The Ball Keeps Bouncing…
MountSpyder
I haven’t written anything for this blog or even thought of something to write for quite some time. In fact I wasn’t even sure if I was still listed as an author in any fashion. For that I apologize to any readers that may have enjoyed the few earlier pieces I had done and were looking for more… though they are sure to be far fewer fans then the technical mastermind AmbuigicCoherence attracts. With a loss of time and lack of motivation for this blog it has been a true analogy to how quickly life can change. That is why this entry, probably my final, is dedicated to my ramblings on the changes in life.
So life has recently taken some twists and turns, which isn’t unusual for me. I have spent my entire life bouncing in and out of geographic locations, schools, groups of friends, etc. So for me to find myself moving on from one frame of mind to another is about right. Maturity comes at you fast and life changes quickly.
As I have listed in previous posts, I am currently an MBA student. Along with that I was/am a graduate assistant working in the Office of Student Affairs (over-arching entity). I work for the Dean of Student Affairs doing research and analysis, the Office of Campus Activities planning, coordinating, and managing all aspects of events, along with minimal work with the Office of Intercultural Development. As places have changed, friends have changed, and I have changed. My career continues as I will soon be the Interim Assistant Director of Campus Activities, taking on more responsibility for student development, being in control of conversations with agents and performers on a higher level, and taking full responsibility for the events of the campus. This has made me realize that I have and continue to mature. The offer comes to me not from my education, I will be done coursework for my Master in Business Administration In December, but from my drive to succeed, my giving of 110%, and my ability to mature, to adapt, to learn, and to live.
This learning, adapting, and maturing are all parts of life. It happens from jobs or from the relationships we hold dear to our hearts. To explain this I will talk about the ‘rocks’ in my life. I think being the rock, for me, stems from my mother’s ability to always be the rock and its influence is what allows others to lean on me. A question arose from a co-worker of mine though, “who do you lean on when you’re the rock?” Well you lean on the person you find yourself in a dating relationship with or close friends and you learn from your time with them, whether it is brief or in a dating relationship in which you fall in love and find marriage.
I have two dating relationships that have truly shaped my recent outlook. Girl #1 came over the summer as I reconnected with someone very special; however, per usual timing was horrible. The two of us never seem to cross paths at the right time; this time around she is in an unfulfilling and very unhappy marriage with her husband who is stationed overseas right now. I am not proud to say that I allowed myself to try a relationship with a married woman, but it did teach me one valuable lesson, some things in life are meant to be and others are not. Her and I clicked on many levels, but there was always something missing. The missing piece was timing, the meeting of life circumstances. The life circumstances didn’t work because when you are working on getting a divorce when your husband returns and setting yourself up there is no time for a relationship and for me when you are advancing your education and your chosen career path there becomes a great distance between the two. To remove myself from this impossible situation and move on from the feelings I had; I found myself with no choice but a clean break and moving on. I’m not proud of it, but realize that it was necessary for myself and was probably for the best for her as I didn’t string her along and allowed her space to solve her problems. In doing so I stumbled across Girl #2. What I thought was conjoined paths, the path toward the whole package, house in the suburbs, kids, etc. turned out to be at the wrong time. The relationship was great but it turns out that we are in two different stages of life. Her about to be a college grad and deciding on graduate schools and internships, myself about to be a graduate from graduate school and looking ahead to my career, it turned out we had met at the wrong time. So for everything that clicked and was wonderful about our relationship, which it was, the best relationship I have ever been in, it turns out that I had again found myself with bad timing.
