A father's love could change the world

Father,

Help me show others the same love that you show me.

You do not reject me when I go against your will.

You never give up on me, even when I give up on myself.

You love me when I disappoint you.

You listen to me, even when I talk back.

You don't snap at me when I snap at you.

You don't fight back when I fight with you.

You will not hate me, even when it seems I hate you.

You bring peace into my life.

You love me just because I am.

Help me learn to love everyone, especially those who it is hardest to love, like a father loves his son.

Drama-rama

I think that many humans, especially in successful cultures, have reached a state where they have no real problems anymore.  But instead of being happy about it, we find ourselves bored, and wishing that more was going on.  So what do we do? 

We invent problems. 

I've started to use the term Drama-rama to describe this phenomenon.  People get so bored that they start to try to find anything to fight about or be down about just so they can escape the monotony of leading a dull life.  I think that the only solution is to this problem is to find something else to occupy our time.  I've found that when things get busy, during finals for example, the drama-rama effect is at an all time low.  When people are stressed naturally, we actually get along better.  It's a bit cynical, and I'm not 100% sure it's accurate, but I think that it can be seen often in my own life. 

Example:

At work one day a co-worker confronted everyone in the office trying to figure out who used the last paper towel in the bathroom.  It's a particularly small operation, and there is no staff to refill things like that, so we keep a stocked closet in the bathroom with plenty of refills.  I've personally been in the situation many times where there is no more TP or paper towels, and I have to grab them from the closet, but it never occurred to me to try to figure out who used the last one.  In this case, when I was confronted, even though I knew I was not the guilty party, I let myself feed this drama-rama and it turned into an epic argument about the ethics of what things in the office should be refilled, and why.  It was a totally bogus argument, but then again, being drilled about whether or not I was the guilty party was equally, if not more absurd.  :)

Things like this happen every day,  even as simple as giving weird looks, or wondering about why others are giving you weird looks, why do we do it?

Extremes vs Averages

History judges us by our extremes not our average. We don’t tell stories of normal moments, we tell stories of things that are better or worse than normal. Furthermore, we usually let the bad beat out the good.

If you hate your parents you would point out the moments when they were at their worst: the meanest things they ever said, and the worst things they ever did. You will tell them about the time they were stressed out and said they wish you weren’t born, or the time they slapped you for talking back to them. You won’t tell anyone about how they packed you a lunch every day in elementary school, or how they always picked you up from your sports, or how they always made sure you had clean clothes. You will judge them from their extremes, and you will tell stories that reflect those extremes.

Likewise if you love your parents, you would point out the greatest things they ever did for you, how they stayed up all night helping your build your science project because you waited till the last minute, how they loaned you the money you needed to get your first car, how they nursed you back to health when you got your wisdom teeth out.

We are a drama driven people, and though we should give people credit for their good moments, and deduct credit for their bad moments, that shouldn’t be how we judge them..

98% of the time we are at our average.

Pride Kills

It happens on every playground, and even when we are grown.  People advance at the cost of others.  From giving wet willies to spreading rumors, cc’ing the boss to fighting for covered parking, these prideful outbursts happen throughout our whole life.  We let ourselves think that we deserve more than other people.  We think that we’ve tried harder, or done more, or were born in a better place, and we blindly let our nature take over and go whatever it needs to do to prove our superiority.  If you think about this and say “No, that’s not me”, then you are exactly who I’m talking about.  You have such a high opinion of yourself that you are unwilling to even consider the fact that you might actually do the things I think of.  We all do, all the time, it’s basically something that you can’t avoid.  Even when you have the lowest self esteem in the world, you are still in the same boat.  You think, “Why is that person so secure? What do they have that I don’t have?”

 

Pride is so bad for that exact reason; it makes us blind to recognize it. 

 

Pride makes the world a bad place, because when people are oppressed, their pride will usually cause them to drop to the level of their oppressor, and fight fire with fire.  But they are usually so mad about it and get so worked up that they up the anti a little, and this creates a cycle that is very hard to break. 

 

What’s the solution?  Just have Sympathy for your oppressors, be kind to them, they are only doing this because it has been done to them, and they are blind to what they are doing.  If you let yourself be a victim, you can hold onto the hope that they will start too have sympathy for you.  That is a medicine that might cure this curse of human nature.

Apologies

Why do we need apologies? What is it that we hope to get? Why can't we just forgive anyway? Being mad causes a horrible cycle. when two people who are close to eachother fight, it causes both of them to be mad, and both of themdecide that they deserve an apology. But the truth is probably that they are both right. They both overreacted and they both owe eachother an apology. But in the mean time, while they are waiting for one, they will just look at eachother with mad eyes, thinking about why the other person won't give it to them. But if we just notice this, and stray from our nature, we might realize that these mean looks are worsening the situation. They have become the fuel that keeps this destructive fire blazing. It we changed out nature and just forgave them and put on a big smile instead, they would look at you, probably with a new confused look on their face, and the cycle would be broken. It might take a while to break through to the otherperson, but I imagine they will eventually come off their stuburn anger, and join you with a smile. Just break the cycle, otherwise a stupid little fight can become an epic battle.

And They're Off!

I have been keeping a blog on my own server for a while, but it just seems stupid to waste time maintaining my own server for this, when there are services like this that do it faster and better. I have no plans to move my old blog over, but if you know where it was, I have no plan of removing it.