Divorced and All Good

This is going to be deeply personal. I haven't updated here in a while. Suffice it to say the last year has been quite challenging. My ex-wife left me end of last May (May 2023) and the divorce finalized last month (early August 2024). We had a lot of conflict, mainly stemming from the following contrary views:

#	My View	Her View
1	You should work for your money.	The man takes care of me! As long as one of us is making enough money, the other spouse doesn't need to go and work.
2	Everyone should know how to drive by the time they're 28 and if not, they should learn. They shouldn't be dependent on someone else for transporation.	Husband and my parents should be responsible for driving me around. I don't need to learn how to drive since my family (including my husband) should be able to drive me around. They should understand that I am scared of driving and let me take my time to learn.
3	I am not required to buy you expensive gifts or clothes because that is the expected thing to do for a spouse. I will do it on your birthday or special holidays but otherwise I feel no obligation to do so. If you want something special, we can go experience something for free.	Boyfriends and husbands are supposed to take care of their girlfriends or wives by buying them clothing or other fashionable items as a treat at random times. It's what nice guys do.
4	Everyone should be able to live on their own and take time for themselves to process their feelings by themselves.	I cannot be by myself! If Shen is not around, I need to go see my parents since I can't bear the thought of sleeping alone in my apartment. My dog does not count as a human. I need human company over the night in order to feel safe and secure.
5	Working on your dreams are fine but when you're not making any money or cast for any roles (as an actress), you should seriously consider doing other things that can utilize other skills you have.	People who do menial jobs or do other things outside of their main dreams are wasting their times. I am an actress and I refuse to do anything like work in a restaurant or retail. Besides, my husband makes a lot of money so why do I need to have any self-sufficiency?
6	Having weird art and books around my home makes it feel like home.	Weird art does not belong on walls. They belong in museums. Books everywhere makes the place look untidy. Bookshelves shouldn't be in the living room ever.
7	I love to read and discuss literature and poetry.	The only books I'll read are music sheets and plays that I may want to act in. Reading books feel mostly boring to me. I'll rather watch TV or scroll on social media.
8	Social media pictures of myself should display candidness. I don't care if I don't look my best in the pictures posted.	Social media pictures must reflect my absolute best. I cannot look goofy unless that's my intention. Otherwise, full makeup and just looking beautiful.
9	If I fall in love with someone, I have to ask myself if that is rational. I don't want to make spontaneous decisions which can destroy current relationships.	If I fall in love with someone, I just got to go for it. Love conquers all right? I just have to follow my feelings. If a relationship is meant to end, falling in love with someone else is a perfectly good way to end it.
10	If someone buys me a lot of gifts, I feel very uncomfortable. I feel like that is a sign of disrespect since I can make my own money and I'm not a dependent child. I would rather be self-sufficient.	I love it when someone buys me gifts and I don't have to work for it. Any man is lucky to have me and if they're not willing to spend money on me, I don't want to be around them for too long.
11	Keeping secrets from your significant other is never a good idea. Even if it's emotionally damaging, it's better to hear the truth.	I would rather just wait things out and keep a lie since what my husband doesn't know won't hurt him. I'll tell him one day but I can't now since he'll get angry. I'll keep delaying telling him the truth and maybe I don't have to deal with it one day.

For the last three reasons, Abby (my ex-wife) left me for a former friend of mine named Craig. Yes, I got backstabbed by two people! Neither of them told me anything. While I was working on myself by going to therapy and support groups as well as taichi, Abby did no work on herself emotionally or spiritually. Instead of examining herself or just moving in with her parents to recover, she literally moved into a stranger's house and got into a relationship with him. This occurred barely a month later since she had at first told me that she was staying with her sister and then said she moved in with a friend when I asked her how she was able to move so much furniture into her sister's house 2 months later (August 2023).

She was very coy in telling me which friend. I had suspicions even then because Craig also stopped responding to me but I dismissed it since Abby was 28 and Craig was 72. That's a 45 year difference! When Abby was born, Craig was already well past his middle age. There was no way those two could get together! Well, Craig is a s*x and love addict as he openly admitted to me. He has been arrested before for publicly masturbating and for a while lost his attorney license. To add to the irony, he's presently a divorce attorney.

