Everyone has a future they want for themselves.. When you're a little kid growing up you see so many futures, you're going to be the president, a baseball player, a superhero, an astronaut... As you grow up most of those futures disappear for various reasons, you're not smart enough, you're not physically adept, you lose interest, etc..
In all of these futures you are happy, why are you happy in these futures? Is it because you're a superhero and you're saving everyone? Is it because you're a baseball player and you have the pride of winning the big game? If you really look at most of your childhood futures they are based on childhood visions of what happiness is. What is that vision? What is happiness? Almost every child is full of happiness, it's when we grow that we sometimes lose that.. What is love as an adult? Is it brought by being loved by others? Is it brought by helping others? Is it brought when you're team wins a big game? Is it brought by the smell of the woods or the smell of a new car? Is it brought by buying your first house? Is it brought by having children?
Nothing can bring you happiness.. Happiness is something you have to find in yourself.. I've seen the poorest of men who are ridiculously happy, I've seen the richest men who have major hit records and millions of fans kill themselves because they were not and could not find it.
Anyone who looks for happiness outside themselves will never find it. They might find happy moments but they will never find happiness.
I believe I have found happiness.. It's not the people in my life... Sure, they bring me happy moments, they also bring me sad moments too.. If you took everything away it would suck but I would start over and I would rebuild and I would be happy in whatever form my life would take.
Sometimes it takes that total destruction to find true happiness. A friend of mine had a car, a job, a place to live and friends around him.. For him that was not enough, he needed a girl, he needed a relationship more than any of those things so he went searching for one. He forced himself into one and it was a lie, because of this he lost his job, his place to live, his car and most of his friends. He ended up filing chapter 11 and living in a monastery before finally realizing that happiness comes from inside. Once he learned this he was able to put his life back together, and now has re-connected with almost all of his friends, has a car, a good job (best of his life), a place to live and a girl he loves.. Sometimes it takes hitting rock bottom. It does not have to be that way, but it does have to come from yourself..
A big step to happiness is being honest with yourself. You can hide yourself from others, but as long as you're hiding yourself from yourself you will never know what you need to do to find happiness.. Once you know what you need to do, the next (and possibly hardest) step is doing it..
Karma is tied to happiness is it not? If you are nice to other people and do good things you will find that people are nice to you and that seemingly random good things will happen to you. If you live your life stabbing people in the back you will be stabbed in the back yourself. If you kick a man while he is down you can guarantee that man is looking for his moment to kick you back. If you help him instead you will have gained an ally, and he will be looking to return the favor if it's ever needed. Karma is tied to happy moments which can in turn be tied to happiness, but I would not say that Karma is tied directly to happiness..
Someone who is filled with happiness can almost always find some happy part to even the worst news or situation..
Love = Happiness.. Love of oneself, yes.. Love of others, that just brings happy moments..
The grandest future, and in my mind the only one that is important, is one that you find happiness. Once you see that future, head towards it at all speed..
"second star to the right and straight on till morning"
Showing posts with label Spirituality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spirituality. Show all posts
Monday, October 6, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Illegal v. Legal Immigrants
I'm hanging out at my friend Matt's house.. Being here reminds me of a rant blog I wanted to post the other day..
Matt went to Australia for work for a few years, while he was there is met a girl named Sile. Did you know that the Australian word for girl is Sheila, that's a running joke, but anyway back to the story.. So Matt met Sile and ended up having a great start to a great relationship, Sile and Matt ended up having a son while in Australia.. Matt decided he needed to come home for a few reasons, 1st - his dad was not doing good health wise and 2nd - he was just plain homesick..
Anyway, Sile tried to come over to America with Daniel but the American government wouldn't let her because of dumb ass visa issues.. Well, Matt came over here and Sile went home to Ireland with Daniel... Matt and Sile fought for 11 months to get her a "fiance visa", a fiance visa is good for 3 months..
