Archives for March 2014

What Interests Me Most?

March 27, 2014 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

The social network revolution is in full force these days.

It’s common on these social network sites to be asked to reveal your interests.

That is, what interests me most?

And we’re advised to connect with other people and to feign a genuine interest in what is going on in their lives.

But in reality the underlying motive in all this is really self-interest, isn’t it?

We have something to sell so we try to connect with as many people as possible, under the guise of being “interested”, in order to subtly suggest that they buy.

I guess it just goes against human nature to be more interested in others than one is in him or herself.

The realization that people really don’t give a rat’s behind about anything but themselves is a lesson that often comes later in life.

As a general matter, they don’t care about, nor are they interested in, you or anything about you.

It kinda hurts…

Don’t believe it? Just try to start a blog and then get someone to actually pay attention to it…

It is the dawning of the realization that “survival of the fittest” means that you better look out for number one because nobody else is going to.

But is that the way it was meant to be?

Do you really think the creator of all that is, or god (if you believe in that sort of concept), really designed us to be little bastions of self-interest?

Have you ever met someone who is genuinely un-self-interested?

That is a rare person to come across.

I can’t say that I have, at least not in person.

I mean people like Mother Teresa and Gandhi come to mind, or Jesus.

People who really didn’t care about what was in it for them and worked hard and sacrificed even to the point of death to make life better for others.

How was life for them I wonder?

What is it like to be completely un-self-interested?

Is it liberating, or confining?

Does it bring joy, or misery, hardship and disappointment?

I wouldn’t know, being a person who has lived his 53 years relatively, say 90%, self-interested.

It seems to me that although the aforementioned suffered in life, they certainly left a remarkable legacy. They accomplished great things despite their apparent disdain or indifference towards power, prestige or promotion.

Take politicians for example. What is it that they’re really after?

Is it to serve the people, or just to get re-elected?

And why is getting re-elected so important?

What is it about Washington, D.C. that’s so enticing to them? I lived there for a year and it wasn’t all that.

I would venture a guess that 99.99% of them are more concerned about “what’s in this for me” than they are about “what’s in this for us”…

wouldn’t you agree?

But what if we really weren’t created to be so self-interested.

Maybe we were designed to be more like Mother Teresa, Gandhi, or even like Christ.

Maybe real success, fulfillment, joy and even abundance is found in being genuinely un-self-interested.

Maybe the right way to view this social network revolution is not in finding out how to harness its power for me, but in harnessing its power to do something to improve the lives of others.

Just a thought.

Let’s face it, the correct answer to that frequent question about what interests me most is…

ME.

But maybe real “success” can be found in having the capacity to answer that question, truthfully, with a simple…

Y-O-U.

I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?

Mother Teresa

Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.

Mohandas Gandhi

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Jesus Christ in John 10:10

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Hunting for Validation

March 26, 2014 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

I have always prided myself on being a humble guy.

Wait, what’d I just say (write)…??…

“prided” myself on being humble?

What an oxymoron.

The very opening betrays a subtle underlying problem.

The constant yearning, obsession, and need for validation.

And the corresponding and terrifying fear of its counterpart, rejection.

I guess we all have it to one degree or another.

And it is the antithesis of humility.

I am not saying that the appreciation of validation is wrong. It’s perfectly natural to feel that familiar swelling of the ego when earned recognition comes our way.

What I am referring to is the desire for validation that really meddles with life.

That’s the kind that tends to direct where you go, who you meet (and love) and what you do.

I believe when one searches so arduously for this elusive “thing” called validation, it probably (perhaps certainly) means that there is none of it within.

It’s a constant hunting for validation out there somewhere.

And that’s a very dangerous safari indeed.

There are lions and tigers and bears out there who will eat you alive with rejection.

And these days I feel as if I have been chewed up and spit out.

So maybe it’s time to stop the insane pursuit.

Like that intense little boy in the superb film, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

He obsessively pursued validation from his father, even after his father was long gone, not knowing all the while that he already possessed it to the nth degree.

And so do we.

That is, we all possess “it” and need nothing further, really. It’s part and parcel of our created reality.

I believe realizing that fact and then halting the hunt is the essence of true humility.

Possess Your Life

March 25, 2014 by costaricaguy 2 Comments

I have a sticky note on my bathroom mirror that reads…

I wonder how my life will turn out today?

