Saturday, June 27, 2009

Being there - what do you think?

Why is it so hard for many o us, including myself to be there for the ones you love, and I don't mean being there when they have a problem, but being there when everything is going ok, paying attention to their lives and experiences on a day to day basis. Why do we forget or pure simply not even do these things?


All of us have people in our lives that we love and who are dear to us: mom and dad, brother or sister, our children, our lover, our best friends etc. Deep down we all hold these people very close to our heart and losing one of them would cause us a very grate amount of grief.

Still even though we care and love them, many times watching the latest episode of Prison Break is more important to us then calling them up and asking them how they are, how their day was. I can tell you from personal experience that this can cause a lot of pain to people in certain cases.
I'm pretty sure that if you sit down and let it process in you for a while, you will realize that deep down there really isn't anything more important than how the people we love spend their lives

So why don't we do it? Why don't we call them everyday?
- society doesn't teach us
- my parents didn't do it
- they don't call me, why should I call them
- why should I even care, I have my problems

There are so many superficial explanations to this subject, but I suspect, that deep down, something totally different is happening...not sure what though....

What do you think?

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Trust

It seems that I'm on a roll lately, just can't stop writing :) Many interesting things are happening in my life lately, which bring me to different realizations. Some of them might be obvious others less obvious, but whatever the case is, I would like to share them with you.

Today I will talk about TRUST and its dynamics.


An obvious truth about trust is that it's a key component of our civilization and how we interact with each other. Trusting someone allows us to know what to expect from them in a particular situation.

However, when we do the opposite of what they were expecting, people lose trust in you and gaining that trust back is almost impossible in most cases. So why is that? Why DO we lose trust and why IS IT so hard to gain it back?


What I came to realize is that betraying someone's trust, always comes from a point of weakness. When we first meet somebody we start communicating, on all levels and we start knowing each other on all levels, by noticing certain cues and listening to what he/she is saying. Based on this information, we learn who the other person is and we pretty much expect them to be the person they present themselves to be.

However life is tough and we are by far not perfect creatures. Many things happen in our life that affect us, make us scared or insecure and in these precise moment something happens that leads to the destabilization of trust.

Today's humans aren't very in touch with their true essence. Somewhere along the way of evolution we lost the touch with who we really are (and it keeps getting worse), instead our brilliant mind started creating personas for ourselves, images of who are mind thinks that we are. This images are never accurate, they can not be accurate since our mind, even with his great power is still very flawed. Anyway, what happens is that when we meet another person, we start communicating to them that "we are our persona" and most of the time people actually believe us and don't see trough to our true essence.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. When something unexpected or difficult happens, which isn't integrated into our persona, we get scared. Our mind is very very scared of the unknown, his quite pathetic actually, when it comes down to these kinds of situation. And what these situations do, is start a chain of events which ultimately affects the trust of the people who surround us.

In those moments, those tests of life, we lose the sense of who we are, not knowing how to handle it, we do something that is completely out of character, or more exactly something that doesn't come from our deep selves, but from our mind. In these moments we betray ourselves, we lose congruency with who we are, we become another person, a persona that is created out of the flawedness of our mind.

Of course, people who trust you, they trust either your deep inner self or the persona you presented to them. But in any case, the lack of character that arises from the weakness inside you, in the face of a challenge, will completely destabilize this trust. They will realize that what they thought about you that was real, isn't and in the future they will know that they cannot expect that particular thing from you.


One of the more interesting things that surrounds trust, is its depth. When you mess up a small thing, people will lose their trust in your ability to that particular thing, but it's not that big of an issue and they get over it, pretty quick. However when you betray somebody's trust on a deep level, you show them that deep down you are not the person you presented yourself to be and by doing this, you not only create doubt regarding that particular subject, but you also put question marks around everything that comes above it. When you really mes up, people will have a hard time trusting you in anything, because if you're flawed at such a deep level, there is a very high chance that you are a weak person and that you will betray them in many other places.


Unfortunately, like I mentioned before, we are not perfect creatures. We do make mistakes, we do hurt the ones around us and we do by betray their trust. It is unavoidable.

And that's the beauty of it, that's the beauty of being humans. Whenever we fail, a chance arises for us to know our selves and grow. And this is exactly what you need to do if you ever desire to regain people's trust.

