Category Archives: Thoughts On Life

Unique and Interesting Observations or Perspectives

March 20 Wisdom and Happy Thoughts 2023

Thoughts On Life

The Person you are right now is the person you would’ve felt safe with as a kid.

Take a moment to appreciate how great it is that you brought into this world the love that was missing. You’re awesome. I hope you heal from the neglect you experienced as a child and can provide yourself with the love you need.

Mike Tyson on the Purpose of life: Is to experience life, the good and the bad. Appreciate it.

Life universe god tests you. How much of this can you take? It wants to show you something. 

You want to love life? Let me show you life. Life is beautiful but you have to accept the good and the bad as beautiful. Enjoy what we have as we journey through it. What is this purpose why am I here? Why did I have to go through this pain why can’t it be peaceful all the time? Then it wouldn’t be life. We have to accept life on life’s terms. 

This video shows us the importance of being interesting. Being interesting gives you a way to live your life, a way to connect with others, a way to keep going in tough times, and a way to make a home.

It tells us that being interesting is not about doing the things you like or avoiding the things you hate or pursuing labels (the mistakes many people make on their journey to be interesting). It is about developing a knowledge base of things you enjoy so that you can give people a reason to stay when they meet you because while you don’t need them, it’s nice to have people around. Being interesting also gives you a sense of who you are and what you want to do and thus how you can relate to people because life isn’t just about living to tomorrow and avoiding suffering. In the end, if tragedy occurs and you are alone, then at least you will find your own company interesting. Too interesting to give up on. Too interesting to throw away. Instead of being swayed by life and not having a place, have a place you belong. Be interesting.

Be interesting so you have an identity

3 Things to Know about an Anxious Partner

  1. When triggered, they can become emotional. They grew up in a house where their feelings were invalidated and ignored. They just want to be heard, they aren’t putting you down.
  2. When they text a lot and demand constant communication, they are scared of being alone. And abandoned. which they experienced in childhood. They are just seeking reassurance. they’re not trying to control you.
  3. They might subconsciously pick fights with you and push your buttons. This was the only way they could get attention as a child. And so they do this to be more connected with you emotionally. They are seeking emotional connection. They are not trying to hurt you.

If these traits trigger you, it’s possible you have avoidant attachment, which has a whole bag of problems as well.

This video shows us how as you grow up, the people you rely on who seem perfect turn out to be not as perfect as you thought. So you need to learn to accept flaws and be OK with how things are.

Life is about Life. Suffering and Happiness are both a part of life. Life isn’t just one or the other.

Splitting is a Psychological defense mechanism of turning someone into an all bad or all good person. Cancel culture and Identity politics is based on this concept where someone is fully defined by one detail and instead of viewing a person as having both healthy and unhealthy parts, your own ego decides whether they are good or bad based on whether they serve your ego or threaten your ego. So catch yourself when your Ego turns you into a defensive person who is splitting someone else’s identity unfairly.

Birthday Party Lessons

Thoughts On Life

I threw a birthday party dinner in 2022 that made me unhappy. The purpose of this post is to go over what happened and learn from it so you can avoid my mistakes.

1) During the party I did and said things I thought other people wanted instead of doing and saying things that I wanted. Because I didn’t express myself, I felt invisible, alone, and undervalued. Even though everyone had come out to celebrate my birthday, I felt like the least important person there.

The mistake I made was people pleasing, and the solution is to verbalize what you want in life and communicate it to people who care.

A deeper lesson is that sometimes you are the creator of your own pain. If you feel alone, ask yourself if it is because others took an action to make you feel alone, or because you took an action to make yourself feel alone? By asking myself this question, I was able to realize I am often the creator of my own feelings of loneliness. My friends coming to celebrate my birthday is the opposite of making me lonely, thus they did not take an action to make me feel alone on my birthday. So if I felt alone during the birthday party, it must be because of something I am doing. And if it’s something I’m doing at my birthday, it might be something I am doing during the rest of my life as well.

2) I barely ate any food and went hungry so that everyone else could eat enough. People pleasing caused me to not even eat the food I paid for.

The deeper lesson here is to take care of yourself and achieve your priorities. Eating is important, so during meals, make sure you sustain your health.

3) I sat in the most uncomfortable and undesirable seat. Not only this, I explicitly did not want to sit there, but because others urged me to sit there, I gave myself the worst treatment.

The mistake was not honoring my wants and desires. I don’t have to sit where I don’t want to sit, so I shouldn’t have given into others’ demands. In fact, I didn’t even tell my friends I didn’t want to sit there. I should have at least verbalized my feelings so that they could know not to ask me to sit where I don’t want to sit.

This echos the deeper lessons earlier of me creating my own pain by failing to take care of myself and my priorities.

4) I didn’t order the dishes that I wanted. It’s my birthday, but I let everyone else pick the dishes. I should have at least picked one thing I liked and wanted.

5) I spent most of the night working to make everything go smoothly. Managing logistics, texting everyone updates, greeting them as they came and saying goodbye as they left. I spent very little of the night actually enjoying myself, doing what made me happy, and doing what I wanted to do.

6) I didn’t care about myself.

7) I gave incomplete answers to questions because I was afraid of being judged. This was a birthday party with friends who care, accept, and support me. These are relationships that are meaningful enough that I should be comfortable to open up with. Yet I ruined my own night by denying myself a genuine, authentic, honest connection with friends by not being vulnerable.

