The prime point of this post is that forgiveness is essential. This is why I’m such a believe in keeping the peace. One of my favorite feelings in the world is thinking back about a stupid argument that I had, and not even being able to remember what it was about. Here’s my main point, though. You should not gloat in the defeat of your enemy. You should not rejoice in his or her moment of defeat. You should pity them. If you pray, you should pray for them. You should mourn their situation. As humans, regardless of what religion you are, you should feel a love for a person. A love that supersedes anything that they could have done to hurt you. This, my friends, is how you know you are over something. When you truly, deeply, are hurt because they hurt. You can call this God’s forgiveness, Nirvana, a zenlike state, or whatever you choose. It doesn’t matter how you reach this state-of-mind, because the mindset is what’s important. Not how you get there.

How do you get there? It isn’t easy. You can’t wake up and decide to forgive someone. That’s why you have to take it step-by-step. You have to realize that what was done may have been a mistake on their part, your part, or both of your parts. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Is it more important to dwell on how it happened, or is it more important to move past it? There have been times in the past where I was so angry at a situation that the only time I was happy was when I was sleeping. Let me tell you, that is not a fun place to be. We all experience times like this in our life. We all experiences hardships, hurt, and hatefulness. But as I’ve said for many years, what matters is how we react in those hurtful situations. I encourage you to forgive someone that may have hurt you. If you are thinking that they were in the wrong, it does not matter. In the long run, it will do both of you a world of good.

This issue isn’t only with America. It’s with the whole world. The heart of this post comes from a thought I had back in May. I was on a cruise with a friend of mine, and began thinking about all the food on board. It’s sad to me that there is enough food on that ship to feed an entire country. Don’t mistake this post for me promoting communism. That’s not entirely true. In America, people can work. But there are some places in the world where individuals have no choice but to suffer. I’ve been there and seen it first hand. Backwards societies where kids have been raised, abused, and are afraid of the world. I’ve been to places where they had never seen anything but other asians, and the mere presence of a caucasian scared them.

At the end of the day, life is not about what you have in your wallet. I used to be obsessed about money. I’d do whatever I could to make a quick profit. And to an extent, I’m still like that. But I’m a biproduct of my society, just as the other 99% I was mentioning. Whatever God or gods you believe in (assuming they are  good/just/lawful), do you think that he, she, or they are going to judge you based on how much money you made?  Or do you think they will judge you on how you loved your fellow man? I encourage you to help beggars or those in need.. You know what? Does it matter if they are going to spend it on alcohol? Does it matter if they are going to spend it on drugs? That isn’t really for us to decide. Who knows when we’re actually being tested.

Unfortunately money is something we have to have to live. There is no changing that fact. One solution to the problem would be everyone working for the good of their fellow man. Today, that could never work. It would require restructuring the planet. But I can only hope that some day, we will wake up and see what is important and what isn’t.

Think about a time that you were depressed. Did you question God? Did you think to yourself, “Why does God let these things happen to me?” Or maybe you asked, “What have I done to deserve this?” The truth is that humans are very good at recognizing patterns. In my opinion, you can chalk it up to probabilities. That being said, I don’t necessarily want to straight up state that miracles don’t happen, or deities don’t put things into motion. I think the concept of “luck” can be categorized into probability as well. We count our hits and omit our misses. One of my friends tells me I’m one of the luckiest card players he knows. This may or may not be true, I have no idea. But I do know that I only like to play cards that I know/feel will win. So in his eyes, I am lucky to have been dealt those cards at that time.

As I said, we’re so good at recognizing patterns. We have to see a pattern in everything. It’s why we want to believe in the concept of “everything happens for a reason.” Ultimately, this concept boils down to a very large pattern. Take this for an example: think about a specific event that happened in your parent’s life before you were born and remove it. Without that situation, the equation changes. You may or may not be here. But looking back in hindsight on the situation we like to believe that it happened for the sole reason of our birth. Mind you, I don’t state this to argue with the fact of destiny. I state it to present another possible solution to what many see as “fate.”

