dougphung 1:17 am
(1:17:27 AM): Pat, i know you say you like asian girls
(1:17:41 AM): But... i dont think there are very many asian girls
(1:17:51 AM): that will taylor to your personality
(1:17:55 AM): to be honest
imp4nda 1:17 am
(1:17:58 AM): LOL
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Expectations and holding standards
A general rule to follow: you’ll be a lot happier if you never hold cognitive dissonance against someone. Say you share a cause or an unpopular opinion with someone and they abandon it with flimsy justification. Unless you enjoy disappointment, remember that this didn’t happen on purpose. In fact, to them, switching feels right, like they are doing the more honest thing. It’s not personal, it’s biological.
Cognitive dissonance is easier to fall prey to if you don’t know yourself, if you aren’t regularly taking stock of yourself. To Demosthenes, at the end of virtue was constancy, and at its beginning was reflection. Reflection often means self-criticism, taking blame or generally coming to terms with reality of the world that surrounds us. So what did you expect? You can’t fault people for not developing a personality trait that ultimately tends to make difficult situations more unpleasant.
So sometimes the alternative is just too taxing to bear. Maybe they helped create the problem, maybe their livelihood depends on looking the other way. Whatever the reason, it’s OK! Remember: you decided it (reflection, taking stock, intellectual honesty) was worth doing because it was real. But you’ll get nowhere anticipating—thinking you’re entitled to—other people agreeing to that tradeoff. Nowhere, that is, but angry, let down or alone.
Cognitive dissonance is easier to fall prey to if you don’t know yourself, if you aren’t regularly taking stock of yourself. To Demosthenes, at the end of virtue was constancy, and at its beginning was reflection. Reflection often means self-criticism, taking blame or generally coming to terms with reality of the world that surrounds us. So what did you expect? You can’t fault people for not developing a personality trait that ultimately tends to make difficult situations more unpleasant.
So sometimes the alternative is just too taxing to bear. Maybe they helped create the problem, maybe their livelihood depends on looking the other way. Whatever the reason, it’s OK! Remember: you decided it (reflection, taking stock, intellectual honesty) was worth doing because it was real. But you’ll get nowhere anticipating—thinking you’re entitled to—other people agreeing to that tradeoff. Nowhere, that is, but angry, let down or alone.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Rude!
Try not to get upset by people’s rudeness. Notice: how it never seems to come from someone who has ‘earned’ the right to be rude. In other words, this attitude (or stupidity) has not served them well. It has held them back and punished them. So you pity it, place it properly in context with the costs, or pretend not to care but don’t feel resentment if you can help it. Because they’ve borne more of the burden than you.
Not noticing
Think about all the near-misses that you never knew about. Fight-or-flight situations that passed unintentionally unnoticed. To not know and continue to never know without consequence is a wonderful gift.
Especially if you’re someone like me who internalizes theses crises. I feel them churning in my stomach. My heart races or I get sick with frustration and anger.
But so many of these situations come to mean nothing. Like, absolutely nothing. You miss a surprise phone call from someone important. The wasted opportunity nags at you. But how many times has your phone eaten a call and you never knew about it? Someone gets the last word and it hurts. But what if you’d never heard it?
Your life remains utterly unchanged by these moments. The mistakes you’re aware of, but can do nothing about, pale in comparison to the countless mistakes you didn’t even realize. The last word isn’t acted on, it’s just resented or aggravating.
What you do, for example, in a heated discussion is decide the point at which the things the other person says become meaningless. And then don’t listen when it turns into excuses or rationalizations or bullshit. If it’s an email chain, don’t even open it. You can choose to make it irrelevant. In terms of your decisions and life, it already is.
Syrus wrote that we should “always shun that which makes you angry.” Meaning, you identify the triggers and you opt out of being a part of pulling them. The body has ingrained responses to certain stimuli. It’s more severe in people like me. So you avoid those stimuli because they represent nothing. They are false.
Maybe you don’t take is as far as being purposely ignorant, but you do take into consideration how easily you could have just not known about this thing before you let it matter too much.
Especially if you’re someone like me who internalizes theses crises. I feel them churning in my stomach. My heart races or I get sick with frustration and anger.
But so many of these situations come to mean nothing. Like, absolutely nothing. You miss a surprise phone call from someone important. The wasted opportunity nags at you. But how many times has your phone eaten a call and you never knew about it? Someone gets the last word and it hurts. But what if you’d never heard it?
