed behind people's backs, avoiding eye contact, putting people down, gossiping, apologizing too often, being overly critical, inviting criticism, setting yourself and others up for failure, choosing unreliable people to depend on, expressing frustration at insignificant things but ignoring serious ones, giving the cold shoulder or phony smiles, looking unconcerned, sitting on the fence while others sort things out, oversleeping, and not responding to another's anger.
Aggressive anger most of us are very familiar with. This comes in the form of: threats, physical violence, verbal abuse, punishing people for unwarranted deeds, destructiveness, bullying, playing on people's weaknesses, accusing other people for your own mistakes, blaming people for your own feelings, being over-punitive, refusing to forgive and forget, bringing up hurtful memories from the past, explosive rages over minor frustrations, and illogical arguments.
Everyone has done more than half of these things to express their anger, I'm sure of it. In reading those did you realize how many of those were unnecessary and ridiculous? You can try to justify your feeling of anger towards a person, all of us have done it/are doing it. What needs to be realized in this sense is that no one else is responsible for the way that you feel, even if you should have every right to be angry. You are the one that is in control of your own emotions, no one but you makes you angry. And being angry solves nothing, it only breeds more anger. It's a continual ridiculous circle, you get angry so someone else gets angry and strikes back, so you strike back, and so on and so on. It doesn't end till one of you gets tired and gives up. Nothing has been accomplished except that you proved who can be the angriest the longest. And when you think about it, THAT IS SO STUPID. Don't be stupid!! This is why in the last post I said that you need to start thinking about yourself objectively, because a lot of us don't know that we're being ridiculous, we're to focused on everything and everybody else that we haven't had time to figure out what is important and then do some repairative work on ourselves. Figure this out, do some self examination. I'll get back to you next week, cuz we're not done with this.
Source: Unknown Author. (2010). Anger. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anger. Last accessed 23 April 2010.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Retrain Your Mind To Not Be Stupid
So I wrote a pretty good piece just a little while ago and when I went to go format it the stupid thing erased everything I wrote. Awesome, oh well. Alright, I'll try again.
So for those of you that care, sorry about not posting last week. But I have an excuse, its the end of the semester and I have tons of assignment due that I just can't find the motivation to be interested in. So its been a hassle to get my brain to do anything lately. Good news is that there's only two weeks left till the end, very excited. But despite my brain's lack of motivation to work, there has been something that I think I should've written in the first place.
A lot of people want to think about these things on a more constant basis, but just don't know how. Or some people think that they do think about deep things but they don't realize that they've tried to schedule it in, like church. And that's not where you get the good deep thoughts, when you try to schedule in deep thinking, it doesn't happen. It's like forcing yourself to be creative, you end up producing a pile of crap. So how do you get to the point where you're randomly having philosophical revelations throughout the day? Well I can't exactly put my finger on it, but I can tell you what I've gathered so far from my own experiences.
So for the better part of my life so far, which was about 13 or 14 years, I was what most people would label as a loser or an outcast. Someone who lived on the outside of most situations and social settings. I was very quiet and spent a lot of time with my own thoughts, mostly because I had no one to share them with. But all of that was my own doing, I was who I was because I was afraid to insert myself into the situations and social settings that I wanted to be in. But I'm ok with who I was because it made me who I am. And that is someone who is on their way to understanding life and all things included. Now I don't assume that my way of becoming a successful thinker is the right way and only way, but if you can take one base truth from my experience, take this.
SHUT UP!!!!
Be quiet sometimes, slow down. You want to have deep thoughts? Stop thinking so much. You need to find a way to quiet your mind. This means droppin out of everyday life for a little bit. Find a place to sit down and then just don't think, put aside your emotions and your opinions about everything. If you can't find a place that's quiet or silence just kills you, then get some headphones and put on some music and just tune out. Close your eyes if it helps and you won't fall asleep, or maybe read a book. Whatever it takes to just slow your heart rate, not feel obligated to do anything, and just slow down the thought processes. Then start thinking objectively about everything, but start with yourself. That's the hardest thing to do if you've never truly done it before. And what does it mean to think objectively? The best definition of the word objective I've found is: Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices. So to think objectively put aside your emotions and personal prejudices whatever they may be, and do this especially with yourself. And once you get that out of the way, everything becomes much simpler to get through. Basically, you need to retrain your mind to think slower about the things that matter. Everyone is so used to either doing things on auto-pilot or just speeding through the day that they just do the same thing with the things that matter.
