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I am up a little bit early today. Can't figure out if this is extra energy (as I've been taking care of myself a little better), or insomnia (as I still have had quite a bit on my mind), but never the less, I thought I will spend a bit of this time doing a blog.
As someone who studied and continuously tries to closely look at human behavior when trying to improve in my craft of being a motivator (although, I will say many aspects of it also naturally fascinate me), there's one particular "life truth" of many that I have learned, and particularly want to share today...
As you can see in the title, it says "Don't Trust 'Honesty'". What I mean by that is, don't trust anyone who is always blatantly working hard trying to convince you they're "honest"...
I'm not going to spend too much time discussing this, but being "honest" doesn't really take convincing. You either naturally are, or you aren't. Genuine honesty is a product of habitual applied good genuine behavior, not a product of practice and rehearsed actions.
Case in point, if somebody usually begins a sentence with... "Hey (your name), I'm totally gonna be honest with you..." or "To be honest..." or something to that regard, chances are, they are probably, naturally a liar. Why? Why would one have to tell (or try to convince) somebody that they are gonna be honest by preceding a statement with that phrase, unless they aren't honest in all, or even a lot of the time? They wouldn't. I know most of us at many points in our lives use this particular phrase to precede a statement, but you will observe, that most who do it the most often, are probably the most dishonest people you know.
If someone ever tells you... "I'm probably the most honest person you would ever know", my advice is... RUN!
What I learned in my short time so far on this Earth, is those who really are "honest" and have great intentions truly live it in their every day lives through good habits, mentality, attitude, and genuine desire to help your fellow man. If you continually have to try to convince others, by continually broadcasting it, then you come off as non genuine, counterproductive, and probably the opposite of what you're trying to portray.
These are just a few things I learned from reading a few books, and through general observations with interacting with people. Agree or not, it doesn't particularly matter, but feel free to debate me on this if it pleases you. Didn't want to make this blog too long... just wanted to get it out there.
#OBE
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
1/17/14
9/24/10
Spending the Friday Night...
...tucking in some kids.
My brother and his wife is celebrating their 4 year wedding anniversary in Upstate New York/Canada to see the Niagra Falls, and my other brother and I decided to spend the weekend taking care of our nephew (Joey) and niece (Cady), 6 and 3 respectively.
So far, it's been interesting. I took them shopping, and let them pick clothes and toys (as long as they're reasonable). Afterward, I took them to the mall's playground, let them drink milkshake, and they've crashed from a sugar high a couple hours after coming home. Fun...
Let me just say, you haven't lived if you haven't tried to change a 6-year old who's stubbornly sound asleep in the fetus position from his outdoor clothes to his pajamas.
Even though I haven't always been big on spending long Friday nights getting trashed and clubbing (like most single people my age), this is still a change of pace. And honestly, I'm okay with it. Babysitting these kids always provides good training for the future, I always say. Not to mention, these kids love me about as much as (maybe even more than) I love them. Many people have always said I'm a natural with kids.
Future father of the year... this guy. LOL
D4P...PD!!!
-OBE
8/9/10
"The Summoned Self"
I stumbled on to the following "New York Times" article...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/opinion/03brooks.html?_r=4&ref=davidbrooks
It's an Op-Ed article by David Brooks about Clayton Christensen. It totally blew my mind when I read it. It talks about two ways of how to live a meaningful life... well planned? or summoned? Which way are you living life?
I won't talk much about it, so I encourage you to read the article. I'd rather have you read it for yourself and form your own opinions.
D4P...PD!!!
-OBE
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/opinion/03brooks.html?_r=4&ref=davidbrooks
It's an Op-Ed article by David Brooks about Clayton Christensen. It totally blew my mind when I read it. It talks about two ways of how to live a meaningful life... well planned? or summoned? Which way are you living life?
I won't talk much about it, so I encourage you to read the article. I'd rather have you read it for yourself and form your own opinions.
D4P...PD!!!
-OBE
8/4/10
Privately Public
I remembered when reporter Erin Andrews' hotel peephole/voyeur video of her changing in her hotel first went public, all sorts of controversy came out. Sports talk radio was all over it, people were trying to Google the video so they can see her nakedness for themselves, and conservatives cried foul because Erin's privacy was invaded. And though I believe she is an attractive lady, I honestly haven't seen the video until today... when I heard a sports radio personality talk about it on the radio show today and only decided to look it up today because people are still talking about it. (Don't ask)
But the point I'm trying to get to... is whether we like it or not, even though most of us try to live our lives as private as possible by watching our backs, setting our facebook privacy settings, locking our doors, or even living like hermits, whether our name is known or not, we are living under the public eye, and we just don't know who may be looking for us, or in some cases, looking at us.
Yesterday, I briefly talked about a teacher in college that I sent a thank you postcard to. Today, I'll talk about a teacher I had in 3rd grade.
