Actually.....

Sometimes you just have to develop a very thick hide if you want to remain sane.  You cannot let every negative thing that you see or negative comment that you hear affect you. 

You must learn when to open yourself up and when to close the gates down. 

It's always up to you to filter the times when you can be vulnerable and when to raise your wall up to shield yourself from those which you deem might hurt you.

In the end, it always falls on you what you choose to take in and what you let slide.



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Green Grass

They say that the grass is always greener on the other side, or so it may seem.  Sometimes in our lives, we reach a point, specially during problematic times that we think that our lives suck and that we want to exchange places with another person who seems to have gotten the longer end the stick.

I can't count how many times I've said:  I wish I were that person or that person is very lucky and I wouldn't mind trading lives with him/her.  I know that it's not healthy to compare yourself with others because it would only be a cause of frustration and that the only guage that should be used to rate success is the personal feeling of fulfillment.  Ideally, this should be the case, but unfortunately as flawed human beings, who live within the context of a society, we cannot help but view ourselves juxtaposed with others and find several points of comparisson.  It is inevitable.  As social beings, our views of oursleves will always be in relation with how we view others. 

So how do I go about it when I find myself comparing my life with others and sometimes wanting to trade places with them?

This is my realizition:
I may sometimes want to exchange places with another person because it may seem that they have better lives , but on the other hand, there's also other persons out there who want to trade places with me because they think that my life is better than theirs.

It's just a matter of perspective.

I realized that the grass is not necessarily always greener on the otherside.

I may view the grass on the other side as greener but, there's also another person who thinks that the grass on my side is greener.

I may sometimes feel that my life sucks, but another person out there sees it differently and thinks that I'm very blessed.

I just have to borrow that other person's perspective and see the good things in my life.

This is how I learned to appreciate my life no matter what, and see that the grass on my side is green and it's enough.



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We are all Meat

If I would decide to be a vegetarian, It wouldn’t be because I believed that eating animals is wrong.  I don’t think that eating animals is a form of cruelty because if this is the case, then God wouldn’t have created carnivorous creatures.  He wouldn’t have given some animals instincts to eat other animals.  Eating animals is just a part of the natural order of things, the food chain.  Just watch any other nature show and see how lions hunt and you will see how nature really works. It’s all about survival and the balance of nature i.e. the natural order of things.  I am however against the inhumane treatment of animals.  Foie gras tastes good, but I decided to stop eating it because I don’t believe in the ways that they utilize i.e. force feeding ducks to make their livers fat.  I am also against using fur for clothes because we have the technology to create other forms of fabrics from other sources like plants  and synthetic fibres.  Maybe in the past when our ancestors have no other means for warmth, is killing animals for fur acceptable, but now, fur should belong back to animals and not to humans.  I am also against testing cosmetics on animals.  They shouldn’t pay for man’s quest for artificial beauty. I am however still weighing my opinion regarding testing medical products on animals. If it would be the way to cure cancer, aids and other currently incurable diseases and there are really no other means to reach that goal other than testing it on animals, I might consider it if it would save millions of lives.  I respect vegans for choosing not to eat and use animal products because of their compassion, but I don’t think that I would be a monster if I choose to eat animals.  I would just be like the lion, trying to sustain my body’s needs for nutrition.  If they are really animal lovers, would they call lions evil for eating other animals? It’s just the natural order of things, or if you would want to go Disney  on it, It’s THE CIRCLE OF LIFE.  After all, when we die, we would also be food for worms and bacteria……WE ARE ALL MEAT.


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Reasonable Faith

I just don’t understand how some people can be so dogmatic that they close their minds to a point of being unreasonable. Do our beliefs sometimes hinder us from true understanding? Some people justify their close mindedness in the name of “faith.” They say when reason ends, faith begins…But I think that our faith should be reasonable. It shouldn't be based on some crazy fanatics notion of what he thinks is right. Our God is a God of reason. We can see this by looking at the order in the universe. Each and every part of our universe is inter-related. Everything fits to make a perfectly working world. They even say that our existence is a perfect mathematical equation down to the last one and zero. I mean the world is just a refection of it’s maker, a Being of intellect and reason. It should be that we should also strive to follow suit and make our beliefs reflect that which we believe in or in this case He/She Whom we believe in.


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The other side

They say that the EARLY bird catches the worm, but on the other hand, you could also postulate that the LATE worm evades being caught by the early bird. So which is better, being early or being late? It's just a matter of perspective.


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Hope

Sometimes, you are presented with situations way beyond your control, where you feel utterly powerless about the outcome of things.  You wait and wait for everything to be better but it's like driving on a foggy highway with zero visibility.  You wish to see even a slight glimmer, but you only see darkness ahead.  What do you do?

Here's my answer:  As much as I am tempted to sulk around and feel bad about my situation, I try really really really hard to think positive.  Hope will be my saving grace.  The night is always darkest before dawn.  Soon enough the sun will smile at me and everything will be OK.


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