A few months later, I get suddenly pinged online that my credit card has been used. It turns out that Abby has used our joint credit card to file for divorce online. I say joint when really I pay for the bills. Not only that, she was not apologetic at all and said that she didn't need to give me any warning. I was distraught and did nothing about it for months hoping that she would change her mind.

Fast forward to February this year (2024) and I have mostly processed the fact that Abby is not going to come back. Also around this time, my friend Michelle informed me that Abby has been sleeping with a 72 year old man who likes to work out a lot and is an attorney who lives in Memorial City. It does not take a rocket scientist to put 2 and 2 together.

I sent Abby a very nice letter to which she gladly took. When I confronted her, she said she felt a little sorry but also stated that love was love and she "fell in love" with Craig. This is what happens with someone who doesn't understand herself or the meaning of life. As Scott Peck puts it, people often confuse cathexis with love. Read this article for a bit more information:

https://letstalklovetoday.wordpress.com/2016/11/01/cathexis-vs-love/

In any case, tangent aside, she then proceeded to say that she had no plans to tell me the truth any time soon because I would just angry. This completely discredited my feelings. Of course, I would get more angry finding it out this way but I don't think she realized that. Abby is scared of many things and admittedly through our horrible interactions and fights, she grew wary of how I might react. Truthfully, through my self-growth, I felt no inclination to be angry at her at this point.

On this phone call (which was the last civil one we had) she also said that she doesn't want any of my money. Fast forward to April and I finally got the divorce papers ready for her to sign. She doesn't respond and when she finally does after I call her multiple times, she inquired me on where it states that she should receive half my money. I told her that back in February she said she didn't want anything and we can each go our ways. She told me I completely misunderstood. When I cried and asked her why she cared so much about money, acting like a narcissist, she turned around and gaslit me by saying that I'm the one who cares too much about money since if I didn't, why would I have so much trouble just giving her half?

In the meantime, during all these months, she had continually posted on Facebook all the fancy restaurant meals and jewelry and handbags that Craig has been buying her. She never mentioned Craig by name or put up a single picture of him (probably for fear of judgment) but she was happy to say things like "best birthday gift ever!" with several pictures of thousand dollar Jimmy Choo bags that Craig bought her. This completely negated the Fiji honeymoon we took which spanned her birthday in 2022. I don't know if she was being purposely hurtful towards me or just wanted to show the world that she was doing okay. She also got a nose job done paid for by either her parents (who's always willing to buy her anything) or by Craig.

I went through the attorney and turned it into a contested case. Discovery items were filed to which on her side she claimed she had $25 in her credit union account and that was everything she possessed. She demanded almost $90K on my part. In the meantime, her lover Craig was acting like a ghost attorney giving her all sorts of free legal advice. I'm sure she tried to service him in bed as best as he could manage given that he's no longer able to perform in bed from what he last told me.

At the end of it, we went through a court extension and finally mediation. There, she pulled $65K from me in terms of a cashier's check. I ended up borrowing some money from my parents and scrounging almost all my liquid assets to write this check for her.

My attorney told me that even before the ink dried, Abby walked in and rudely demanded the check. This once again indicates to me how desperate she seems to be for money. She was the one who 

1. Left me physically
2. Moved in with a former friend of mine and got into a relationship with him without telling me. In other words, cheating and lying on her husband.
3. Initially filed for divorce
4. Sat on the paperwork for months and continued with the cheating and lying
5. Said she didn't want any money from me and then changed her mind later. In the meantime, she lied to herself and to me that she always expected half my money
6. Claimed that I was hiding money and forced me to go through discovery to list out every single I owned before marriage and presently to make sure I'm not hiding money. It is ironic to me how a liar and cheater accuses an honest person like me of also lying.
7. Showed no remorse for her behavior since "falling in love" is a good justification for everything and since I was cruel to her, it was perfectly fine for her to do all this

At the end of the day, she got what she wanted. It took from mid April to end of July but after 3 months of wrangling, she got her $65K. What did she lose? 