So this bad timing what does it have to do with finding a rock to lean on? Well these two people helped to shape who I have become and taught me a great deal about what I wanted in a dating relationship and also helped push me to continue towards my goals. There is no backing down when you have great people pushing you along. The married girl let me go and find myself and my goals. She pushed me towards them and helped me survive a rough summer of questioning. I doubt she knows it, maybe she’ll be the one reader of the post, but she was a great guiding force. The second has shown me what I want in an eventual marriage. No I was not in love with her, we did not date for a long period of time, but I will admit that I was falling for her. She was the type of person I could see myself with 30 years down the road and still happy. So the timing seems bad, but instead it was actually the right time for both of these. The questions I had about my life were worked out through self reflection and time spent with girl #1 and I removed myself from her to stumble on to girl #2 who has giving me guidance in finding the “right” girl and the refreshed realization that she is out there. Who knows, maybe ten years down the road I will look back and laugh as I retell these stories to one of these girls as timing has changed and they are the right ones… but as life shows every day, the world moves forward, not backward.
The other option is to lean on is the friends that are there for you. I also have two examples of people I have leaned on in the past. One is a man I called a great friend through high school. He kept me on a solid path and showed me what a great friend actually was. He steered me away from the “popular” lifestyle of marijuana and booze and towards educational success and good friendships, not friends when you are partying. I owe a lot to him. Turns out we recently reconnected, but I have come a long way from high school, as has he. We have both matured and it changed the dynamic quite a bit in our friendship. We stayed good friends for over a year and a series of events that both were altering and ridiculous has led us down two different paths. I have realized that we are on separate paths now and it is possible that we have done our part in each other’s lives and have moved on. After 4 months of not talking that seems to be the case and from what I hear he is doing fine and as I explained above I am as well. The other friend is one who has recently come into his own and I was the rock he leaned on for quite some time. He took 5 years to get through college due to the frat boy party lifestyle, but has come into his own. He has a chosen career, found an entry level job, and is actively working toward accomplishing his goals. We matured at very different paces but when I needed him the past 6 years he has always been there; including the most recent decision to clean break with girl #1 and comforting words when girl #2 and I split up. Along with this he has pushed me to be better myself at all twists, turns and the constant forks in the road.
The rock changes, whether it is a dating relationship or a friendship, but there are always the rocks out there that you find to lean on. They come when you need them most and some stay for awhile, others slip out of your life, but in the end when you are the rock and others look to you, you need not look any farther than those around you for your rock. The timing is always right, whether it’s the entrance of a dating relationship or the parting ways of good friends, the need is to learn from these entrances and exits and to press onward to becoming a better person.
To conclude this rambling the advice to take from this:
1.) Look back to reflect, not to regret, and remember that the timing is always right.
2.) Find your rocks and appreciate them. There is no telling what they will do for you or how long they will be there for.
3.) Accept the entrances and exits as a fact of life and learn from every one of them.
4.) Appreciate all your dating relationships even the bad ones they will teach you more about yourself than you might think.
5.) Remember that people will continue to mature as will you, which causes the people you are around and the life circumstances you are in to change.
Now I realize this is much harder than it seems and takes a lot of reflection. I have done much more than what is briefly rambled on about in this post and have taken the time to do so for many different aspects of my life and times, not just the couple examples given here. So because I have shortened much of my reflection I apologize if ramblings didn’t even come close to making you realize these lessons, but that’s why I warned that it was my ramblings. Hopefully it touched home for some though.
I leave you with the away message I wrote that sparked this all:
Things happen in life. Some are good such as great relationships, friendships, and career movements. Some are bad, the passing of a friend or family, friends maturing and moving in different directions, or relationships once thought great coming to an end. The good thing though is that the ball keeps bouncing. As long as one is breathing, there is plenty of life to be experienced. So the ball bounces on, the ups and downs continue, and we all should be determined to experience as many as possible…..
Russians, Star Wars, and Space Invadors… Really?
Indiana Jones and the Quest for Aliens That Live in the Space Between Dimensions.
Alright, I realize that this blog hasn’t posted any other movie critiques, but this movie was so bad that I need someplace to place my frustration into words so you all don’t waste your hard earned dollars and your precious time on such an utter disaster.
