Archive for the ‘Thoughts’ Category
Are people really “bad” people? Technically, “bad” is a subjective term, no? For example, conservatives tend to see pre-marital sex as “bad” whereas liberals don’t always see it the same way.
I was thinking about this when a friend, MJ, mentioned that this girl, SS, wasn’t a “bad” girl. I found it a little odd to say, but I understood what she meant. See, to me, SS can be labeled as “bad” when comparing her to the social norms, but thinking about it, I don’t really hate her. Instead, MJ and I decided that SS had too many habits that clashed with our ability to be friends.
Back to the question though, are people really “bad” people? Especially if we compare them to our personal beliefs and values? If we put our personal morals aside, what would define a “bad” person? In a way, it’s all relative depending on the culture and social norms. Are there any universal norms which we can use as a base for this definition?
On a more personal level, when do you feel as if you’re a “bad” person? Does it depend on someone’s reaction and interaction with you? Or does it depend on something else? When did you feel your worst?
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Why is it that some use anger as an excuse for irrational or rude behavior? “He didn’t mean to say that; he was angry.” Does it really all stem from the anger? Or is it more of a choice that people make when they choose not to censor themselves?
There’s this idea that when someone is angry, that person will act rashly and harshly. Because of that, many tend to stay away from the angry person. It’s usually from the fear of either witnessing or being a victim of the anger.
Anger is one of the seven deadly sins and I truly believe that. Anger leads people to be irrational, to do things that if they were calm, they wouldn’t do nor say. But really, can you use anger as an excuse? It would be the same as blaming the alcohol for the abusive behavior or the drugs for the reckless behavior.
As a child, and even now unfortunately, my mother would say really mean things to me. (Please, no bashing on my mother) She would call me names or at one point, say that she wish I were dead. (She stopped after I expressed how it made me feel.) As I was nearing the end of high school, she would say that she couldn’t wait until I was out of the house. And just this past weekend, she told me that I shouldn’t come back home in two weeks.
All these things were said out of anger and frustration, but to me, they don’t give her any right to say the things she said. Hell, anger doesn’t give anyone any right to act rudely or harshly. Yes, I have been prone to be a bit nasty when angry, but I know that it is my choice to act that way. I could easily find another outlet to release the anger, but I don’t and that is my fault, not the anger’s fault.
To me, every action is always a choice. Even a lack of action is a choice because you allow for that to happen. There really is no such thing as “I couldn’t help myself!” or “I couldn’t control myself!” Even when impaired through alcohol or drugs, the person makes the choice to put him/herself in that position. If a person knows that s/he becomes violent while drinking, then why continue to drink? Or why drink in front of other people that s/he can abuse?
Even for anger, every reaction is a decision. When you snap at someone, it’s still a choice you’re making. As I mentioned before, I’m prone to be really bad tempered. I have said nasty things; I’ve reacted harshly; I’ve punched (inanimate objects); I’ve yelled; I’ve screamed and cried. Just a few days ago, I snapped at a woman. In some aspects, she deserved it, but still, I shouldn’t have acted like that. I’m not sorry about snapping at her, mind you, but I am regretful of my behavior.
What are your thoughts on this? Have you been prone to act rashly when angered or have you been a victim of anger? How have you dealt with that?
(Edit: I just noticed that Reggy from fragileheart.com recently wrote something similar and hit a few points too.)
Image Source: Mareen Fischinger at Flickr.
When you meet people, you never spill out all your deep dark secrets. However, what if, you know that one of your secrets is one of their deal breakers?
Yes, what usually happens on dates is that one is trying to impress the other. It’s natural and quite normal to withhold strange information, but is there a line to what you should or shouldn’t hold back? I don’t know if I’m making this as clear as I can, but maybe I’ll use a common bad habit as an example.
What if you are a smoker and generally, unless you know that your date smokes too, you know that most won’t date a smoker, right? I’ve made quite a few friends that I didn’t know were smokers, even occasional ones, until weeks, even months, after we had met. So if you hold that information back, knowing that it could be a major turn-off, would it be an entrapment of some sort?
