You’ve grown a little when you realize that what you’re about to do is a bad idea and you stop yourself from doing it.
Category: Life
“Be the change you want to see in the world.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Time seems to be going by remarkably fast now days. The days are blurring and the weeks are racing past me like I’m on a Nascar track. Today, as I was thinking about the above words by Mahatma Gandhi, I started thinking about who I want to become as the years go on and more importantly, what kind of changes I’d like to see in the world and how I might be able to live those changes.
Here’s the list I came up with:
- Healthier
- Happier
- More love.
- More passion.
- More conserving. Less consuming.
- Open book. Less mind games.
- Loyalty
- More educated
- More selflessness. Less greed.
- Prosperity
- Less money dependence.
- Be kind
- Unity & closeness in families & friends. Less drama.
- Less negativity
- Less politics. More action.
Many of them I already do but I could definitely be more consistent on a lot more of them.
What are the changes in the world you’d like to see?
I love this Bhudda story:
83 Problems
An ordinary guy came to see the Buddha to get help with his problems. ” my roof leaks, I don’t have enough money, my neighbors are noisy, my boss hates me, my kids are messy and disrespectful, my knee hurts and I’m losing my hair. And don’t even get me started about my wife. ” and he went on to describe all his problems in great detail while the buddha smiled and listened patiently.
When the guy was done complaining, he asked the Buddha, “so, how can you help me ?”
“I can’t help you”, said the Buddha.
“HUH? What kind of teacher are you?”, said the guy, “why did I come all the way here for you to tell me that? And what the hell are you smiling about?”
The buddha said, “Everyone has 83 problems. Sometimes we fix one, but it is guaranteed that another will pop up in its place. It’s just life. I can’t help you with your 83 problems, but I can fix your 84th problem.”
“What is my 84th problem?”.
“Your 84th problem is that you don’t want to have any problems.”
This is the best answer to the question that everyone asks about the buddhist principle of unattachment: If you melt down your ego and separate the “you” from all the things around you and start to relax a little bit, then where is the impetus for action to improve the world, shave, vacuum, etc.?
Well, those are examples of the 83 problems and they are still problems that require our attention. Buddhism helps you with the 84th problem, which is suffering over the other 83 problems. If you can approach your other problems without the computational overhead of suffering over them, you can see them more clearly and act on them with more wisdom.
If I strip the threads on a pipe while fixing a minor plumbing problem, I might decide to punch the pipes REALLY HARD because it totally sucks to strip pipe threads, especially ones that disappear deep into the floor. Life is bitter and painful and stripped pipe threads are not even the half of it, as far as I can tell. Buddhism is not practicing to ignore, avoid, or be happy in spite of problems! The practice of buddhism is the practice of learning to embrace the problem and not suffer over it. Grief exists, Pain exists and we all will feel them. And we all must accept them and feel the full force of these problems, but to truly suffer over it, we must wish it didn’t exist. To avoid the suffering, we must accept the pain.
It is not as simple as learning that punching stuff is a bad idea. I can figure that out for myself.
I also think it means something more than “always look on the bright side of life”. Practicing aversion towards all problems and only focusing on the positive is not the answer. Finding a way to appreciate the problems as part of your life is the answer, according to the Buddha. Think of the 83 problems as the water that you swim in. Samsara
So in this weblog, I recount the 83 problems, and recogize the 84th problem as an illusion.
SC infant dies after pacifier taped to his mouth – Boston.com.
This just makes me so angry. How retarded do you have to be to tape a pacifier to the mouth of a baby!? It’s just WRONG! I hope she gets put on trial for second degree manslaughter.
Today, I was thinking about something interesting that happened on Scrubs a long time. There was a nurse (Carla) who was going out with this surgeon (Turk) but she wouldn’t sleep with him because she didn’t think that he knew her.
I started thinking… why do we (speaking generally) want others to “know us”?
The following possibilities came to mind:
- we feel more closely connected with people who “know” us.
- we feel people will cater to us better if they know us.
- we feel insignificant and when someone actually takes the time to know you, it must be because you matter.
- we want to leave a record of our personal existence… so when we pass on (either to the next job, the next ex or the next life) we’ll be remembered from a loud sign that declares ‘I was here!’
- we feel its a sacred secret and if we let someone in, we probably have a good reason to do so… which automatically makes them more qualified/special than others
Why is this important? Because as I realized and stated in my very first blog, time with everyone is limited. you might have minutes, hours, weeks or years left with someone… but it’s still limited. So with this limited time, how much of your self should you share? And with whom?
I don’t quiet have a concrete answer. Maybe we should share enough to get the most out of the experience.
What do you think?
[youtube mhxK2IOywVE Who's Gonna Save My Soul]
Some loose it as we grow.
Today I noticed an old man. Probably 60 years old. Sipping his coffee slowly. Head lowered. Shoulders dipped. I could almost predict his voice. Slow. Tired. 3/4 dead.