This movie without a doubt ruins the legacy of Indiana Jones. This movie can best be described in three ridiculous parts with many problems in each part. To begin:
Old School Indiana Jones with new school ridiculous plot line:
Indiana Jones and his captors ride up to Area 51 the Sci-Fi fantasy land with everything of true worth and never ending secrets is guarded by two guards? Really, they go there with a whole convoy of troops and only have to replace TWO GUYS what genius thought of this. The action sequence is rustic Indiana Jones, excellent overall but the plot kills it as it continues from a whopping two guards to him throwing barely magnetic gun powder into the air and having it fly across what looks to be a hundred acre warehouse. I think George Lucas might have fallen, knocked himself out, ended up dreaming about unicorns and rainbows and decided he wanted pixie dust flying in the air but opted for floating gun powder to keep with the “theme.” This continues on to a kid named Mutt a big bad ass with a comb that brings a “knife to a gun fight” and even using other movie references doesn’t help this overcome its total lack of substance and overwhelming flaws. Lets move forward though, onto part 2 of 3.
Old School Star Wars all over again:
The videography is directly from Stars Wars Episode 4, 5, and 6, most notable the car chasing scene through the jungle where it looks identical to the Star Wars scene where they are on the speed bikes with the fun loving Wookies around. I realize this is a Spielberg/Lucas film but really? Did they have to go back to the 70’s/80’s cinema class to get this movie going. Also, they end up getting stuck in sand pit, def reminiscent of the muck pit in front of Yoda’s grand residence and of course the fight scene has the older Harrison Ford jumping from car to car just like Luke Skywalker. I think they could have done better and not killed the plot, though for a good laugh you can reminisce about better Indiana Jones movies as Jones is pulled out of the with a snake being used as a rope and him not wanting to grab it. Ridiculous, that’s what the middle of the movie is and we having even gotten to the worst part.
Close Encounters of te Third Kind:
Anyone remember that movie? Aliens and stuff in flying saucers, yeah, thats in this movie. I mean why not, old school Indiana Jones is slaughtered in the first third, Star Wars videotography and plot is recycled in the second part, why not throw in some random alien skulls to finish it off. They are able to bring the skull into a sealed room where the person that took the first skull didn’t touch the other 12 and was able to seal off the room from the outside…. really? Are you serious… crazed tribesman in the middle of a crater in a mountain, with one temple, no other structures, and a locked vault. Logic would say that if you could take one and get out you would take more, also how can it be possible for them to reseal it? Moving on to the fact that it took all 13 of the crystal figures to form a being that looked like ET? Spielberg… you losing your touch or did Lucas suck out your creativity by creating such a destructive plot line to an otherwise good series of movies. This movie and its aliens which by the way aren’t from another planet, they live in the space between dimensions, so that way they are not inter dimensional (you know transition from one to another for a home) they really just take up some space between them. Also the great treasuse, bet you want to know how amazing it is, it is the gift of knowledge, which if bestowed on a human overwhelms them, so of course the bad guy decides he wants their knowledge and so overwhelmed from the education that he painfully dies, bad acting and all.. who’s dropping out of college before they die from being over educated… again, really?
In the end this movie is a waste of time that is a collection of movies with a twisted worthless incoherent, unexplainable, non-logical, unsastisfying, plot line that makes me wish movies were never invented. I’m thankful there are decent movies out there and I do mean decent, not classics or favorites of mine, because it would only take a half way, barely decent chick flick to top the plot and execution of this disastor.
If you enjoy it, I’m not sorry, I just know that the rest of the world including myself shouldn’t ever trust your taste in movies…
My rating 0.1 stars out of 5 (it gets 0.1 for the fact that they watched this and had the audacity to release it, that takes true idiocy to release something as bad as this and well they might as well get little credit for their strength… stupidity)
Life’s a rolling
AmbiguicCoherence
Well, it might look like we’ve become inactive- I can assure you that we’re not. MountSpyder and I have been really busy doing that work aspect in our lives. I’ve got a few long posts sitting in the draft queue just begging me to finish them. But for updates on what we’ve been looking at and the posts I should have written in the last month – this is what I would have talked about:
Windows 7 is still on the down-low, but as far as posted updates on the underground I’d have to summarize and say a little bit of linux, a little bit of the XP aura, and a little bit of the Microsoft Surface gui. And yes, Vista is still crap.
