Tag Archive
for Seen-Around
Tagged as: Life, Relationships, Seen-Around
Jan
27
Search for anything of substance, and you will find that it is quite easy to start believing that there is only one option that will satisfy. And even though it is near impossible to tell whether you have exhausted all possibilities in the world, you know that you will immediately recognize that Perfect One.
The Perfect One is the ideal that you have in your mind of whatever it is that you are looking for. It is going to be recognized and apparent. You are sure of this. Far be it from me to doubt that you could possibly know this for sure.
For example when you are dating, you are looking for the Perfect Boyfriend/Girlfriend. If you are a little better at seeing the bigger picture, you are looking for the Perfect Husband/Wife. But through the good and bad dates, you are evaluating the other person by holding them up against your ideal. Once the other person does not match, you are going to move on. Don’t pay attention to the fact that the person would make a very good match for you despite being slightly too short. Much more tragically than missing a good match in search of a perfect match, though, is being married to someone who you eventually believe to not be the perfect match. When that happens, you might find that you have found the Perfect One in another person. At the very least in this situation you are going to imagine the possibilities of a different life, and at the worst it can lead you to pursue your fantasies. This will obviously hurt many people around in addition to making you a liar (since you could not keep your vows).
Another instance when people look for the Perfect One is when they are house hunting. When you are searching for a house, people often advise you that you will “just know” once you walk into a house. That is rubbish. It is just another way of saying that you should be looking for the Perfect House. Forget the fact that you are looking at houses that would work out just fine. And forget the fact that any house will have its problems. Forget the fact that it’s just a building that will not last!
The horrible thing about this mindset is not that you should have standards. When someone fails to meet your standards for a mate or if a house is completely broken, you should move on. That just makes sense. However, the horrible thing about this mindset is that it will fool you into doing things that do not make any sense at all. You will fall in love with the Perfect One with your heart but not with your head. And then when (not if) reality comes in the form of imperfections, you will be horribly disappointed. And it will hurt.
Can this be fixed? Yes it can! Today you can realize that there is no perfect one, whatever it is that you are looking for. Realize that settling can be just a negative take on this and realize that settling is not always so bad. Settle on something that is acceptable (this seems obvious but don’t settle on something that is unacceptable). If you do not settle, then at least start to believe that the Perfect One will never be found. Move forward with the knowledge that you will NOT find the Perfect One. And if the results match up to your expectations, you are much less likely to get into trouble.
Tagged as: Rant, Seen-Around, Tip-For-Life
Jan
14
Given enough time, we rather forget about the origin of things. That reminds me of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy where the novels are set thousands of years in the future, and the things that we know about now have by then become so far removed so as to be thought myth. They could not fathom the planet that we live on, and they could barely remember that they had originated from Earth.
Even when we are not so far removed from the origin of things we begin to see disagreements about the facts. As time moves on, opinions diverge. Sometimes no opinion even leads to the truth. Sometimes people become fanatical about their opinions. In any case, we can see this phenomenon here and now.
Give a new idea a couple of years, and it will be as if they had always existed. Nicknames just need time before they become the preferred way of referencing things (case in point: not too many people could tell you that “blog” is actually just a chopped up version of “web log”). Games are invented and taught to others with no regards as to why certain things are the way that they are. It is amazing, really, to think of how much information we pass on without even stopping to think about where that information comes from.
It seems to me that the most important aspect would be the origin of information. I know that I want to know if I can trust the source of information before I willingly pass it on.
Oh by the way, Lean On Me is a song by Bill Withers. You cannot use it for worship.
Tagged as: Life, Relationships, Seen-Around
Dec
22
Growing up, I heard the children’s rhyme:
Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me
It was assumed that this saying would protect us from other people’s mean words. And when you’re a young child, it is easy to trick yourself into believing it.
But then you get older and you realize the truth. Words are, in fact, more powerful than physical pain. Physical pain definitely has its place. Broken bones, strained joints, diseases, and so on are all painful and uncomfortable (to say the least) to go through. But all of that pales in comparison to the effect that words and emotional trauma can have.
