We've Got Money in All the Wrong Places

This is a topic that really gets under my skin, because it is growing into a larger and larger problem that no one seems to care about. People seem to accept this problem as just "how the world works," yet it makes absolutely no sense that our society has become this way. What I am referring to is the way some people in this world make millions of dollars to do something that society does not need and does not require that much work, and there are others whose jobs are crucial to our economy that are barely scraping by. We have become incredibly backwards in out reward system throughout the world. One of the prime examples of this is in the field of acting. I am not trying to insult actors and say that their jobs don't require work, but lets be serious here. It is not that hard of a job. A lot of time is spent having other harder working people apply make-up to your face and pamper you before a scene, and most of your job consists of memorizing script that many actors usually forget on set anyway and have to be reminded. It is true that some movies require a large amount of dedication on the actor's part to get into character or require them to learn difficult skills, but most of them are actually pretty cool talents to learn and they are getting free training from top professionals of the field. Who hasn't wanted to learn how to sword fight from a professional? Along with this they get to travel to exotic venues for filming, and once the movie is released they are treated like royalty. The script has already been written so there is little creative genius needed (that is mostly on the director's part) and most characters consist of getting a chance to wear cool clothes and do things most people would never be allowed to do. I can't speak for everyone, but I personally do not find this to be an incredibly difficult or strenuous job. On top of all that there is no NEED for their role in society. They are a "want" and we would easily survive if that career disappeared (it just wouldn't be as fun). In other words, they are not incredibly important to the success of a culture, and in spite of all of these things they are still paid millions of dollars. Some make more in a year than what millions of others will make their entire life. Not only do they get the experience of a lifetime during filming, but then they get paid fortunes just to do it. While all this is going on we have construction workers who work their butts off doing things that are crucial to society, and they are barely paid enough to pay the bills. Get rid of all the actors and athletes in society and what happens? Honestly not much besides the fact that people would have to start talking to each other more often, and maybe read more books. It honestly would possibly even help society, and force us to be more creative for entertainment. Society has survived thousands of years without television or movies, so I think we would be okay. On the other side, try to remove all the construction workers, teachers, and public maintenance workers and see what happens. After even a small amount of time things would start changing drastically and not for the better. No knew buildings or roads would be created which isn't a big deal, but this also means that the current roads and buildings will need to last forever. There will be no more maintenance crews so all the natural decay and human-created filth would start adding up exponentially. Our society would be incredibly ignorant with no one around to give us professional educations, so the only lessons learned were from experience or family teaching. Everyone should agree that this would be a bad idea to have our youth raised merely by the knowledge their parents have, and this is why we have produced trained professionals who devote their lives to teaching people. Oh wait....a bunch of people already make this mistake? Homeschooling is real? Oh my apologies, I guess that last point wouldn't be a huge difference. So it should be pretty clear that these jobs are far more crucial to society's success, yet most of these positions are held by people in the lower and lower-middle class. Things just don't add up when we will pay an athlete who is only there to entertain us almost 90 times more money yearly (average professional athlete salary is $3.19 million a year and average teacher salary is $35,672). This means that for every football player or baseball player there could be 90 more teachers in the workforce or 45 more teachers making far better pay that they deserve. NBA players are at the highest end of the spectrum averaging $5.15 million yearly which is 144 times more than the average teacher in the US. For all the teachers reading this, or anyone making around the $30,000 to $40,000 a year range, what would it be like if your salary was doubled? This could be a reality for 144 people if we would get rid of one NBA player, or even just lowered their salary to something far more logical. I won't do this with the acting profession, because I am aware that there is a large majority in the acting field that make very little money if they can find work at all. When I speak of "actors" and getting paid too much I am referring to the Hollywood Actors and Actresses that are paid millions each year, and the ones that the public immortalizes. For an average movie Will Smith will make between $20 million and $35 million dollars. Lets say that that movie took three years of his time to make and it was a very rare case where he only did one movie at a time (most actors work on several movies at once and some take less time than three years while others take even longer). Even with these restrictions he makes between $6.67 million and $11.67 million a year. At the high end this is over two times more than the average NBA player and over 288 times more than the average teacher. Don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of Will Smith and he ranks in my top three favorites for actors, but I do believe that he and many others are paid far too much. Most Americans are happy to even break the six figure mark and consider this a huge achievement while athletes go on strike when they are only paid a few million dollars instead of the six million they want. On top of this I see far too many screw ups in sports to think for a second that these athletes deserve that kind of pay. I have seen just as good of playing being done by high school athletes who don't get paid a dime to do it. We need to pay more to the people who deserve the money and start basing salaries off of importance and level of difficulty of the job.