Thinking about this some more, I finally found a personal example to this question: back when Stockton Boy and I had first met, he didn’t know about my history of infidelity. It would have been a deal breaker for him since almost all of his past girlfriends had been unfaithful to him. But I held that information back. Partly because I wanted to start off with a clean slate; I knew that even as friends, others look down upon cheaters as if they’re vermin. I didn’t like that feeling and so, I kept it private. It was also in part that I didn’t want him to look down on me. I wanted everything to be fun and by the time the topic came up, we were both too into each other to turn back.
In a way, I felt as if it could have been a trap. Of course, there was no malicious intent, no evil plan (”Muahahaha. He shall be mine!”), no ill-wish of any sort. Still though, it could seem as if I wanted to hook him first before he could run away.
Anyway, what are your thoughts on this? Would you consider it a trick, a trap? Or just the way that the dating world works? If you had bad habits, would you tell your date or would just let him/her figure it out later and hope that s/he doesn’t run?
Also, in small site updates, I’m currently working on my freelance web design website before I make the layout for this site. I’ve also included a “Current Songs” category for me to post lyrics to songs that I feel express my emotions at the moment.
I know, I said that I would come back better than ever with a new layout, but things have gotten a little time consuming lately. In a nutshell, I worked my ass off for the clothing store from hell, got fired before I could quit, then started a new job as a cashier at a market/deli. On top of that, I was trying to get schoolwork done and started putting in a few more social events. I’ll write a recap post on that later.
Lately, I’ve noticed how much I’ve been thinking about the past. Sure, I do that all the time, but as of late, it’s had a different feeling… it’s more of the remembering the good days, or remembering the good people.
Not necessarily through death, but I’ve lost a lot of good relationships with people and I absolutely hate that, I do. It’s hard for me when it happens, but I just have to try and pick myself up, and move on.
Except at least right now, it feels exceptionally hard.
In the last four years, I’ve lost a lot of people. There was a good friend (DT) who won’t speak to me now due one mistake I foolishly made, my senior year boyfriend (MN), my childhood best friend (VN) I had known ever since kindergarten, my breaststroke swimming partner (AL), and many others. Sure it’s all a fact of life; people grow up and they grow into different groups and lives, but even the most different of people can keep friendships, right?
Of course, to seal the deal to all this reminiscing, Stockton Boy and I had a major blowout a few days ago. I could see that what happened with VN was happening with Stockton Boy; he was getting too busy for me despite having told me it could never happen. But it did and I ended up getting extremely upset. My stress was fueled even more when he couldn’t understand how hurt and upset I was because his guards had gone flying up.
Although I know that he wasn’t on anyone’s good side anymore, I still wanted to be his friend. I needed to be his friend because he was the closest thing I had to being able to lean on someone without feeling as if I was imposing on someone’s schoolwork and time. Then, in the last month, he wasn’t there and I just… I couldn’t handle it; I can’t handle it.
What does all this have to do with the past? A lot of people get upset when they think back on how things used to be. If I didn’t, maybe I wouldn’t have blown up like I did at Stockton Boy. I wouldn’t have thought on the days when we used to call each other (as friends) just to say goodnight for fifteen seconds. I wouldn’t have thought back on the time I was walking through my school hallways after being dumped and seeing DT right there with his arms open wide for me. I wouldn’t think back on the times MN and I used to be on the phone for hours teasing each other about useless crap. I wouldn’t remember all of the three-hour long conversations (and possibly longer) with VN and how close we were as friends despite how far apart we lived. If I didn’t think back on any of those, I wouldn’t feel as shitty as I do now. Most people wouldn’t feel so shitty if they didn’t do what I do. Except, it’s hard.
I had a feeling that a ex-boyfriend, MM, I recently got reacquainted with may have a crush on me again and last night, it was confirmed. He was doing what I did; he was thinking back to how good things were when we dated, however short it was. I know that in some cases, and for now only the ones that I’ve seen in movies, some people can date, fall out, get reacquainted and then date again to have an even better relationship. Except, this isn’t one of those movie moments and only when I got the confirmation did I realize how dangerous it is to remember the good ol’ days.