What society, more exactly politics teaches us, is that with careful communication and arguments, it is pretty simple to get back people's trust. And this is what WE try to do as well. When we fuck up, we go apologize and present arguments on how you will try to avoid the situation in the future. Now due to the compassionate nature of the human race, we tend to convince ourselves to believe them over and over and over again. But what will happen again and again and again (I loooooove repetition today :) ) is to repeat the same mistake in a different way, since the true cause is still there. The persona is flawed and instead of going in and fixing them we try to cover it up.

Unfortunately, whatever we do, until we handle it, real trust will never exist again. More then that, if you betray someone's trust and you manage to somehow, gain it back, that person will probably test you over and over again to see if you are really trustable.

And here is where it gets really really messy. You betray your true self and in consequence the trust of somebody who's close to you. You realize what you did and you decide to try to work on yourself, however you will face a new obstacle. The weakness of the person you betrayed and yes, they ARE WEAK.

Why do I say this? Well once your trust is betrayed, you get scared and afraid to suffer the same fate again. Now the person who betrayed your trust might really start to work on himself and try really hard, but you sabotage him from your own weakness. Working on yourself is a hard and difficult process in its own, but when someone is putting a tremendous pressure on you, by testing you, the process becomes almost impossible.


People are week no doubt about it. Others betray you because they are weak, and that you make it impossible for them to handle the situation, because you're scared and week.


Trust can be gained fully back under only one condition, by removing the cause, by becoming true to yourself in difficult situations, especially in the type of situation where you messed up before.

Giving trust back is very hard also, we are always afraid of getting hurt again. However this is just an excuse for being pathetic and weak. If you are a strong person and your trust gets betrayed, you will stand by the other person if you seem him/her make real tries in getting to be true to him/herself.

This is of course not an obligation, but if you do care about the person, you will help him/her grow.


For any type of relationship between you people to work, strength is needed. If both sides are weak...well then you need to find someone who is strong enough to stand by you when things get rough.

How to avoid betraying yourself and the trust that other people have in you?

"Know thyself"

It's that simple. When you are present and aware of yourself and not some persona or image created by your mind you will be strong and trustable by all who care about you.

Friday, June 5, 2009

A small video about our senses

Well as you can see I still haven't got to finishing the abundance of the universe post. For some reasons, I've gotten into a mind activity which, slows me from appreciating all the wonders. I still go and see them, but the connection is filtered, my mind is kinda blocking me from appreciating things for more then their face value.

Any way, I just ran over this video recently and thought it would be quite relevant to the subject, especially the RAS and how exactly our mind processes and filters the information that the universe offers. Be sure to watch this when you have some focus, since it's kinda mind blowing. Enjoy




"You don't see anything" it's all created in your mind, based on what you've learned throughout your childhood...so do you think it might be possible that we learned to appreciate the wrong things and to ignore some other stuff that might be very valuable to us....?

Who knows... But maybe it's time to put some question marks around the things we "KNOW" are important and have value, cause there might be a chance that we missed something. (since we probably weren't surrounded by world renowned geniuses while were growing up...but by simple people who not that long ago thought the world was flat and humans couldn't fly...not to mention the moon...)



PS: The guy who is talking, his name is Eben Pagan and his an entrepreneur and human interaction genius (pretty much).


Friday, May 8, 2009

The abundance of the universe

Did you ever feel, even for a moment, that the universe is a hostile place. That it gives nothing or very few things to you?

For some it's hard to identify with that question, for others it's easier, during our lifetime however we face many challenges, many difficult situations and a good part of these won't end up the way we like it. Heck, many people go into a state of depression because their life isn't working out the way they would want it to. And when they do get in a depressive state, they have that incredibly strong feeling that the universe is a hostile place, that there is nothing to live for nothing to appreciate.

If you ever were close to somebody who was really down and you suggested to them to appreciate a certain thing, they probably looked at you as if you were stupid, as if you just don't understand them.

Why is that? Why is it that we forget that the universe is an incredible place, filled with miracles, which we can't even begin to comprehend. How is it even possible to forget that?


Well this is what this post will try to uncover. What is the reason behind the fact that we slip into a state where we disconnect from the wonders of the world in such an intense way, that we begin looking at it as if it was a "bad place". And I'm not referring only to the extremes here, all of us, including myself, have periods when things don't work out as they should and we get so caught up in it that we lose focus, lose perspective.