Day by Day and Hour by Hour

Okay, so my break is over and I am back to my writing. Finals week was the roughest I have had yet, but it is completed and I am incredibly relieved. Well that is all I want to say about that, so I will move on to the more important topic of this post. This is the concept of work hours, and whether it is better to work a steady job with the normal eight to five or nine to six business hours or have a job that is more sporadic such as a food industry position. I have had jobs in the food industry where there were some weeks that I did not know what my next week of work would be until the day before that week started, and my shifts each week were almost never the same. On the other side of the coin I am currently in a job where I work from nine in the morning to six in the afternoon every Monday through Friday. I am curious as to which is better to have in the long run for a person. Granted it can be frustrating to never be able to make plans due to a schedule that varies and changes so much that you never know what you will work. On the other hand it can be dreadful to drop into the eight to five slump that leads to incredible boredom and eventual burnout. Is it better to just live life day by day, or have a set work week to schedule your life around? I have heard of many adults burning out in the later half of their careers, because they have been doing the same job at the same time for years.  Some people see the retail and restaurant hours as fun, and it helps keep the job interesting and different. It can help prevent the person from falling into a rut where they feel like nothing is changing. As humans we naturally want change, and like to grow over time. If we get stagnant then that is when things such as depression can occur. So is the eight to five job really the way our society should go? I feel like everything is becoming business centered and many more people are moving to desk jobs, but I am not sure if this is a good thing. I love my job, but there are many times that I miss my food industry job. It was fun, and I never knew what a day would have in store. With my current job I know that I will be doing the same thing every day, five days a week, and every week in a year. The people are great and the job is nice, but I can definitely tell that burnout would happen eventually. I am aware that this most likely varies from person to person, but I feel like human nature leans towards a sporadic, unorganized life. With that said I want to move to my next point, which is whether or not organization in one's life is a good thing. I agree to an extent that it is, but I feel this nagging feeling that we are meant to be spontaneous. It is a known fact that the human body was meant to sleep whenever tired and wake up naturally, and that the eight hour sleep every night was actually a human creation. Long ago people use to sleep whenever they were tired and it was not always a scheduled event. I feel that this is proof that we are not created to work and operate in a scheduled style. Granted organization is great in most respects, but I am mostly referring to the activities of life being organized and not your desk at work. It is better to let your body just fall asleep, then to force it to sleep like many do each night. I am aware that living life this way in our modern society would be extremely difficult, but it is an interesting thought. Are we truly on the best path right now and getting to a more evolved society? Or are we heading towards a future with far more depression, sleeping problems, and burned out middle-aged adults?