Intel’s atom processor is making headway to new personal media devices and shrunken laptops – looks good because there is competition and we all know competition fuels better technology.
Verizon put out an IT investigative report in the last few weeks – gives a little better insight on the misconceptions of hacker attacks and how people need to be less scared. “If you aren’t running a credit server, your personal files aren’t of interest.” And “Antiviruses can only handle old definition viruses. These newer real application malware programs are overlooked – and they are what’s really annoying people and cause the problems”.
The MountSpyder and I are going to start brewing our own beer.
Bot nets are still in existance, the spreads usually grow upon holidays; which is when most people click on all those email type cards. Malware applications tied into them like the storm worm or the multi-application, multi-protocal chaos trojan which I’ve been tracking for the last two years are both still around. Which brings me to another topic: I haven’t had the chance to roll out my latest updates on MY antivirus program.
Windows XP Service Pack 3 was released and rereleased all damaged – Office 2007 compatibility packs deleted My Documents folders which contain Office 2003 files – oops? Yea, could have been a two page article.
We’ve got another author for the blog, who can’t think of a handle for himself. But his posts will aliven our linux side.
The world faces a real inter-network problem in the next year. The bandwidth drain is probably going to kill the whole thing. Which then means an internet-3 line will have to be created so the rest of us can overtake the internet-2. A quick link to what I’m talking about.
I’m in the middle of building a cluster at work to do finite element calculations – but the software we need it for limits us to Suse 10.0 : which isn’t bad in itself, but it being old forces an on going search for the old repositories that I need to compile the software. So if anyone has any ideas, I’d love them to be thrown my way. And this link is why I have no problem using Suse.
Apple is still in the dumps about security issues with leopard- ever since the quicktime vulnerabilities were released on the net, it’s all been a wild downwards spiral. A little info to back me up here. And it’s also confirmed by my Pwn2Own post.
We’ll see what comes next. Hopefully we’ll find some time in our schedules.
Obscure Questioning
Ambiguic Coherence
Merged Excerpts from a conversation.
There are times where one can be philosophical, some people aren’t. That’s fine too, even if they “ask really obscure questions that mean nothing in the grand scheme of life”.
“Well, as an engineer would tell you, that’s the best way to go through life, we just take what we learn and try to answer those questions, and if we can’t, then we can’t. but if we can – [it's] ambiguic coherence”
If someone, not thinking, is hasseling a room of engineers to turn in paperwork and they say “why? we’re busy making the company money” and they say, “well, why is the sky blue or the grass green”. Impromtu, they have 5 engineers giving them an answer to both.
The overall synopsis of this story is that the really isnt a point to knowing either of those. some things should just be taken as they are.
If either were of different color, it wouldnt change a damn thing.
Sure, there would be no fun in that, and that would ruin the fun in asking those questions.
But I think im trying to get at, obscure questioning is the important kind of questioning. even though it might seem like nothing in the grand scheme of life to you, to the person you’re asking the question (who also might be able to give you a reasonable answer) it just might be the question needed to strike motivation to solve some drastic problem in the grand scheme of lives.
Therefore, it’s a good thing to will always ask ridiculous questions.
A Tribute
George Carlin – a hero of logic dry humor. He tells it as it is. Things that most people overlook because they’re too integrated into the media and society. We’re not all conformists. The word ‘MEH is a tribute to his 4 letter monologue/rant.
‘-M-E-H
A Four Character Word
I’m stealing this word from a friend because I can; because there are far too many more meanings of it than are being used.
When you screw up something and you want to scream out loud that FOUR letter word…
When you are frustrated and just can’t figure it out…
If you’re trying to keep it PG at work or when you’re out with the kids…
Shrug your problems aside and say ‘Meh. It’s the new F%@K of our times.
Everything is so politically correct and it’s no longer a curse word. Well F that, we have a new word ! ‘MEH to those media critics with my hands in the air
- In the News: More soldiers died today. ‘meh, can’t do anything about it. It already happened. Shrug it off and say ‘Meh. I can’t do anything about it at this point. It’s the excuse to the excessive human error on a project.