So, Matt and Sile got married on 8.8.08 which is an awesome day to get married.. Now that they are married they had to get Sile a "wife visa".. The wife visa is good for two years, at the end of that time Sile will need to either apply for citizenship or to get a permanent resident visa.. So, as if the "wife visa" is not enough they need to get a "travel visa" which will allow Sile to travel back to Ireland for visits.. Oh, and wait... They need a "working wife visa" for her to get a job while here too!
Sometimes I wonder what's wrong with this country... If you were ever wondering why people are illegal immigrants just think about what this country does to you when you try to do it the legal way...
On another note... The Mets won today!! End the 2007 deja vu talk now!?!
I have a bunch of other stuff I wanted to blog about tonight but I ended up hanging out here and drinking a bit too much so I will blog about that stuff tomorrow...
A toast?? To good food, good drink, good fire and absent friends..
Can you see the fire while your eyes are closed?? Study the light patterns and in there you will see the flames... Once you see the flames you can dance with them...
---- Comic of the day
http://www.xkcd.com/425/
---- Thought of the day
Why is is that a relief pitcher can pitch a perfect 8th, but when you put him in the 9th he can't get a fucking out!!
Matt went to Australia for work for a few years, while he was there is met a girl named Sile. Did you know that the Australian word for girl is Sheila, that's a running joke, but anyway back to the story.. So Matt met Sile and ended up having a great start to a great relationship, Sile and Matt ended up having a son while in Australia.. Matt decided he needed to come home for a few reasons, 1st - his dad was not doing good health wise and 2nd - he was just plain homesick..
Anyway, Sile tried to come over to America with Daniel but the American government wouldn't let her because of dumb ass visa issues.. Well, Matt came over here and Sile went home to Ireland with Daniel... Matt and Sile fought for 11 months to get her a "fiance visa", a fiance visa is good for 3 months..
So, Matt and Sile got married on 8.8.08 which is an awesome day to get married.. Now that they are married they had to get Sile a "wife visa".. The wife visa is good for two years, at the end of that time Sile will need to either apply for citizenship or to get a permanent resident visa.. So, as if the "wife visa" is not enough they need to get a "travel visa" which will allow Sile to travel back to Ireland for visits.. Oh, and wait... They need a "working wife visa" for her to get a job while here too!
Sometimes I wonder what's wrong with this country... If you were ever wondering why people are illegal immigrants just think about what this country does to you when you try to do it the legal way...
On another note... The Mets won today!! End the 2007 deja vu talk now!?!
I have a bunch of other stuff I wanted to blog about tonight but I ended up hanging out here and drinking a bit too much so I will blog about that stuff tomorrow...
A toast?? To good food, good drink, good fire and absent friends..
Can you see the fire while your eyes are closed?? Study the light patterns and in there you will see the flames... Once you see the flames you can dance with them...
---- Comic of the day
http://www.xkcd.com/425/
---- Thought of the day
Why is is that a relief pitcher can pitch a perfect 8th, but when you put him in the 9th he can't get a fucking out!!
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Cork Ireland - The center of the world??
For those of you who don't know, I drove to Newark NJ late Thursday night/early Friday morning and flew to Cork Ireland via London. I am here for a week teaching and then I go to Frankfurt Germany to teach for a week before heading back to NJ for the Laire 4-day. What have I done to prepare for this trip?? Nothing... I almost tried to learn some German but never found the time, I was going to look up cool things to do here in Cork and also never had the time. So, here I am flying by the seat of my pants..
My flight from NJ to London was nice, the plane was mostly empty so I got to lay out in a row of 4 seats (I actually fit laying flat without my feet even hanging off the end of the seats). I slept a little bit on that flight but didn't want to overdo the sleeping because I need to be in this timezone.. Anyway, I hung out in Heathrow airport for a few hours and decided I didn't want to eat there because it's always a hassle to expense stuff in London because of the GBP and VAT. If you've never flown from London to Ireland it should be noted that Aer Lingus has their own little section of Heathrow, there is a bar about half way between the main terminal and the Aer Lingus section and another bar at the gates.. I went through 5 security check points in Heathrow (1 - passport control of plane, 2 - they took a picture of me and gave me a bar code at the 2nd one [didn't know why], 3 - checked bag and had to go through metal detector, 4 - customs with bags, 5 - took my barcode and loaded picture (from 2) on the database to see if it was me)
The flight to Cork was full, the girl next to me made a comment about Ireland being the Center of the World because you can fly from Ireland to almost anywhere in the world in under 10 hours.