Drowning in a Sea of Words

I want to start by letting everyone know that this will be my last post for at least four days due to the fact that this is my finals week. I was debating even entering this post today, but the idea for it hit me and I found it impossible to go without writing it. My lack of daily posting the past week has also been due to the amount of studying and homework I have had to do lately. Unfortunately my blog must take a back seat to my studies. On that note I am making this post about those classes that every student has been in where there are unnecessary amounts of work. I am not trying to be a typical lazy student who is just whining about having to do work, because I actual enjoy writing essays and reading. The thing that bothers me is when it is all assigned at one time with a small window to complete it. I enjoy writing a good paper and reading an interesting chapter, but I don't like having to read a ton of material, write a paper or two, and do this all while studying for a final exam at the end of the week. This is when it becomes ridiculous. I am an online student because my job makes attending college classes nearly impossible unless I do them all at night. This should show professors of online classes that my time is already limited, thus the reason for taking online classes, so they should plan assignments that don't require a complete dedication to school work for a whole week. I understand that finals week is a stressful week no matter what but this is usually due to the immense amount of studying that students undertake. This would not bother me at all if it was the case, but instead I have yet to even touch studying for my exams because I am too busy reading material that I will later have to write a three page paper on which will be followed up by another final paper that were all assigned the week of finals. I know that online classes are known for moving at a faster pace which requires more work in a smaller amount of time, but this has gotten a tad out of hand. I can write an essay just fine and read a large portion of a text book, but expecting me to do that on the same week as finals is the part I struggle with. I don't believe this is a reflection of a student's ability. Drowning a student in work does not show his skill or knowledge of the material, but instead merely reflects how much time he has to dedicate to studying or how well he can function without sleep. If you want to test my knowledge of the material that is in the class then give me a final exam and be done. I will do my part as the student to prepare for it. There is no need to drown me in assignments in an attempt to prepare me for a final. If the assignments that were previously assigned did not teach me the material then I probably won't learn it now either. So many teachers seem to think that they can cram in knowledge in a weeks time, but honestly if you haven't learned it by the last week then you probably won't learn it at all. I know a lot of college students are reading this and screaming how much it isn't true, but I am not referring to the late night cramming where you are memorizing the material and not learning it. Almost anyone can cram the week before an exam and remember things just along enough for the exam, but this only results in a loss of that information from your brain a month or two later. This may work in high school because a lot of the classes are general education or useless electives that are there mainly for babysitting purposes to keep you out of trouble, but in college the classes serve a much greater purpose. You don't take college classes just to get the degree because the degree only represents the skills you should have due to obtaining the degree. College classes are meant to prepare you for your career, so if you "BS" your way through college then you will get into a job after college due to a degree you don't deserve which will eventually lead to your failure at that job due to knowledge you don't really have. That is why actually learning is so much more crucial in college than just getting the grade. I would much rather actually learn something in a class and get a decent grade than learn nothing but cram enough to ace the class. This is a large reason as to why a lot of college students don't really care about their GPA and I don't thing colleges should care either. Now a student shouldn't have a bad GPA because that just shows that they aren't putting effort into their classes at all, but there is nothing wrong with only have a decent GPA as long as you are actually learning what you need to know for your field. I understand that a GPA is a good reflection of the students success in school and that if they are learning the material then they would also have a solid GPA, but this is not always the case. I have been in classes where I have learned a lot of very helpful things, but, due