WARNING: Topics mentioned in this post, might get a bit weird and sound crazy for some, so continue reading at your own risk


Is the world an abundant place filled with incredible events?

Some people might say yes to this, some might respond no, but it all comes down on whether you take the time to notice them or not.

Recently I've been experiencing something very interesting, or more correctly remembering it.

Do you recall when you were a little child, when everything was new, when every single experience was incredibly interesting, going just 2 blocks away from home was an adventure? Remember when you were still incredibly amazed by seeing the trees blossom in the spring, or when the first snow falls down in the winter?

That's what true appreciation is. Seeing something incredible, witnessing something that's way beyond of what your brain can comprehend.

Well we do get the same sensations even now when we are older. For some of us, it's when we arrive at the beach for the first time during the summer and we dive into the sea. For others by climbing a mountain and witnessing an amazing landscape. Or even more close to home when you fall in love, see a child's birth or gain a new friend.

All of these are natures miracles, the wonders that surround us on a day to day basis.

Don't believe me? look up at the sky and watch a bird fly, notice it's grace in the air, the way it's wings move, the freedom and the power that it has. Go out to the park on a sunny day and watch the children playing, see their innocents and happiness, their joy to be their, their smileys, their laughter and of course the tears when they fall down and themselves.

Unfortunately those of us who spend a good amount of time in our heads, rationalizing, thinking planning about tomorrow, or remembering yesterday, we miss out on these things. We miss out of the marvels of the present moment and the more we do this the more disconnected we get, the more we start to have a sensation of emptiness inside, a sensation of being lost.

And we don't like being lost, so we try to run after things, objects, events, money, power, cars, house, hot women etc. you name it. We try to find ourselves in them, we try to fix the sensation of being disconnected from the universe, with objects who's values exist mostly in our brain.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with these objects, but they can never compensate for the pure marvels of the universe. If you ever experienced the loss of a person who you really loved, you probably would give away your car, if it would bring him back to life. And of course this is an extreme example, but if you ever felt a deep connection to one of the wonders of the universe, you know that no material object can replace it.

Think about a really strong friendship, a deep, passionate and loving romantic relationship, a child playing in a park or a hatching of an egg. There is no material thing that can give us the same amount of deep value then these things can.

And still, we move away from them, we forget about them. When we look at a person we look at his car, wallet and clothes and ignore the inner beauty. When we look at birds we see that they crap all over the place and get pissed, instead of seeing how glamorous they are. When a child knocks over a drink and stains the table cloth, we get pissed at him, scold him, instead of realizing how innocent and pure he/she is.

We disconnect from these simple yet incredible thing.



How do we get so distant from all these wonders from time to time?

Well even though at a deep level most people can really appreciate these things, at a mental level things are different, since our brain LOVES to filter.

What do I mean by filtering? Well basically the brain tends to only absorb things that serve its immediate purpose. This is what's behind the Reticular Activation System as well, which is a phenomenal function of the brain in my opinion.

When you are focusing on getting a job, being promoted, putting food on the table or whatever else it might be, your mind will be an excellent tool in helping you achieve them and it will basically filter out all the things which do not serve this immediate purpose. And when you do it for an extended amount of time, your mind will start getting lost...

And this is how the breakage from the universe starts. You get lost in activities, in thoughts, in ideas and you start only noticing the bills, the money, the car which are your immediate objectives. The more you do this, the more empty you start to feel and the LESS you will appreciate anything, the harder it will be for anything to fulfill you and the more lost you will feel.

So what do you do? You try to get more money, another promotion, a better car or a hotter, younger girl/guy to cheat on your spouse with. And guess what this results in!?

Yes, you are correct! More disconnection from the "simple" things, a bigger emptiness and of course a stronger sensation of being lost. The more you go at this rate, the more miserable you will be and the more hostile the universe will seem to you, since it "never gives you anything", you can never fill the emptiness, with the objects you have thought so much for.

The objects, the material things can offer you a brief satisfaction, no doubt. I myself adore cruising in a convertible, with the top down during the summer. But I also know that there are much more deep places in me and in all of us, which will never be truly fulfilled with material objects, places which only budge when I take the time to pay attention to one of the gifts of this universe.


What can we do to get back in touch with the universe again?
This shall follow in a future post.



As always, you're comments are welcomed.
Thank you for reading this, I appreciate it.