1. All our mutual friends. None of my friends have any respect for her.
2. Any relationship or sympathy from my parents. In fact, they're full of severe dislike towards her.
3. Me. Any possibility of reconciliation with me is gone. In the past before marriage, we have broken up twice and gotten back together. Now, there's no possibility at all of that ever happening given how clearly I see her character.
4. Her own self-worth. She's willing to do sexual favors and act like a trophy wife for a 72 year old man as long as she gets all the luxury items and other gifts that she wants without needing to work for them.
5. Her marriage.
6. Her parents for a bit. They had the worst possible relationship for a while but they have since reconciled from what I understand.
7. Her self-growth. By depending on someone else and treating material things with such high regard, she is not growing in terms of a greater appreciation of what is truly meaningful in life. More fundamentally, she also cannot admit that she was at fault for doing at any of this and so for her none of this taught her anything about herself.
8. Her honesty. Even if she cannot admit it, everyone who knows the story can say that this is someone who is willing to lie for months and severely hurt her partner's feelings. She is also willing to lie to herself thinking this was the best path she could have done.
9. Her self-love. She so desperately wants the image of her to be perfect that in social media, she can only present herself as such. She doesn't realize how superficial she appears for that is all she knows what to do in order to get the public's attention and feel that she is beloved because she looks beautiful. She got a nose job done because she didn't like the look of her own nose.

As several of my close friends have put it, a relationship like the one she has is purely transactional even if she doesn't believe it. If Craig was making minimum wage all other things being equal, she would not be with him. This is a relationship born from two desperate love addicts from what I see. Craig has been desperate for years wanting a girlfriend. Every girl that he meets that he finds attractive he thinks the possibility is there to be his girlfriend. I have heard the stories from him for years. For Abby, she has openly admitted that she never felt comfortable by herself. As far as I have known her, when she wasn't with me, she was always with someone else or trying to get with someone else. She has never felt comfortable in her own skin. She has also never been financially independent and always depended on either her parents or later me and now Craig.

In the meantime, I lost about $22K with attorney fees and $65K to her as well as any love towards her and the marriage but I have gained a lot! What did I gain?

1. Deeper friendships with existing friends due to vulnerability sharing and empathy.
2. New friendships and acquaintances stemming from being able to be vulnerable as well as trying out new activities and support groups.
3. Deeper understanding of what actual love is.
4. More exercise and spiritual growth with taichi.
5. More support for my behavior addictions with returning to therapy and my support grups.
6. More spiritual growth in general with self-reflection and going to church.
7. New relationship with someone I met through doing taichi.

I have now an overall deeper understanding of myself and a greater self-love as well. Overall, my life could not be better! I am thankful for the failed marriage as a teaching moment for me. It was an expensive lesson as my mom put it and I hope to not make the same mistake twice.

Obstacles to Happiness

I must had a smile on my face earlier today while at the laundromat for the person working there told me that I look very happy. I told him that I don't see any reason why I shouldn't. I thought of reasons in my mind but really there should be no reasons I need to think of. After all, happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of children, until they have been polluted by the stupidity so prevalent in society and culture. To acquire happiness, you don't have to do anything because happiness cannot be acquired. You have it already. How can you acquire what you already have?

Then why don't you experience it? Because you've to drop what you're carrying. You don't have to add anything in order to be happy; you've got to drop something. Life is hard only when you have your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings, etc. Do you know where these things come from? They exist from you identifying yourself with labels of every variety.

There was a lawyer who was presented with a plumber's bill. He said to the plumber, "Hey, you're charging me $200 an hour. I don't make that kind of money as a lawyer!" The plumber said, "I didn't make that kind of money when I was a lawyer either!" You could be a plumber or lawyer but that shouldn't affect the essential "I". If I change my profession tomorrow, it's just like changing my clothes. I am untouched! Are you your clothes? Are you your name? Are you your profession? Stop identifying with them. They come and they leave.

When you truly understand this, no criticism can affect you. No flattery or praise can affect you either. When someone says, "You're a good guy," what is he saying? He's not talking about "I." "I" am neither good nor bad. "I" am neither a success nor a failure. It's none of these labels. These labels depend on the criteria society establishes. These labels depend on your conditioning - your level of being brainwashed by your culture, society, and people you know. These labels depend on the mood of the person who happens to be talking to you right now. "I" am none of these labels.

Uninterrupted happiness requires no cause. True happiness is just there. You cannot make me happy and you are not my happiness, whoever or whatever you happen to be. Someone can ask the awakened person, "Why are you happy?" and the awakened person replies, "Why not?". That is the only answer possible.