It’s ironic that so many good memories can be so bittersweet, but it happens.
So what now? How do you try and change your focus? It will always be the good ol’ days, but how can you make it have a good feeling as opposed to a longing feeling? Maybe it’s just slowly trying to come to terms with it, but as you can see in my case, I never came to terms with any of my lost friendships, my lost relationships.
I was reading a book, The Alchemist by Paolo Coehlo, and through that, I could see how easy it was for the protagonist to just let go of the past. Through his journey, he didn’t dwell on the fact that he couldn’t see the merchant’s daughter one more time, and used his good memories on his shepherding days to get what he needed out of his journey. (I highly recommend this book to everyone, by the way) There is this word in Arabic, maktub, that is loosely translated to: It is written. This book is a good example of that because it implies that if things were meant to be, if things were meant to happen, then it will be because it was written by God.
I do believe in that word; that there’s fate, destiny, and a God who doesn’t necessarily control, but puts certain events and people in your lives for a reason. In the end, if it was meant to happen and meant to be, it will be. If I was meant to continue to have good relationships with those people, I would and if I don’t, then it wasn’t meant to be.
Anyway, that’s a whole other topic that I can write on, but the main point from the last two paragraphs is just the other way of thinking I suppose. Maybe it’s not supposed to be easy or be less painful; maybe it’s just supposed to be.
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Hopefully one day soon, I will get that new damned layout up. I have the picture I’m going to use; I just need to find the time to code everything and make sure all the plugins I want to use will work. I apologize for the rather long hiatus and for those who came back to visit only to see that the new posts were advertisements (hey, I need all the income I can get at this point). I’ll write a page explaining my stance on that soon.
As some of you may (or may not) know, I recently picked up a rather nasty habit (or at least nasty to me): I started smoking. This began a few months ago and I tried to keep it under wraps for a while. In the beginning, I would only do it in my own company, never around anybody else. Then I started doing it as I was just out on the streets (and yes, I tried my best to be considerate to those who were walking around me). I never really let anybody in on the frequency of my nasty habit; I just mentioned it if it was either brought up or worth mentioning. I had briefly mentioned it before to my doctor, but I don’t think I let him in on where I had my first cigarette.
Yes, this may be a bit shocking, but I had my first cigarette right next to Stockton Boy’s apartment building. No, he did not see me and I think a part of me wanted him to. When I brought this up again with my doctor on Friday, he mentioned that perhaps I was doing it because of him.
Here’s an example (unrelated to this): Your dad tells you to not jump on the bed but you do it anyway either to spite him or to defy him. Well, for me, I doubt that I was spiting anyone; it was more of a defiance. Stockton Boy hates alcohol and smoking, so what do I do? I pick them both up. Well, the alcohol had already been a social thing for me, so it wasn’t as if I was making a big life change, but the smoking? Now that was big.
So after I went through all of my studying, I finally got a chance to breathe and I thought about the whole topic some more. I realized that although he has a much less involvement in my life now than he did a few months ago, Stockton Boy still has a control over my life and I hate that. I hate that I may have started smoking in order to do what he did not want me to do and I hate that even six months later, I’m still a wreck. But at least I was able to make a decision during this thinking process of mine: I’m quitting.
During these last two months, I kept wondering why I was smoking when I knew how detrimental it was to my health and I knew how badly it smelled to most people. Now I know and now I can finally tell myself that it’s a stupid reason to have done it in the first place. But hey, sometimes you need to make mistakes in order to grow as a person, right?
Anyway, thanks for bearing with me. I appreciate all of the love and support so many of you have shown me. Yes, I am still planning on returning and replying to all comments as well as catching up on my RSS feeds. Though, if I could just ask for one thing: Don’t leave ‘It’s good you’ve quit.’ comments unless you plan to expand. I know, it’s a bit picky, but I feel as if I’m standing here sharing my secrets that even my sister doesn’t know (until she reads this) and this is a post that deserves much more than that.
Good night folks.
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