Many, many people tell me that it’s pointless to discuss theoretical topics such as this. This may be true, but that drives us to a much deeper topic. What truly is worth discussing? Why is discussing a car, a boat, an animal, real or less real than discussing an idea. It isn’t. But humans also like to touch and feel things. The majority of us don’t care for things that we can’t literally wrap our hands and thoughts around. It’s hard for people to see other’s points of view sometimes, particularly when they aren’t fighting the same battles that you. I particularly love Plato’s quote,

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

That quote sums up many of life’s lessons all into one. My advice is to live your life according to what you find pleasing. A lot of people get so wrapped up in the idea of destiny, fate, God’s will, and karma to the point of not enjoying life. Don’t fall into that pattern. You also can’t blame a deity for bad things that happen in life, as you can’t thank him for good things. My opinion is that we have to live our own life. I believe doing this hurts faith more than it helps it. We have to learn how to handle things. In a way, we are repeating the pattern of blaming things on an older sibling when we attribute good/bad to deities.

Let’s take a deep look into the idea of God’s plan, according to Christianity.

A) Bob meets Andrea. They hit it off perfectly. They are perfect for each other. They couldn’t be happier. Each day, Bob expresses his love for Andrea in numerous way. They have minor issues from time to time, but it’s overall a great relationship. Bob and Andrea grow old together, having never left each other’s side.

That’s a great story. However, let’s parallelize it.:

B) Bob meets Andrea. They hit it off perfectly. They are perfect for each other. They couldn’t be happier. Bob dies in a car crash. In Andrea’s grieving, highly emotional state she meets a friend of Bob’s, and they eventually end up getting married.

This is a sad occurrence, but it happens every day. I know this is fictitious, but for a moment, let’s pretend that time and space truly don’t matter. By doing this, we were able to look at this situation with both outcomes. As you know, situations like this aren’t impossible. We just can’t always see both outcomes. I recommend watching the movie Sliding Doors if you’ve never seen it. I haven’t seen it in quite some time, but this situation brings that movie to mind.

In story A, we see the wonderful couple hit it off. Let’s assume that Bob and Andrea are Christians. Undoubtedly, they would thank God for this blessing. Mind you, this doesn’t have to apply to Christianity only. However, I find that Christians are much more likely to believe in the idea of an ultimate plan for their life. The relationship becomes providence. In story B, Bob dies leaving Andrea to find her soul mate. She may even secretly think that had Bob not died, she never would have met this new person (Whether she thinks this or not, this is true). Being the religious person that she is, she chalks it up to God and His plan. Bob’s death meant something after all. If God’s plan exists, which situation does it ACTUALLY exist in?

So where is the flaw with this line of thought? We’ve applied a concept known as “God’s plan” to a situational happenstance. Keep in mind, I am not claiming that God’s plan exists OR doesn’t exist. We can’t know because we can’t look onto situations with ideas of parellel happenings. So which of these situations sounds better? “A” clearly sounds better for a plan. The problem is that we don’t always get our happy endings in life.  So where is God’s plan in these tragedies?  In the far future?  A real issue with the thought that God’s plan exists is that if Bob truly believed that his relationship with Andrea was providence, he wouldn’t have ever had to apply himself to meet her. We like to believe the idea of an ultimate plan, as long as things go how WE want them to.

Casey Anthony’s trial is a prime example of this. I heard person after person say that Anthony was going to get what she deserved for killing her child. Mind you, I have no idea about anything that happened on that trial, so I can’t fairly comment either way. However, I do know that after she was found not-guilty, I heard person after person state that God intends for her to suffer. That God will punish the sinner Casey Anthony. I kid you not; I even heard someone say that this was all part of “God’s plan.” If we truly apply a plan from God to this situation, would the child have died in the first place? I’ve heard preacher after preacher say that someone’s death was required because God had an ultimate desire for a particular situation. I don’t see how a death on earth can ever be attributed to a deity’s plan. This mindset also takes away FREE WILL. It disappears. If there is an ultimate deity that knows all, through time, we are slaves that have zero choices to make. We like to believe that there is some type of ultimate plan for our life, because it gives us the purpose that we desire.