Literature: Desert Trek

A sense of expansive solitude struck her when she raised her left hand and shielded her eyes from the harsh sunlight. She had always thought of the desert as a desolate place replete with sand dunes and little else. Her mental picture wasn't wrong; her mind just couldn't take the reality of such vast desolation. 

The heavy silence was pervasively deafening. The arid air static with the smell of dust and her sweat was equally discomforting and the torrid heat had long soaked her body with her own sweat. She opened her cracked lips to take a swig of water and tasted only coppery dust.

The forbidding atmosphere left her to briefly ponder on the tenacious stupidity of those who chose to wander such a barren wasteland. She took a look at her compass and noted that she was still in the right orientation. The way to the oasis was not far and she needed to be on her way. Shrugging off the last vestige of contemplation, she trudged onward.

Three steps in and her right foot had once again sunk into a foot of sand again. With a grudging sigh, she shook her boots and waited as a fine stream of gravel and sand poured out leaving behind traces of sand that had long formed a solid congregation next to her toes. At the pace she's going, reaching the oasis before sunset will be a miracle. The more likely scenario is making do with another campfire and a restless sleep chilled by the wind that swept across the dunes.

Reality as always resulted in the likely scenario. Darkness found her at least half a day's journey still from the oasis. She grasped her cloak and covered her face as the dusty wind blew by. Cautiously, she set up camp and managed to make a small camp fire sheltered from the wind. Roasted lizards never really appealed to her before but somehow her stomach appreciated the generous offer now.

Sated and tired, she laid back on the sleeping pad and pulled her blankets close. Tomorrow was another day but for now there was just now. The desert was harsh but it offered a timeless view of the heavens. She could see the evening star barely peeking its head from the horizon to the west and the North star standing like a sentinel overhead. Scattered between the two, half a dozen constellations with names that she barely remembered named by the ancient astronomers.

Maybe at the end of the day that's all that matters. We ask ourselves why anyone will live here but the answer is marked in the heavens and earth. This timeless place is impossible to replace. Maybe we are the ones who became lost when we turned our backs on our past. Grains of thoughts piled upon each other until they collapsed with the avalanche of sleep that struck her without warning.

Literature: Cautionary Awakening

Awaking to pounding of a dull beat,
Hammer-pounded chest shivered to fade
Death descended to take me to its seat
As Life gave Death me in its trade

As spirit faded away, myriad thoughts arose enraged
Places and things and everything in between—not yet seen
Forevermore but a dream, a dream evermore caged
Barely two decades on the path of life--must I be thus forsaken?

Despair broiled within like a torrential wave
Can anyone hear me cry and shout?
Will I end like so and fall in my grave?
To bear witness to life-candle snuffed out?

As my hollers awoke me from my slumber
Awakened I can only shudder and wonder
Is this dream naught but the One’s caution?
Revealed to jolt me to change my action?

The Super Nova

Disclaimer:
This article was originally written and posted by Nishanth Sasankan on August 13, 2012 on Facebook.

The world, always has a number one. It always did and it always will. Empires, kingdoms, monarchs and dictators all come and go. Like fall after spring and spring after fall, they all come and go, merely to be engraved somewhere into the lost pages of history. Most or at least a good portion of us have at some point wished to be there. Some for acceptance, some just for vanity and some to fill in the gaps of the cheese called ego. We run faster, struggle harder and fight longer with the world around us to reach that peak. To stand upon that peak where people have to look up to you and you can look down to others; to get that surge of feeling better than the world around you; oh what an intoxicating state of mind. Yet soon after your time, generations flow along with time virtually not caring what or who you were. Pages of history which will never be turned again. How sad it is that those pages in which you struggled to remain shall loose its glow and remains closed.

This note is not about those who came and went, it is about those who stayed and continues to remain in the brightest pages. Men and  women who's brightness shines as a beacon of inspiration for my time and for the next. It is about those who remained as an underdog, it is about those who were never heard of until one singular moment in time where they made the passing threshold. It is about men and women who competed and struggled, but not with others or the world around them, but with themselves. It is about those who aspired to make the best of themselves and not to be the best among others. Our society sets us on a race to have the best grades, best salary, best houses and even down to the best credit scores. we live in a world in which we are always in a relative position to others around us. Few escape the great race of life and even fewer prove they were right to do so.

