I found myself saying internally “..but I was trying to be nice…” and that made me wonder: “am I not nice in the first place?” 😉

It turns out there is nothing as “trying to be nice” there is either you’re nice by your nature and how you act, or you’re not nice. Anything in between can be superficial, acting and not natural, and that does not work for whatever purpose you were “trying to be nice” for.

Bottom line: don’t try to be nice, just be as you are.

I was reading Paulo Coelho’s blog and he mentioned “The Law of Jante”

As Google is our first best friend, Wikipedia is our second best friend, so here’s the Law of Jante:

There are ten different rules in the law, but they are all variations on a single theme and are usually referred to as a homogeneous unit: Don’t think you’re anyone special or that you’re better than us.
The ten rules are:

1. Don’t think that you are special.
2. Don’t think that you are of the same standing as us.
3. Don’t think that you are smarter than us.
4. Don’t fancy yourself as being better than us.
5. Don’t think that you know more than us.
6. Don’t think that you are more important than us.
7. Don’t think that you are good at anything.
8. Don’t laugh at us.
9. Don’t think that anyone cares about you.
10. Don’t think that you can teach us anything.

I love this law, since it puts an end to our ego and selfishness, and tells us that we are not better than anyone else, and we should be humble.

By knowing we are not special, that does not mean we are not really special, it just means that we don’t have to act special and show off in front of others.

Peace, Peace, Peace…everybody talks about peace….This is not yet another thought to talk about “peace” as you’ve read about it in the news, or heard it from an idealist or a politician.
This thought is to share with you a moment of experienced peace, a moment where I got to realize how peace can exist and be found.

Lately, I’ve been greatful and appreciate my meetings with people from all sort of backgrounds. Be that a garbage collector, the concierge, the taxi driver, the small child of your neighbor, or even a person that you’ve known for years but see him/her in a different way.

I came to understand that peace with others can be perceived only when peace with yourself is achieved. The reason I say perceived and not created is simply because peace is already there, but you can’t see it when you are not in peace.

If you are angry, you tend to see people as your enemies. If you are greedy and selfish, you get to see people as those who want to rob you and abuse you. If you are sad, you get to see people as those who want to nag you and bother you. But if you are in peace with yourself, you will get to see everyone peaceful only because you have this perception in your heart.

What has changed? Nothing has changed, the angry person is still angry, the selfish person you meet, is still selfish, what changed is YOU.

A call for peace is something you achieve within, and then the world will change.

You’re not asked to become a saint, to take a slap on both your cheeks, you are simply asked to accept people as they are without any mask of preconception and only then you get to see past the mask that all people are wearing.

Peace upon you dear reader.

Hi,

Moments of solitude make you reflect, gives you a time, a certain mental pause to look around and see.

I came to realize how hard it is to be oneself, to be your true self.

You may think are your acting on your own, but have you really look inside to see if you are trying to be like someone else, trying to please others, trying to impress someone?

Have you ever evaluated the amount of hidden stress you put inside every time you’re not really being yourself?

I don’t have much to offer now, because I am not myself neither, so much work need to be done to remove all the peels and get to the core of myself.

It has been a long time I didn’t write my thoughts, however this “Beautiful Skin” thought always comes to my mind, and this time it conspired with my fingers, eyes and mind and managed to get me write it.
Oh, who’s “me” if not the mind, eyes, fingers, legs…. ? 😛

Beautiful skin?

You see a person and you get attracted to that person. Have you ever considered yourself being only attrated to hir (Leary’s gender-unspecific term) skin?

How funny it is when our genes, which work on the subtlest level, fire up chemicals of admiration when they spot a healthy match. To add to what evolutionists say, we don’t get attracted to “ugly” people because we perceive them as unhealthy and carry unfit genes.

I come to look at it differently, when my system spots a match, a moral/humanistic versus genes/instinct argument arises:
Genes: That person’s ugly, keep away from me
Moral: Why judge by the appearance? What do I know beyond the skin of that person?

In these days, which controls which? The genes control the moral, or the moral controls the genes? Or there’s a mechanism in between balancing the two and what is it?

Those who have public speaking phobias are advised to envision the audience naked (in fact, that’s what an instructor once told us in a public speaking course), thus they gain relative confidence by mentally lowering the audience’s. Similarliy, when the “Beautiful Skin” argument arrises, always remember that beneath this beautiful skin lies a mass of raw flesh and a thick skeleton.

Let your instinct cool down and be open to more than “skinny” opportunities.