Introduce some reductionism into your thought process, boil everything down to its most basic form. I'm talking about finding your foundation. When you start thinking about yourself objectively one of the questions that you should think about is, "How do I make decisions?" Think about how you think. It's important to find the foundation on which you make your decisions. Because most of us have unconsciously chosen what our foundation is, and more often than not those are the most wrong and most dangerous. Because then we end up making and defending decisions that we don't have a reason for making. So its like I talked about in my last post, find out, what is most important? Slow down, shut up, sit down and figure it out.
I'll try to get another post up tomorrow but no promises.
So for those of you that care, sorry about not posting last week. But I have an excuse, its the end of the semester and I have tons of assignment due that I just can't find the motivation to be interested in. So its been a hassle to get my brain to do anything lately. Good news is that there's only two weeks left till the end, very excited. But despite my brain's lack of motivation to work, there has been something that I think I should've written in the first place.
A lot of people want to think about these things on a more constant basis, but just don't know how. Or some people think that they do think about deep things but they don't realize that they've tried to schedule it in, like church. And that's not where you get the good deep thoughts, when you try to schedule in deep thinking, it doesn't happen. It's like forcing yourself to be creative, you end up producing a pile of crap. So how do you get to the point where you're randomly having philosophical revelations throughout the day? Well I can't exactly put my finger on it, but I can tell you what I've gathered so far from my own experiences.
So for the better part of my life so far, which was about 13 or 14 years, I was what most people would label as a loser or an outcast. Someone who lived on the outside of most situations and social settings. I was very quiet and spent a lot of time with my own thoughts, mostly because I had no one to share them with. But all of that was my own doing, I was who I was because I was afraid to insert myself into the situations and social settings that I wanted to be in. But I'm ok with who I was because it made me who I am. And that is someone who is on their way to understanding life and all things included. Now I don't assume that my way of becoming a successful thinker is the right way and only way, but if you can take one base truth from my experience, take this.
SHUT UP!!!!
Be quiet sometimes, slow down. You want to have deep thoughts? Stop thinking so much. You need to find a way to quiet your mind. This means droppin out of everyday life for a little bit. Find a place to sit down and then just don't think, put aside your emotions and your opinions about everything. If you can't find a place that's quiet or silence just kills you, then get some headphones and put on some music and just tune out. Close your eyes if it helps and you won't fall asleep, or maybe read a book. Whatever it takes to just slow your heart rate, not feel obligated to do anything, and just slow down the thought processes. Then start thinking objectively about everything, but start with yourself. That's the hardest thing to do if you've never truly done it before. And what does it mean to think objectively? The best definition of the word objective I've found is: Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices. So to think objectively put aside your emotions and personal prejudices whatever they may be, and do this especially with yourself. And once you get that out of the way, everything becomes much simpler to get through. Basically, you need to retrain your mind to think slower about the things that matter. Everyone is so used to either doing things on auto-pilot or just speeding through the day that they just do the same thing with the things that matter.
Introduce some reductionism into your thought process, boil everything down to its most basic form. I'm talking about finding your foundation. When you start thinking about yourself objectively one of the questions that you should think about is, "How do I make decisions?" Think about how you think. It's important to find the foundation on which you make your decisions. Because most of us have unconsciously chosen what our foundation is, and more often than not those are the most wrong and most dangerous. Because then we end up making and defending decisions that we don't have a reason for making. So its like I talked about in my last post, find out, what is most important? Slow down, shut up, sit down and figure it out.
I'll try to get another post up tomorrow but no promises.
Friday, April 9, 2010
The Importance of What is Important
Alright so yesterday I didn't post anything, Why? For a few reasons: 1. I've had a whole ton of homework that just never seems to let up. 2. Because I have so much homework and at the same time am trying to get my hours in for the PE class I signed up for, I haven't gotten much sleep in the past couple of weeks. And finally but most importantly 3. I've been procrastinating. Yeah I know, lame. I'm workin on it but I find it hard to to care about things that I just don't care about. This in reference to the homework that I'm obligated to finish at the last minute. But I'm posting now. And you owe all your thanks to the lovely Aurielle Coyle who pushed me to stop procrastinating and start writing already.
Anyway, something occurred to me this last week while my dad was scaring the crap out of me with his driving. I was thinking: To be a good driver all it takes is making the right decisions. Of course the fact that my dad seems to be getting more senile as the days go on says a lot about the kinds of decisions he makes on the road.