When we landed it Cork my first surprise was that the plane lets you on the runway and you have walk to the terminal (it was about 40 degrees and raining HARD), funny side note to that was that my coat was in my checked luggage.. Got to the hotel around midnight, checked in and went to get food.. Well, my decision to not eat in Heathrow ended up being the wrong one, apparently you can't get food in Cork after 10pm unless you consider McDonalds and Burger King food.. Well, after my Buger King bacon double cheeseburger I ended up at a "lap dancing club" for a Guiness before heading back to the hotel for my pushups. (4 hours sleep + long flights + burger king + guiness = really tough pushups)
So, on to today...
I woke up around the crack of noon and went out to check out Cork in the daytime. I decided to walk to the Beamish brewery to do a tour, on the way I stopped at a bagel place and had a multi-seed bagel with bacon, cream cheese, guacamole and tomato and a latte. Got to the brewery to find out they only run tours on Tuesday and Thursdays from 10:30am - noon?! So, where to now? The clouds decided to part so I decided today would be a good day for a double decker tour of Cork, I found a tour that did a run of Cork City and then went to Blarney Castle for a few hours. The tour of Cork was pretty lame really, the only cool things were they have a cathedral with 4 clocks (one on each side of the tower), they it the four faced liar, apparently all 4 clocks have different times and not one of them ever has the correct time!? The other cool thing is that apparently Cork is a shortened Gaelic word that means Marsh. Then the bus went onto a highway and went over to Blarney village, I was on the top of an open air bus, great idea till you hit highway speeds!
Blarney village was a pretty nice little town and the castle was really nice but was really great was the land around the castle. First of all, I did NOT kiss the Blarney stone, I did walk up to it and take a picture, but I did NOT kiss it. I walked around in the castle looking at all the rooms, it was pretty neat to see. When I left the castle I walked around the grounds and came to an ancient tree, the tree felt like one of the warmest places in the world, I went up and sat under the tree and could feel my energies hit overcharge levels. When I walked away I felt all tingley, as I continued my walk around the grounds I found a cave system that went under the castle, they had some small lights in the cave. I went in there and my energy levels and connection to the earth continued to grow, I ended up walking all the way into the cave till I hit a cave in. Went back out and started to leave the castle grounds. I got almost out when I decided to go back to the tree one last time. sat under the tree again for a few minutes and took some rocks from the base of the tree.
I felt like I was floating as I walked back to the mill shops and the bus. Walked around the shops for a bit before the bus left and got some really cool stuff. What I didn't get was a really nice wool cape sorta like this one (http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmJsYXJuZXkuY29tL2NhdGFsb2cvZGlzcGxheS9wcm9kdWN0X2RldGFpbHMucGhwP2lkPTYxMDY=), it was a light purple color and would look amazing on my lady folk but the price and size uncertainity scared me away. I did end up spending too much money on other stuff including a really nice greenman necklace (bought that before going to castle) for me.
Back to hotel...
A friend of mine who I used to work with in Hopkinton came and met me for dinner. We went to an Indian place and I got Tandori Quail and some Nan, afterwards we went to a pub for a pint and now I'm back in the hotel typing this up. I think I am going to head back out and see if I can find any live music at one of the local pubs.
I will try to blog more often, I know I said this before but I feel like there are so many people I want to update on my daily occurances and if I did that the phone bills would be out of control..
