Archive for May, 2009
Real Humility
There is an impression in our culture that humility means self-hatred, or avoiding praise when one deserves it but leaping at the chance to take punishment. And I’ve seen a number of people chase desperately after this behavior so that they can be what they call humble, but this is not humility.
Real humility does not say that you are less than others, that is self-deprecation and it is a destructive behavior. When you are humble it does not mean to assume that you will fail. That creates self-fulfilling prophecies.
Real humility does not seek to distort your personal image negatively nor positively. Real humility says things like “I am human, I am going to make mistakes, and thats ok.”, “I can learn something from everyone”, “I am not higher than any person, nor are they higher than me” or like the attitude of the most serene elders I know “I am young and dumb till the day I die”.
That is humility, not self-destruction, not the “I can’t”s but the acknowledgment that you are still learning and mistakes are part of that process. It is not the casting down of yourself, but of not putting others below you; thus raising them with you. So don’t let the voice of self-deprecation and doubt pose as a virtue. Humility is good, just make sure that its real humility and not self-doubt in disguise.
Add comment May 30, 2009
Read the Controversies
When I was in third grade I started homeschooling. Once I caught up on the gap between public and home school standards I started having a lot of free time. This is when my mom started buying me books like “The Call of the Wild”, “Last of the Mohicans”, “Greek Mythology”, and other classics. I still to this day can not tell you how much good this has done for me.
Because of free time and curiosity made more available by my being home schooled at the time I learned to love reading books that were held in high esteem. This later extended to a curiosity on any and all censored books, starting with Orwell.
I have gotten more value out of these than I am able to tell you, and I haven’t even scratched the surface of the real classics. It has stretched my mind every time that I have pushed myself to understand these difficult reads. It has made my mind faster, and my wit sharper.
And the more taboo a book, the more I’ve gotten out of it. Karl Marx for example… I do not agree with the man. He presented some real problems, but none of his suggestions addressed the problems he brought up. He masked this by hiding behind his impressive vocabulary. Unfortunately his vocabulary seemed to be more to hide the weaknesses of his arguments than to clarify his purpose with the most accurate words. Because I pushed myself to read that I now know what really is and isn’t Marxist. I learned what we were supposed to be fighting.
But by censoring the reading of Marx due to fears of people converting to his way of thinking we began paving the way to put all ten planks of Marx’s Communist Manifesto in place, and if you haven’t read the book, its difficult to know this.
Rather than trying to hide an idea that you find false or even evil, show it in full, and expose it. After all, if your idea is really the better one, than let all information be seen, and let people come to their own conclusions. Truth will win out in the end.
Add comment May 30, 2009
Refusal of the Call
When I first got out of high school in 2005 I was offered the opportunity to go rebuild roofs in New Orleans. I had everything lined up, and then at the last moment. I got cold feet. My little sister (who was 12 at the time) told me she didn’t want her big brother to go, and so I didn’t.
That chance would have funded a vehicle for me and gotten me in school. I opted to not take risk, and I regret it. Instead I started at a book store, and while I enjoyed that greatly it closed doors on opportunities which in hindsight, would have been much more valuable.
This time I have no intention of letting my insecurities get in the way of me finding out first hand what I can do. It took me four years, but I’m learning that risks must be taken in order to grow properly.
Add comment May 28, 2009
A Call To Adventure
I always felt like I should take some kind of warriors quest to become a man. A rite of passage, something all to often neglected in our modern world. Now I am going on one.
I am leaving behind almost everything I know to go make a new life for myself. While I know where I am going, I am not completely sure how getting there is going to work out. Nor how everything is going to work once I get there. This is not usual for me given that I like to plan ahead, but this time, I can only get so much information, and some things I’m just going to have to learn on the way by doing.
I have spent the last two years reading about how money, business, and life in general works. I’ve studied literature, constitutional law, religions, alternative thought, propaganda, and careers. Now I want to find out if any of that is going to be useful or not.
I’ve always been intelligent, but I have never really seemed to know how to use it, and that is something that I want to find out for myself, first hand, if I can do or not. And if I can’t do it than I want to learn how. I know I’m going to need some serious mentoring. For the time I am looking to my quotes for that, but I have a lot more to learn. And so I will be starting my own version of the monomythic quest.
Add comment May 27, 2009
Some of my favorite Quotes
Today is memorial day and I have a lot to do, so I’m just going to post some of my favorite quotes today. I have a huge quote archive that can be visited from the navigation bar on the side. Here are some samples of the ideas that help form my ideas.
“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (Self-Reliance and Other Essays)
“The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
“If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see.”
— Henry David Thoreau (Walden, or Life in the Woods)
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
“However mean your life is, meet it and live it.”
— Henry David Thoreau
“Everyone should carefully observe which way his heart draws him. And then choose that way with all his strength.”
— Hasidic saying
“Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.”
— Andy Rooney
“Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness.
Listen to it carefully.”
— Richard Bach (Illusions)
“You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it, however.”
- Richard Bach (Illusions)
“Be not afraid of growing slowly. Be afraid only of standing still.”
— Chinese Proverb
Thats it for now. I hope you enjoyed! Have a Happy Memorial Day!
1 comment May 25, 2009
There is No Magic Plan
Photo Courtesy of Stinky Pinky
For a long time I was searching for that one niche degree, that could set me apart, and thus make my career. Every blog I read on the subject said go with your passions. I’m young and have a wide variety of interests. I don’t know how to narrow it down yet, and because of what I didn’t (and still don’t) know what to do; I stopped.
I wasn’t moving forward because I wanted to find “The Magic Plan”. Now there is a big market of people selling “Magic Plans” for everything from diet to careers. They’ve been selling magic solve all plans since man was first able to chisel symbols into stone. But none of these are magic plans, they are just plans; sold for profit (either monetary, fame, spiritual), and full of whatever biases the writer also believes in.
I am not saying that there is nothing valid in these plans. A good plan still has plenty of application, but not one of them is a magic plan that is going to fix everything for your life.
I was so terrified of choosing the wrong plan, that life ended up happening without me, and my personal goals were being left behind in the process. Recently though on a stressful day where I was caught a few miles from home on a bicycle in a thunder storm with errands to run some of the quotes I read started to sink in.
I had stopped moving forward because I had thought that if I chose the wrong plan that I would have to stay like that. I was acting like it would not be possible to change course. I was also believing that there was a degree that would make my career, and thus make it easier to provide for a family.
I was missing that the degree is not responsible for making my career. I am. No plan is responsible for how my life goes. I am. And it was such a release to realize that. I can go after things that I enjoy learning about, and whether a degree is “practical” or not the degree isn’t going to be what makes or breaks me anyways.
The things that will make or break me are SELF-KNOWLEDGE, EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION, ATTITUDE, INTEGRITY, HONOR, and PERSEVERANCE. Those things will be a much better brand to be known for than the guy with the Magic Degree, or the guy with the Magic Plan. There is no magic plan. Plans alone are just plans, it is only the individual that can take a plan, and make it magic. But even then magic is in the individual, and the possibility of that magic is in you and me.
Add comment May 24, 2009