Last week I talked about focus, and I hope all of you have been more focused than I have in the past week. In my social psychology class we were talking about taking surveys and to illustrate this my teacher, of all questions that she could of asked, she asked, "What is the purpose of life?" I was like, kind of a deep question for a bunch of college students. Unsurprisingly most of the answers dealt with personal gratification. Which in my opinion is a very selfish way to live. But it did make me think, although I already knew the ultimate answer to the question. I took a retrospective look at the question. In regards to what I had been thinking about earlier this week, driving is all about making the right decisions. And I took it a step further, that's what life is about. Cuz what is your own life other than a series of calculated or uncalculated decisions? So to succeed in what you're doing, in life all you have to do is make the right decisions. Easier said than done. But all the same, when you think about it in depth, how hard is it really? And you really have to think about, what is the right decision? There is always a kind of general answer to the question that would take care of all decisions in your life thus avoiding thinking about your decisions on a case by case basis. But how do you do that? How can you stop at each small decision you make and evaluate the long term effect of that decision? You can't do it without looking like a paranoid. And if you spend all your time evaluating your decisions then you'll never take any actions. That's no way to live. It seems we are in a bit of a sticky situation.
Last week I was talking about focus changing on a constant basis. And I want to now separate and define that there are two types of focus, if you haven't already figured this out. There is the specific type of focus that we've already touched on. And then there is the more general focus. This is the over all objective of the mission, this is the ultimate goal and guiding concept of your life. If you think that you don't have one then you are a fool. Because everyone has one, without thinking about it you have chosen what is most important to you, whether it be aspiring to an ideal or like the college student in my class, gaining some material for yourself so you can feel good, everyone has consciously or subconsciously determined the purpose of their own life. Most of us have dangerously opted for the subconscious determination. Why? Because a lot of us just don't care or we just can't find time to care. Because to care about something so big would require us to take so much of our brain power and also require us to think objectively about ourselves. And no one wants to do that. One of the scariest but most rewarding ventures that anyone could ever take up is to be completely truthful with yourself about yourself. If everyone took a very truthful look at themselves and the ugly, illogical, unreasonable, selfish, self-serving, and ultimately stupid decisions we make and then get past them to become better, then I truly believe that everyone would find their real purpose and ultimate goal much faster.
I can not assume to tell you how to live your life and what the right decision to make is, mostly because I do not represent the kind of person who has made any of the right decisions in his own life. But I can tell you how to find the right purpose for your life. Questions. It's as simple as that, keep questioning things. I said it before the greatest question anyone can ask is "Why?" To take a more common ill-conceived purpose, to be successful. What is success? Most people here in America will tell you something resembling the American Dream. Get married, have kids, own your own house, have a good job, raise good children, and retire well. None of that is wrong. But is that a good purpose to have? Because as good as all of that stuff is, things can go horribly wrong in all of those situations and then when they do the person who makes all this important falls apart. If you focus on just getting married and you think, if you just get married then you'll be happy, then your not really focusing so much on the person that you're marrying your focusing on the fact that you are a happy because you are in a relationship. What happens when that person no longer makes you happy? What happens when that person starts treating you wrong? You've made marriage and relationships in general more important than they were ever meant to be. Maybe a better example is your house. It costs a lot more money than anyone has right now. And throughout your ownership of it you'll do what you can to improve how it looks and how you live in it. And that costs money as well. And depending on where you live there may be weather conditions that cause damage, so you have to repair it. depending on how long you live in the same place you'll have to constantly replace parts and maybe even rebuild walls and such. All of this costing money, and time, of which you have little. So by the end of your life you will have lived in your dream house. Long after you are gone, someone or something will have undone all of the hard work you put into it. Ultimately if living in a good house is most important to you, then there will be no evidence that you ever existed when you die.
What is most important? Because all material is subject to decay. Nothing in the world, and I mean literally nothing, lasts forever. Not even love, as depressing as that is. Do not think that forever ends when you die. Friends and family, as valuable as their lives are, they will not last forever, friends leave and family members die, sometimes sooner than you think. What is important? Test it, if you think you have it figured out already, chances are that you don't. Test everything that you think holds eternal importance. And when you figure it out, when you finally come to the realization, test it again, and then live every waking moment of your life striving to make decisions and short term goals that get you closer to that which is of ultimate importance. Never stop asking questions.
Anyway, something occurred to me this last week while my dad was scaring the crap out of me with his driving. I was thinking: To be a good driver all it takes is making the right decisions. Of course the fact that my dad seems to be getting more senile as the days go on says a lot about the kinds of decisions he makes on the road.
