The Dual Nature of Belief

I was thinking about something or other today, I can't really remember what it was, but I ended on a strand of thought I've gone over a few times. That strand is belief. Belief is an awesome thing, it's an enabling kind of thought process. If you believe that something is so, then in your mind it becomes so. It helps you to accomplish things you may never have tried otherwise. We as humans believe in a ton of things, we can believe in ourselves, in others, in honesty, in virtues, in a purpose, all of these things helping us to better ourselves in some way or another. It's not a matter of weather something we believe is true or right, the belief can benefit us.

That's not my entire strand of thought of course, the above is pretty well accepted by just about everybody who's ever practiced it, which is most of the world's population I imagine. No, the completion of the strand was this, that belief can also work against us, though I'm not sure if people ever really think about it, perhaps if they did, they would work around it. Some examples, people can believe they can't use computers, they can believe they can't play a sport, they can believe that it's better to chew their gum with the paper wrapper still on... anyway, the point is that in the end, a lot of these things can be counter productive. A lot of the time though, I don't think that we catch them when we say it.

When we believe something negative, it more often than not comes out something like, I can't use a computer, I can't play this sport, etc. The definitive cannot, takes the place of the simple fact that we don't think we can. We can believe so many different things, we can enable ourselves in so many different areas of our life through simple belief. Why not in these areas? What keeps us back from achieving everything? From doing anything? My thought is that people simply hold themselves back through firm disbelief in their own ability, it becomes rooted, and we begin to believe that rather than being just a thought on our part, it's a fact.

There are those who look past this, who ignore what they've been told, perhaps even what others have told them, and believe that anything is possible. People can believe that if they put their mind to it, that if they try, even if it takes time, that they can do it. These are the great people, and I personally believe that we all have it in us to become great people. We can all become people who dare to do, who dare to learn, who dare to break through the impossible, be it our own disbelief, which becomes a solid I can't to us, or to breaking through scientifically, medically, or mechanically, to find something that everybody looked past.

We can be whatever we want to be, so long as we don't let anybody else, or more importantly, ourselves, hold us back from our own infinite potential.

Catching up

Right, since it's been so long since an actual update on this thing, I think I'll just do a quick catch up on my life. It may not turn out particularly deep or exciting, but life isn't always deep or exciting, sometimes it's just life. Let's do this.

I watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last night, it reminded me how much I love the character of Luna, she's awesome. Evanna Lynch did a really good job of playing her in the movie I think.

First, I'd been waiting for Metal Gear Solid 4 to come out for ages, it's finally been here, and yes, it's yet again a great game, well designed, fun to play over and over again, with a well put together and thought provoking story. It'll be interesting to see where the story goes from here.

Next, it was my birthday last month, this year isn't really a groundbreaking birthday, no new special privileges come with it this time... dang...

I'm working full time right now, but don't seem to be making any real money... I hate it when that happens...

Anime is slow right now, I'm looking and looking, but it's tough to find one that I can really latch onto. For the record, Gurren Laggen and Lucky Star are both looking really good, and Samurai 7 is a pretty decent price at Best Buy right now, thinking of picking that one up.

I've been playing Maplestory again... it finally works on Vista for everybody's information, everybody should play it... or at least try it... it's deceptively addictive for a simple sidescrolling MMO. Yes, I have three characters at the moment...

Hmm, I think that's about all that's going on at the moment... ah yes, I'm also the Assistant Cub Master right now, Cub Country is coming up, hopefully we all survive it.

Issues, I guess

Apparently I've had a few people upset with me for the past few months, my apologies for that, I really had no idea. The issue is over for now, for those who don't know what's what, I'll see if I can clear it up.

So, a few months ago I was out on the town with one of my best friends, my Barnes & Noble membership card, we'd gotten a really good coupon for CDs and were out trying to choose what we would get. In the end we couldn't come up with anything, and so sent out a mass text to a bunch of people (some of which I hadn't talked to in a while, but I was feeling generous) to see if they wanted anything before the coupon expired.

In the end I got one text back, it was from an old girlfriend who I hadn't even really talked to for about a year before. She had a request, I eventually found the cd and took it to her later that week. Turns out we still had a lot of fun together, so after a few weeks we ended up dating again. That's the old friend I'd been talking about in an earlier text, yup, we were friends for quite a while before we started dating years ago. Anyway, it was an uncomfortable setup for a lot of people, my family got used to her again after not too long, some other people didn't, and let it fester without any kind of escape.

Things were going alright for us, but we realized that as boyfriend/girlfriend things just weren't working out, that, though we both still care about each other, we're better off being just good friends. Especially seeing as we don't have enough common interest to actually have fun together. We were just trying to hold on to dating, even though we both realized the eventual outcome. In short, we're not dating anymore, and again, sorry to anybody who for any reason was offended. Talk to me if there were or are issues.

Life is confusing, things seem to hardly ever happen the way you think they will, decisions that you thought were set in stone change based on situation. Sometimes things you thought you knew, you find out were never true. Often what you want to see blurs what really is, and likewise, what you expect can be turned completely on it's head by what really happens. Isn't life fun? Personally I'm still looking for my happy ending, I expect it's a ways off, time will tell. Let's hope I can be patient enough to make it to the right destination.

I'm back... finally.

