by J. Raymond

in search of

people

- quoted from a close friend. couldn't agree more.

"There are people who, after all the things you've willingly done for them, will still disappoint you; that even a mere consolation of staying true behind your back, they cannot guarantee, as if they had no choice to resist, not to do it, and not to give in to it -- but they still did."

something i pondered this month

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt

New Year 2013

These were some of the thoughts that I remember I had during the span of 2012. It can be from a prayer, conversations, realizations or maybe anything I just heard somewhere that agrees with my own reason.  

And all of these, can always remind me that at some point: 

I had precisely known myself better. 

I can be aware on how others could possibly feel by avoiding something I have experienced before.

I can be stronger and empowered on my own.

• Progress basically starts with the cultivation of your own backbone.
• As long as I can walk on my own I could possibly go wherever I like.
• Explaining why you’re right, doesn’t mean you have to argue; and if you argue doesn't mean it will end up right.

• "Cut the BS and get to the damn point.", "Too much introduction"
• We’re human, anyone can be mean, liar, insensitive. But I'm not one of those who feels the need to be proud of it.
• The need to finalize the end of a bad relationship isn't necessary.

• The worst thing you can do to someone you barely even know is to underestimate their motivations.
• Sucks bigtime when you best believe you thought you've found something worth it.
• Bless me with discomfort so that I shall continue to aspire to higher places.

• Nothing ticks me off more than someone who thinks they are more important than everyone else. (and makes me think I'm reasonable enough to make the move to that person, to give back what everybody had felt from him/her... combined)
• I can ignore you so hard you will begin to doubt your own existence.
• Half the time I agree with people so they'll shut up.
• I’m only responsible for what I say, not for what you understand. And I do understand everyone has the same birth right.

• Can't you see? I warned you. If you take my advice rightly, it's not my gain. taking it wrong isn't my lost either but.. finding it out by yourself is the price to pay.
• Give me your heart make it real or else forget about it. (Smooth - Santana, Rob Thomas) 

• A ship in harbor is safe - but that is not what ships are for.  - John A. Shedd, Salt from My Attic  
• Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome. -  Samuel Johnson, Rasselas, 1759

good read every morning

I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day - today, and I'm going to be happy in it. 
- Groucho Marx

quote of the day

this is your time

mind and heart, battle of what's more important

Mind /logic/reasons

Heart/emotions/feelings

M: “Logic is the anatomy of thought”

 John Locke

H: “But logic never could convince the heart”

Colin Raye

H: “The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.”
Blaise Pascal

M: “I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.”
Theodore Roosevelt

H: “There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.”
Albert Einstein

M: “You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.”
Mahatma Gandhi

H: “We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting.”
Blaise Pascal

M: "Don't worry about your heart, it will last, as long as you live."
W. C. Fields

H: "In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart."
Mahatma Gandhi

M: "Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end."
Leonard Nimoy

H: "Better to be without logic than without feeling."

Charlotte Bronte

M: "Logic is the technique by which we add conviction to truth"

Jean de la Bruyere

H: "When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain."
Mark Twain

M: "To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders."
Lao Tzu

H: "Feelings are not supposed to be logical. Dangerous is the man who has rationalized his emotions."

David Borenstein

M:"Logic takes care of itself; all we have to do is to look and see how it does it"

Ludwig Wittgenstein

H: "An action doesn't have to be wrong just because it is not logical. It doesn't have to be right just because it has its logic."

Lion Feuchtwanger

M: "Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding."

Ambrose Bierce

"There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness."Dalai Lama

“Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart and the senses.”
Lao Tzu

 

Five Key Elements to Happiness

1. Good physical and mental health
2. Good personal and intimate relationships, such as those of marriage, the family, and friendships.
3. The faculty for perceiving beauty in art and nature.
4. Reasonable standards of living and satisfactory work.
5. Philosophic or religious point of view capable of coping successfully with the vicissitudes of life.

-- Carl Jung

Right?

"Conceit is a queer disease, it makes everyone sick except the person who has it" - Anonymous

Every little girl dream of their prince charming, from fairy tales, Barbie and ken or anything that influences them knowing that when they grew up enough, they’ll have their own romance. Well, fairy tales are fiction- just impossible; it’s not true, but the love story in it? It could be true.

In a non-fairy tale world we’re living in, girls, call a “Prince Charming” as “Mr. Right”. If you knew that you finally found the right man, then he is the one worth marrying. Well as for my twisted mind, if you had met a “Prince Charming” it doesn’t automatically mean he’s the “Mr. Right” right?

So ”What is your ideal man?”, or ”What is your type?” I honestly can’t even answer it even if I asked it myself. Then I took some time in what will my mind can thought about it. I know I haven’t met any yet as thinking about it is just too silly, ofcourse I wasn’t EVER even close marrying someone at 21. LOL

To the fact that the question may be too difficult for most of women, I started to what the society had set for the most common standards. And it wasn’t a surprise that I’m about to come up a checklist here, don’t judge in the facts, just allow me to be straight to the point to make it simpler.

Attractive – handsome, tall, nice body

Intelligent – well educated, successful

Rich – high paying career, has more than enough assets and money

Gentleman – polite/kind, god fearing/religious, decent, honest.

I think that would be just the most basic. If I will choose only one I’ll choose the gentleman. Because it’s not a character, but a quality. But honestly, I can still tolerate even if he’s not.

I’m not saying that all qualities mentioned above can’t possibly possessed by one; Or that the additional qualities that a girl have in mind like funny, humble, passionate, loyal, sweet, adventurous, strong and many else more can’t be achieved all at once. In fact, there’s many of them in real life, maybe a colleague, classmate, friend, neighbor or you had been probably lucky enough before to date one.

