The Art of Settling

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When it dawns on you that you’re eventually going to have to settle, all your childhood dreams of holding out for prince charming go out the window. There’s nothing wrong with settling, except that we’ve been taught all of our lives how special we are and how we must wait for all the sparks and feelings to know who we should marry. What happens instead is that we are more discriminatory in our youth and weed out potential partners based off of whims and fancies that are not grounded in reality. Perhaps it was because our parents never got that chance to really explore that they told us this. What happens is that when you reach a certain age, like exactly 28, you’re like ‘oh shit, I need to get married by the age of 30 or I’ll be too old to have kids by 35,’ and then you have to settle. Some people are okay with it and some people become quite bitter. You have to realize that with the limited time frame you do have to find a partner, you’re going to have to settle. If you did get sparks and fireworks, good for you, but in the long run, they all wear off anyways. What we should’ve been told was to develop who we are and to find the qualities we want in a partner, and that settling is okay.

I settle. You settle. We all settle. It’s fine. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can enjoy life and not worry about achieving the perfect life. Let’s face it, we all know that one bachelor or bachelorette that is forever single and is still trying to get with someone and is super creepy now. I’m not talking about the ones who have had a hard time finding someone or the people who never wanted a partner to begin with, but the ones who have no trouble with the opposite sex, but just refuse to settle. That’s what not settling looks like. You’re just a creeper now because you’re chasing after a dream. There is no perfect guy or girl out there and you will never find them until you start to accept people’s faults. Settling does not mean giving up on a great partner, it only means giving up on your ideas of what a great partner should be. Life is meant to be lived, not imagined.

Here is what settling is and isn’t. Settling does not mean accepting abusive behavior or destructive traits. It does not mean prolonging a relationship that clearly can’t be revived. Settling is lowering your expectations of what a person should be and allowing yourself to accept them for who they are. We are all imperfect beings seeking love in all the wrong places and we should be a bit more forgiving. Because, frankly, I’m not special and you’re not special, but it’s the bond that you create with each other that can become special. That’s the only magic you’ll ever need in your life, so forget all the things you heard as a kid, because fairy tales don’t tell you about how many days Cinderella bitched at the prince for not coming after her when her shoe fell off. I mean, you looked into my goddamned eyes and now you have to put a shoe on my foot to recognize me? You better believe he’ll never hear the end of that.

Getting Trumped

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I’ve been following the Twitter handle Trump Regrets and find it hilarious. In the news, there have also been stories of people who voted for Trump who find they now have family members who are going to be deported or not let into the country. For most who do not care for Trump, there are two views: one of derision and the other of compassion. I say, why not both? Personally, I am laughing at their gaffes and am glad they got out justice meted out to them due to their beliefs in one man. For me, I don’t think anyone should be held accountable for what they feel, only what they say. So I feel perfectly fine feeling this way towards them, but publicly, I will say that I do see the tragedy of it all and the harrowing situation they are in through no direct fault of their own. I mean, there are still people who opposed ‘Obamacare,’ but don’t want their Affordable Care Act repealed, so misinformation abounds everywhere. People don’t always see clearly, but that doesn’t mean they deserve bad things to happen to them, because when the poorest of the poor lose, we all lose.

Trump has failed miserably in his first days in office. He has thumbed his nose at the establishment and then expected them to back him when he called out many of them in nasty nasty ways. And yet he fails to see that. He claims to be a great businessman who was going to right America, and although I don’t agree with him being a great businessman as he inherited his fortune, filed for bankruptcy multiple times, and has had some shady deals, for the sake of argument, I’ll say he’s a good businessman. Just because he’s a good businessman doesn’t mean he was going to make a good politician. Politicians know how to compromise and this man knows nothing of compromise. If he hasn’t learned how to now, he never will. As a politician, you know you can never appease everyone, but you are willing to work with others and hear them out, but if you continue to bully them, they will stop listening.

