Shining Thru

I have to wonder if kids today even know classic fairy tales, it seems to me that the media sources that we encourage today do everything in their power to distort the original work.  Like many things these days, it’s not what it use to be.  Fairy tales have been altered, and I don’t always think that’s a bad thing.  I think it might be a good thing to put Cinderella into a modern story line, even if it doesn’t carry some of the mystery that I feel comes with reading or watching about another time period, it might make little girls find the story more believable and inspire them to think it could be them one day, which I’m also not saying is a good or bad thing.  I think that we already entice our youth enough into believing that they can have or do anything that they want, but that’s for another post.

Sometimes I think Hollywood gets carried away by trying to make the younger generations interested in classic fairy tales by adding violence and cursing and just other extremes that take away from the innocence that was once found in nursery rhymes and fairy tales.  Maybe we want to see the happy ever after without feeling like we are watching a Shakespearean tragedy because dead bodies are covering the floor of the closing scene.  Maybe some of us like reading about the innocent love that the young couple is blinded into thinking will be perfect.

There are plays and movies out there like “Into the Woods,”  which I personally enjoy, but wouldn’t watch every day because it takes away the happy ever after part of the fairy tale that makes you feel good at the end of it.  Should we encourage such idealistic ideas in our children today?  Or should we push that it’s a harsh reality?

“Life is all about timing… the unreachable becomes reachable, the unavailable become available, the unattainable… attainable. Have the patience, wait it out It’s all about timing.” Stacey Charter

Patience and Time…two very interesting concepts.  I am beginning to think that at times people can be very selfish with both.  If you’re not patient with the people you love and care about then you are being selfish and if you expect everything right away and not allow for time to take care of itself you’re being selfish.  I have come to the realization today that patience really is a virtue and the best things come in their own time and we just have to be patient and wait for the happenings in life to work themselves out.  I like this quote, life really is about timing…and you need to know when the right time to make a move and when is the right time to sit back and listen…sometimes great things happen when you just see where life is willing to take you all on its own.

More on time….

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.” Albert Einstein

I really like this quote because I think it’s true.  I don’t believe time actually exists…I think it is something that we have made up in order to make everything make sense, give some type of order to the events of life…what if everything does happen at once but we have trained ourselves to think linear when it really isn’t?  What if we can’t see what happens right in front of us simply because we don’t think it’s time for that particular thing to happen?

The thrill of a new experience, the excitement of the build up and anticipation

Leave you wondering what will happen next, all the possibilities race through your mind before you have time to latch onto one of those threads

A sense of trust and wonder overwhelm all other senses as you make your way through the moment

Fumbling through, absorbing everything into the whole body

Feelings and emotions flowing through the passion of love and pure elation

The warmth of the other half of your soul found in the body next to yours

Evidence of the mutual passionate bliss in their eyes, mind, body, and heart

Glowing radiation of the new experience shared and enjoyed

A memory that cannot be erased or forgotten

Something to replay in the recesses of the mind

Something to give power and strength as you are reminded of the love and passion

Reality blurred into the wondrous fabrication of peaceful passion

I think it’s crazy how some things that happens to other people, have nothing to do with you, but can still really offend you.  You have to wonder if you’re making yourself to be more important than you are or if you just really care about the other person….you have to wonder if you have a caring heart or an over involved heart…. I think that both are possibilities, I also think that there is a fine line there.

I hate seeing certain things and I know other people that get really upset when they see completely different things.  So what happens when you’re upset about something that happened to someone close to you, but they are not upset.  Do you let it go?  Try to hype them up?  It isn’t right to disregard your feelings, but it certainly isn’t right to press those feelings on the other person either.  Which leaves you in an odd position, of just deal with it and get over it your own way and then let it go.

Sometimes you try to put yourself in their situation or the situation of the person who did the offending, but the truth is, without actually being in that situation, we have no idea what we would actually do in the reality of the situation.  I find that people are quick to say..”well if that was me….” but in all actuality, there is no way for them to know what they would do.

Good Timing, Bad Timing, the difference can be only moments away from each other, could be one comment less or one comment more, just a word, just a gesture…what kind of things need to be taken into consideration when thinking about what makes good or bad timing?  Why do things need to be timed out at all?  Why do we always try to find the perfect moment to bring up a topic in conversation, or make an advancing move (in a relationship, in the work place, anywhere really).  It seems like everywhere we go is based on timing things out “right”.  And yet, we don’t seem to know what criteria we are being judged on when it comes to timing.

Everyone has their own ideas of what is a good time or bad time, even when it comes to the same experience by two different people at the same time.  I guess it’s one of those things in life that we may never be able to put a definition to because it is different for each individual person.  Come to think of it, I suppose there are a lot of things like that in life….