But if he’s really perfect, he must have been really humble to be born having all those qualities isn’t it? Well, you must have been thought about this: It's easy to be humble when you're doing well in life. If the guy thinks he’s doing well compared to everyone else (nope), then what are the things that he can be humble about?

"The world tolerates conceit from those who are successful, but not from anybody else." - John Blake

These kinds of “ideal man” are many, and knew unconsciously you still have to be deserving enough to have one. As human, they tend to do better in choosing a partner, just like everyone else us here. They have an idealized vision that they try to superimpose on a woman, who could blame them? It’s in nature. I’m not saying I’m right but if you don’t agree, then don’t judge my answer.

Describe your ideal man.

It’s not always official. I know everyone can make any kind of exceptions when it comes to the person they use to like. So it makes the ideal man for me is real humble and proud of something that he is; someone who puts the woman he cherishes on a pedestal and certainly not a perfect man to the extent of he’s seeking another perfect girl too haha.  

Conceit is the only thing that separates the possibility of a "Prince Charming" to the "Right"
one.

"The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none." Thomas Carlyle

And LOVE may not be enough, but it should have always been the priority whether w/ list or w/o list of likes.

 

Psalm 62:6, 1 Peter 1:6-8

I frequently find myself reading bible, seeking for perfect verses to remind me of my faith. It is one way to remind me of myself all the promises of God, whether I’m in a good mood or not, it never fails me to feel better simply because I believe in him.

"Believe - to accept something as true, genuine, or real" (Merriam Webster) 

But people use to learn; we age up critically, searching for reasons or explanation, see the world and witness what else is there. Nowadays being a logical thinker is the common way to be practical, and I can’t deny, it is how I decide for everyday life.

But if most people are such a rational thinker (to see is to believe) why do we have such faith?

"Faith - acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove.” (Dan Brown)

We are blessed enough to feel it every day it’s just there to be found. The world is in equilibrium it’s perfectly balanced. Even the simplest things can’t always be positive without it’s contrary- negative. A single thing wouldn’t be in our awareness without its opposite. Like yin and yang; sunrise and sunset; bright and dark; night and day; hot and cold; good and bad; short and tall. Etc. Just like our life.

In my 21yrs of existence, I know I still didn’t even have a clue about life. But one thing I’m certain is, there’s ups and downs. There are happy days and there are unfulfilled days. It can’t only be forever down or forever happy, because if you think you have been all the time in one side then you wouldn’t even know which side you're really at.

I could say that contented and faithful people may be the happiest. Why? Because they have been down before; they go through it, had seen the difference; eventually acquiring more and more strength as the experiences gone by, that had lead their mind for awareness to appreciation.

So everytime I felt something isn’t right, sad or incompetent, etc. at the moment, I face to it. I have the strength and not to mind to go through trials for once in awhile. I pray and send him all my gratitude, because with it, I can see things fairly; it just simply means I’ve been blessed before and I’ll be blessed even more.

Psalm 62:6 - For he is my God and my saviour: he is my helper, I shall not be moved (Douay-Rheims Bible)


1 Peter 1:6-8 - So be truly glad! There is wonderful joy ahead, even though it is necessary for you to endure many trials for a while. These trials are only to test your faith, to show that it is strong and pure. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold -- and your faith is far more precious to God than mere gold. So if your faith remains strong after being tried by fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him, you trust him; and even now you are happy with a glorious, inexpressible joy. (New Living Translation)

one's due

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours. - Ayn Rand

quoted 101

"The person who gets the farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore."

-Dale Carnegie

Isaiah 41:10

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

with smile

Let your haters be disarmed by the gentleness of your manner, but at the same time, let them feel the steadiness of their own resentment - that's what is bugging them best.

:]

the depth in your eyes backups the light, it hastens the intensity that provoked my sense of sight.

so are you, me too

I can see the restraint in your eyes, it doesn't lie because it reflected on mine.

really

Some of my favorite lines from the works of my favorite writers.


Paulo Coelho

"What is the real I? It's what you are, not what others make of you."

"A man has to choose. This is where lies his strength: in the power of his decisions."

"Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience."

"You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen."

"When there is no turning back, then we should concern ourselves only with the best way of going forward."

"An awareness of death encourages us to live more intensely."

“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.”

“A warrior of light who trusts too much in his intelligence will end up underestimating the power of his opponent.”


Mitch Albom

"Learn to detach. Don't cling to things, because everything is impermanent. But detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate fully. That's how you are able to leave it. Take any emotion--love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I'm going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions--if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them--you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that love entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, 'All right, I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment."

"But all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time."

“You have to work at creating your own culture.”

“People are only mean when they're threatened, and that's what our culture does. That's what our economy does.”

"As you grow old, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you'd always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you're going to die, its also the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it."


Dan Brown

"Our minds sometimes see what our hearts wish were true."

"Each of us knows all. We need only open our minds to hear our own wisdom."

"Smart people don't have the luxury of playing stupid."

"Everything is possible. The impossible just takes longer."

"Religion is like language or dress. We gravitate toward the practices with which we were raised. In the end, though, we are all proclaiming the same thing. That life has meaning. That we are grateful for the power that created us."

"Science and religion are not at odds. Science is simply too young to understand."

“That is the definition of faith -- acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove.”

“Metaphors are a way to help our minds process the unprocessible. The problem arise when we begin to believe literally in our own metaphors. Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical.”

gone by or elapsed in time

Past is past

Enough phrase for everyone to understand that past doesn't really have enough explanation.