Last week I talked about focus, and I hope all of you have been more focused than I have in the past week. In my social psychology class we were talking about taking surveys and to illustrate this my teacher, of all questions that she could of asked, she asked, "What is the purpose of life?" I was like, kind of a deep question for a bunch of college students. Unsurprisingly most of the answers dealt with personal gratification. Which in my opinion is a very selfish way to live. But it did make me think, although I already knew the ultimate answer to the question. I took a retrospective look at the question. In regards to what I had been thinking about earlier this week, driving is all about making the right decisions. And I took it a step further, that's what life is about. Cuz what is your own life other than a series of calculated or uncalculated decisions? So to succeed in what you're doing, in life all you have to do is make the right decisions. Easier said than done. But all the same, when you think about it in depth, how hard is it really? And you really have to think about, what is the right decision? There is always a kind of general answer to the question that would take care of all decisions in your life thus avoiding thinking about your decisions on a case by case basis. But how do you do that? How can you stop at each small decision you make and evaluate the long term effect of that decision? You can't do it without looking like a paranoid. And if you spend all your time evaluating your decisions then you'll never take any actions. That's no way to live. It seems we are in a bit of a sticky situation.
Last week I was talking about focus changing on a constant basis. And I want to now separate and define that there are two types of focus, if you haven't already figured this out. There is the specific type of focus that we've already touched on. And then there is the more general focus. This is the over all objective of the mission, this is the ultimate goal and guiding concept of your life. If you think that you don't have one then you are a fool. Because everyone has one, without thinking about it you have chosen what is most important to you, whether it be aspiring to an ideal or like the college student in my class, gaining some material for yourself so you can feel good, everyone has consciously or subconsciously determined the purpose of their own life. Most of us have dangerously opted for the subconscious determination. Why? Because a lot of us just don't care or we just can't find time to care. Because to care about something so big would require us to take so much of our brain power and also require us to think objectively about ourselves. And no one wants to do that. One of the scariest but most rewarding ventures that anyone could ever take up is to be completely truthful with yourself about yourself. If everyone took a very truthful look at themselves and the ugly, illogical, unreasonable, selfish, self-serving, and ultimately stupid decisions we make and then get past them to become better, then I truly believe that everyone would find their real purpose and ultimate goal much faster.
I can not assume to tell you how to live your life and what the right decision to make is, mostly because I do not represent the kind of person who has made any of the right decisions in his own life. But I can tell you how to find the right purpose for your life. Questions. It's as simple as that, keep questioning things. I said it before the greatest question anyone can ask is "Why?" To take a more common ill-conceived purpose, to be successful. What is success? Most people here in America will tell you something resembling the American Dream. Get married, have kids, own your own house, have a good job, raise good children, and retire well. None of that is wrong. But is that a good purpose to have? Because as good as all of that stuff is, things can go horribly wrong in all of those situations and then when they do the person who makes all this important falls apart. If you focus on just getting married and you think, if you just get married then you'll be happy, then your not really focusing so much on the person that you're marrying your focusing on the fact that you are a happy because you are in a relationship. What happens when that person no longer makes you happy? What happens when that person starts treating you wrong? You've made marriage and relationships in general more important than they were ever meant to be. Maybe a better example is your house. It costs a lot more money than anyone has right now. And throughout your ownership of it you'll do what you can to improve how it looks and how you live in it. And that costs money as well. And depending on where you live there may be weather conditions that cause damage, so you have to repair it. depending on how long you live in the same place you'll have to constantly replace parts and maybe even rebuild walls and such. All of this costing money, and time, of which you have little. So by the end of your life you will have lived in your dream house. Long after you are gone, someone or something will have undone all of the hard work you put into it. Ultimately if living in a good house is most important to you, then there will be no evidence that you ever existed when you die.
What is most important? Because all material is subject to decay. Nothing in the world, and I mean literally nothing, lasts forever. Not even love, as depressing as that is. Do not think that forever ends when you die. Friends and family, as valuable as their lives are, they will not last forever, friends leave and family members die, sometimes sooner than you think. What is important? Test it, if you think you have it figured out already, chances are that you don't. Test everything that you think holds eternal importance. And when you figure it out, when you finally come to the realization, test it again, and then live every waking moment of your life striving to make decisions and short term goals that get you closer to that which is of ultimate importance. Never stop asking questions.
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