I think we are setting up the younger generation for failure.  I think that we are pushing for all of the wrong things, instead of trying to encourage things like hard work, and good social skills, showing respect, etc…we are trying to tell them to simply be positive…well being positive is great, but not always possible.  What about the child who doesn’t have anything to be positive about, doesn’t have a good family or a good  home life, maybe they are even scared to go home at night, how can you tell that child that they are not being successful in school because they are not positive enough?

I was reading a very interesting article the other day about psychology facts that we have been forced to believe or made to think were true simply because someone said it…one of these myths is about about self confidence.  The article made a great point about how we are teaching kids that they need to work for the wrong things, they need to be self confident, without giving them the tools to do so.  We aren’t teaching them good social skills or how to be successful in school, we are teaching them to be cocky, arrogant, and ignorant at best.  The author simply pointed out that we are connecting the fact that a child has self esteem to the fact that they are successful, when really we should be looking at the fact that the success is making the child self confident.  I would have to fully agree with this point.  What good does it do to tell a child to believe in themselves if we never teach them how to accomplish those goals we tell them to believe in?  It wont do any good for anyone. 

I do believe that a sense of self worth comes from many different aspects of a person’s life.  And having confidence can make things a bit easier for you, at least I think so, but I don’t believe that by simply believing you are the best, you will be…By simply believing that you will land a 3 figure job, you will….By only believing that you will be famous, you will….I think that we are only hurting our younger generation by feeding them these lies.  I think that we should be telling them that life is a struggle and if you want something that’s great, but you’re more likely than not going to have to work hard for it. 

Maybe we should stop trying to make everyone feel so good and simply be honest with them.  Lies aren’t going to help our children when they get out into the real world and experience it without warning.

It’s interesting to think that we only see the world through our perspective, it’s like we wear blinders to the rest of the world or to the way other people see it.  The way we were raised is “normal” to us, but to someone a block away may have lived a completely different life growing up and might think that your way of life is odd and unusual.  There is nothing wrong with the fact that I don’t think that “normal” actually exists, at least not past our own reality and concept of it.  The problem is when we don’t stop to consider or respect the fact that other people are going to see things differently than we do.  The way we see things is only our perception.  We can’t dream of what might go through someone else’s mind, even if they are in the same situation as you and seeing the same thing as you, they could be and probably are having a completely different experience from you, especially if they have grown up living a different life style than you. 

I don’t understand why people can’t stop to consider that their way isn’t the only way, and just because people see things differently doesn’t make them wrong.  I wish people could open their eyes and see things beyond what is right in front of them.  A lot of time people choose to be blind to certain things…I think that politicians do it all the time.  Things like public education is changed all of the time by politicians, but the likelihood of their children going to public education and having to deal with the result of the laws being passed is slim….if there is any chance at all…their kids are going to private school, and therefore I can’t imagine that these politicians have any idea what it is like for a teacher to have to stand in a public school classroom and try to enforce a law made by a politician that has never had to teach or deal with their child in a classroom that has to abide by the law. 

I think that we are all guilty of being blind to another person’s point of view at one time or another, but I think that as a society we should work harder to find acceptance in our differences and simply be open to the fact that not everyone sees things the same and everyone’s experiencing something differently, despite the fact that we are all in the same country…we should really take the time to consider what another person might be seeing or experiencing.

It’s so strange when you meet new people and you have no idea how to read them, you have no idea what could possibly be going through their mind…you can only guess and go off of previous experience with body language and other people that you know and hope that’s enough not to miscommunicate with someone.  You never know what people will take the wrong way.  The smallest thing could turn huge in a hurry if you are unaware that some people have meanings for things that you couldn’t even possibly imagine.  The smallest gesture with your hand or a look out of the corner of your eye could be construed as flirting by one person or a challenge to fight by the next. 

How are we suppose to be able to read people when half of us don’t know what goes on in our own minds?  It’s hard enough to try and understand a friend when they are in an odd mood, much less someone you just met and have no idea what kind of moods they are even capable of……

I can’t imagine all of the things you would miss if you aren’t open to new people and experiences.  People who get set in their ways, accept stereotypes, accept that some things are thought of as taboo; miss out on life in my opinion….I guess they get to live but they are restricted all through it simply because they have made up their mind and formed opinions on things before they ever experience them.  If you don’t go for it and at least things, how do you ever know. 

Now I’m sure there are some things that you don’t really need to try or your life will be just as complete without trying; for example, I don’t need to kill someone to know that it’s wrong and that I shouldn’t and don’t want to.  If for no other reason than I don’t want to go to jail.  But some people categorize things and wrong or bad just because they are unusual or not talked about a lot in our society.  An example of this is sex in general and all of the kinks that can go along with sex.  In other countries it is out in the open for all to see, there are sex toys sold in the windows of shops on the main streets…yet here in the US we make sexuality something that can sell products but can’t be talked about…which I think is why we have so much teen pregnancy. 

So many people want to live life according to what they have been taught, but what I have learned is that leaves you with the life filled with your parents’ ideals, and nothing of yourself.  How can you live your own life if you’re never open enough to experience things for yourself?