I've been off of this for a long time... As far as updates on my life go, well, in the past couple of weeks a few things have happened, and I'm happy about it all, life is looking up. A really good friend of mine that I've known for about five years, but haven't talked to for about two (it's complicated... or not, maybe I'll talk about it later) is finally a friend again, to the (strangely...) exasperation/amusement/horror, of many. I'm happy with it.

My Rock Band guitar broke about a month ago, maybe longer, I finally went to Best Buy and cashed in on the awesome warranty that I wisely chose to get when I bought the game, for two years they'll replace anything that breaks. Little did I know that what they meant was they'll take down an entire Rock Band set, open it, and give me the piece that I need... next time I'm just taking in everything and getting an entire new set... I don't think it would hurt anything. On a related note, the bass guitars have finally been released for Rock Band and we can now play with an entire band, can't wait for that, we played partial again on Sunday in preparation. It'll be awesome.

Taxes came in, I now have enough money for a couple semesters of college saved up... if I don't spend it all when Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots comes out on my birthday... and on Rock Band junk...

Just a couple pictures...

I finally had the chance to go and put together a uniform for a new project that Exit13 is hoping to undertake, it's not finished yet, still has some minor details, but I'm really happy with what I've got so far. Jake got in on the action by finding a lab coat at the DI after I'd searched for and found one elsewhere... some people have all the luck, I like mine better still though.

Hopefully the group will have some videos up before the end of the month.

It's like prestige mode...

For most of my conscious life I've tried to make a point of not panicking no matter what situation I find myself, I can only hope that I've been successful in maintaining that outward appearance, ask the people around me, I really don't know. That said however, I've found that there are times that you find yourself completely in over your head without enough warning to hold your breath, and you can't help but choke a little.

Just last week I found out that, for health reasons, the neighborhood Cub Master was being released from his post. Under normal circumstances that'd be no problem, the reason that this has me more than a little worried is (a) that looking at the current trend in the area, there isn't going to be a new Cub Master called any time really soon, and (b) I'm the designated Assistant Cub Master. I can only pray that somebody besides myself is called as Cub Master, because I'll admit that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, and the Blue and Gold Banquet is scheduled for two weeks from now.

In short I'm feeling more than a little overwhelmed right now, with full time work, and the new Semester coming up, however, I think I can use this situation I'm in to illustrate some kind of a point here. The question I've been asking myself is "how in the world am I going to be able to manage all this...?" and the answer is very easily, "I have no idea," but I know that it can and will be done. Why? Not because of any innate ability I have, but because of the people I know are counting on things getting done, who are, whether they know it or not, counting on my getting it done. It's funny how knowing other people are depending on you makes you get things done that you never thought you'd be able to manage otherwise.

Really, in the gist of things this is a really small matter, it'll be taken care of, with the help of others with the advice and encouragement of those who have gone before me, but the idea can be applied to bigger things. For example, I imagine that this is more or less a constant state of being for a parent regarding home, children, finances, etc. you never know what's going to happen, only that you have to make sure that things get done, for the benefit of the people closest to you. We all have our moments where we think we can't go on much more without giving up and just collapsing into a heap wherever we stand, but we can make it through, we were built to be able to.

Look around yourself and see everybody around you, those can lend you support, those may without even knowing it, be giving you the gumption to move forward, to reach out and pull you back up when you feel like you've gone under. They're there, friends, family, the people who look up to you, and who depend on your doing your very best. You'll make it through, we all can as we don't try to rely only on ourselves only, and if as we remember others before ourselves, it can give us the strength and conviction to tackle any obstacle that comes between us and success.

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Another Day in Paradise

Finding a drive is a difficult thing to do sometimes, we're only human after all, but it's what keeps us going from day to day, the thing that keeps us focused and moving forward, sometimes I worry that I've lost sight of mine, but hey, that's life for now, it'll show up sooner or later. Almost another week has gone by, and I've yet to figure out if anything worthwhile has happened, and remember if there was anything I was looking forward to other than just checking off another week on the calendar. Things have been pretty slow, work, school, and more or less life in general, with little to break it up or shoot for. Yup, that's worrisome for a person.

Shooting for long term goals is simple, you decide on what you want in the distant future and tell yourself that's what will happen, but without the little goals driving us forward it becomes less a goal, and more an unrealistic dream. The world keeps on turning around, and even if every day we remind ourselves of the big picture, if the details aren't fleshed out then it really defeats the purpose, and we end up somehow settling on a horizon line with a stick figure on it rather than the masterpiece we imagine our lives becoming. I think most of us are guilty from time to time of losing sight of the details, maybe more than we'd like to imagine.

If we can't find something worthwhile every week, and if we can't find something to look forward to in the coming week, I think we need to re evaluate what's going on and where we're going to. Consistently uneventful days and weeks turn all too quickly into uneventful years, and in extreme cases, even a completely uneventful life. Every person is different, so there's no real cut and dry way to define a solution, only to suggest finding what makes you yourself tick, and turning that into goals and personal drive. It's my suggestion, not just to anybody who reads this, but to myself, to find what drive we can in every day, to set goals for the little things, which in turn help make the big things fall right into place.

What's my own personal goal for this week? Well, find a goal for next week that can create a personal drive, something to look forward to, and follow through on it.