The intended emphasis is wonder…

the wonder-ment of life.

But one day I read it differently.

The meaning conveyed was more of a sense of possession.

In our western capitalistic society we are all too familiar with possession, aren’t we?

That’s what life is all about…possessing things.

But sometimes the things we think we possess…

we really don’t at all.

We have a home until the bank takes it.

We have our health until disease takes it.

We have our looks until age takes it.

We have our spouses until separation, divorce, or death takes them.

We have our children until adulthood takes them.

We have our hopes and dreams until disillusionment takes them.

So, what is it that we are really capable of possessing in this life of ours?

That brings me back to my little sticky note…

this life that I have is indeed mine…

it truly is my life.

That is so easy to miss, isn’t it?

You’re persuaded throughout your life that you don’t really possess it at all.

Do you possess your life?

Our does your work, kids, spouse, debts, commitments, infirmities, or circumstances possess your life?

But the truth really is…

My life is mine.

It is the one thing that is truly mine.

The proof is in the fact that solely my decisions (and reactions) control the direction of my life.

You just can’t say that about anything else.

So, really I determine the quality, or lack thereof, of my life…

not circumstances, or things, or people.

So I want to encourage the decision to do just that.

That is, to stop obsessing about what you can’t possess and fully take ownership of what you can…

your life.

Happiness with Artificial Ingredients

March 21, 2014 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

I’ve been going on lately about happiness.

Seems I’ve come to some recent conclusions on the topic, namely…

that happiness is more plausible when promoted and

shared.

If you think about it those two concepts are related, maybe even the same.

I’m reading Adam Braun’s book, The Promise of a Pencil.

Adam was inspired during a Semester at Sea by a little Indian boy whose one thing most wanted in life was a pencil (which, of course, is a metaphor for an education).

So, Adam started an organization with $25 in the bank called Pencils of Promise that is building schools in places where children would otherwise have no ability to enjoy a decent education.

I believe from the looks of him during the book promotion interviews I’ve seen lately, that he’s pretty doggone happy.

And his happiness is being promoted and shared with children who just want education.

It’s a reciprocal happiness…the kind that really matters…and lasts.

Cool stuff…this happiness.

So, if it’s true that happiness is only real when promoted and shared, then why do we insist on looking for other forms of it?

I’ll call those types….

Happiness with artificial ingredients.

Here are some examples…

Thing-based Happiness – The idea that somehow inanimate objects will bring us happiness. If I could just have that [blank], well then I’ll be happy. Then the thing rusts or runs out and so goes our happiness.

Career-based Happiness – The perfect job will bring the perfect life and the perfect experience of happiness…never happens, especially not these days.

Relational-based Happiness – Wait, doesn’t that contradict with my premise? Well, sort of, but I’m not talking about shared or promoted happiness, but co-dependent happiness…that is, that the only way to experience happiness is to have this or that person. Problem comes when they don’t feel the same way.

Chemically-induced Happiness – We look for happiness in a bottle of booze, or a joint, or line of coke. Problem with those things is that the temporary happiness always has the flip-side, the happiness hangover, which is anything but happy. True happiness doesn’t give hangovers.

Self-indulgence just never works as a formula to achieve lasting happiness.

Success (or goal)-oriented Happiness – Happiness comes from the achievement of some goal, like 6-pack abs, closing the deal, or making the sale, etc. Problem is that once you achieve it, the happiness goes away until the next one.

Good Looks-based Happiness – If I could only look a certain way, maybe I will be able to attract happiness. Externally based happiness, which is really what all of these examples are, is just not real, nor lasting. And that’s especially true with this type…even with the surgery option (think Michael Jackson).

Purpose-based Happiness – If I could just discover my purpose, why it is that I’m here, then I’ll be happy. Problem with this is that you’re here to just be happy, not to discover that fact.

I mean isn’t it kind of absurd that you can only be happy by discovering that you’re suppose to be?

Peace and Tranquility-related Happiness – If I am at peace with myself and others, then happiness will ensue. That’s a state of happiness that is awfully hard to maintain, since the potentially very different conceptions of others are involved.

Intellectual Happiness – Knowledge and intelligence are the keys that will unlock the doors to happiness. Well, sometimes the more we know the more depressed we can become about the precarious state of things.

