Category: relationships

Good people happen to bad things.

Why me? Why somebody else? Why even bother asking. Maybe the question is why did I create the conditions that permitted this result.

Education, study, research, meditation, observation and critical thinking are not words usually associated with navigating human behavior. That is possibly why we are surprised at a person’s behavior while others expected the behavior almost intuitively.

In my opinion intuition comes from practicing observation and critical thinking. I would go as far to say I suspect people who are considered psychics exercise a high level of people reading. Similarly sales people, con men, psychologists and others.

So if you find yourself in a relationship with a person who exhibit undesirable behaviors that means you failed to analyze them during the dating stage. Likewise if you are dating a person with undesirable behaviors you need to find a way out before things get worse. During the dating phase is when people put on their best face. There are less obligations and expectations which allows all parties to be relaxed and overlook some important indicators.

I once saw a bio on a social media page that stated [Life is hard. Suffering is optional.] While that statement does not apply universally to all satiations, it does imply that suffering is a choice and that you are in control of your life. If you make choices that place you in an environment or relationship where you are suffering, then you are partially if not fully responsible for your current station.

In conclusion I will quote another person. I usually go for a walk during my lunch breaks for exercise. A few times I stop to talk to the groundskeeper of a nearby shopping mall and he gave me this wisdom [Bad cannot come from good and good cannot come from bad.] So the onus is placed on us to create the conditions where we have relationships with people and full our environment with things that respectively practice and produce goodness.

 

Championship

I don’t watch much sports. I like to play sports when the opportunity is provided. If you ask me anything technical about football, basketball or baseball I dont have a clue.

Every athelete especially the ones that have earnedchampionship rings have faced loss. The difference with these winners is thier individual discipline,and having the right supporting team.

For example let’s take Allen Iverson. They say your life will be an inspiration or an example. He is the latter. While he had talent, he was not on a team that could support him. Also his off court acquaintances dragged him down. He lacked discipline and wanted to fit in with the pop culture of the time. He was rebellious without a legitimate cause. The fraternity that surrounded him did not provide constructive guidance.

I talk a lot about bad company, bad subculture and short sighted or unsustainable decisions. Considering all that, we have to forgive ourselves and use our resources(time) that we have left to make sustainable decisions and constructive associations.

Iverson may have had more talent than Jordan but Jordan had better advisors. Jordan lost many games in a season but averaged more wins than losses. I mean even the finals only require 4 wins out of 7 games. You may have lost the first three then come back and win a straight 4.

Try to win every time by taking control and improving your self and your environment. You may lose once in a while but that does not mean you you are not a champion.

 

Sabotage

I wrote a blog post about bad company. I have mentioned many times the benefit of avoiding bad company. We are like sponges when it comes to information and emotions but we are unfortunately not omnipotent.

In the past month I have overheard one woman encourage two other women to engage in reckless behavior, all while doing it with a smile under the auspices of friendship. In one occasion she congratulated a young single woman on her new long distance relationship with a musician. Read that sentence again. A long distance relationship with a musician. Is that a paradox or oxymoron or a fairy tail. Anyhow in that instance she had not had much choice but to congratulate her as she was basically screaming it from the rooftops.

Having worked with a few entertainers I would say there is a maybe a 99/100 probability she is not the only one. Although, if that is acceptable to her, it is acceptable to me and that’s great, but that wasn’t the impression she gave. Also there were some financial things involved that made it even worse and you will have to refer to the movie Casino, specifically the relationship between the characters of Robert Dinero and Sharon Stone for a visual. I will not elaborate here.

On the second incident I observed her encourage another young woman to just let go and be free with a guy she just met on Tinder(I hate apps) the same day. The young lady in question has had a history of poor decision making, some even life threatening.

What kind of friend is this you may say? It is what they call a frenemy. Someone who enjoys being in your company and likes to se you fail in order to feel better about themselves. They may not be happy with the terrible reality they have made for themselves and would feel much better if they had company in their suffering. When you laugh, smile, travel, graduate, get attention, or are successful at anything, they feel it is an attack on their person. They want to be included in your comings and goings so that they will have breaking news of your failure.

