Inequality For All

The weather has been cooling off a little and there has been a lot of rainstorms lately, so I am getting kind of excited for Autumn to come around. It's this time of year that working at a clothing store is probably not the best thing for me because I love the Fall clothing. Give me boots, sweaters and skinny jeans any day over bathing suits and shorts. There is just something comforting about a cozy outfit, and I also love the Fall clothing colors like reds, browns, and burnt oranges.

I have often heard people mention that if someone doesn't like where they are in life, or want to reach a goal in their life, they need only to work their way toward it with everything they have and if they don't accomplish what they wanted to, it is probably their own fault or it wasn't meant to be. There seems to be a general belief that all people come into this world on equal terms, or if not, they can level the playing field with their actions.

This is true to some extent. A person who works hard to get a job probably has more chance of getting it than someone who doesn't try at all. Someone who was born poor and made a lot of money later on probably worked really hard to do that. If you go on dating websites and work toward meeting new people, I bet you are more likely to get married than someone who doesn't bother. But it is my firm belief that hard work doesn't always make the difference, and people are never equal not matter how we try to make it so.

Consider someone who is born with great beauty compared to someone who is born with a horrible disfigurement. No matter how the disfigured person tries, they will never look like the beautiful person, and will never be afforded the privileges that come with good looks. Now this disfigured person may work really hard and become a wealthy leader, and they may even get plastic surgery so they look more attractive, but does that make them equal to the beautiful person? No. It only means that they had to work harder to get a tiny bit of what the beautiful was born with, with no guarantee that it would even pay off.

I use beauty as an example, but of course beauty does not always mean you will have an easier or more successful life. It is only another variable in the infinite number of qualities that make us UNEQUAL. It is only easier to study because it is visible. But what about our invisible qualities? Our temperament? Our mental state? Our health? Our feelings? Even when we concede that people are not equal, we STILL tend to judge them on the visible and forget about the invisible. For example, you may see a homeless person and think, "Why doesn't he get a job? He looks healthy and he is not ugly. Getting a job can't be much harder than standing on the corner all day begging for money." But what do you really know about this man? Maybe he was born with a mental illness. Maybe he has chronic pain. Maybe he had several close family members and friends die. Maybe every time he tired to make a new start in his life, something terrible happened to bring him back down. You really know nothing, yet you judge.

The judgement of a homeless man may not be an everyday occurrence for you, but we judge everyone around us on a daily basis without knowing much at all. You think things like, "Why did that person cut me off in traffic? He must be an idiot. Why doesn't my friend do a better job at work? He must not be trying hard enough. Why doesn't my friend go to school? She must be lazy. Why did my mom treat me so badly? She must not love me."

The sad truth is that we make all these secret judgments when outwardly we are saying we need to celebrate each other's differences and embrace them for who they are. I think that the only way we can really accomplish this is to be understanding and accepting of others no matter who they are or what they have done. Give a kind word and some food to the homeless person. Smile at the person who cut you off in traffic. Support your friends through all stages of their lives. Love unconditionally.

It may be easier to judge than to love and accept. However, if you are judgmental, tread lightly, for you may not like it so much when it comes back around.

Ridiculous Religousness

I have never had a problem with people who are religious or spiritual in nature. In fact, some of those people can be the most loving, kind-hearted, wonderful people in the world. What I do have a problem with is people who accept their religion unconditionally without any thought into alternative beliefs.

I get it to some degree. You are raised in a religion, or you have a really good feeling about a belief, or it just feels "right". Feelings are not something to be taken lightly or easily discounted. Feelings can lead to a lot of important discovers about yourself and other people and life in general. The thing that I have a problem with is when people discount all other religions and believe that their way of doing things is the only "right" way. This really bothers me because who is to say what religion is right or wrong?

When asked how they know their religion is right, some people will say that they prayed about it and they had a good feeling about it, or God told them directly that it was the right religion. Well guess what? Billions of other people belonging to countless other religions have done the exact same thing and gotten the exact same answer that THEIR religion is right. It is pompous and ignorant to think that only a tiny fraction of these people got the correct answer.