And then there were the people who said ‘give him a chance. Hoping that he’ll fail is like wishing all the country will fail.’ Personally, I’m like is this the chance you were looking for? But I know that is not helpful and I’d like to say to those people that I did give him a chance and he has proven he does not know how to be a politician and he has decided to surround himself with people who are also not politicians, so unless this changes, his chances are quickly going down the drain. In the end, we all want the same things, but getting there doesn’t always mean agreeing. We may agree to disagree, but that is how a democracy works. If one more person says ‘don’t like Trump? Move!’ one more time, I’ll have to counter with ‘you must’ve loved Obama because you stayed in the country all eight long years.’ We’re all in this together, so at least argue together.

Death in the Obituary Department

I work with death everyday. I take calls about the dead. I correct writing about the dead. I confirm deaths. What an odd job left for those who are living to undertake. Inevitably, the omnipresence that is death seeps into your consciousness and you ponder what exactly is death. What is the meaning of a life lived? You’re left with more questions than answers and the thing I must accept is that all my questions are not meant to be answered. Obituaries are quite mundane, spelling out the the accomplishments and progeny of a person, but not their hopes, dreams, and fears. What happens after you die?

If anyone purports to know exactly what happens after you die, they are lying. We fear death and so, we assuage our frightful thoughts with the imaginary, for we could only imagine what is life after death. I used to think this arcane and foolish, but as of recently, I’ve come to accept that we all need a little imagination in our lives. I would highly recommend a video with author Margaret Atwood, who explains that she knows what she believes is not real, but it’s a fantasy she’s willing to accept because it is better than reality.

That is religion in a nut shell, and I see how detrimental it can become. Here, I offer a caveat. Believe what you want, but know that belief is not knowledge. Oftentimes, people confuse the two and then say things like the world is 6,000 years old or we should never use birth control. And yet it is our fear of death that helps ingrain that belief is knowledge, when it is not. When you understand fear, you can understand how powerful it is and how it can be used as a tool. Death is but a reminder that all good things must come to an end. And because of that, it is the only thing we will never overcome, so we must accept. Accept who it is that you are, the body you reside in, the times you live in, what you can and cannot change, and live with what you have done.

The root of all evil: Greed

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The often misquoted phrase ‘money is the root of all evil’ is derived from 1 Timothy 6:10, which actually says ‘For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.’ In the original context, it is the greed for money that is the root of some evil. For me, I believe greed in general is the root of the worst evils. There are some evils that occur out of pure ignorance, blind allegiance, or even in the name of the best of intentions, but this is another category altogether. Then there is another evil that is manufactured by mere mortals that keeps their neighbors in misery. This evil has many faces and many names, but it allows for the destruction of those around them simply for a few to live in excess. This evil is pure greed.

For me, the twin pursuits of money and power cause the most damage, for people will subvert themselves just to attain that status. I watched a documentary where a young girl escaped from a Mormon cult and said that her father was one of the senior members, but when they were younger, he was just a normal guy who never believed in polygamy or religion that much, but when he was given power, he abandoned his family for it. However, the pursuit of money and power is not evil in of itself. It is greed for these things that propels these people to accept evil. Greed allows us to bend the rules for ourselves and those around us. We can accept the horrible treatment of our neighbors when we are given access to money and power, and to keep it, we allow greed to take over all aspects of our lives.

The thing about greed is that we all harbor its sentiments deep in our hearts. They lie dormant when we are but peasants who revolt against the bourgeoisie, but when we are the bourgeoisie, we adapt their rules because we are no longer peasants. This is how the caste system has always worked and will always work. Greed may be the root of all evil, but evil is what we all are if we were ever presented the opportunity. We want to believe we are good people and will always do the right thing, but centuries of history will prove you wrong. The only way we can achieve more is to accept that we are indeed evil and build measures against it. When the founding fathers crafted the constitution and government, they relied on the fact that they were all equal men fighting for their country, which they were, and as such, made laws and rules that did not guard against those who would use the system for their own gain, but now, that is where we are.

