Who are you  when nobody is watching?

I notice that people who seem quite normal in real life tend to be mean when they think they will not get caught. You can see that if you log on to Second Life, for example. The thought that people are worse than they seem has been haunting me for a few weeks now and after some days of melancholy, I am ready to talk about it.

One of my best friends, who is an Atheist, was once asked the following question: Since he didn’t believe in God, what kept him from killing, robbing or raping? My friends answer was: “So believing that someone will punish you if you kill, rob or rape is the only reason why you don’t do it?” What kind of world is this? What kinds of people are that, that must have a higher punisher not to behave in such a despicable manner?

Like I said, for weeks I felt bad, and lost my faith in mankind. Also I notice that when people think they will not get caught they don’t work and they overcharge. The weird part is that some “normal” intelligent people think that it is ok to charge differently according to what the seller believes to be the ability to pay of the buyer. For example, a few of my friends went to a certain Burger King abroad, I mean it was the burger King! They were having difficulties converting the local currency into anything they could understand, and the cashier kept saying that everything was ten US dollars. Well, obviously it was not, since there were different prices on the board. They left, and after getting the hang of the money they converted the prices only to find out the most expensive meal was around five dollars. Ten dollars is not a lot of money, but I don’t think the cashier did that to save them time, and that’s the sad part.

Why is dishonesty so common and so well accepted by society? When did our parents stop teaching us that stealing is wrong not because God will punish you if you steal, but because it is inherently wrong and we should do the right thing.

I was trying to remember who wrote the Myth of the Noble Savage, it was Rousseau, according to him, in a nutshell, everyone is born inherently good, and society corrupts their inner self. I don’t know if I agree with that, but that is certainly going to be another post.

Expectation and Satisfaction

You go home, you see this chocolate syrup sitting on your chicken table, you take a big spoon only to find out it was actually thick Worcestershire sauce, the bottle was broken and someone decided to put it in a container. That has actually never happened to me, I am in the 2% of the world who doesn't like or eat chocolate, no matter what, but I bet you could taste the sauce when you read it. The weird thing is that you may like Worcestershire sauce but it is disappointing when you expect something else.  People are deluded that surprises are always welcome; I think most people dislike surprises; they want to receive what they expect in all aspects of life. Sometimes even a good surprise is a bad surprise, like when your boyfriend goes to the office to pick you up for a surprise romantic evening and you have cramps, and your deep, deep wish is to be able to go home early crawl to bed and disappear, but of course you don’t have the heart to do that, so it will be a night of suffering maybe even for both of you.  Because maybe he is doing that because you complained he was not spontaneous enough, he didn't do things by himself and he never surprised you nicely. Oh well, the joke is on you then. My advice is try to make the best of it, enjoy the evening so it will happen again and hopefully next time it does, you are in a better shape to enjoy it.

On work and procrastination

I love myself when I don’t procrastinate, in those rare days that I have many things to do at work and do them all, I feel like super-me, juggling work, personal life and leisure all at once in an incredibly efficient way. And then I have normal days, when I come to work feeling like death, I turn on my computer and doing what’s right (and sometimes quite simple) seems extremely painful, but updating my facebook status or reading my emails and news are so effortless. And then life piles up and I feel I am swallowed by work, the more I have, the worse to start. I go home feeling like shit, knowing I could have done much better if only I had made this little initial effort. I call it trigger effort; it is like when you look down to a swimming pool and you know the pool is going to be cold so you don’t want to dive. But you know that once inside the water, you will feel amazing and after one minute the water will no longer feel cold to your skin.

Well it is like in most things in my life, even the things I enjoy. I could do so much more both pleasurable and work related stuff if I just actually did it. The worst part is that when I am not doing it, I don’t feel happy. It keeps bugging me in the back of my mind and last Friday I actually dreamed about the work I had left undone (nothing urgent, thankfully)

In so many things in life you don’t know how you are supposed to behave. This is so clear. Being efficient makes me happy and makes everybody else happier too. (My employer, my employees, my partner, my mum!)

So why don’t I do it? Why is this lethargic energy so strong? I keep disappointing myself. Maybe I should try to live by those twelve steps programs that people use for alcoholism. Maybe I should think: - I am just going to do this little thing, and after ten little things reward myself with a little treat like a small cup of coffee.