So how do we know what religion to follow? The short answer is that we don't. I don't think anyone can know for sure that their religion is the best or true or ultimate religion. How can you know that you wouldn't have been a Buddhist or Hindu or Christian if you were born in a different time or place? I think the closest we can come to some sort of enlightenment is to explore every religion and people that you possibly can and try to gain an understanding of why each one believes and practices as they do. Only then can we clearly accept or reject these ideas.

Of course it is impossible to study every single religion in depth, which is why it bothers me so much when people reject all other religions. How can you know it is wrong if you don't even know what it is? Embrace your own religion and live according to its laws if you must, but do not reject others way of living simply because you do not understand it.

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

I admit I am the type of person to stick with what I know. Sure I will try a new food here or there or watch a new movie. But overall, I don't like going out and making big changes in my life. I don't sign up for things that require a big commitment, and I don't get involved in complicated issues. I play it safe and stick to my routine, and that makes me happy. But does it really?

You always hear people say how you only have one life, so you should make the most of it. But then you get bogged down by the daily grind and you think that because nothing really horrible is happening, you are living a good life. But is not taking risks and only surviving one day to the next really a good life? It's like spending your entire life in a waiting room only to say at the end, "At least I didn't have to hear any bad news from the doctor." But what if the news would have been good?! Or what if there wasn't a doctor at all on the other side of the door, but another amazing world yet to be discovered? Of course that is a stretch, but how are you to know what lies beyond closed doors and different choices?

What I am trying to say in a round-about way is that if you never take chances, you may never know the true joy and wonder that life can bring. Sure there is a very real chance of failure and sorrow, but isn't that a risk worth taking for a more fulfilling life? Would you rather have a story to tell at the end of your life, or a regret and emptiness? I, for one, would like the latter. Now I just need to gather my courage for venturing out.

Natural Selection

Most rational people these days accept natural selection as a sound scientific theory. But one thing I have always wondered about is what happens when humans intervene with natural selection? Humans can often control which species survive and even decide how they will look, grow, and act. But is this a wise thing to do? We may think there is no harm in creating chickens with larger breasts, or plants that grow faster and with less water, or pigs that are almost identical in color, shape, and size. (All of these examples, by the way, are things that really exist.) However, we can not always know the consequences for hundreds or even thousands of years, and the consequences we do know about are not always favorable. The pigs have to be isolated from any kind of germs because their immunity is so weak that even the slightest contaminant will kill them. The trees that grow super fast produce poor quality wood that is almost useless. Genetically altered animals everywhere are popping up with unusual afflictions and problems.

Plants and animals are one thing. But what about our affect on the natural selection of humans? Certainly human life is precious and no one wants to think about someone they love being the weak link in the chain. But if you think about it, there really is little room left for natural selection in humans. Babies that would have died at birth in the past now live very long lives. Diseases that would have killed millions are now being eradicated. While these are wonderful advances, I can't help but wonder what their effect will be down the road. Will people lose their immunity from being so protected from disease? Will we become less intelligent by making everything so simple for our children? Will we develop new disorders from preventing others?

Obviously there are no easy answers to these questions. We cannot simply let babies die or do nothing about disease. We can't be expected to go about things the hard way just because there might be some far-off consequences to the simple way. We can, however, think, consider, visualize, judge, postulate, and project before we make decisions that my affect the future of mankind.

Real Life

Mike has been furloughed from his job for a little while now, and I have been soaking it in while I can because I like when he is around more, and it is only a short time before he will be back to work. We spend most of our time together watching t.v., going places, or just hanging out together. Also, this year we have been working to improve our yard just a bit. We hired some guys to pull out the bushes and small trees along the side of the driveway, and just that small step makes things look about 100 times better. We have also been buying a few plants to put in the front yard, and have been "trying" to keep the weeds under control. I say trying because short of having a small army of gardeners at my disposal, there is no real way of controlling all the weeds. All in all, I am feeling a little better about the yard than I have in the past, and I am enjoying having a project to work on with my Love.

Doesn't it seem like you can often get a feel for something or someplace by watching a show about it or reading about it? At least that's how I tend to feel when I am in the midst of a good book or enthralled by a documentary. But more often than not, when I actually experience something in real life, I get a completely different feeling than if I were learning about from my own home. It's kind of like the difference between reading a letter from someone and talking to them in person. Both can be very interesting and fulfilling actions, but one can scarcely begin to compare to the other. They both give you very different feelings.