On the opposite side, there are many positive things about the belief in a deity’s ultimate plan for your life.  The book of Jeremiah speaks a great deal about God and his plans for the life of men. If you’re a Christian and have read this book in the Bible, unless you straight up opposing the writings, I can’t see how you can’t believe in the idea of God’s will. This book clearly contradicts a few other books in the Bibles, but it’s a very inspiring book, even if you don’t follow the Christian mindset. I recommend reading it. Whether it’s true or not, the mindset that “everything will happen as it should,” will provide positive results in your life. Our attitude is responsible for 90% of what happens in life. What we put into situations we will get back. This is the same principle as someone that almost loses his hand in an accident but was luckily saved by his coworker. Whether or not some higher being intervened in the situation or not, the coworker became a “Guardian” in a way. This could be an example of God intervening through man.  Or an example of man intervening himself. Either way, there was a hint of good in the situation. If it was only the man that saved his coworker, then this is a prime example of man creating God. If it was in fact God working through man, then it was a miracle. Either way, good exists somewhere. We apply it as we see fit based on our beliefs.

People have fear for many reasons: acceptance, rejection, change, failure and disappointment. We want to be accepted and not rejected. Will we ever be accepted for who we are? We feel that in order to be accepted we must change who we are. We fear change because we fear that things will never be like they once were. We are afraid of failure because we do not want to let others down. It’s human nature to let people down, but in doing so we bring ourselves down with them. It’s true that we can’t blame all our problems on human nature, but it’s still there. Our mentality and the way we perceive friendships and relationships changes with each person that we let down. This means that the fear of getting close to someone will lead to disappointmentment. Disappointment is a part of life that cannot be helped; each time we let someone down or are let down, our fear of getting hurt grows stronger.

If we are living in fear, we are not living at all. We create our own emotions. When we wake up each morning, we decide which emotions and moods that we are going to feel for the day. Because we create our own emotions, fear is a state of mind that we put ourselves into; it’s only mental. Fear leads individuals to the idea of “I can’t do this,” and we, in fact, convince ourselves that we can’t achieve our goals.

Fear keeps people from living in a sense, sometimes directly or indirectly. For example, parents fear for their children, which can hinder the child, not allowing them to achieve what they want: that goal could be big or small. Fear is simply a state of mind that we put ourselves in. It can be overcome by simply conquering these fears. Do what you are afraid of doing; don’t do something just because it’s right or because you fear that others will disagree. Always be yourself no matter the situation. Never let fear get in the way of your life.

“Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world. He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret to life.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Truth: We have more potential than we can possibly imagine.

We often times doubt ourselves. It is something that we are born with. We question things, people, situations, and ourselves. Many people seem to believe that they are stuck, because they can’t make a difference in anything they seem to do. There are hundreds of writers, actors, famous religious figures, and politicians that felt the same way at some point in their life. The problem is, we believe that we are limited. Of course, to an extent we are. Obviously, you can’t jump off a building and fly. But you can become far more than you believe you can. The only thing that holds us back is ourself.

We read stories, blogs, articles, and books every day where we see real or imagined characters achieve their full potential, but nine times out of ten we shrug these ideas off. We don’t take everything we can from the story. Even most fictitious stories have realistic situations in them. Another thing that holds us back is lack of motivation, as I’ve mentioned many times before. We don’t want to do anything that requires work, because of our instant-gratification mentalities. People that are on a diet often times say that it is much easier to gain weight than it is to lose weight. This simply isn’t true. It just requires more work. This is a very small example of something that can be applied to much larger situations in life.