The other day, I got a message from a former elementary school classmate who found me on Facebook a few months ago because of an old school picture that I uploaded and tagged. She requested to be tagged in that picture, so I added her. Her message told me that she keeps in contact with our 3rd grade teacher (who happens to be in one of those pictures), and she might be thinking of joining the 'Book. Unfortunately, there were a few negative comments about that said teacher in those pictures... therefore I was asked to take the negative comments down because it might hurt her feelings if she happened to run into them.
Normally, I'm all for free expression and people should express themselves freely. After all, we're all grown-ups, so we should know how to act with or without censorship, right? But come to think of it, deleting those negative comments were the right thing to do, because just imagine if I happened to run into pictures of me, and the negative comments were specifically about me, I wouldn't like it so much.
But to add on, when I thought about it more, some of those comments did not personally reflect well on me. Now although I thought I was under the umbrella of amongst friends (since people who aren't on your network, more often than not wouldn't, search for you), these pictures are still public enough so people can see the picture AND the comments. So just like Erin Andrews' who thought she was safe to prance around naked for around 4 minutes around her "private" hotel room, it wasn't safe for someone like me (who's known to be positive) to engage and encourage negative comments about a teacher.
And the truth was, when I think back at it, I have tons of respect for that teacher. Because of the fact that she was hard on me at times when I was doing terrible, helped toughen me up and improved my work ethic. If by any chance she saw those comments, she wouldn't have gotten that idea.
So I did the right thing and deleted the comments... and I thought to myself that no matter what I do, whether I'm in the public eye or not, someone may probably be watching. So although we continue to guard ourselves and try to be as "private" as possible, at the same time, we should always try to do things thinking we might be watched, because you never know... we might be.
To paraphrase something that my friend Arel Moodie said in his book (whom I previously mentioned in this blog months ago)... when you do something, no matter what it is, if that thing you're thinking about doing happened to be featured in a front page of a newspaper, can you or your loved ones be proud of reading it? If the answer is no, then you should have second thoughts of what you're doing.
Although we aren't celebrities, I wouldn't say we have to act as if we are, but we have to be careful and guard our lives as we are. Believe it or not, we are as important as Erin Andrews or anyone you would see on TV, and you never know when someone is watching. So you have to do your best to be in your absolute best behavior as much as humanly possible.
Something to think about when you do something...
D4P...PD!!!
-OBE
But the point I'm trying to get to... is whether we like it or not, even though most of us try to live our lives as private as possible by watching our backs, setting our facebook privacy settings, locking our doors, or even living like hermits, whether our name is known or not, we are living under the public eye, and we just don't know who may be looking for us, or in some cases, looking at us.
Yesterday, I briefly talked about a teacher in college that I sent a thank you postcard to. Today, I'll talk about a teacher I had in 3rd grade.
The other day, I got a message from a former elementary school classmate who found me on Facebook a few months ago because of an old school picture that I uploaded and tagged. She requested to be tagged in that picture, so I added her. Her message told me that she keeps in contact with our 3rd grade teacher (who happens to be in one of those pictures), and she might be thinking of joining the 'Book. Unfortunately, there were a few negative comments about that said teacher in those pictures... therefore I was asked to take the negative comments down because it might hurt her feelings if she happened to run into them.
Normally, I'm all for free expression and people should express themselves freely. After all, we're all grown-ups, so we should know how to act with or without censorship, right? But come to think of it, deleting those negative comments were the right thing to do, because just imagine if I happened to run into pictures of me, and the negative comments were specifically about me, I wouldn't like it so much.
But to add on, when I thought about it more, some of those comments did not personally reflect well on me. Now although I thought I was under the umbrella of amongst friends (since people who aren't on your network, more often than not wouldn't, search for you), these pictures are still public enough so people can see the picture AND the comments. So just like Erin Andrews' who thought she was safe to prance around naked for around 4 minutes around her "private" hotel room, it wasn't safe for someone like me (who's known to be positive) to engage and encourage negative comments about a teacher.
And the truth was, when I think back at it, I have tons of respect for that teacher. Because of the fact that she was hard on me at times when I was doing terrible, helped toughen me up and improved my work ethic. If by any chance she saw those comments, she wouldn't have gotten that idea.
So I did the right thing and deleted the comments... and I thought to myself that no matter what I do, whether I'm in the public eye or not, someone may probably be watching. So although we continue to guard ourselves and try to be as "private" as possible, at the same time, we should always try to do things thinking we might be watched, because you never know... we might be.
To paraphrase something that my friend Arel Moodie said in his book (whom I previously mentioned in this blog months ago)... when you do something, no matter what it is, if that thing you're thinking about doing happened to be featured in a front page of a newspaper, can you or your loved ones be proud of reading it? If the answer is no, then you should have second thoughts of what you're doing.
Although we aren't celebrities, I wouldn't say we have to act as if we are, but we have to be careful and guard our lives as we are. Believe it or not, we are as important as Erin Andrews or anyone you would see on TV, and you never know when someone is watching. So you have to do your best to be in your absolute best behavior as much as humanly possible.
Something to think about when you do something...
D4P...PD!!!
-OBE
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