to an overload or work or the biggest nightmare of every college student where you study everything but what the professor actual put on the test, I did not get an amazing grade in the class. (I realize that my sentences are a tad too long but I am not entirely concerned with grammar right now) I say all of this because it shows how college has come too much down to learning how to "pass school" and less about actually learning. Many students are great at school, but fail in the real world because they didn't actually learn anything. They just got so good at school throughout the years that it was their career. They can play the game perfectly. I believe that this is due to an educational system that focuses so much on statistics that they forget the entire reason they are there. I realize that many are fussing about how most colleges are still a business at the end of the day, but they still serve a greater purpose in society. This "no child left behind" rule has created a system that pushes kids a long and practically hands them grades just to make the school look good. I have sat next to students who can barely complete a multiplication table, but are sitting in my calculus class with me. I am not trying to say I am smarter than everyone else, because my freshman year of college taught me I am far from that. College does a much better job at not catering to the statistics, but by that point it is too late to stop the habits already put into students and colleges still go towards statistics more than they should. Many students have had those professors that will push for grades to fid the dreaded Bell Curve just so that it looks all pretty on paper. This is like a scientist who adjusts the results of an experiment to fit his hypothesis. Schools are adjusting their student's grades to fit their statistical goals. Passing should not be the end goal of a school, but it should instead be that every student actual learns the knowledge before moving onto the next level. People get so excited about graduating, but so many of them are getting a false graduation that is mostly for show. So many students did not learn even close to the required amount of material and many of them got that piece of paper because the school wanted to make their percentage of graduates bigger. I am a great example of that when it comes to foreign languages. I cannot remember a single bit of Spanish even though I took the required amount in college. This proves that I did not take it so that I would learn a foreign language, but instead I was forced to take it so that the school could check a box off their list. Granted I don't think foreign languages should be required in the first place, but that is a whole other topic entirely. I have learned a great deal in the classes that I have taken this semester, but feel that I may be in fear of not getting the "A" I greatly desire in the class due to an overload of work in the final week that will result in a less than stupendous grade on the final exam or a crappy essay done in haste. I hate rushing my school work because I want my work to be something I am proud of and something that I will enjoy putting my name on. This is the reason why I won't write a post unless I know I have the required amount of time to make it a solid, good quality post, though some may think it is not. Many blogs that I have read will crap out little small posts just to make sure they produce something every day, but I would rather go a week without a single new post if it meant I only had great quality posts on my blog. I think that school work should be the same way. I would rather the teacher assign far less assignments, but grade the ones they do assign much harder. This would result in a greater amount of effort put into assignments and would create students that were required to actually learn the material to create work with high quality. Anyone can crap out a bunch of small, meaningless assignments that only seem like time-fillers, but it takes true effort and time to make a good, lengthy, and high quality piece of work. This is a large reason as to why I prefer large essays over small worksheets. Anyone can read through a text and fill out a worksheet based on the text while they do it. That is mostly just parroting back information without even memorizing it, but it takes effort to analyze that text and make it into an essay based on your own thoughts. I believe that this is a large reason as to why our educational system is struggling and is producing a student body unable to handle the real world. A real job doesn't want a space-filler that can complete busy work all day. Those are the kinds of jobs located at the bottom of the corporate ladder, but the true success lies in the ability to analyze and move beyond the simple ability to "do school." Lets stop looking at the statistics and start looking at the student.