Dogma-based Happiness – The idea that happiness is discovered on the road to religious conformity and obedience. I’ve seen a few of these types in my lifetime (even been one) and none of them appear to me to be all that happy.

Religious dogma can be a terribly complex and difficult formula for happiness.

I think the problem with all of the above is that happiness is never discovered “out there”, but rather “in here.”

And, once experienced, it just doesn’t work out so well to try and keep it to yourself.

image credit: Nicameli via Compfight cc

The Truth of Christopher McCandless

March 19, 2014 by costaricaguy 3 Comments

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Interesting philosophical question.

Yesterday I read a quote by the late Christopher McCandless that appeared on a Facebook post.

It inspired me to dig deeper.

McCandless was a backpacker who donned the name Alexander Supertramp. He shunned all materialistic excesses of society and made his way to the Alaska wilderness.

He even disposed of his prior identity and never told a soul where he was going.

For his family, he just up and vanished.

He thought that happiness, or ultimate freedom, could be found in the wild.

Living off the land.

His adventure is documented in a book and movie, both entitled In the Wild.

McCandless lived in an abandoned bus that had been converted into a hunting shelter for 112 days before succumbing to fatigue and starvation from lack of available food.

He thought that he was cut off from any means of return by the rain-swollen river, but in reality there was a hand-operated tram that he could have used to cross only a quarter mile away.

So, you see, his isolation existed mainly inside his head…

but that’s exactly what he wanted.

In the movie, one of the last entries in his diary, scribbled with shaky hands inside the warmth of his sleeping bag…the place where he was found some time later, dead, decaying and weighing less than 70 pounds…was this…

Happiness is only real when shared.

That one made me think.

For the last decade I’ve been on my own personal odyssey.

Like McCandless, I grew tired of the rules. Of the norms that society, at least the one I came from, placed on me.

So, in not quite so dramatic a form as McCandless, I decided to make my own personal escape.

A search for happiness…and freedom.

Isolated from those who do really love me, rather than happiness, or freedom, I’ve found, like McCandless, what is more akin to slow death…a starvation of love.

McCandless made his discovery a little too late in the game.

I hope it’s not too late for me.

He had his adventures, as have I…but what we were both searching for never came in those moments of extreme isolation.

Rather they were found in the company of those we care for.

I believe we humans were created to be social creatures.

We don’t function so well in isolation. Maybe that’s why solitary confinement is such a dreaded form of torture.

We were created to love and to be loved.

So, as an alternative to the tree question, I would like to pose a different philosophical conundrum …

If an adventurous sort seeks happiness alone in the jungles of Costa Rica…can that emotion ever truly exist?

Sometimes life’s lessons come very hard.

Selfless-Esteem

March 16, 2014 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

I think self-esteem and vanity are correlated…

albeit, inversely.

Because the most vain are generally the ones with the lowest self-esteem.

That is, self-consciousness, vanity and low self-esteem tend to go hand in hand.

It would appear that the more I am concerned about me and how the world sees me, the more I tend to not like me that much.

This is especially true of the most beautiful among us.

Why do Hollywood starlets routinely fall from the pedestal upon which we loft them to the depths of despair, drug addiction and self-inflicted death?

Because of an empty sense that they don’t quite measure up to the image we’ve projected upon them?

The psychologist tells me that my problems stem from low self-esteem.

That I need to be in love with that person I see in the mirror each morning.

But that’s particularly hard when I don’t really know who that person is.

Who am I…seriously?

A body?

A product of my past?

A job that I do?

A father?

A husband?

A failure?

Truth is, I’m not any one, nor all, of those things.

Who, or what, I am is a potential fulfillment of the purpose of my creator, here for a specific reason, and that reason has nothing to do with my, or the world’s, narrow conception of me.

Unless we can get off the dead-end track of thinking about ourselves in such restricted and limited ways, I believe we will never truly live the life we were meant to live.

So, self-esteem doesn’t come from gazing in the mirror each morning and liking what you see.

It comes when we realize that there is a purpose to be served that cannot possibly be contained in that limited reflection.

In that sense, self-esteem should be an entirely selfless concept…it becomes selfless-esteem…

hmm, kinda takes some of the pressure off, doesn’t it?

image credit: Angela Waye via Compfight cc

Archives for March 2014

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