They can be easily identified as they to bully or manipulate you into behaving according to their flawed modus operandi. They gossip and slander other people who they call friends. People such as these are why you have to refer to traditional tried and true methods of reasoning and courtship.  I am going to conclude by saying, I don’t exaggerate when I say people like this can get you literally killed. You have to asses the conditions in which they live on a deep basis and determine if they are speaking from a place of anger, hate, bitterness, clarity, joy, love or envy.

 

Forgive and journal

I have not been writing as much as I used to. I just about skipped a whole week of writing. Usually inspiration comes from the environment and from personal observation/experience. Although I have been inspired the subject matter would not relate to the blog. Specifically I have been researching holistic hair care and that is a whole culture within itself. Ultimately the sum total of holistic anything is you have to eat the right things and it takes longer to work than so calked conventional cosmetics or medicine, etc.

I’m using my phone to write this post and spellcheck is turned off so i will probably sound more illiterate than usual.

On the subject of forgiveness, someone probably said this but it is something that you give yourself. Whether you are forgiving another person or yourself, it is important to your healing process akin to a holistic cleanse. Cleanse sounds gross. Lets use the word exfoliation as I am now into holistic cosmetics.

You can’t beat yourself up because you made a mistake. You have to forgive yourself but also take note of what you dud incorrectly so you don’t repeat it more times than we like to admit.

Recently I picked up one of my favorite supplements at the supermarket and wondered why I had stopped using it. I went home and looked at the ingredients. It was because of one of my enemies the dreaded SUCRALOSE with its ties to cancer and disgusting aftertaste. This was a perfect example of not taking notes or making a journal of why I stopped using this product about 4 years ago.

Similarly we end relationships, and after an extended period of time forget the horrors that caused the break, including the warning signs at the beginning. So we end up missing the warning signs in a new or recycled love interest-then BAM you find out this person is filled with FAKE SUGAR. A bad taste is left as a reminder that you’re not taking enough notes or journaling.

Forgive yourself. No one is perfect and we are going to make mistakes as long as we live we just want to avoid repeating them and avoid making huge ones we can’t bounce back from. Avoiding hurried decisions is key in allowing sufficient mental resources to  become available to facilitate the right decision.

Evolution or revolution

Revolution implies some sort of war on the rich or the ruling class but as funky English words go it also means something rotating. Evolution in my mind brings thoughts of Darwin, dinosaurs and Dr. Ben Carson.

To evolve is to adapt to the environment in a way that will allow you to have the tools needed to make the best of that environment. Revolution is just a cycle of the same order of things over and over and not necessarily adapting to new or even existing conditions. It’s like the idiom “spinning your wheels.” Your working hard but you are not moving forward.

To get out of the cycle(revolution) of destructive thoughts and behaviors some times requires a evolution to a different way of observing, processing and executing thoughts and actions. It may require physical relocation, a change in diet, a change in social circles, a change in your preferred entertainment,  etc.

In what way and how do we evolve. We can get inspiration from successful people’s biographies. I would stay away from entertainment based celebrities as their perceived greatness or success or happiness is at times fabricated for the purposes of their field of business. Politicians similarly are masters of flattery and at times deception. So I like the stories of corporate CEOs and financial types. Especially those who have come from humble beginnings. Unlike an entertainer or politician, you have to actually produce something, study, build relationships, be diligent and mean when you must, to become a Ursula Burns, Mark Cuban, Carl Icahn, Ross Perot, etc. To evolve from operating in an impoverished to thriving in the most opulent environment takes a lot of will. Although their business achievements may not relate to matters of the heart directly they teach that learning never stops and that is how you adapt.

