reminds me of a story my neighbor told me... he was driving his kids home after they won a football championship game. the kids were chatting away in the car, admiring their trophy. dad asked how he thought the played...begrudgingly, they admitted they didnt play that well, and probably won because of the other team's mistakes. he agreed, took the trophy and threw it out the window.
I would never condone littering.
This approach seems like it misses the point: the kids had already learned the lesson, and belittling their accomplishment doesn't motivate them to do better.
I wonder how many of them still play.
sure, wasn't passing moral judgement (Thread is called War on Happiness)
reminds me of a story my neighbor told me... he was driving his kids home after they won a football championship game. the kids were chatting away in the car, admiring their trophy. dad asked how he thought the played...begrudgingly, they admitted they didnt play that well, and probably won because of the other team's mistakes. he agreed, took the trophy and threw it out the window.
I would never condone littering.
This approach seems like it misses the point: the kids had already learned the lesson, and belittling their accomplishment doesn't motivate them to do better.
That would depend on the context of course, but when ego is involved I usually try to go the other way. I am very skeptical of listening to the ego.
If your ego drives you to feel like you're right, it's serving itself. If your ego drives you to do the homework, to actually be right, then your ego is serving humanity.
I was driving my youngest, the fiddler, home from a performance once. He was sullen and pensive. Trying to be the encouraging parent I tried to cheer him up, told him I thought the show went well. He politely told me to shut up, dad, he knew he had sucked. He told me that it wasn't enough to think he was good, he needed to demonstrate it every time he played in public.
He spent the rest of that night, into the wee hours, practicing until he sounded as good as he thought he was.
reminds me of a story my neighbor told me... he was driving his kids home after they won a football championship game. the kids were chatting away in the car, admiring their trophy. dad asked how he thought the played...begrudgingly, they admitted they didnt play that well, and probably won because of the other team's mistakes. he agreed, took the trophy and threw it out the window.
That would depend on the context of course, but when ego is involved I usually try to go the other way. I am very skeptical of listening to the ego.
If your ego drives you to feel like you're right, it's serving itself. If your ego drives you to do the homework, to actually be right, then your ego is serving humanity.
I was driving my youngest, the fiddler, home from a performance once. He was sullen and pensive. Trying to be the encouraging parent I tried to cheer him up, told him I thought the show went well. He politely told me to shut up, dad, he knew he had sucked. He told me that it wasn't enough to think he was good, he needed to demonstrate it every time he played in public.
He spent the rest of that night, into the wee hours, practicing until he sounded as good as he thought he was.
For the most part happiness itself is probably conditional and definitely temporal. Joy, however, is embedded in your heart. It's a reckoning. A recognition. An objective subjective if you will. A place where hatred and fear need not apply.
Joy to the world. All the boys and girls... props to Hoyt
It's an exercise in mere style: it offers no prescription, no profundity, nothing of power. You could sum the whole thing up as "we suck" and not miss much in the translation.
The truth is that our times are no shallower, no more materialistic, no less preoccupied with pride and position than any others. We are no worse than we ever were at any time in the past, and no amount of finger-pointing is going to make us better.
Ask yourself why Christ spent more time blessing than cursing. Ask yourself why there are so many examples of that great man demonstrating compassion and a commitment to justice, and so few of him condemning or judging. It helps no one to tear down the old temple if the new temple is never to rise: mortifying the flesh does not edify the spirit.
Distrust any simple analysis of a complex problem. And human problems are invariably complex.
Boy is this backscroll a slog but I finally got to this.. Thanks for the ghost!