8) I didn’t get to have any continuous conversations with any of my friends because I prioritized making everyone welcome instead of enjoying any individual conversation.

9) I was stressed and working the whole night to make everyone else happy except for myself.

10) I didn’t enjoy myself.

I did and said things that I thought other people wanted instead of doing and saying the things that I wanted. I didn’t express myself. I felt invisible, alone, and undervalued. Even though everyone had come out to celebrate my birthday and I should have felt good about that, I felt like the least important person there.

Being vulnerable, caring for yourself, and overcoming your bad habits take a lot of effort and energy. I was exhausted coming into this birthday party so I fell into bad habits. Next time, I will be sure to rest well prior to the dinner, and consciously build good habits moving forward.

Tortoise and Hare – Lessons from the Hare

Thoughts On Life

What kept the Hare from winning, and what can the Hare do next time to win? If you are losing to people who are less skilled than you in competition, here are things you can do to win.

To recap the story: The classic tale of the Tortoise and the Hare teaches us how a slow turtle can win a race against a fast rabbit by using consistency and persistence. “Slow and steady wins the race” is the common quote to explain how consistency can help a slower animal like the Turtle defeat a faster animal like the Hare. The story also shows how the persistence of not giving up when you think the other person is better than you can lead you to win. These lessons fall into the category of “here are good things the turtle did that you should do as well.”

Today I will study the Hare to determine why the Hare lost and what the Hare can do next time to win.

Lesson 1: Estimation

Let’s explore the most common reason cited for why the Hare lost: arrogance. The story goes: The Hare slept because the Hare thought it had time to sleep and still win the race. How did the Hare calculate this? The Hare must have estimated the following variables:

  • Time for Tortoise to Finish the Race based on average estimated speed of Tortoise
  • Time for Hare to Finish the Race based on average estimated speed of Hare
  • Time for Hare to Sleep = (Time for Tortoise to Finish the Race) – (Time for Hare to Finish the Race)

If the Hare was correct in these estimates, then the Hare would have woken up in time and won the race. Therefore, it is more accurate to say the Hare did its estimation wrong than to say the Hare was arrogant.

For each estimation, the Hare could be overestimating, underestimating, or accurately estimating. Therefore, there are 3×3 = 9 possible outcomes.

I won’t go through all 9, but you can imagine how each one would lead to a different lesson. Overall, the lesson is to improve your estimation and include an appropriate margin of error.

Lesson 2: Fear of Success

If we assume the Hare did not need the nap, then the Hare chose not to win in order to take the nap, because if the Hare could finish the race, the Hare could have taken the nap after winning. So we ask: Why would the Hare not choose to win? Perhaps the Hare was afraid of success. What causes a fear of success?

People pleasing can cause a fear of success. If the Hare was concerned the crowd would shame the Hare for beating the Tortoise too badly, the Hare would want to let the Tortoise catch up on purpose. In this example, the Hare craved external validation more than victory and lost for that reason.

Pity can cause a fear of success. If the Hare felt bad about beating the Tortoise too badly, then the Hare would want to let the Tortoise catch up on purpose. This again is an example of how craving external validation can lead to defeat.

Low Self-Esteem can cause a fear of success. If the Hare felt it didn’t deserve to win, then the Hare could have self-sabotaged itself from winning.

Finally, pity or disrespect can cause a fear of success. If the Hare viewed the Tortoise as weak and unable to handle a loss, then the Hare could lose on purpose because the Hare viewed the Tortoise with such pity, such low regard, that the Hare could not respect the Tortoise enough to win.

Other less likely but possible reasons for the Hare’s loss are: underestimating the Opportunity Cost of the nap (loss of momentum, loss of awareness of the tortoise’s progress, loss of progress) and ADHD (losing focus on the race mid-race).

Or the Hare could have a Fear of Victory–the idea of defeating another animal could go against morals or values held by the Hare. The way to get over this fear is to accept that the Tortoise is an independent person capable of taking care of itself and doesn’t need the Hare to take responsibility of the Tortoise. The Hare just needs to be a humble and polite winner and be a good friend to the Tortoise and help the Tortoise if the Tortoise is in need. Otherwise, the Hare should respect the Tortoise’s ability to take the loss and the Hare should take the win.

In conclusion, add more margin of error to your estimations, and seize the victory with haste when you have the chance.

Resources

  • https://mindpsi.net/lessons-learn-hare
    • Hare good habits: taking breaks, taking naps, take time to be with friends and play
    • Tortoise bad habits: no rest, might burn out
  • https://www.beyondbroadcast.com/post/tortoise-and-the-hare/
    • Give the Hare the benefit of the doubt, maybe he was running his own race or had issues of his own
    • Compete with yourself not with others.
  • https://buzzingbubs.com/bangalore/hare-and-the-tortoise-retold
    • Over-confidence always marks the downfall of a player even when he’s apparently more competent than his opponents.
    • Identify your strengths and use them
      • can we say that the hare is better than the tortoise? Did the tortoise wallow in self-pity thinking how he can never be as fast as the hare? No. The tortoise realized that his strengths are different from those of the hare and that does not make him any less competent than the hare.
    • United efforts reap better rewards
      • the tortoise and the hare can team up and take turns using each other’s strengths when the situation calls for it.
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCYIzP-96d8
    • the race is not always to the swift
    • slow and steady > quick and careless
    • persist until you succeed
    • know your strength, believe and do it
    • the loser now is later to win
    • if you are going to sleep before/during a race, remember to set the alarm clock