Beautiful Monster

Why is love so beautiful yet so ugly? It’s a passionate disease that comes along very rarely but when it shows up it’s like an elephant in your room, you can’t ignore it. Love can lift you up or knock you down. It’s unexpected yet so desired. It’s usually never where you look for it but it’s always lingering around. Love can be the best thing that ever happened to you or your worst nightmare. It can take you forward to the dreams of your life or it can tie you up on a ride to hell. Love is sweet and gentle yet unmanageable and unpredictable, it can even control our lives. Love is beautiful and charming, yet so uncanny. It can be rewarding or a burden for life. Love is filled with joy and sorrow. It’s everything you want and everything you don’t. Love is just a rollercoaster with thrilling dives and spins and a world of joy and pain.

My Great Awakening

Have you ever encountered some unfortunate or difficult situation that has spun your life around and made you realize how lucky you are? That happened to me recently. It wasn't the exact occurrence or the situation itself but the fact that I was there, alive and in once piece while some other unfortunate individual there wasn't. We take life for granted. We expect to wake up every morning and we expect to make it through the day. We expect the sun to rise from the East and set on the West. Just like I expected to have a relaxing walk down the street, this girl and her girlfriend expected to be safe as they wandered down the street. Unfortunately that's not what was at stake for them.

I always wake up thinking about how lucky I am to be alive. So many people in the world go to sleep and never wake up again. I could have easily just slept forever and never woken up today. We live through the day thinking everything will be alright. We assume today will be just like yesterday and our life will continue just like it has done so for so many years. This girl didn't think so. She kept screaming, as she cried and rolled on the floor "I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die." I felt helpless as I stood there watching her agonizing in pain. All I could do to help her was call 911.

Here I was at the perfect spot, at the perfect time enjoying a beautiful night after a delicious dinner of sushi. And there she was, bleeding out of her mind from a deep cut above her eyebrow, pleading for help. She was in pain.

We never expect to run across trouble. We always expect life to be smooth but when it isn't it hits us. It did to me.

Our lives are vulnerable to the world, to trouble, susceptible to danger even during the most peaceful time of the day, when we are asleep. She was just walking down the street with her girlfriend when the baseball hit her on her forehead. She wasn't looking for a fight or trouble. She was expecting to end her day in bed, safe, with her girlfriend, not in the hospital.

We all live and we all die. We don't know our future but we do know what we do have. Today I'm just lucky to be here alive, to be breathing and ready for another day (hopefully).

Marginal Utility of Satisfaction

Rich, healthy, and with all the necessary components we need to live and survive sometimes we humans aren’t ever content with life. We seek for more of what we don’t have and continue in an endless pursuit for additional insignificant goods. Our ambitious minds take us to great lengths and inevitably provoke us to underestimate and minimize our satisfaction and appreciation for what we do possess. We lose self control and allow outside forces to regulate our satisfaction and appreciation forcing us to seek new goods that will continue to fulfill our greed, at least for a while.

Just like a delicious chocolate cake will gradually satisfy you less and less as you continue indulging more and more of it, our appreciation and satisfaction for what we already have diminishes over time and usually over quite little time. The instant pleasure we get from buying a new car or new pair of shoes disappears almost instantly after obtaining it. It almost seems our brains over value quantity and not quality, despite the value of our possessions.

We can’t control our emotions but we can acknowledge our flaws. That’s all we can do and that’s something we should appreciate.

Do you Twitter?

Do you twitter?  I do.  Do you have as many followers as Ashton Kutcher?  I'm close. Not quite there yet (I mean I could, right?).  

Believe it or not, twitter is revolutionary.  Even Oprah Winfrey has her own twitter.  NBA.com, celebrities and major shows do too.  Twitter has received so much attention I felt compelled to blog about it.   

If you don't have a twitter you probably have at least heard of it.  Plain and simple, it's a status application that you can share with your "followers" where its simple question is "What are you doing?" with a small limitation of 140 characters per entry.  Boring twitterers (twitterers - people who have a twitter) usually enter boring, simple status messages like "I'm hungry" or "At school not paying attention to class" but fun, interesting twitterers enter witty, hilarious messages or just strange, funny occurences they encountered throughout their day (and some just decide to use it to share their daily sex facts like my friend does). 

Some people might think it's silly or lame but it's fun (if you know how to use it).  You'll be surprised by how many people are interested in what you're doing or what's happening in your life. It's just one extra, fun avenue to share your life with your friends, family and others. If you're reading this blog, you yourself are the type of person that's interested in what others have to say.  Same with "twitterers".  

Ultimately, you choose and decide who to follow (whose tweets you want to read) and you can delete those who send those boring, unnecessary tweets that people send when they have nothing else to do but share their dull life (for example "under my covers" or "walking my cat around the block").  Who walks their cat anyways?   

What do you think?  Is twitter lame, overrated and just another social utility like Facebook and MySpace or is it really revolutionary, fun and a great creation for those of us looking to share our life, stories and ideas with others?

"God Bless You"

Yesterday, while washing my dishes I had some dust go into my nose and I sneezed.  A profound sneeze too.  Accustomed to a response of a "Bless you" after sneezing, I stood there waiting for my roommate, who was studying in the kitchen table, to respectfully say "Bless You" but all I could hear was his fingers typing away as he concentrated on writing his paper that was probably due the next morning.  I proceeded to say "THANK YOU" loudly in disbelief as he ignored my sneeze.  He slightly turned his head towards me and gave me a look that made me question my expectations of a response to my sneeze and made me realize the foolishness behind this traditional response.  I was still alive!  The devil hadn't taken over my body nor had my heart stop beating!   Why did I need some acknowledgment of my sneeze?  I guess we all adapt to society's customs and traditions, something I'm compelled to say keeps us from moving forward from old understandings, points of view and old fashion traditions.  By the way, I'm sorry but don't expect me to say "Bless You" next time you sneeze.  I'm over that.  I'm moving forward. 

Political Dichotomy

Why is it that when a black man gains power here in the States America's Republicans, "moderate" conservatives and far right conservatives suddenly shift further right and tie up they belts? Obama pledged for bi-partisanship and instead provoked an America that has become a nation of political dichotomy. You are either far right or far left. There is no gray area or no middle field. If you by any chance appear to be playing both fields your party suddenly turns their back against you. Look at former Republican Spector or former Democrat Lieberman.  Instead of coming together our nation has broken down into two strong opponents trying to strengthen and restore their own power while America has fallen into one huge hole. Was this a black man's election to the highest seat available in our government or is it America's stubbornness to work and build a nation together as a whole?