- I wanted to go to sleep earlier than I did, but that old action flick was on the TV. So I stayed up and I watched it. It was great… Waking up tired as hell, I said Meh. It was worth it.
- Take the Liam Lynch song – United States of Whatever. Well guess what, ‘Meh fits perfectly: (http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/liamlynch/unitedstatesofwhatever.html)
I went down to the beach and saw Kiki
She was, like, all “ehhhh”
And I was, like, “‘meh”.Then this chick comes up to me and she’s all, like,
“Hey, aren’t you that dude?”
And I’m, like, “‘meh”.So later I’m at the pool hall
And this girl comes up
And she’s, like, “awww”
And I’m, like, “‘meh”…
George Carlin’s tribute to the F word.
http://www.lyricsandsongs.com/song/576828.html
All I can add to each part is ‘MEH.
Integration and Confrontation
Ambiguic Coherence
What to do about an unusually shy girlfriend.
From my take on meeting her, she seems very shy and isolated, in the sense that she’s too family oriented and isn’t outgoing – even though she says she is. She did an over-the-top amount of talking about her siblings. She has her little ‘circle of trust’ or comfortableness within her group of friends; whether they are from high school, (where she most likely had the same problem until senior year) or they we’re forced upon her as roommates are.
As a confidence situation on her part, She’s like a Jane Doe who doesn’t know how to take that step forward and say, hey, I’m Jane, I’m Jill’s friend from home; What’s up. As far as that story goes, I went to a recital for a friend from high school. Her extended family was there included a friend of mine from middle school. Anyway, his sister was getting married to a guy who was an old coworker of one of my coworkers; Which I found out almost instantly while catching up with him. This guy was sitting next to him – and chimed right in – Now, that’s confidence. My friend’s girlfriend (at the time) was there too. She sat there quietly. Now, my old friend has never been the type to introduce anyone, but was always in the right place at the right time where everyone meshed well so there was never any need to do so. At the end of the recital, we’re all talking at a reception and I still haven’t been introduced to this girl who has also not said a word to anyone. As they were leaving, about 100 ft off she started talking to him about who knows what – but that’s the circle of comfort thing. Becuase she couldn’t make the first assertive step, that he didn’t help her with, She played ‘total avoidance’.
This avoidance falls within the confidence circle of her friends. They’ll talk about your relationship, but can’t do it publicly with anyone who is not in that circle and this includes you’re close friends. She got stuck/forced into a temporary comfort zone, when you and I first hung out with her. She had no way to avoid it. You and I starting to talk to her right away and that put me in her comfort zone.
So, getting back to it all. What i would do is have a little [forced] meet and greet that was impromptu or secretly planned with your friends. Let me explain that. Have her over for a movie or something. Have a friend show up and just hang out, even better, synchronously several of them. If they talk a lot, they will either have be excepted or make out to be a real jackass. Next, over do any public gestures or public displays of affection that you might do. Say hi, but get in her way. Have your friends say hi too. Try to also have a short conversation. That’ll force her to make her side of your relationship publicly acceptable.
Second, you could bluntly sit down and talk to her about it. But first outline what you would say and practice it with possible responses of why she publicly avoids you. It’s a toss up to which one is easier to pull off. It’s up to you.
Creativity
Ambiguic Coherence
After a very long nine days of work, I’ve decided to post something. I believe that creativity plays a very important role in engineering innovations, business development, and the overall positive changes of a society – any society. It doesn’t matter what country, class, religion, race or value system you have, personal creativity needs to overcome the effects that media plays on everyone’s views.
At least once a week, I throw the same rant at work. [Mainly, the temperature follows the same pattern, inside the office: cool in the morning, ~80F by noon, and then down to the 60's in the evening (because I'm there late to avoid sitting in rush hour traffic)] . The weather forecasters are wrong. They all need to be fired. If they declared 50% chance of anything, the media and general public would not notice. AND they would be a heck of a lot more accurate then they are now. Their predictions don’t even follow the radar images. Why does the media even allow this crap to be aired.