This is achieved by believing that you, yourself, can make a difference for your cause. It doesn’t matter what it is, if you believe it, you can achieve it. This isn’t a self-help article. It’s almost a continuation of my last published article, about doing what you want in life for your own pleasure. You can theorize all day about what you want to become, how you will do it, and how you could achieve it. But, if you do not take the first step of leaving your doorstep, all your mental energy is wasted. It all comes down to what you want out of life, and what pleases you.

We encounter people every day that pull us down. Simply but, the majority of the people on the planet are pessimistic. This rings especially true if they disagree with your cause. I’ve seen this a hundred times. This is exactly why I’ve suggested ignoring people that bring you down as a human being. You should not waste mental energy on people like that. I can’t stress that enough. Do what you love. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of stories of people that started doing what they loved, and became very successful at it. There is something very important to know about most of these people, though. Most of them don’t do it for the money. Take Steve Jobs for example. Do you think that Steve Jobs needs any more money? No. He’s rich enough to survive for eternity. But he has a passion for what he does. He loves his job. He loves what he does. This is what we should strive for. We shouldn’t strive for something because we are hungry money, fame, or success. We should strive for something because we are truly passionate about it. Don’t set out to change the world. Do what you love. Change yourself, and let the world change around you.

The Delusion: We are the best possible person that we can be, and take risks at times.

The Truth: We have become comfortable in life. Our fear of failure drastically holds us back from doing what we want and reaching our full potential.

Everyone fears failure. It is quite possible that it is in-born. We don’t want to fail. We don’t want to be ridiculed, embarrassed, or do something that is going to hurt our reputation. As humans, we put things off. Procrastination and apathy kill. Think about that instant queue on Netflix. How full is it? How many times have you put off watching something that you intend to watch later? This is a minor example of a major problem.

One of the main problems is that we become so comfortable where we are, that we don’t want to take a risk. This is a very dangerous place to be in life. I say this because I have been there before. Minor laziness leads to lack of motivation; lack of motivation leads to major laziness, and major laziness leads to self-loathing. It’s a very difficult cycle to break. We have all slumps in our life. We are all stuck in limbo at times. It’s extremely important to realize that we are the only ones that can pull ourselves out of that.

Children, wives, husbands, jobs, etc… are not excuses on why you cannot become the best possible you. We use this is an excuse, though. Why?  Because we have become comfortable in life. Our fear of failure drastically holds us back from doing what we want and reaching our full potential. Ultimately, this comes from a lack of motivation. The lack of desire to improve ones own position. There are two types of people in the world. The passengers and the drivers. Which do you want to be? I can assure you that no one is going to care if you get that $10,000 a year raise. No one cares if you succeed or if you fail. This life is about you and your well being. There are millions of people with college degrees that are forcing themselves into a pay bracket, taking an office job and getting stuck in a routine, boring life. Put your money on the table and take a risk, and enjoy yourself in the process. Memories are far more important than material possessions.

Do something unexpected. If you like to travel, travel. If you want to hike the coast of South America, hike it. Don’t let money get in your way, and don’t let the American Dream of a high paying occupation slow you down. In forty years, do you want to tell your grandchildren that you worked a boring job your whole life? Or do you want to tell them that you have been to every country in the world? Accept that money isn’t everything, and that it’s only a tool in this world to do what we want to do. Do what YOU want to do for yourself. Will others ask what your motives were? Yes. Will they ridicule you? Probably. But remember, you don’t have to impress anyone. All you have to do is enjoy your time here.

“Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think.”
—Chinese Proverb

The Delusion: We live the way we want to live and do the things we want to do, regardless of what others think.

The Truth: We’ve become so obsessed with how we are supposed to act and what we are supposed to say that we’re enslaved by our own thoughts.