True glory lies in those who became part of that beacon of inspiration, the ones that remained dormant for years until one day became a super nova. Became the brightest of us all and outshines a million stars that has ever come and gone. Who among us will start to look at themselves and realize their potential to inspire the life of others? Who among us will deny power and embrace humility ? Who among us will see the person next to us as a powerful super nova, as they see themselves? Who among us will shine brighter than a million suns, to spread hope, inspiration and peace? Who will be the next super nova for my time and the next..........?     

My Rocket Journey

My journey towards my dreams is like a multistage rocket heading out to space. First, I set my coordinates and then the path to get there. I made sure that my dream was higher up than many so that my trajectory would be more inclined towards the vertical than the horizontal. I would like my rocket to spend most of its journey heading up instead of horizontally.

Unfortunately, over the last years, I have uncovered that one of my rocket engines on the second stage are failing. A failed second stage prevents the third stage or any stage after that from firing. The spectators believe this is since I haven't fired my engines with full thrust. Since they are not the chief engineer in charge of the rocket design, they don't know that one of my engines is misfiring in the opposite direction of flight. Tired of trying to explain and not seeing continued results, I informed the spectators that I'll be taking a break from test launching rockets.

Instead, I retreated to my machine shop and thoroughly examined the malfunctioning engine. Previously, quick fixes were applied to satisfy the launch dates set by spectators. Now, I decided to work on my own schedule and repair the engine as much as possible before continuing. In the coming months, I hope to recover it well enough that I can once again launch.

Self-improvement: Life is a Banquet

While driving a friend home, he brought up the question that I asked him a while ago: "If your life is a movie, will people want to watch it?" He told me that if the last six years of his life is the same level of excitement as most people's entire lives, he can see why they all think that their life movie is too boring to watch.

He had told me a number of interesting stories in his life that I would definitely pay to watch if it was a movie. Yet, what's sad is that many people think that he's making things up. Those things coulnd't possibly have happened in his life! He couldn't possibly have had the grandest time in Hong Kong just because he knocked out a guy at a bar to save a girl's honor. He couldn't possibly have grabbed a gun away from an idiot rich guy in front of a club and later won a sham court case for his amazing restraint in not beating the guy up. He couldn't possibly have dressed up as a black guy and walked down some ghetto neighborhoods to see what would happen.

I have stories as well but many of the more interesting ones may give me a bad reputation so I'll refrain from telling them here. The bottom line is many people's lives are apparently so boring that they'll rather believe that such tales can only happen in movies. Yet, they watch adapted movies which show ordinary people encountering interesting situations and they believe those stories. I find it funny that many people will rather believe in a story that's probably edited and dramatized for TV production rather than someone who's telling them face-to-face a segment of his or her life.

There's a quote from a character called Aunte Mame in a movie:

"Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death."

My question to you is if you're at a banquet hall with a table full of action, new characters, and plot twists, why are you starving in a corner instead of taking your seat at the table?

Self-improvement: Reinventing Yourself

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about re-inventing yourself. Then, today I randomly meet this 38-year-old martial artist/jewelry businessman/pre-med student/father who has been doing it all his life. Reinventing yourself is something that we can all learn to do. Let me give you a short synopsis of his.

Growing up in the states, he never went to high school or even middle school. Instead, he shuffled back and forth between Asia and the states learning martial arts from a Korean monk who was like a second father to him. Later, he joined the army. Then, he got involved in the diamonds business where dirty business is common. Eight times he was followed after leaving the bank with the diamonds. He always carried a gun with him to protect himself from the Korean underworld, Columbian mobsters, etc. that attempted to take the goods from him. Though it was dangerous, it was also lucrative. He managed to earn enough money to buy a nice house in the middle of nowhere in Alaska. That was great but his wife left him and departed with his daughter still in the womb. He followed her to Texas and somehow got custody of the child. Now, he has decided to be a good father and get a college education so he can become a doctor.

Clearly, this guy is very good at continually reinventing himself to have fun and to survive in this world. This is a key life skill which I think many of us never develop, especially for those of us who come from stable families. I can tell you that my personal story so far has been the singular linear path of school. My ignorance of this world is so profound that it's startling.