While it’s rather debatable what can hurt a person more, it is pretty easy to see how emotional trauma can scar people for life. The life of a child who has verbally abusive parents can be negatively impacted for good even with counseling. While I do not want to undermine the damage that physical pain can have, the emotional pain is the one that I have seen with my own eyes because it happens all of the time. One can toil for great lengths of time over something, and sometimes it seems like it takes only a single word to make all of that labor futile. Words get at us even through our armor and shields. They needle their way through kinks and prick us to death. And the worst part of all is that it is the words of those closest to us that hurt the most. Well maybe even worse than that is the fact that we are all so horrible in regards to how we use our words.
The tongue: so mighty and so horrible. No one can tame it, but we must try, eh?
Tagged as: Political, Rant, Seen-Around
Dec
12
I have frequently heard people advocating government jobs. That is, the people that I know will talk about how good it is to be a government employee. They talk about the pension, benefits, and job security, to name a few. All of these things are true. But just as the unions will get you in the private sector, so also will the unions affect the public sector. Sometimes the unions in the government are organized, but one could make a case for the entire federal government being one gigantic union that stands against their employer (aka the American people).
In a USA Today article, we find out that things are in fact not too good. People are being paid quite a bit nowadays, don’t you think? It is especially interesting that there has been such a boom in government increases during the same time as the private sector losing so many jobs. And by interesting I mean awfully disturbing. The government is becoming a behemoth that is going to continue growing until it collapses and knocks down the support columns that hold up this house.
The thing that I do not understand in the least is how people in government positions can work without the fear of being fired! Whether incompetent or able, they will keep their job (unless perhaps they are grossly ill-performing where even then it will take quite some effort to make a move on them). So when people are presented with the option to try their best or do as little as possible with both seeming to result in the same outcome, what would people do? Exactly, they would do the least possible. There is no incentive for people in government jobs to continue to do their best. Now you see what I am saying about the government employees being similar to a union.
Just as the unions have been able to cripple portions of the private sector (such as the American automakers), it is going to be the government employees that are going to bring down the government. If you have not read what unions can do to the world, I suggest that you read the ever popular Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
All of the signs are there. Health care reform that will dictate much more than we need or want it to, a growing government influence in our lives, a government that dictates what companies will do (since it owns them), perhaps even the degradation of freedoms to which we are rightly entitled to under the Constitution. This is something that concerns all of us, and we all need to care about it. Because we sure are going to have the live with the consequences together. And disregarding warning is a terribly foolhardy thing to do.
Tagged as: Rant, Seen-Around
Dec
03
When there is a disaster happening, the affected agencies always seem to appoint a spokesman. And that spokesman always seems to have no idea what is going on. Is it really that hard to have a spokesman with a little bit of knowledge?
I am rather tired of hearing the endless stream of:
- “I do not have that information”
- “We are not aware of that at this time”
- “I cannot say whether that is true or not”
- “I do not know the answer to that”
- “We have not heard of that rumor”
I do not understand any of the people that are involved in putting these spokesmen out there!
If you are the agency or group that is being spoken for, I would think that you want to seem competent. You want to put out someone who is excellent because they are going to be the face of your group. You do not get that if you present someone who cannot even answer the questions that they field.
If you are the person who is to be the spokesman, I would also think that you would want to be knowledgeable of everything that you are supposed to know. Otherwise, as so often happens, you will get roasted by the questions that the audience has. They are going to ask you about what they have heard and apparently their sources are better than yours. So you will sound clueless and lost. Who wants that to be them?
And me? Yeah I just want someone who will give some answers. I can get tired real quickly of hearing people avoid the questions that they just don’t know the answers to. No, lame answers are not better than no answers.
On another note, salesmen are just specialized spokesmen that are trying to get your money. Time to get those salesmen up to speed on what they’re selling, huh?