My flight from NJ to London was nice, the plane was mostly empty so I got to lay out in a row of 4 seats (I actually fit laying flat without my feet even hanging off the end of the seats). I slept a little bit on that flight but didn't want to overdo the sleeping because I need to be in this timezone.. Anyway, I hung out in Heathrow airport for a few hours and decided I didn't want to eat there because it's always a hassle to expense stuff in London because of the GBP and VAT. If you've never flown from London to Ireland it should be noted that Aer Lingus has their own little section of Heathrow, there is a bar about half way between the main terminal and the Aer Lingus section and another bar at the gates.. I went through 5 security check points in Heathrow (1 - passport control of plane, 2 - they took a picture of me and gave me a bar code at the 2nd one [didn't know why], 3 - checked bag and had to go through metal detector, 4 - customs with bags, 5 - took my barcode and loaded picture (from 2) on the database to see if it was me)
The flight to Cork was full, the girl next to me made a comment about Ireland being the Center of the World because you can fly from Ireland to almost anywhere in the world in under 10 hours.
When we landed it Cork my first surprise was that the plane lets you on the runway and you have walk to the terminal (it was about 40 degrees and raining HARD), funny side note to that was that my coat was in my checked luggage.. Got to the hotel around midnight, checked in and went to get food.. Well, my decision to not eat in Heathrow ended up being the wrong one, apparently you can't get food in Cork after 10pm unless you consider McDonalds and Burger King food.. Well, after my Buger King bacon double cheeseburger I ended up at a "lap dancing club" for a Guiness before heading back to the hotel for my pushups. (4 hours sleep + long flights + burger king + guiness = really tough pushups)
So, on to today...
I woke up around the crack of noon and went out to check out Cork in the daytime. I decided to walk to the Beamish brewery to do a tour, on the way I stopped at a bagel place and had a multi-seed bagel with bacon, cream cheese, guacamole and tomato and a latte. Got to the brewery to find out they only run tours on Tuesday and Thursdays from 10:30am - noon?! So, where to now? The clouds decided to part so I decided today would be a good day for a double decker tour of Cork, I found a tour that did a run of Cork City and then went to Blarney Castle for a few hours. The tour of Cork was pretty lame really, the only cool things were they have a cathedral with 4 clocks (one on each side of the tower), they it the four faced liar, apparently all 4 clocks have different times and not one of them ever has the correct time!? The other cool thing is that apparently Cork is a shortened Gaelic word that means Marsh. Then the bus went onto a highway and went over to Blarney village, I was on the top of an open air bus, great idea till you hit highway speeds!
Blarney village was a pretty nice little town and the castle was really nice but was really great was the land around the castle. First of all, I did NOT kiss the Blarney stone, I did walk up to it and take a picture, but I did NOT kiss it. I walked around in the castle looking at all the rooms, it was pretty neat to see. When I left the castle I walked around the grounds and came to an ancient tree, the tree felt like one of the warmest places in the world, I went up and sat under the tree and could feel my energies hit overcharge levels. When I walked away I felt all tingley, as I continued my walk around the grounds I found a cave system that went under the castle, they had some small lights in the cave. I went in there and my energy levels and connection to the earth continued to grow, I ended up walking all the way into the cave till I hit a cave in. Went back out and started to leave the castle grounds. I got almost out when I decided to go back to the tree one last time. sat under the tree again for a few minutes and took some rocks from the base of the tree.
I felt like I was floating as I walked back to the mill shops and the bus. Walked around the shops for a bit before the bus left and got some really cool stuff. What I didn't get was a really nice wool cape sorta like this one (http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmJsYXJuZXkuY29tL2NhdGFsb2cvZGlzcGxheS9wcm9kdWN0X2RldGFpbHMucGhwP2lkPTYxMDY=), it was a light purple color and would look amazing on my lady folk but the price and size uncertainity scared me away. I did end up spending too much money on other stuff including a really nice greenman necklace (bought that before going to castle) for me.
Back to hotel...
A friend of mine who I used to work with in Hopkinton came and met me for dinner. We went to an Indian place and I got Tandori Quail and some Nan, afterwards we went to a pub for a pint and now I'm back in the hotel typing this up. I think I am going to head back out and see if I can find any live music at one of the local pubs.
I will try to blog more often, I know I said this before but I feel like there are so many people I want to update on my daily occurances and if I did that the phone bills would be out of control..
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