Adaptation and evolution are synonyms. Currently regarding matters of the hart we are all attempting to live the Shakespearian experience of Romeo and Juliet – minus the suicide – in the digital age. This creates a lot of confusion, disappointment, and dysfunction as we have not fully adapted, adjusted and given Romeo and Juliet cell phones, social media, Netflix, cable, podcasts and dreaded dating apps. Like the CEOs they would adapt, using technology not just as consumers but as designers of their lives. Hopefully they would be older as I think they were in their early teens in the book. They would have equal contribution to a relationship and communicate to determine their compatibility and sustainability before things got too heavy.

So in conclusion we have to take stock of our dating philosophy, and love language to determine how it fits to the modern conditions. Not to loose ourselves or deviate from our ethos and morals but to observe the external environmental changes and determine how we can maintain those qualities while thriving in the present time.

Mess media

I have been taking a break from conventional social media. Specifically youtube and instagram. My instagram is about 80% people who I actually know, 5% strangers and 15% news media. On youtube I follow people who relay the news usually in a comical way and a few related to my field of work. I rarely use facebook as that is mostly comprised of crazy family members who I know too much about to be able to appreciate their online persona.

Overall social media is a bunch of people shouting at the same time and this creates a lot of noise in my head. I used to believe it made me more connected to happenings in the world and my social circle but I now appreciate the benefit of being in my own crazy thoughts. Music and television are another source of noise I am trying to reduce.

I used to believe that reading the newspapers was something that educated and thinking people do but the newspapers have become as trashy as the tabloids at the checkout counter. They are filled with opinions, biased viewpoints and many articles are sponsored by special interest groups or corporations. Its understandable. In a world filled with different forms of media and constant demands on your attention, companies have to compete aggressively to earn that attention. Unfortunately it has become a race to the bottom. Sex, violence, fear mongering, hyperbole, no stone is unturned to achieve shock value. Our level of tolerance just increases until it takes greater shock to get our attention.

Eventually this pushes us so far from where we sustainably and holistically should be and the people in our social circle may think we are mentally limited if we do not know the latest manufactured outrage story. Which is replaced by another outrage story every second.

I understand the butterfly effect and sincerely believe that we are all connected in some way. We all share this existence and have and effect on it, but I don’t need to know if a tree fell in the forest. I know that trees fall in the forest, but I don’t need a breaking news update every minute about it.

We are in the information age but the flood of information is useless for the most part. It is mostly click bait that adds nothing to our lives.

Additionally there is the gossip and reality tv spectrum of media. Where we see a push of negative images of women as catty, confrontational, antagonistic, cantankerous, hypocritical, consumerist and fickle.

Im not slut shaming when I say that we are marketed a paradoxical way of life where prominent celebrities gain their notoriety via selling their sexuality and less so their intellectual and artistic talents. The following are notable people associated with the sex industry at varied levels: Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Pamela Anderson, Cardi B, Nene Leaks, Charlie Sheen, Howard Stern, Hanna Montana, Madonna etc. Some things we don’t need to know. The promote us to have dirty minds – as if we needed any help. What people do in private, or are interested in we do not need to know as long as it isn’t harmful or criminal. I mention this because its just more clickbait noise that is marketed to us.

Now that we have been bombarded by useless information, our minds become cluttered. Having a complete unadulterated thought now takes conscious effort. It may take meditation or isolation or fasting just to get back to who you truly are.  So in conclusion it can be good to cut the cord from the 200 channels of cable, 10 social media platforms, 25 podcasts, 200 facebook friends, 100 instagram friends, 30 youtube channels, 150 phone contacts, 1000 unread emails, and dedicate your focus on yourself.

Let the scorpions drown

I really enjoy and relate to the story of the “Scorpion and The Frog.” Even though it is a children’s story it could have been a parable in religious text. You probably know the story or I have already referred to it in  a previous post but here is the gist of it.

So a scorpion asks a frog to give him a ride across a river. The frog is hesitant but the scorpion convinces the frog that he will not sting. So the frog agrees and they start crossing the river. Midway, the scorpion stings the frog. Shocked, the frog asks why and reminds the scorpion that they will both drown. The scorpion says [I’m a scorpion, duhhhh.] I’m paraphrasing because by memory is like Dory from Finding Nemo but that’s basically how the story goes.