A lot of people (including me), tend to prefer experiencing things from their homes. After all, home is where we feel safe and comfortable and free to be ourselves and make mistakes. But there's a catch to learning about the world this way. We are not really experiencing anything. We are only seeing a shadow of the full picture; a dull impression of the richness of color and feeling that comes from experiencing first-hand. When we choose to watch instead of do, we lose a part of our vitality. We accept a life that is only a fraction of what it could be, and we start to accept only written facts over our own feelings and intuitions.

I'm not one to say that reading and learning from books and computers is not important. The fact that we can understand language and complex ideas is part of what makes us human. But another (maybe even more important) part of being human is getting out and experiencing things for yourself and feeling the full range of emotions that come from that. Because without doing more than skimming the surface of our humanity, we are little better than our books and computers.

How's That Working For You?

I have been known to watch Dr. Phil from time to time, and while I think he gives a lot of sound advice, there are some things he says that I don't always agree with. One thing he likes to do often is to ask people what they have been doing and then ask, "How's that working for you?" Then the person usually responds with, "It's not working." and Dr. Phil can declare that if you always do the same thing, you will always get the same results. There is even a saying that states something to effect of, "The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results."

This is where I disagree somewhat. Yes, you can generally expect certain reactions when dealing with other people. If you are mean to someone you can usually expect them to be mean back, or to be sad and upset. If you smile at someone, you might expect to lift their mood or get a smile back. But wait a minute. Most of us can think of a time when we smiled at someone and they were still ornery or were mean to someone and that person was unaffected. This is because human emotions are not governed by hard and fast rules like say, the laws of physics. Different people do not always react the same in the same situation, and the same person may react differently in the same situation.

Let's say you are at a party and you see a girl making out with multiple people, and you call that girl a slut. You would generally expect the girl to be upset by this and maybe cry or call you a name back. But isn't it also possible that that particular girl loves being called a slut and is proud of her sexual conquests? Isn't it also possible that the girl would have usually been upset, but she had recently decided to not let other people's perceptions of her bother her? You see, people's emotions are fickle and subject to constant change, so there can be no set "rule" for dealing with any given situation.

There can be guidelines of course. You probably don't want to go around calling every girl you see a slut, just to see what her reaction might be. Also, it is usually not good advice to be extremely nice to everyone, lest you get the reputation of a doormat, or become unhappy from pleasing everyone and neglecting yourself. But there is never going to be an exact "formula" that you can follow to get exactly what you want. It is very possible to keep doing the same thing and to get different results because when it comes to human interactions, there are too many variables to isolate.

I do agree with Dr. Phil on one point - If you are unhappy with your life, it is probably a good idea to try changing something to try to make it better. But change does not guarantee a positive outcome, just as staying the same does not guarantee the same results.

Being Myself

Look at me flexing my writing muscles and writing more than once in a month! At least I am trying, hey?

When I was younger, I felt like it was was very hard to be myself. Not that I truly knew who I was because most young people are still discovering who they are and trying a lot of different things to get there. But I felt a lot of restrictions growing up - restrictions from my family, restrictions from religion, restrictions from myself. I was afraid to try something different because I was afraid to venture out into unknown territory, beyond what I knew I was comfortable with. Then, in my early twenties, certain events in my life almost forced me to leave that comfort zone. It was scary at first, as any change is. However, with time, I enjoyed my new freedom more and more as I started to make wonderful discoveries about myself and about life.

I feel very lucky that that I went through this transition, even though it was a struggle at times. I am grateful because I think many people never get to experience that freedom. They go their whole lives feeling stifled by social pressures that tell them they must be a certain way, and sometimes they don't even realize it. Sometimes the pain of breaking free is more than a person can take, and it is definitely harder for someone who grows up with more of that pressure on them. The security of conformity disguises itself as happiness. I don't blame these people. I only feel sorry for them and wish for them to find a way to find their true selves and true happiness.

All of this is not to say that I am a perfect person who has found the perfect road to happiness. I still conform in a lot of ways and feel pressure to "fit in". I don't always know what it right or what I should be. But I also feel a lot of joy and freedom that I never knew in my younger years. I feel freer to try new things, to think a different way, to speak my mind, and to do what I want to do. I would not trade any of that for the world.