I choose to choose

It is actually a choice I make every day when I wake up: I choose to be honest, I choose to be kind to others, I choose to be happy and I choose to expect the best from everyone.

Living life is not as difficult as some people might make you think, it is just a matter of doing what’s right for YOU and sticking to YOUR principles, whatever they are. There is no universal truth and no silver bullets in life. Make the choices you feel comfortable with and stick to them.

Can you live in the present too much?

My dear friend tells me that what’s in right now is reading about fully living in the present. Carpe diem or hakuna matata stuff. The idea, behind it, is that you should not live from the past, if you do so you are constantly depressed and longing for something that is already gone, but also you cannot live from the future because then your anxiety levels will reach the sky. Well I have lived for the day for around 7 years now.

As a teenager I remember living for the future, I felt I was preparing to become the true me. Aside from school I learned foreign languages also a bit about music, nutrition and finance. Then I decided what career I wanted and to reach it I had to take an exam and interview. I got the job! I was given what was 85% the job of my dreams. I had to move from my hometown. Once I got to this new city never again I felt the need to do anything that was not immediate. I would work and feel pleasure working and then go home and truly enjoy being home or going out with friends. To me it was liberating, it felt as I was finally ready to live my life. Anyways, it’s been seven years. Since then I have serious problems doing anything that is not pleasurable or anything that takes me longer than a week to finish. It is difficult for me to go back to learning languages, or even apply for a master’s degree or a second degree. Someone I know once told me I was in honeymoon with myself, with my life. It is so true; I adore my life, my way of life.

So I disagree a little bit with the mainstream thought. I already feel the side effects of living in the present too much. When you do that you don’t really accomplish anything anymore. You have to live a little bit in the future to endure studying hard again. Otherwise, It is like it is over for you, you reached your full potential, and that’s horrible. I want to be like those very old guys who go back to university and write books at the age of 90. But it is so painful to give up, so painful to give up my pleasure for something that is not here now.

So, unlike most, I WANT to obsess about my future. That would give me the strength to start something new, to reinvent myself. 

Comfort and loneliness

I now think that comfort is the key word for us. We all want to be comforted somehow, either by a belief, a partner, a parent, a friend and finally when having nothing and nobody else at that moment, we want to be comforted by ourselves. Recently I spoke to a therapist who told me that being lonely was not the same as being alone. Being lonely would involve suffering and pain whereas being alone was just great company; it was all about being with oneself. I live with my partner and I am never ever alone, not even when I want to be. I like to be alone at times, and when I do, I don’t feel lonely. But the way she said it made me realize that it was something she had previously given a lot of thought, and one only thinks a lot about things that bother him or her deeply. I would never say it to her face, but to me she is a lonely lady who fools herself thinking she is not lonely, she is just in the great company of herself. Don’t get me wrong, maybe she is a great person and truly great company. I just think that anybody who goes through all these mind processes and word selections to make a point to oneself is not at peace on that matter. It is like when I asked my brother about God and he had no opinion on the matter because he just didn’t care for the subject, it truly meant nothing to him, it is just something that he didn’t have to think about. He was at peace with that. The therapist on the other hand is one lonely lady.

Do we need to have a religion? Does mankind need religion in general?

I keep asking myself and frankly so far I do not have a good answer. All sorts of religions, honestly, sound very childish to me (no offence meant) and it is really weird to believe that some people actually tie their purpose to something as impalpable as religion. To me it feels like a club, either you are part of it or you are not. I mean who is anyone to say the guy who is Hindu or Buddhist is wrong and the Christians or Catholics are right. There are so many beliefs, so many symbols, so many rituals. In a way I feel that any religion is important to a certain community, family, group in general. Those people enjoy living by those rules even when it doesn't benefit them, simply because it is just so much more simple not to decide your life. When you outsource and you have a rabbi, priest or whoever telling you how to live your life you don't have to think, to make decisions, to suffer. Because even when following what your wisdom guy says makes you suffer, you do have the comfort of knowing you are following the rules, so you are "right". Anyways, in short, it is easy to have a religion, you just read your manual (Bible, Torah, Koran...) and abide by the rules.