If you craft anything, craft it with the belief of evil and you will safeguard the future, but craft it with the belief that we are all good, you will find more evil.

The Unreliable Narrator: Why we tell stories

I flew to San Francisco to escape the chilly air and dreary days of a Wisconsin winter, hoping for the ocean air to infuse my lungs with something more. I wanted to go somewhere different, somewhere I could find myself anew amongst all that was different. I suppose everyone has a deep longing to travel, to explore, and to see the world. We want to find something unfound and in the process, change who we are. It’s a literal journey that we consciously explore, but what exactly do we store mentally and physically except for beautiful pictures of Instagram-perfect shots? They are but a million images of different people in exactly the same spots, and we gloss over the things that are undesirable. In all of my pictures, you see no panoramas of urine-soaked streets with a smell that stays with you for blocks, no homeless beggars that never meet the gaze of passer-byes, and certainly no young migrant families traveling long distances on public transportation just to get home. And yet, this too was part of the trip and part of the journey, or at least it should be.

When we tell stories, we weave together narratives that are beguiling and alluring to others, stories that flatter us, and stories that are pleasing to the eyes and ears. My vacation pictures are all of these things, inciting wander-lust and envy, but they don’t tell an entire story. Perhaps it is because I know it would fall on deaf ears. I know my audience tires of hearing of the struggles of those they know nothing about. People in worn-torn countries, who see death imprinted in the shadows of the clouds. People who are immigrants, who fear that their families will be ripped from them because of laws intended to keep safe a country they helped build. People whose rights are routinely trampled upon, who have been shouting for centuries in a vacuum space that uses silence as a blanket for apathy. I understand why they distance themselves, for I am guilty of that, too, but when we tell cleaned-up stories that don’t reveal the whole truth, we lose the essence of what is really there.

You can never rest in one spot for too long until the siren of adventure calls for you again. Everywhere you go, you fashion a familiar home out of the unfamiliar so you can fall back. What you fall back on is where you must inevitably return to, a place that feels like home, but if we always feel the urge to escape and see the unknown, what is it we’re searching for in the first place? Perhaps it is to find ourselves in the eyes of strangers staring back at us: a reflection of how you are seen.

A New Era of Capitalism

There is a revolution coming and it’s not anything you’d think of. As technology evolved over the years, it changed who we are and how we accessed and obtained information, and information is always the impetus for change. A mix of good and bad stemming from technology has occurred, but I think it’s been mostly positive as it has improved the lives of many who do have access to newer innovations such as health screenings, medicine, and just pure entertainment. Even some in remote areas have access to cell phones now. We are connected more than we think. There will be many more technological marvels that will arrive that will affect our lives and how we operate. Self-driving cars will put a whole industry out of work. How will we accommodate this large segment of society? Where will the money that paid them go? To the 1% to make them even richer? It is clear that there will be a revolution of mindsets happening and a revolution in thinking about how we should treat our fellow human beings. Is our current situation sustainable if technology changes, or do we have to change what is viable now when it is becomes nonviable? I believe we will move towards more of a socialist society, where we must redistribute riches in order to take care of the population as a whole. It is no longer humane to sustain a system where the top 1% retain their riches at the expense of everyone else.

As of today, the capitalist system works as it has sustained us simply because a need for a large workforce and manual labor does exist. We allow those in the financial elite to reap the benefits in the name of being able to keep what you earn, but how can that work when we no longer need a large workforce and they literally cannot earn what they need to survive? A technological revolution will arrive, but that is not the revolution that will mobilize us into a force that can propel all of mankind upwards. That revolution remains one of the mind. We must change how we view each other and how we will sustain ourselves in the face of change. The truth is, those at the very top can’t be sustained if those at the very bottom are not satisfied. There will always be a revolt of some sort, but even deeper is the universal truth that we as a race can only be as good as the poorest among us. It is from these ranks that we will find new scientists, theologians, problem-solvers, and miracle-workers. We must realize that the greatest resource we have is our fellow man and if we can give everyone a solid base from which to grow from, we will be able to expand the number of people who will create the future. If we don’t value our neighbors, we will slowly die from fear and greed. Fear and greed are basic human instincts, but to overcome them is to become the truest form of ourselves that we can become.