Your life remains utterly unchanged by these moments. The mistakes you’re aware of, but can do nothing about, pale in comparison to the countless mistakes you didn’t even realize. The last word isn’t acted on, it’s just resented or aggravating.
What you do, for example, in a heated discussion is decide the point at which the things the other person says become meaningless. And then don’t listen when it turns into excuses or rationalizations or bullshit. If it’s an email chain, don’t even open it. You can choose to make it irrelevant. In terms of your decisions and life, it already is.
Syrus wrote that we should “always shun that which makes you angry.” Meaning, you identify the triggers and you opt out of being a part of pulling them. The body has ingrained responses to certain stimuli. It’s more severe in people like me. So you avoid those stimuli because they represent nothing. They are false.
Maybe you don’t take is as far as being purposely ignorant, but you do take into consideration how easily you could have just not known about this thing before you let it matter too much.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
EPIC FAIL ON BLOGGING!
So my goal to write on this blog consistently has consistently failed every time I tell myself I will. Sorry to my two loyal followers, however it's not like I haven't been writing at all, in fact I got a lot of short works that are currently on my laptop. I just haven't had the time to work on it because of my summer job. I'll try to have something up relatively soon.
Today I was having a conversation with one of my female co-workers and she said “It’s impossible not to constantly wonder if there’s something better, someone better. "If I could only choose between three decent guys, it’d be a done deal. I’d be married already.”
I nodded. Having options–perceived infinite choice–isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. How, then, do you tame indecision, particularly in relationships?
Almost everyone on staff are single college graduates and they all believe that getting married or the thought of marriage is a very disheartening subject to discuss. They say how it's hard to watch all there close friends get married off and suddenly they are in the next stage of life. They feel pressure, a lot of it. To them it's the next BIG stage in their life that they have to achieve. Just like the idea of going to college after high school is just something that needs to be done.
Perhaps this is why divorce rates are so high nowadays. It's the fact that people feel pressured to get married at a certain age, at a certain point in their lives and if they don't, they won't feel content with themselves. You shouldn't get married just because that's just the way things are. You should get married because you found the right person and want to be with them for the rest of your life.
Today I was having a conversation with one of my female co-workers and she said “It’s impossible not to constantly wonder if there’s something better, someone better. "If I could only choose between three decent guys, it’d be a done deal. I’d be married already.”
I nodded. Having options–perceived infinite choice–isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. How, then, do you tame indecision, particularly in relationships?
Almost everyone on staff are single college graduates and they all believe that getting married or the thought of marriage is a very disheartening subject to discuss. They say how it's hard to watch all there close friends get married off and suddenly they are in the next stage of life. They feel pressure, a lot of it. To them it's the next BIG stage in their life that they have to achieve. Just like the idea of going to college after high school is just something that needs to be done.
Perhaps this is why divorce rates are so high nowadays. It's the fact that people feel pressured to get married at a certain age, at a certain point in their lives and if they don't, they won't feel content with themselves. You shouldn't get married just because that's just the way things are. You should get married because you found the right person and want to be with them for the rest of your life.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Pictures of the family
Since I can't think of anything to write about, I'll just share some pictures of my family. Maybe this is a sign that I miss them.
My sister is a junior in high school and I love her to death. She's sweet and loves to play sports, video games, and has such a big heart.
So that's my little brother Brian, he's a sophomore at UNC and will be in Shanghai this summer at an internship. Everyone in the family jokes that he's the oldest because he's bigger than me.
My mom and dad! It's easy to say that I have a much stronger relationship with my mother than my dad but I still love both of them equally. Clearly Dad doesn't have a strong sense of fashion. This picture was when the whole family went to Beijing this past summer without me. I ended up taking a job instead.
My sister is a junior in high school and I love her to death. She's sweet and loves to play sports, video games, and has such a big heart.
So that's my little brother Brian, he's a sophomore at UNC and will be in Shanghai this summer at an internship. Everyone in the family jokes that he's the oldest because he's bigger than me.
My mom and dad! It's easy to say that I have a much stronger relationship with my mother than my dad but I still love both of them equally. Clearly Dad doesn't have a strong sense of fashion. This picture was when the whole family went to Beijing this past summer without me. I ended up taking a job instead.
Writer's block
It is very frustrating when I can not articulate my feelings on thought or even on paper. I hope this changes soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)