So going back to creativity, I leave you with this .text I first read almost a decade ago (minus a few months). To quote a movie – “Human Knowledge Belongs to the World”, and another quote “Someday, there will be no workers, only artists.” If you think about something, and it sounds fantastic, fascinating, amazing, etc. SHARE IT. Ideas make the future a reality.
by Wesley Felter
During the early summer of 1998, I was searching for direction. Simplification. An understanding of the purpose of anything. I do not remember how the answer came to me, but when it came it said “Hack the Planet” and I understood that this was my slogan. The purpose that had guided me for twenty years now had a name, and it was Hack the Planet.
You may wonder exactly what Hack the Planet means; on this page I will attempt to explain it.
While Hack the Planet is powerful in its simplicity it is weak in its vagueness. Many people do not understand what it means to hack, to be enlightened by the fire of creativity. Hack the Planet is not a destructive force; it is a creative force that aims to change things for the better. It is the optimistic belief that tomorrow can be better than today. It is based on the fundamental idea that change is good. Change brings uncertainty, but I have come to accept and even welcome uncertainty.
When I tell you that I want to Hack the Planet, I do not mean merely the physical geography of earth. I want to hack technology. I want to hack the media. I want to hack the economy. I want to hack society. You name it, I want to hack it.
I think this is best illustrated by example. In the late 70s, an engineer named Steve Wozniak decided that every person should be able to afford a computer. This is now known as the “personal computer industry”. Woz hacked the planet.
A few years later, Richard Stallman decided that every person has the right to understand and control how their computer works. He called this idea, that software should not be owned, GNU. Many people believe that such Open Source software has an evolutionary advantage over other software and thus that its success is historically inevitable. RMS hacked the planet.
In 1986 a carpenter named Larry Harvey burned a wooden effigy of a man on a San Francisco beach. Over a decade later, tens of thousands of people join him every year for a week in the Nevada desert to shed the limitations of normal human society. This new society, which embraces the self-organizing properties of chaos as its only master, is called Burning Man. Larry Harvey hacked the planet.
The people who John Brockman calls the Third Culture are hacking the planet. They are dissatisfied with normality. They are changing things. There are more people hacking the planet right now than I could chronicle. But I hope to chronicle some of them and their ideas. This Web site is dedicated to the idea that hacking the planet is essential to the survival of the human race.
Wesley Felter, 14 August 1998
The 7-10 Approach
AmbiguicCoherence
The following was conceived from excerpts from a conversation about timings, persuasion, and perspective. Take it with a grain of salt, but in the desert, salt isn’t plentiful – so you choose how to use it.
The Mentor finishes his words with his apprentice; “…just a suave type of move, talk about her friends, her school, and then move in slow. You’ve gotta hold your ground with your drinking and push your intellect just enough, while being a bit romantic and using some old fashioned chivalry. This whole thing is just a chapter in itself, and can be hard to explain… But it does work.
The Apprentice wonders what are, and how to use the other approaches mentioned before all of this, and laughs.
Well, that’s it; Let me explain it a little further to you: There’s the passive approach which usually rocks a kiss or two and a probably make out session in the end. The passive/active approach which usually gets you to third base, and then there’s the active/passive approach which allows you to play a little hard to get while ‘ignoring her’ which will make her curious- and that’s a random outcome, but my friend, the hard to get maneuver is the 7-10, and its gotten me some play… quite a bit… that’s what you’ve gotta do.
If you ask yourself: “Well, how will I know if when I play hard to get that she might move on?”
Then you should always know that if you play it right, it’ll never hit that low- and if it does, you screwed up. Try again next time. Overall, this is why it’s called the 7-10. It’s like the time: the time after dinner through the early evening – it’s like prime time. You have to play the game like you’re sober, making sure you dont act like a fool, but as 10 o’clock approaches, you must make sure she knows that you’re hooking up that night so she doesn’t leave. You have to ‘hook up’ before you hook up because you then have it in the bank before 10, right before night come.