About to Break

For almost all people in today's society stress has become a major problem, but many people remain ignorant to the massive role it is playing in their lives. I decided about four months ago to start on a path in my life that would hopefully lead to a stress-free life with no worries. This sounds great when typing it out, but it is incredibly difficult. I knew that it would not be something accomplished quickly or easily, but they goal would be worth it. A lot of this stemmed from growing up in a family that is very close and great, but there is a lot of stress among the members of my family. It leads to tension and bickering among other things, and it got me thinking how much better life could be if the stress could just stop. I have been embarking on a task to figure out how exactly I can make myself stop stressing and worrying about everything. I don't just want to stop stressing about the small things like every song out there tells you to do, but I want to stop stress all together. Many movies will show you a character who is completely relaxed and just "goes with the flow." Now I realize that movies are not accurate representations of reality, actually far from it, but  I believe this to be a possibly mentality. When I say "go with the flow" I don't mean that I want to become one of the typical college students in today's world that accept everything, but I instead mean that I want to become a person who does not stress about changes in life and can happily adjust to whatever comes. I don't ever attend to accept things that are wrong, but I do want to reach a point to where I do not stress or worry about them. I want to obtain complete confidence in God, and have the blind faith that I know is possible. People speak about it in church all the time, yet I have never met a person in my life that has achieved this task. I want to add a side note that I am not making this post just to tell everyone about my own life experiences, but instead I want to share this concept with people and see if I can get any positive feedback to build on it with. I have made great progress in these four months, and have noticed a large increase in my overall happiness. As great as it has gone so far I just can't seem to make it over that hump into complete relaxation with zero stress. Bad things are bound to happen eventually throughout one's life, but I want to know if it is possible to not let those effect your overall happiness for even a second. One of the things that make this seem near impossible sometimes is when I have days like today where I seem to be stressed out with no solid reason as to why. I feel that many can relate to this feeling of anxiety and stress with no apparent origin. When I think about my day I cannot come up with any solid reason as to why I should be worried or stressed yet I can't seem to relax. This makes me curious if it is possible to be truly stress free or if it is coded into humans to have a small level of stress rooted in instinct. Is this just another Hollywood mythical character that is impossible to achieve in reality? I want to think that it is not, but on some days it can seem very difficult. I am getting far better at seeing the bright side of things and trying to stay optimistic, but this random stress with no origin is something that I don't see a way to fight against. Many public speakers will throw around the quote "mind over matter," and talk about stress and worry as if it is just something that one can turn off and on. When I first thought about it that seemed like a logical solution to just mentally force yourself to not stress until it becomes a habit. This has been the method I have been practicing so far, but it seems to only be able to get me so far. It is like have the Galva Knuckles on Nazi Zombies where I can make it to wave 13 with ease, but going any farther requires more talent and skills. (I could not resist making the comparison, my apologies to any non-gamers) Another thing that I have noticed is the way people differ so much in "natural" happiness levels. Everyone has met that person that never seems to be unhappy, and is always optimistic. I love meeting these people, but it makes me wonder if happiness comes down to a lot of genetics as well. What if mental control will only get you so far, but to get true stress free happiness one must already have a genetically happy personality. Along with these "naturally" happy people I have met those who seem depressed and sad by nature. Depression is even a chemical problem that a person could have, but does this mean that complete happiness is a chemical gift that some may possess? Even if this is the case I do not plan on ever giving up on my attempt to reach "complete happiness" (complete happiness is what I am using to describe the stress-free and worry-free happiness I have been speaking of). I have found small fixes and daily tasks that can help get me closer to this goal, such as blogging, meditation, music, and many other things, but I am hoping for a more permanent and universal fix. I don't mean that I want a one time antidote to stress because I am aware that this is impossible as far as we know so far, but I am talking instead of a routine method that can be used to completely remove stress from a person's life. For me personally I have found that the more I focus on God the less I seem to stress, and I know that many are rolling their eyes because this is pretty well known knowledge. I am just wanting to point out how much it actually works to do that, but it is difficult to not succumb to the days of doubt and stress that seem so inevitable no matter how much faith you have in God. My most reason plan is to try to revisit meditation and prayer, but on a far more routine and obedient scale this time. In the past I was merely trying to see if meditation was actually effective. I know that many people laugh at the idea of meditation and see it as ridiculous, but I can say from experience that it does actually work. I found it incredibly helpful and relaxing when I meditated with no real experience or previous knowledge. One thing that draws me to meditation is the purpose of it. Meditation is intended to train your mind and give you control over it, and if this proves to be true then I am hoping to be able to gain better control of the stress that can plague my thoughts some days. I will also tell some of the far more obvious techniques that I have done which have worked wonderfully for me in removing stress from my life and making me an overall happier person; avoiding news as much as possible, removing television watching as much as possible, getting things done as soon as possible, spending time with people, limiting video games as much as possible, getting outside, writing down as much as you can, and many other things. Many of these may seem horrible and seem as if they would do the opposite of relax you, but you would be surprised at the results. Removing news is for obvious reasons, such as the constant negative information flowing from news sources, but the surprising ones are the removal of television and video games. Some people say that video games and television is their way of relaxing and I fully agree this is true for some, but I found that they are a source of stress in disguise. While video games are great most people can't help but get irritated, pressured to get the next achievement or level, and get a feeling of counter-productiveness. I have been playing video games for over a decade and they still will get my frustrated sometimes and I always feel like I have to do better and better. Video games are an endless cycle of "just a little bit more" because in the gaming universe there is always another level, achievement, or game. This makes a stressful feeling of never being good enough, and few even realize it is stressing them out so much. The other one is television and while it may seem relaxing while you are doing it, it comes with many hidden curses. Some of these are along the same lines as video games where you feel like you wasted time afterwards or get a sense of frustration while watching a show for any of a number of reasons. I realize that this does not apply to everyone and I may be in a party of one feeling this way, but I can definitely say that I am a lot less stressed when I watch no television and don't play video games. In the end I have found that the most stress relieving thing that I do is just listen to music and relax. So this is enough on my ways of relieving stress because it is different for each person. Thank you for reading and hopefully this is a good enough post to make up for missing a couple days.
Sincerely - CO

