Oftentimes I find myself wondering what a given situation would be like had I done something different. For example, I’ll ask myself on occasion, “Well, would I be happier if I went through with this, or would it just cause me unease?” Everyone has to weigh his/her options at times. And this is exactly what I’m talking about.

The thought of being happy is a very in-depth one. It’s really not as easy as it seems, despite my other post that subtly hints that happiness is a mindset. But really, what does a person have to do to be happy? Sure, one could go about life without a care in the world, relaxing and having a good time. But here’s the caveat of that operation: Little would get done; one would not excel. Think of this post as a counter-argument to my other post. In a sense, it is. While people might be “too busy to live,” there’s got to be a reason for it. These people simply wouldn’t go about making their lives miserable just because they feel it’s necessary. Instead, these people seek something bigger. They seek to excel, to be successful. READ MOAR »

If you’ve ever truly taken the time out to look around and acknowledge what’s going on in people’s minds, it’s quite alarming. I think right around the time I cleared up the whole religion debacle, I started to take interest in social psychology. Essentially, I was interested in how people think, why they think the way they do, and how they act around others. Even more interesting to me is the psychology of the self. Read the first sentence of this post again. If you’ve ever stopped and observed the attitude/actions of people on an everyday basis, I’m sure you’d agree that what you find is a bit alarming.

My buddy “V” somewhat triggered me to write about this phenomenon. He pinpointed one of the problems people have in the way they think today.

(11:22:40 PM) V: you know what I hate about almost everyone
(11:23:06 PM) V: it’s that people are too fucking busy with the next thing in their life that they never pay attention to what’s going on now

He nailed it. READ MOAR »

I’m going to do something unusual. I’m going to try to make this post as laid-back as possible. I decided to write this without laying it out, without organizing it, and without trying to come up with some smug knock at religion. That said, I leave out a lot of what I’m trying to say. I usually write best when I’m angry (odd, right?), but I figured I’d give the calm thing a try. In a spur of the moment fashion, I wrote this post to promulgate my thoughts on something that’s been on my mind recently: Buddhism.

Since I was introduced to Buddhism in high school, I’ve never really let it escape my mind. As Theology was a requirement at my school, we were always forced to learn about the same, old Catholic teachings. It was not until my senior year that they began to introduce us to other religions/philosophies. I say “philosophies” because a lot of what is considered to be “religion” really isn’t; it’s more a way of life than an organized set of rules to follow or a list of restrictions by which to abide. But the class was titled “Comparative Religions.” Of course, this didn’t really interest me at first glance because for the past 13 years I had been learning about Catholicism and I really didn’t think there was much else out there. Not that I was completely oblivious to other philosophies, but I surely didn’t know very much about them. I knew that Buddhists dressed in orange garb, Hindus had dots on their heads, Muslims wore turbans, and Jews wore yarmulkes. I really didn’t know much else. READ MOAR »