We are hard-wired to fight only for ourselves, and that is how we have evolved, but we must also realize that it does not apply to every aspect of our lives. When we are selfish, we definitely strive to make our lives more livable and comfortable, which everyone should do, but it does not bring peace and happiness. We can both be selfish in our personal goals and selfless in the pursuit of world goals. The only thing that truly makes one happy and at peace is helping another human being. You can perform either of those tasks and not have a complete life such as chasing riches without helping others while being respected and not happy, or the opposite of helping everyone else at the expense of yourself, so that you are fulfilled internally but constantly taken advantage of by others. It is a fine line to abide by and some advocate for the furthest reaches of either spectrum. Ayn Rand writes that you should be selfish only to the advantage of yourself, but that brings no peace and certainly no harmony for the rest of mankind. We succeed at the rate that we can help others not ourselves, for how successful can we be if we are but islands of success unto ourselves?

Greed and fear will always exist and to deny that that is a mistake. Whatever system we do decide upon, we must build in safeguards knowing that these two things will occur. Success is not always planning for the best, but it is planning for the worst and hoping for the best.

A Dissenting Voice in the Crowd

I’ve recently seen a FB post stating that the poster didn’t like someone giving a dissenting opinion because it further added to the divisiveness of the nation. In their reasoning, if someone objects to the norm, they are adding friction and stirring a pot that is already boiling. I get it. They want everyone to be happy and care-free, and although that is something to aspire to, it is not feasible. Actually, it is impossible to achieve. People yearn for a ‘simpler time,’ such as the fifties, because everyone knew their roles and didn’t revolt. Because of this, there was less chaos and confusion. The modern age comes with far more options and decisions and this creates more chaos, but that is what we have to accept. With more freedom to choose, there will be more opportunities to create confusion, but it also allows for more inclusion. It is a trade-off, and some people prefer the past because it was simpler, but it also meant less choices for minorities, women, and the LGBT community. So yes, there is more confusion today than in the past, but there is also more openness and inclusiveness than there ever was.

Back to the original post, I acknowledge that some people are fearful of turmoil and change, so they stifle it under the guise of ‘being a good citizen,’ and bandy it about when others protest, but what does being a good citizen entail? Does it mean someone who listens to every mandate proclaimed by the government and abide by it strictly? Does it mean never speaking up for what you believe? Does it mean never breaking the rules? If that was the case, there are plenty of people from history who didn’t follow this axiom as they chaffed against integrated schooling, fought a Civil War to keep slaves, boycotted buses because of discrimination laws, and dropped tea in the water to not pay taxes. Protest has happened on all fronts. Honestly, they abhor dissent not because they don’t want change, but it’s because they do not want that particular kind of change that they put up this guise of a good citizen. When the government issues a decree that you agree with, you label the opposition as a traitor, but when you are the one who disagrees, you are a true patriot. As a country, we were built on the back of revolting against what we didn’t believe, for better or for worse, and that will never change.

To dissent is to have a different voice, and to stifle dissent is to control the masses. Whatever side you are on, you must acknowledge the other side’s right to champion their cause. We must also recognize that peace comes in many different forms. You may be seeking peace of a different era that involves conforming to the norm and rules, but there are those who are seeking peace in the equality of everyone involved. You are not wrong and neither are they, but everyone must acknowledge that the modern society will always be precarious because the freedom to choose our sexuality, our gender, our mates, and who we are affords us to be. With more choice comes more confusion and dissenting allows for more choices. When you don’t dissent, you simply conform.

When people tell you you can’t do it.