A few minutes later, I saw a couple girls walk in. The first looked 13 and the other looked 8. The 8 year old was so alive… skipping, smiling and asking her older sister questions that an adult would probably never ponder… “can you skip two tiles… see I can jump two tiles”. You could just see it… heart pumping, eyes seeing, ears hearing, free & energetic.
Maybe the old man comes alive when he sees his grand-kids or wife or kids… maybe I just caught him on the wrong day or at the wrong time… but I know I’ve acted like the old man at times… some days more than others.
If people just take notice from time to time, ask themself “Am I alive today?” they might make different choices. Life is not about breathing. It’s not even “moment’s that take your breath away”. It’s being alive every moment you breath… or at least most of them. Kinda like this guy
Today was a good day.
I woke up and I didn’t have anything I HAD to do. Everything I did was a choice. I wanted to do every single thing. And Grey’s Anatomy finally had a finale that didn’t make it’s viewers want to go jump off a bridge with saddness. It was a good day. 
Thinking about my chemistry exam, I realized that tests are one of the few things I am reliably good at. If I study well for an exam, I do well. That got me thinking… there are few things I know for certain… or with high probability. Here are some that I can think of right now:
- If I study, I do well on the exam.
- If I get sick, my mom will bug me constantly to take medicine
- Most people exit your life sooner or later
- I can find even the most expensive software on the internet for free
- Guys who wait for a girl almost always get screwed… and not in a good way
- Gas prices will continue to go up
- Cough medicines don’t work for me
- Sleep is good for the body
- The internet is a black hole for time. Life is better if I don’t go online unless necessary.
- I don’t like songs that have stupid lyrics. Most rap songs are stupid.
- Instant gratification is bad for you.
- Women are confused about what they feel 99% of the time.
- Not everyone will like you. And it doesn’t matter.
- It’s easier to get a job/project if you know the people hiring you.
- Tea Tree Body Lotion from American Crew smells awesome.
- It is better to deal with problems head on than to try and side-step it.
- People who sing at Pooja’s should be required to take singing lessons.
- It’s better to give advice when people actually want it.
- Most people won’t do what is good for them. They will do what they want.
- T-Mobile offers the best value when it comes to cell phone service.
- I do stupid/borderline-crazy things sometimes.
- I am amazing most of the time.
- Two shower heads are better than one.
- People who don’t call me back or cancel things at the last minute piss me off
What about you? What do you know for certain or with a high degree of probability?
The doors of our lives are consistently barraged by people coming in and people going out of our lives. Most times we don’t notice. But when it’s someone special going out or coming in, they show up on an internal-radar of a sort and alarms seem to go off.
Recently I’ve experienced this exact situation, where people very important to me have taken a permanent or temporary leave from my life and other individuals who till a few weeks ago did not even exist in my life have entered the scene with full force and presence. These recent events have really got me thinking about this whole thing called life and the dynamics of relationships of all sorts.
The first thing I’ve noticed is sometimes it can take years to build a relationship (that can be labeled a friend, lover, sister/brother, business partner) that feels solid yet collapses within moments. Other relationships are built practically overnight and advance so rapidly that it feels like you’ve known them since forever.
Essentially, each of our lives are a revolving door. At any given moment, people are coming in and people are going out. Both ying and yang, this leads us to realize reality. Helps us deal with situations and explain things with it’s the normal course of nature to meet people and separate.
Secondly, I’ve come to conclude that time with people is very limited. We never realize how limited. I’m not talking about taking people for granted. I’m talking about never considering the possibility that they will be gone much sooner than you expect until you loose a few people you really care about. Than it hits you it’s all a countdown. Sometimes you even want to think that certain situations and people are going to be different. Yet it continues to be the same just a variation in time. Recognizing this does not have to be a depressing realization. It just forces you to enjoy/make the most of the time you do have with people.
Thirdly, I’ve come to realize that sometimes people come into our lives to serve a purpose and leave once their purpose has been fulfilled. This has happened to me. Sounds very selfish yet they departure was unrelated to any actions or words of mine. Maybe it is fate or the order of the world or the grand plan of the higher one. Can you think of people like this who can into your life just at the right time and left once their purpose in your life was fulfilled?
After writing the above, I’ve come to a forth conclusion that our lives are the product of the people we come in contact with. Everyone we come in contact with has an influence on us. We may want to be like them, don’t want to be like them, change our ways because of something they say, continue doing certain things because of things they don’t say or even just develop a philosophy or ideology based on someone elses influence. One movie one conversation one act of kindness, violence, compassion can change us forever. As such, everyone we come in contact with has credit in shaping us. Some shape us more than others.
The message encrypted somewhere in the above babble is that we are built on relationships… and most relationships have an expiration date on them… set by fate or as a consequence of our actions… so one should never take ne one for granted and should aim to enjoy every moment of life spent with anyone else.