There's many people, perhaps including yourself, which has followed a similar linear path and have not yet seen how limited your view of the world truly is. You may very well continue the linear path of school to work with a few weeks of vacation every year to retirement without even thinking. Now, I'm not saying that you should go crazy and go rob a bank or overdose yourself with drugs, but I am saying that you should find a way to continually transform what you do since how else can you broaden your view of the world and truly say that you're living life?

To give you an idea, currently, I'm discarding my student entity and reinventing yourself as an entrepreneur but that is just one stage. What's next? I don't know when I'll do all this but I know it will happen in the next few years:

1. Reinvent myself as a world traveler and travel writer/photorapher. I will spend at least a year traveling the world keeping a journal of my days. At the end of my travels, I will hop around different cafes around Europe and compile the book to be published.

2. Reinvent myself as a film director. I really enjoy watching films and I have attempted to write a few screenplays. To film one myself will be awesome. I will spend a year or two interning to learn the basics of film production before going into directing one myself.

3. Reinvent myself as a psychologist or counselor. Many people have told me that I'm very good at helping them see what their issues are. I can go to school, get a degree, and then open my own practice. People can be fascinating and to understand different types of people is quite rewarding. I have decided that I'll do this when I'm old and (hopefully) well-respected.

So ask yourself this:

How will you reinvent yourself in your life?

[Sociology] Dating Social Progression?

Probably at a used book store somewhere sometime, I picked up a 1950s guide on dating called Facts of Life and Love for Teenagers by Evelyn Millis Duvall. I really like reading retro books and its subject matter was too curious for me to avoid. Since then, it has comfortably reclined on my book shelf gathering dust until now....

As I'm reading this, I'm wondering just how many of the things Dr. Duvall discussed still applies today. I'll list out five that I think no longer holds true in modern American society. Quoted verbatim from the book:

1. In a poll of high-school boys, more than two-thirds said that they do not like to have girls call them on the telephone. They feel that this is a boy's privilege, and that a girl seems forward when she phones a boy.

2. When in doubt about what to give a girl, flowers are usually safe.

3. Boys find that girls do not like the indirect approach that starts, "What are you doing next Friday night?" That puts the girl "in a spot." Boys should not act as though they expect to be refused, as Amos does when he says, "I don't suppose you'd like to go on a date with me, would you?" This backhanded kind of invitation is apt to make the girl feel uncomfortable and is a mark of the boy's feeling of insecurity, too.

4. A girl must be extremely tactful; boldly buying her own ticket or handing him the cash in public may be embarrassing for him.

And this line is quite hilarious. Ah, if only teenagers followed her advice then but too late for America now:

5. ... They are usually the more immature, impulsive boys and girls who have not yet learned that there is a place for everything in life, and that even a kiss is better when it is reserved for the times, the places, and the persons that give it most meaning. With experience a man is able to tell a woman he loves her with his eyes; a woman can express her adoration in a hundred little gestures that only he can understand. It is only during the calf-love stage that love-making is open to the herd.

There are some advance that very well still holds water though:

1. A good conversationalist is not necessarily the one who talks all the time. More often he or she is the sensitive person who listens well and is not afraid of the silences that come along from time to time.

2. You overcome a bad reputation by gaining a good one...This times time and perseverance, but it is the only sure way.

3. Your hospitality is one of the nicest things that you can offer to those you like.

4. You are fortunate if you and your parents have worked out your dating questions by now, for dating is much more satisfactory when it has their approval.

5. The first person you loved was yourself. Little babies are capable of loving no one else at first. They have not had enough experience even to be aware that there are other persons to love.

I'll probably pick up this book again and give my thoughts on it in greater detail but I leave you these few points to ponder upon.

Thirst in Life

Not having any plans tonight and not really wanting to do any real work, I proceeded to read the book Freedom Writers by Erin Gruwell. The book is actually a collection of real diaries that the students and herself wrote while she was a teacher at Wilson High School in Long Beach, California. I saw the movie a while back on an international plane flight and really enjoyed it. When I saw it at Half Price Books the other day, I immediately jumped on purchasing it.

Reading it turned out to be more moving for me than watching the movie. Perhaps the environment of being alone in a quiet room also helps. Somehow, the words, perhaps because of their simplicity and frankness, drew me in and captivated me in the world that these racially discriminated or ghetto kids had to endure while supposedly trying to get an education at school. How one woman transformed their lives by treating them as real people and going beyond existing stereotypes that they're stupid or hopeless is amazing.