We all have people that we care dearly about and want to help but we know that they have a history of being ungrateful, destructive, indiscipline, and you can go on from there. Still we believe we can change them but showing them kindness or giving them our resources or opportunities. These people are scorpions and you are playing the role of a frog. Until their nature-their ethics and level of discipline changes they will continue to take, take and take. This change is not going to be achieved by your kindness as you are enabling, supporting and sustaining them in their current dysfunctional behavior. They have to be left alone to proverbially drown, if they survive they will be again proverbially baptized and hopefully come out as a better person.

We have seen it many times. Lets use the example of the rock stars who didn’t quit abusing substances until a tragic event happened to them. Suffering from your own destructive behaviors either ultimately destroys you or it opens your eyes to change. Those are the only two ways out unless a frog comes along to insulate that person from their karma. We can learn from experience or from example. Example is the safest and most efficient way to learn, but if you are not open to learning from example then you must experience.

This may relate to a variety of relationships, romantic and otherwise. Let the scorpions drown or they will keep stinging you because you are not learning from the bad examples and bad experiences they have been giving you.

 

Not a doctor or a magician

In the old Star Trek movies methinks from the 1970s, there was a doctor on the ship. When he was overwhelmed he would bark at the captain “I’m a doctor not a magician!” I think he meant that he was trained in medicine, not in giving people a superficial or illusion of a solution. Medicine requires a thorough assessment of a variety of variables. Many afflictions exhibit the symptoms of others and misdiagnosis could have no effect or even worsen the patients condition. A magician is also a highly trained profession but they are trying too fool your senses into believing something. That’s not a cure, its not even a ban aid. So a magician in effect uses a placebo placebo  for every case.

Anyhow, we are not magiacians or doctors. Maybe you are actually, but imagine you are not then, humor me. So now we all aren’t doctors or magicians yay.

You can’t fix anyone, unless they want to be and since you are not a trained psychologist, your fixing may not be sustainable. I like that word sustainable, very holistic. Therefore you are wasting your resources(time) if you believe you can change an adult who has been enjoying being who they are. Additionally your attempt to point out their flaws can be received by their ego as an attack. Feeling attacked they may retaliate and/or dig deeper into the behavior you tried to help them correct. Unless they themselves see the error and sincerely want to change your efforts are futile(another star trek reference.)

This is not giving up on the person, and don’t let them guilt trip you into feeling badly. They must be allowed to come to the realization themselves, as they rebuffed your attempt to point it out or you may not have the know how. Although it is difficult, you have to save yourself or they might take you down with them. People love to see a train wreck and the proof is in the prevalence of trashy reality shows, celebrity news and social media. If they are a wreck, your stability, freedom, discipline even health may be offensive to them and they would enjoy seeing you brought low.

A better title would be “Don’t be a martyr” but I feel I may have used that title elsewhere. Yeah we remember some of the high profile martyrs, Joan of Arc, Jesus, MLK, Che, etc. Their deaths changed things for millions of people. Are you going to martyr yourself for one person who does not recognize that they need to, or do they want to be saved? Your close friends and family might remember what you sacrificed for that person, but is it worth the los of you resource(time) that will never return. You may have strong feelings for them, but how long will those feeling s last under unsustainable conditions. Be a hero to yourself, be a doctor to yourself, don’t be a magician to yourself. Definitely don’t be a martyr for someone who isn’t worth it.

Getting noticed

I really do not like double standards. I respect and appreciate equality. We are not all plying by the same rules, so  I may be egalitarian while persons I must interact with may not. This is a fact to consider when trying to get noticed by someone you are interested in. As there are different social expectations on how men and women are to behave.

