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  1. #111
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    We are all born with what need to live a perfectly balanced life. Family structure is something I feel is an illusion and one that plays well into religious, nationalistic, consumerist ideals.
    Happy to share. Your welcome.

    I like your views. Especially how you just keep writing as you feel.
    Don't ever stop doing that. I imagine you wont.

  2. #112
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ponder View Post
    We are all born with what need to live a perfectly balanced life. Family structure is something I feel is an illusion and one that plays well into religious, nationalistic, consumerist ideals.
    Happy to share. Your welcome.

    I like your views. Especially how you just keep writing as you feel.
    Don't ever stop doing that. I imagine you wont.
    Well, we do need a balanced life, just not one defined by society which has only brought dissatisfaction and other negative emotions.

    I doubt I'll stop writing. These are helping me as well as I learn more about myself. I believe everyone have great potential and just need to dig deeper. That's why I won't stop writing!

  3. #113
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    -Decisions-

    Our lives are made up of the decisions we make. Therefore, decisions involve big things that shape and change our lives. We never say we made a big decision of having Chinese food for lunch today. It's usually relatively big things like going on a diet, overcoming a fear or going to a foreign country to study. These decisions will have large impact over our lives if we go through with them so we cannot take them lightly.

    One of the problems we face today is decisions for the younger generation. We see young people like kids and teens who have no control over the direction of their lives. Many of their parents want to make every single decision like what school they should attend, what activities they should do after school and other decisions that will affect their future in a big way.

    The main argument of the parents is usually the fact that their children are too young to know. It's true that kids and teens are inexperienced with life as they haven't seen enough. They aren't as well informed and are more prone to making bad decisions. Yet, this, along with other arguments, isn't good enough reason to take away the power to decide from these young people.

    First, these young people, when life doesn't go their way, will blame their parents who controlled their lives. They didn't get to make any decisions and they suddenly had excuses as to why they are failing. Excuses help no one but, if decision making was indeed out of their hands, they cannot really take responsibilities in what happened. However, they cannot be excused if they do nothing afterwards to change the situations to something more favorable.

    Secondly, decision making is a skill we learn and, through experience, master. We don't know how to do it immediately so, when the decisions are made for us when we were young, we lack this skill. It's essentially like parents who cook for their kids and a day comes when the kids must cook for themselves. As we can all imagine, it will be a huge disaster. Unable to cook won't necessarily have enormous impact. Unable to make key decisions in life is a whole different matter however.

    For parents, they must learn that they cannot walk the entire path called life for their kids. Somewhere along the way, they must let their kids walk their own path. It's true some decisions like what school might be harder for them to understand. That's why starting small is always a better alternative. Let the kids decide what they want to do for hobbies. As they gain experience in decision making, they will eventually be ready to make the bigger ones since they learn the steps needed to make up their minds.

  4. #114
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    -Decisions 2-

    In our lives, we'll make the good and poor decisions. There's no way of avoiding the poor decisions because the only way for us to improve the skill is through experience. It's true we will stumble along the way but we will become stronger if we learned why we stumbled and don't make the same mistakes a second or third time. Poor decisions, however, can be a double edged sword.

    Poor decisions can teach us what not to do the next time. It shows us what doesn't work so we can change our approach the next time and achieve a better result. Yet, it can also paralyze us by clouding our judgement because we felt too much pain or suffering. The negative emotions like sadness, anger and helplessness tend to linger longer than the positive emotions. As a result, we get reminded regularly whenever we make poor decisions, especially those with large impact on our lives.

    I like to use the example of marriage. Let's say I met a woman who I thought was perfect. I saw this person as my other half and she believed the same. We got married a month later and, a year later, we had our first children. Then, things went downhill as we got into fight regularly since we possess flaws the other person couldn't tolerate. I might also be struggling financial with the birth of the child so my temper is getting worse. Things got so bad that we got divorced.

    Divorce brings a lot of emotions in our lives. I'd likely feel emptiness in losing both a wife and a child who's most likely been given custody to the mother. I'm also financially worse with the divorce. At this point in life, I could easily develop a view where I oppose anymore serious relationships from that point. Whenever I had decisions regarding relationship, I'll also decide on the option opposing it regardless if it's good or not. This might see me truly miss out on the woman who I needed in my life.

    The negative emotions and pain can cloud our judgement. It's true we must learn from our past but, when making serious decisions, we must give all the options a fair overview. Whenever we jump to a certain conclusion without thought, we are hurting ourselves by denying things and people that could change our live positively in a big way. Poor decisions should make us wiser, not more impulsive on certain matters.

  5. #115
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    -Decisions 3-

    In the last entry, I talked about how negative emotions and pain can cloud our judgement. To avoid these happening again, we choose to run away. If we ever have to make a decision similar to the one that brought us suffering, we choose to avoid it altogether. After all, no one likes getting hurt and it's seen from a simple example of us staying away from a hot stove after getting burned once.

    Still, we must learn from our past experiences and the poor decisions usually teach us the best life lessons we need to get ahead. We should be learning these lessons so, next time we take a similar route, we know what to avoid. When we avoid these opportunities altogether, we might regret later on when we learned someone else found success taking a path we wanted but was too afraid to tread.