Erin Gruwell is a definite hero; she had faith in their potential and inspired her students to share that faith as well. She established a foundation after she became famous to continue to help and inspire students and overcome whatever their circumstances may be through acceptance and innovative teaching methods. The website is http://www.freedomwritersfoundation.org/

Reading this book has put me in a very pensive mood. I feel like I ought to do something as well. Sure, I'm busy running around doing various projects and school but I also feel like I'm obligated to help out the community as well. In the book, most of the other teachers just ignored the issue. They felt that these black, Latino, and Asian kids growing up in these terrible neighborhoods were hopeless. I need to ask myself this question:

As someone who claims to care about the world and others am I doing the same thing? In other words, am I ignoring people around me that ought to be helped? Am I as tolerant as I think I am?

I will look up some volunteering around the community and see what I can do to lead a more fulfilling life helping others. Helping myself by career advancement and business is always good but I have always felt that there's something missing. A thirst in life that has left unquenched regardless of reading spiritual books or talking to people about it. Perhaps reading this is a wake up call to do more than just personal reflection once in a while. I'll keep posted on what I end up doing.

Equation of Happiness

I'm going to tell you an interesting story. Now, normally when someone says this to you, you know that you're in a long haul for a story that's likely anything but interesting. Since this is Shen Ge though and if you know him at all you know he's anything but boring, if you want to hear something interesting you'll just read on.

I was at the Texas Young Professional social earlier this evening and I met an engineer that's in between jobs. I talked to him for a good while since I was interested in what he did. His card read MBA/Engineer so of course that caught my attention. I humorously commented that he must be feeling pretty jaded about engineering these days considering his job situation. I started saying that I was feeling pretty jaded about school earlier. He interrupted me and said that industry was worse. He went on for a bit and it became obvious that he hated his job though he worked at it for a good number of years. There were no design and building aspects to it; instead it was endless boring projects that he had little to no interest in.

I mentioned the guy to my boss Joe later whom Joe also met and we both came to the one-word conclusion that he was pathetic. At that moment, I suddenly thought of an equation of happiness which can be applied to anyone:

(Hours of unhappiness)X(Unhappiness weight) - (Hours of happiness)X(Happiness weight) = Overall happiness in a typical day

Now, I applied the equation to myself for a typical day:

Hours of unhappiness: 4 (Source: frustration, anger, fear of failure, worry, stress overall)

Unhappiness weight: 2

Hours of happiness: 10 (Source: talking to cool people, learning cool things, doing cool things, seeing my future vision taking hold from hard work)

Happiness weight: 3

This leads me to have an overall happiness of +22. Not bad. Then I did it for this guy when he was working at the oil&gas engineering firm:

Hours of unhappiness: 8 (Source: just about everything at work)

Unhappiness weight: 5

Hours of happiness: 6 (Source: TV? Family? Hobbies? Social events? Internet? Note: Does not include sleeping, commuting, eating, etc.)

Happiness weight: 3 (Guessed)

This leads him to have an overall happiness of -22. In other words, he's really unhappy on a typical workday. Now I know these numbers are estimated but it's a fairly accurate representation.

Do you feel excited about your current full-time job? If not, quit your current job. Think about it! You spend at least 40 hours a week on your job; it takes up much of your waking life. Do you really want those 40 hours to drain away your happiness or do you want those 40 hours to give you happiness?

This is something even a village idiot can answer but yet many people are somehow willing to be more foolish than a village idiot. They do jobs that obviously bring no level of life satisfaction to them but instead of trying something different and possibly more fulfilling, they stick with their happiness-draining job for material things like money and stability. In the meantime, they slowly become jaded grouches since all their joy in life have withered away after an extended period of self-imposed dissatisfaction.

The analogy here for some people is stepping into a room of leeches and instead of quickly walking away, they just lie there and let the leeches suck away their blood because they somehow think the leeches will magically disappear if they stay still long enough. After a while some of them do get up and leave but if they leave too late, they're dried-up husks by the time they leave. In other words, they have completely lost their passion towards life which they almost definitely possessed as kids.

Anyways, let me know what you think of my happiness equation and the relation to reality. I think there's a lot of truths to it that many otherwise intelligent people do not see. Not trying to be arrogant here but I tend to reflect on life more than most people which can often give me more insight on life.