Intuitively we find ways of accomplishing getting noticed using subtle indicators. The methods are almost pre-programmed like a nature show mating ritual. Whether it may be taking more pride in your appearance, making yourself more visible, more audible, fragrances, etc. Petting or touching is a precarious area especially in the workplace, that is a topic for much more legal and social consideration. So touching should probably be saved for after the person has agreed to

Ideally a man or woman should be able to respectfully express their interest directly but for women that could be an opportunity for a double standard upholding person to criticize. As we can not allow the limitations placed on us by the peanut gallery to limit us from living. Their opinion should be recognized, but carry no weight. Unfortunately the person you are pursuing’s opinion does matter. They may also uphold traditional social constructs. While I prefer to rely on the wisdom of tradition we in a new time where women have almost equal representation under the law and a little more than previous centuries in the social order. To be blunt, your expression of interest my invoke immediate sexual arousal. That potentially puts in jeopardy a thorough and organic development of a friendship/relationship… You never want to lead with sex-if your goal is a long term sustainable relationship.

I will give one example that shook me a few years back when a female friend called me to talk about her recent breakup. Without much detail, they dated shortly and then the guy told her it wasn’t going to work out, but he stated they can continue to have sex. She was not only rightfully offended, but also hurt as this had been her experience on more than one occasion. Her goal was a long term and sustainable relationship. The elements that worked against her included that she met him on an app, she didn’t take the time to fully evaluate whether they had shared interests, didn’t meet his family, his friends and was in a hurry to get married for social clout. As she was in a hurry this gave him the opportunity without much effort to exploit her for sex. He ultimately failed as she wouldn’t entertain his proposal. She did nothing wrong, but should have taken more time to investigate a person’s compatibility and sustainability. In a previous post, I not very scientifically said sex only takes up 0.001% of our lives so we cannot build long term and sustainable relationships on that.

Getting back to getting noticed, this relates as your intentions, your goals, your interpretation of your courting can be misunderstood. We live in an open, hyper sexualized environment, and I don’t need to go into the statistics of pornography consumption which people do in private. Approaching someone for coffee or lunch or a walk in the park can be misunderstood. A perfect example is the story of Aziz Ansari. A young lady expressed an interest in him, and he immediately expected sex. As a result there was grave miscommunication which resulted in her feeling assaulted and him effectively going into hiding for two approximately two years. She exercised her equal ability to express interest but the interest was transformed in Aziz’s mind into a sexual invitation.

What is the solution to this misunderstanding and miscommunication? How can you prevent the person you are interested in from getting away or picked up by another? The solution is to move as slowly as possible. Study them as much as possible. Do not lead with sexuality(if you want long term sustainability).

I really really hate double standards but, they exist and they have a great effect on us even if we do not practice them. If you miss the opportunity with this great person, you might regret it, but what If this person is actually a monster that you didn’t properly and slowly analyze. To find out that they are a monster after you have given up your resources to them is worse that letting them pass and avoiding one more hurt.

 

Say no more

Say no more, or say more nos. Here again we have the crazy English language. No more is better replaced by anymore in my poor grammatical opinion. What I am getting at is saying no more times than you have in the past. No, is a very powerful word. It signifies, resistance, strength, defiance, displeasure, decisiveness and a bunch of other strong words. While yes conveys compliance, sometimes even weakness. Silence might be actually worse than yes in some cases, at least with yes you are speaking up.

Everyone wants something from us in life. Attention mostly, then resources secondarily, but they are almost the same thing. We feel obligated, trapped, damned even.

It’s socially hard to say no, because people really don’t like it, but what about what you like? Are they considering your interest. Let the nos fly high and numerous, give the nos out like candy on haloween. Don’t save your nos for yourself. When you do something reluctantly but say yes or be silent you are saying no to yourself. You will more likely regret for a long time that you went along unwillingly. Especially if something unfortunate takes place. Trust your gut, trust your wisdom, trust all the psycho movies on TV. Tell them no. Nos are free. You don’t owe an explanation. Who is going to save you? The person reading this, that’s who.

Invasion of your space, time and resources must not be tolerated. Absolutely not tolerated. Now lets practice exghaling -nooooooo. Breathe in hmmmmm, breathe out nooooooooo. Very easy. Practice it. No. No. No. No. No. Naa. Neh. Eh eh. Nine. Naw. Eh uh. Whatever style you prefer. Noooooooooo.