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Late one lazy night, I was watching a video of Michelle Obama give a speech at a predominately black college. She told them that when she applied for the college she wanted, there were people who told her that perhaps she shouldn’t go because she may embarrass herself. She told the college kids that they shouldn’t listen to the detractors because they didn’t know the potential each of them held. Here’s what she didn’t know and what the majority of people get wrong: those people aren’t saying it to be spiteful. In fact, they have good intentions and want the person they are giving advice to not to fail, so they give this nugget of knowledge in hopes that the person doesn’t falter. Is it wrong? Yes. Is it hurtful? Yes. Is the road to hell paved with good intentions? You better believe it, however, the take-away I want people to have is that these people are not rooting for you to fail. They are simply judging you based off of what they’ve seen, not necessarily what they know about you.

When we walk away from a situation like this, we oftentimes feel angry at the other party and at the world for not believing in us, but if we view it through the scope of their own misgivings and fears, we can see there isn’t too much anger to hold on to. In this life, people will always misjudge you, miscalculate how smart you are, and miss your level of perseverance. It’s not up to them to see your full potential and it is not up to you to prove to them what your potential is. The only person you ever have to prove your worth to is yourself, because you are the only person who matters. I wish it were all praise and accolades out there, but sometimes you have to encounter defeat to really understand who you are. Are you the type of person to lay down and die when the praise dries up or are you the type of person who thrives on poorly-intentioned advice? When you understand how crippling failure can be, you understand why people do the things they do. It makes you more compassionate for the very people who you think are keeping you down. At the same time, you must realize that you have your own voice.

There are million paths to take and a million ways to fail. There will be those along the way who will help you and those who will tear you down. There is no right way down the path, only the path. There is no right and wrong, only your and their judgment of right and wrong. When you start to see between the lines, you start to realize who you truly are and how you fit on your path.

The Decline of Organized Religion

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When I was younger, I attended church and did not enjoy the experience as there was a lot of opposition and tension involved that I thought was due only to my church. Recently, I found out that many, if not all, churches have these issues with how the organization is run and who gets to decide what happens. An issue that kept coming up was keeping the younger generation involved in the church. Many churches are experiencing a decline in their younger populations and don’t really understand why. They try to implement new things such as programs specifically targeting the youth including youth ministers, younger music, and having them attend religious schools. At the same time, the congregation argues with itself over the cost of such things and if they are necessary. With every church, there is dissension in the ranks and they can never please everyone, but how they tackle this problem is very intriguing.

They want the youth to contribute more monetarily, but also know they are fleeing in droves. They want them to start out young, but are wary about the costs of targeted programs. They want to use youth ministers and music as tools to keep them engaged, but for what purpose? Do they want the younger generation to believe in God or simply to stay in the congregation and pay their dues? For organized religion cannot exist without those who support it and if they have no one to support them, they die. However, they never talk about the importance of just believing in God, for where is the value in that? I think those who are younger see this and choose to leave because they are not buying into the system anymore. As a kid, I believed in God, but it was the church and how it’s people acted that caused me to lose my faith. How could I believe in God when his most ardent believers had no love for each other?

The youth of today are rejecting organized religion and the churches know this, but they continue on as if it’s not the source of their problems. Honestly, I believe everyone is looking for spirituality and transcendence, and it is easy for many to fall victim to organizations that prey on this desire, but it is not being fulfilled. I just got done watching Going Clear, the documentary about Scientology and the one thing I got out of it was that people are searching for a greater meaning in themselves and the world and they are willing to subvert themselves for the answer. I think we will always need spirituality, but we may not need organized religion any longer. It’s been a long journey for me to come back to believe and that is my journey and I believe that is the right of everyone: for them to come to their own conclusions based off their experiences. Religion is believing in a set of rules and an organized religion sets to build a base from those rules. If religion keeps holding on to the beliefs in the rules instead of a belief simply in a higher meaning, they will continue to bleed members.

The Mindset Revolution

Retraining how you think.

Author: mindsetrevolution83