We have conceptions about ourselves. Everyone does. In your head, you personify yourself. You accurately judge how you would handle a situation. But 90% of the time, that’s not an accurate judgement of your own character. Our thoughts and our actions are two totally different things. I’ve spoken a great deal in the past about justifying our own actions. This is slightly related. Someone once told me that we can’t truly control what happens in a situation, but we can control how we react to it. This is so important in life. Our reactions are EVERYTHING. Regardless of what type of personality we believe we have, or how we deceive ourselves, those reactions are how people are going to personify you. That is your TRUE personality. I urge you however not to worry about this. Build a better persona for yourself, not for others. You can’t judge your own actions in a situation because you don’t know the variables. Have you ever scripted a phone conversation in your head? It could have been a future employer, a potential girlfriend/boyfriend, or a phone date. Did you plan out the conversation? Did you think to yourself, well he/she is going to say this, and I’ll react with this by telling him/her this story. Then you pick up the phone to follow through, and it doesn’t work. But it’s not always the other person’s fault, sometimes it is yours. It’s back to my point, it’s impossible to truly apply a science to our actions. This is why psychology exists, and it’s also why it’s such a fascinating topic.

It’s a proven fact that once you have a label, you cannot drop this label. Let’s just say in theory, that I have a distant relative. This relative is an alcoholic. Let’s say that this relative makes a 180 degree turn, changing his ways. This family member will always be labeled a drunk. There is no dropping that. Regardless of how good he becomes, what he does to better himself, or how radically he truly changes, he will always be the drunkard of the family. Realistically, the human brain is at fault. We’ve applied a label to someone that we truly cannot lift. I believe this is a problem. It’s become engrained in our minds.

As a child, we strive for certain goals. Some of these goals are ridiculous, but some of them aren’t. We have an idea of what we want to do as a child, but 99% of the time that dream never happens. It’s because of the clear, unclouded mind of a child. Unfortunately, as a child, we were shielded from the realism of what life is. But, I’m not saying this is a problem, nor am I blaming parents. This is actually probably the best way to raise a sane child. If you start teaching children dangers early in life, you could end up with a mess on your hands. Granted, I have no kids, these are just my own assumptions. Humans like the idea of utopianism. Sure, we can argue the fact all day that it may or may not work, but realistically we have all thought to ourself how great it would be to live in a world where people worked for the good of their fellow man, and greed was abolished. I thought about that in my teenage years before I ever understood the concept or had heard the term Utopianism. Since we like that idea, we give children an unrealistic idea of the future. What we desire seeps through, in my opinion.

Something that is very important for humanity is hope and purpose. We have to believe that there is a purpose behind everything. Otherwise, why are we here? This is one reason people that follow a deity seem to be happier. They have found an ultimate purpose. But, aside from the religious point of view on it, we have to have hope in life. We have to believe that we will succeed and progress. Realistically, it’s a human illusion. This goes back to the idea that I shared last year about construction workers being the happiest people alive. They see their progress day by day. That is realistically an illusion as well.

What you can do, however, is find purpose in yourself. See, the problem is, we all have a change the world mentality. This is why we rise and we fall. I urge you to find a purpose within yourself. Find out what makes you happy, and do it. My dad told me something one time that I thought was very insightful. He told me that I should do something once a day that makes me happy, and “forget what anyone else thinks about it.” Discussing these thoughts and sharing them with you truly makes me happy. I don’t want to change opinions, viewpoints, or upset people. I only want to do it because it’s something that I enjoy. At one dark point in my life, it was the only time that I truly felt sane in life. If you’ve read my blog for some time now, you’ll remember. We’ve become so obsessed with how we are supposed to act and what we are supposed to say that we’re enslaved by our own thoughts. But I urge you to at least attempt this for your own sanity. Think of something that you enjoy doing, and do it once a day. If you enjoy dancing, dance. It doesn’t matter if people are watching, because they won’t matter in five years, or probably even five minutes. The biggest thing that holds us back in life is the fear of failure and embarrassment. We are so concerned with other people’s opinions/ideas/motives/views on us, that we’ve truly lost sight of what’s important, and that’s our own happiness. In the end, no one really cares what you do, what kind of car you drive, how successful you are, or what you achieved. This is a sad reality, but very true. Therefore, remedy this by taking the initiative to start doing things your way. Don’t worry about scripting conversations and don’t doubt how you will react to things. Let go of this unneeded fear of embarrassment. Be yourself. Just because I say do things your way doesn’t mean that you need to become a selfish person or mistreat others. I am saying that you should view how people perceive you as insignificant, and start living for you instead of other people.