    Let's use the example I used last entry where I met this perfect woman and got married after a month. For this scenario, a month is way too short. We didn't know each other well enough and marriage is a long-term commitment, something the two of us failed to realize until a kid was given birth and cracks showed in the marriage. I was quite likely to be worse off financially which might see me oppose relationships altogether.

    I shouldn't let this experience stop me from starting a family that will remain intact for decades. I probably would have realized that one month of dating is too soon. A few years would be a better alternative as we learn more about each other. We have strengths and weaknesses and it's usually the weaknesses we must tolerate to keep the divorce at bay. By learning this important lesson, my odds of another failed marriage would drop drastically, though there's still risk as life is still unpredictable.

    This is the case for everything in life. We must dig deeper than the surface to uncover what went wrong. A failed business might have us look at our cash flow and business plan. Failing a course might have us look at our routines, habits and our attitude towards learning. When we can dig deeper and find out the real reasons as to why the unfavorable outcome happened, we become better suited to tackle future challenges. That's how we learn in life and how we can strive to reach the stars!

  6. #116
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    -Decisions 4-

    This entry, I want to discuss about making our own decisions. This might seem a little odd so I want to explain what I meant by this. In our lives, we are either too busy pleasing other people or trying to reach certain expectations placed on us. The expectations can be from those we love like parents or from society as whole. What's happening is essentially us shaping our decisions to match these outside influences.

    I myself had this situation happened to me when I decided to go to university. My parents had wanted me to go to university since I was very young. They never even considered alternatives like colleges or trade school so, for them, university was the only option. Trying my best to meet their expectations, I made the decision thinking that I was in control and this was what I truly wanted.

    For my life before that decision, I was very much not in control of my life. My decisions were heavily influenced by my parents and, while it seems like I had choices in life, I was limited to the few my parents decided for me. Considering that their advice haven't really cost me much other than a few minor setbacks, I kept going expecting things to continue being alright.

    A few years into university, I found failure and major setbacks. Anxiety and a bit of depression was setting in which had me started wondering what went wrong. Like everyone else, I looked back into my past to search for my answers. In my search, I discovered that many of the decisions were too heavily influenced by my parents. I hardly listened to what I wanted and felt that my parents had led me down this wrong path.

    I could've blamed my parents and I did for a short while. Yet, I learned that this was a learning experience for me. From this point onward, I'll make my own decisions and limit the influence of other people and society as a whole. We are in such a need of conform to the standards of society that we neglect to ask us what we truly desire. We are willing to kill our dreams as long as we fit into society, not knowing that the death of our dreams will only send us down a path of endless pain and suffering.

    For those still living with parents, I recommend thinking for yourself what you want. I mean asking yourself questions without wondering about the thoughts or advice of other people in your family. We need to come up with a choice that is solely our own. Then, we compare it with what is given to us due to outside influence. Then, it becomes your decision whether or not to follow your own heart and go with what others expect of you. With this approach, you at least have no one to blame if you stray down the wrong path. Then, you can take responsibility later in life and know how to learn from your mistakes.

  7. #117
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    -Decisions 5-

    For this entry, I want to discuss about myself. Not just my thoughts but a bit about the decisions I have made and will make that will have enormous impact on my future. I, like everyone else, have made poor decisions in the past. I regretted those at one point but, currently, I'm grateful of making those decisions. You might think I'm a little crazy to think that way but I'll explain what I mean.

    The poor decision that has been very much on my mind is going to university. For many people, this is a no brainer since higher education should open up more doors. Yet, we must remember some important things about education. There are currently a lot of students going to school, whether university or college, and the job opportunities out there is limited.

    We are living in a society where there's a lot of competition for job, especially the better jobs. With so much competition, companies will only hire the best candidates they have and, for those fresh from university, grades are the primary comparison. I didn't have the best grades so, when I searched for internship, I was among the few who was out of luck.

    With grades dropping steadily and no internment could be found, I was doubting my decision to go to university. I have reason to do so since I learned now that school can only teach certain subjects. Not everyone can thrive in a classroom setting and I'm one of those who stood a better chance with other decisions. Interestingly, these doubts have opened up doors I originally thought a piece of paper from graduating will.

    I discovered things I am strong at aren't taught at school, at least not in the university I'm going. This puts me at a rather awkward situation. I have invested a lot into school with plenty of school debt and am somewhat close to finishing. Yet, I no longer have the same desire as I no longer see the piece of paper as my key to unlocking a bright future. I spent a lot of time thinking over my decisions because, this time, I want to pick one that I want.

    At a position where the future has much to be desired, it might seem easier to abandon and start anew. That sounds nice but I do want to finish school. I have abandon too many things in the past so I'm worried that, if I do it again, I'll get into a bad habit. As I attend school, I will be pursuing the dream of fighting against mental illness stigma and other things that seem too big to tackle. I know I have big dreams but someone has to make them possible.