If you’re game hunting at dinner, you have to make it look like you have something that they can’t get (playing hard to get)- because there’s too much time available during dinner for her to change her mind: that’s a 5 o’clock. 6 o’clock is a dead number because some people eat a late dinner, but from 7-10, there’s plenty of time to get to know and let her know. From 9 till 11 you dont have much time to achieve anything, and it’ll force you to move to quickly. It creates too much pressure. If she’s a slow moving girl, then you already screwed yourself over without even trying. So, you must use the 7-10 approach: Play hard to get while moving in.
And it does work. Let her take control without knowing it, and consistently make sure that you hold your own ground. This approach stops you from pushing too fast. If the girl wants to move faster, then she can without any hesitation – just follow her lead.
What’s Next?…..
MountSpyder
So I was reading over our main page and this one line seems to be theme of today, “that little blinking cursor, when you just don’t know what to write or say.” Deciding to start a blog was a genius idea by a very close friend of mine, the only technologically savvy Amish engineer (no he’s really not Amish, sorry for any confusion, haha) but, as I’ve sat here, reviewing my previous post on the Mac Book Air, I wonder what’s next, and like a explosion from a bad acid trip (or at least the way the movies make it seem) I realize that I don’t have a clue. This is truly the question everyone is looking towards coming up with an answer for: “What’s Next?” Who knows, do I know, do you know, hmmm…..
Well I can’t tell you what’s next for you, your choices are your own, your likes/dislikes, aspirations, goals, accomplishments, education, etc. are all your own. The only advice I can offer others is that same advice I follow everyday.
1.) Life shouldn’t be that serious. “If you take life too seriously you’ll never get out alive.” This may not make much sense at first, obviously everyone will eventually pass away, however, the point is that no matter what you do the end will come, so enjoy what you do and do it to the best of your ability. Satisfaction comes from a job well done and from doing what you enjoy. So when you ask yourself “what’s next?” make sure you are answering with something that makes you happy.
2.) Never Regret. Why would you want to burden yourself by looking back and saying “damn, I should’ve, would’ve, could’ve, but didn’t.” Don’t worry about what you haven’t done and instead realize what you have done. Life is one long journey of learning, if you made a “mistake” odds are you learned a valuable lesson from it, whether big or small. This learning experience is nothing to regret, but to take hold of and realize through your trials and errors you have become the person you are today. So don’t regret choices, don’t ask what could’ve happened, continue on with what you’ve learned and make the best choices you can in the future. This leads me to next piece…
3.) Don’t be afraid of mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes in their life. We’re human and therefore imperfect. Maybe you have made a mistake in your job choice, who you’ve dated, who you’ve left behind, but mistakes are what makes us human and allows us to truly live. So if you make a mistake, move on, it’s not the end of the world, obviously if you’re reading this, just strive for better next time and learn from them.
4.) “I Did It My Way.” Frank Sinatra was a great man; he did it his own way at all times. You should do the same, don’t listen to others about what you should or shouldn’t do with your life. Others advice is always good to take into consideration, and their thoughts may truly be beneficial, but don’t let others lead you about, take the reigns on your own life. Do it your way and do what you want to be happy.
5.) Always Smile. The worst thing you can do in your life is live it full of anger, full of sadness, full of hatred. I have lived my life with the goal of making the others around me smile, putting them in a better mood, and keeping myself in the highest of spirits. I see no point of being in a bad mood; it’s a waste of time and waste of energy. I know that later on a full post will have to be written on this subject. But for the purpose of keeping this post brief and general, always smile; don’t end up looking back wondering why you spent so many years not smiling, and the key to this: constant unwavering optimism. Smile and laugh more and you’ll definitely enjoy your life more (as if it’s not obvious, but many don’t practice it).
Well these five guidelines are similar in many aspects but it is what I try to do in my everyday life. I can’t tell you what’s next, I can’t even tell myself what’s truly next. All I can do is try to live by a common set of guidelines and work towards the goals that I have set for my life.