And here we are seven years later. The site has become far more than I’d hoped for. It’s become more than I could ever imagine it becoming. It’s grown, and some of you have grown with me. I have made at least twenty personal friends just this year from this blog, and I really love that. I want to talk to you, I want to know you personally. I want to know your opinions. I like receiving your emails. I like discussing topics similar to mine privately with readers. And that brings me to the purpose of this post. I would like to introduce a new author for P³S.R.. My friend, Leslie Windham, posted an article on the site earlier today. She and I have had many discussions in the past. She’s a deep thinker. She questions things beyond what the normal individual does, and I feel that’s a prime candidate for quality writing. She’s extremely intelligent, and has the ability to make subjective observations. And on top of all that, her writing is excellent! I discovered this by reading her thoughts/notes on Facebook, as well as a post she wrote earlier this year for a writing contest. If you haven’t read her posts, I strongly urge you to!

I haven’t ever done much advertising on Facebook, but I have recently set up a page. If you like P³S.R. check out our Facebook page and “Like” us. It’s a great way to view instant updates.

And lastly, I locked the “Questions” section of the blog for a few months, but I have just opened it back up. I would like you (the reader) to feel free to throw questions our way. Remember, the answers aren’t concrete, but you can get our viewpoint on them.

“I’ve got to admit it’s getting better, A little better all the time”
-The Beatles

Finding Faith. What do you think faith is? How do you think faith in one another/something is achieved?  I strongly believe that faith is something that is earned over time.  Why do I think this?  Faith sometimes means believing in the unseen, but not always.  Many people would say that they have faith in Christ.  Obviously, somehow Christ had to earn this faith; how/why else would anyone have faith in Him?  When Christ first started His teachings, not everyone believed Him.  In fact, many individuals thought He was crazy.  Somehow He had to “win” people over so to speak. He earned His faith by proving Himself right in his teachings (parables) and healings (miracles).  Eventually, many started seeing that He was in fact correct.  People began to trust Him as well.

Just as Christ earned His faith, you have to earn faith with others.  I’m sure many would say they have faith in a best friend; they trust him.  In a sense, faith and trust go hand in hand.  Would you trust your friend to “catch you when you fall” (metaphorically speaking)?  Many of you would probably say yes.  Isn’t that having faith in this friend? Faith is defined as complete confidence or TRUST in a person, remedy, etc.   Trust is defined as this: reliance and confidence in the truth, worth, reliability, etc. of a person or thing; FAITH related.  Here’s a quote I like to use to help explain the definition of faith: “Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.  It is not enough that a thing be possible for it to be believed.” (Voltaire)  We do not know that God is real, but many people go out on a limb and believe that He is.  It could be possible; but then again, we could all be wrong.

Faith must be tested before it can be earned.  Just because you can’t see it and touch it doesn’t mean it’s not real.  I’ve always thought that Faith had to do with feelings and feelings alone; but recently, I have come to realize otherwise.  Faith means taking someone at their word.  There are many examples in the Bible that prove faith is not only feelings.  Abraham, Sarah, and Noah are a few great examples.  I am sure Noah thought that God was crazy when He told him to build an ark.  What a strange task, right? But he did it anyway, without asking questions.  Can you imagine all the doubts Sarah had to have! Yet, she believed it possible.  Faith is not always an easy thing to “find.”  Many of us struggle with it day to day.  So I ask again, what do you think faith is?  Be prepared to search for faith within yourself every day.  Do you accept the challenge?