    This decision hasn't come easy. I never liked school and going back hasn't been especially fun. I just have to tolerate it so I can give it a proper finish. Meanwhile, I can use this to learn time management. School doesn't teach you the best way to manage time until you also have a dream to pursue. I think the lack of dreams had been why I felt so lost and the days at school felt nothing more than torture without an end in sight. At least now, I have something to look forward to each day.

  8. #118
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    -Knowledge-

    We all know the saying about knowledge is power. This is quite true if we understand what knowledge is. By definition, knowledge is information and ideas gained through experience and education. In a world where information is plenty online, we can easily be swamped by too much and not get any benefits, especially in the situation of information overload which seems to occur much more often now.

    In the past, people read books to get information. That was mostly the case when I was a kid as internet was still a fledgling. I loved going to the library because there were so many picture books. As internet matured into what it is today, we acquire information differently. Notice that I used the term information, not knowledge, here.

    With our ways of acquiring information changed, it's only natural that our ways of gaining knowledge also changed. Someone who has watched a bunch of videos regarding a certain topic might be better informed but they aren't necessarily more knowledgeable on the topic. Unless this person applies the information repetitively in the real world, he or she really only gained more facts to share during conversations.

    I see knowledge as information we can make use of to get ourselves further ahead. We all know that we start from not knowing something and only through practice can we master something. Let's use riding a bike as an example. We might have read about bikes and seen others ride it when we are kids. We got the information but that information doesn't translate to us actually knowing to how to do it.

    Instead, we must get on ourselves and try on our own. We learn by keep going and not let a few bruises and scratches stop us. For those of you who can ride a bike, can you imagine yourself learning by reading a manual on how to ride a bike? It seems crazy but that's apparently how we're expected to learn at school which is something I'll discuss in one of the later entries.

    Some people nowadays confuse information with knowledge. They assume that, by knowing more, they are more knowledgeable. Yet, they are fooling themselves as much of the information they have won't get them ahead in life. Those information won't help them overcome their biggest challenges like anxiety or depression. Information alone won't get us through the darkest nights so we can reach that future we always envisioned!

  9. #119
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    -Knowledge 2-

    Do we gain knowledge from school? I used to say yes without hesitation. Now, I wonder about that and will answer yes and no. Schools can fill us with knowledge but this depends on a lot of things. In our society, we often discuss how well a person does depends largely on the student. A hard working student will often get further ahead than those who slack off.

    When we are students, I like to see ourselves as sponges. We can only absorb so much before we cannot take anymore in. If we are filled with largely useless facts and information, we lack the space for the knowledge we need in life. It's true a hard working student can do well at school but this doesn't always translate to doing well in life. Life is never linear like school and has a lot more surprises along the way.

    There are lots of facts taught at school which we don't necessarily need for the future. It's true some of these classes are meant to prepare us for college or university but, even then, some might just be a waste of time. I, as a student in engineering, didn't need biology or Shakespeare. However, I, like so many others, have to go through the classes forcing us to make room for "useless" information. This not only wastes our time but it can develop this negative attitude towards learning.

    Real knowledge stays with us because we know it's going to be useful. We'll be using it over and over until it becomes part of us. When you look at most students at school, they wait until a few days before an exam before they start studying. They might do well but, after a few weeks, they'll forget everything. What was the point of the classes if they aren't going to recall anything?

    A school should promote students to learn on their own. There were courses I loved because I enjoyed them so much. I wanted to learn more and, with all the resources with online sources and videos, I can gain so much more than what school offers. The information we seek out based on our interests will become knowledge while those we are forced to uncover will be gone once we can afford to do so.

  10. #120
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    -Knowledge 3-

    Most of our knowledge will come from our own experiences. For most people, they learn much better from doing something than reading about something. Think about the concept of riding a bike. Will you learn it faster by trying after falling a number of times or will you learn faster by reading a book? Yet, people are hurting themselves by limiting how much knowledge they can gain in life.

    We can only learn from experience of things we actually try. When dreams are abandoned, people forever deny themselves the knowledge if they can make that dream come true. By trapping ourselves in our comfort zone, our skill sets grow very limited. A limited skill set and limited knowledge sees us poorly prepared for the challenges life no doubt throws our way.

    We all know knowledge is powerful and yet we still stop pursuing it. Why? Fear is the first thing that comes to mind. Fear of leaving the comfort zone halts our progress to make ourselves better. After all, we lost more than the knowledge of the world we live in. We also stop ourselves from better understanding the person we are and what we're capable of.

    If we ask people if they know themselves, they naturally would answer yes. They would think this is a stupid question. I don't think it's stupid at all. If we ask these people a few very specific questions, we'll see them pause to think. Too often, we are fooling ourselves with this image we want of ourselves. This image is what society promotes so we want to fit into the mold. This mold has nothing to do with who we are.

    A lot of people say that, if we know enough of the world, we'd have answers to all our questions. The truth is we just need to know who we are. I believe we each possess incredible amounts of knowledge within us but these are locked behind safe doors that can only be opened with specific keys. It's true that the keys can only be made if we've seen more of the world but the answers we seek has been inside us all along.

 

 

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