One Holiday One Name

This is a bit early, but a person made a comment to me and sparked the need for this post. This is about the name of Christmas. I just want to say that it is called CHRISTMAS, not X-mas or Holiday. People who call this anything but Christmas need to stop celebrating it all together. Trying to take Christ out of Christmas is the equivalent of trying to remove the United States from the Fourth of July. Jesus Christ is the entire reason Christmas exists, so no one should dare try to take him out of it. If you refuse to celebrate the birth of Christ, then you have no right to make any acknowledgement of a holiday during this season at all. I am tired of watching people give presents and yell "Happy X-mas" because that is so foolish and just a bad excuse to celebrate with presents. People are greedy and just want their gifts without the actual meaning behind them. This is not a holiday about gift giving or a holiday about Santa Claus. There is one reason and one reason alone that we celebrate the holiday known as Christmas, and that is the birth of Jesus Christ. Do you celebrate Easter because a magical bunny who pointlessly hides eggs once a year? I would hope not. I don't mean to be going on a rant, but this is just incredibly frustrating to have people remove the purpose for a holiday yet still want to celebrate it. The same goes with "Happy Holidays." This is not just some random holiday and you are not celebrating all the holidays at one time. Only one holiday occurs on December 25th, and it's name is Christmas. I never hear anyone saying "Happy Holidays" on any other holiday, so don't say it on this one. If you can't call it by its real name, then don't talk about it at all. This is not Harry Potter where just because you don't like something you can call it anything you want. I am sure that no one would like it if I decided I did not like their name because it has a biblical origin, such as Paul, Isaac, or Isaiah, so I just started calling them Person. This would be absurd, and very offensive to that person. They were given that name by their parents, and it would be disrespectful to call them anything except that unless they personally asked to be called something else. The same goes with Christmas. It is very disrespectful and ignorant to call Christmas anything, but that. I don't care what you believe or care about, but this holiday already has a name and is not in need of a new one. I realize that many people do not believe in Jesus Christ and the Christian religion, but this is a reason not to celebrate Christmas, not to change its name and celebrate it anyway. People act like changing the name removes the meaning of Christmas, but the name of a holiday does not create its meaning. You can't take Christ out of Christmas, because Christmas is because of Christ. Just by celebrating the holiday you are acknowledging that something special happened on December 25th, and that this was the birth of Christ. For all the factual readers I am aware that Christ was not actually born on December 25th, but that is the day we celebrate it so the point still stands. I am not trying to just rant and rave for a whole post, but this is something that I find to be incredibly ignorant. People have become so selfish that they believe they have the power to change the purpose of an entire holiday that has been around for centuries. I don't try to celebrate Hanukkah, but just call it a different name so I can say I am not actually celebrating it for Jewish reasons. That would be incredibly rude to the Jewish nation, and I realize that not believing in the Jewish faith means that I have no right to celebrate their holiday. Christmas is my favorite time of year and I love the joy involved in the holiday, but to watch what people are doing to it is incredible sad. We are trying to turn it into a holiday all about greed and selfishness, when that is the opposite of why it exists. People need to realize that this is not their birthday, but instead it is Jesus Christ's. The world acts like this is a second birthday for everyone in the world and it is all about the gift giving, and they could not be more wrong. Maybe if people would move away from this mentality there would be far less craziness on Black Friday and a huge decrease in stress levels at this time of year. There is no reason people should be stressing during the Christmas season because the presents don't matter. We should rejoice in the salvation that we have been given through the birth of Jesus Christ, and that should relieve all our stress. Jesus gave us all a gift, and it is far greater than the toy or game you will receive this year.

A World Measured In Gigabytes

It is an extremely common fact that our world is getting more and more digitalized. The amount of things being done on computers is growing exponentially. I promise to those reading that this isn't going to be an anti-technology post, but instead a discussion on how virtual will our reality become. I am not saying that in a way to symbolically communicate that we are advancing too fast or that technology needs to stop growing, but instead just a simple question as a result of curiosity. I know that many will immediately want to say that eventually everything that can possibly be electronic will be, but I am not so sure if I completely agree. I say that because we have already may some large steps towards a virtual society when we began the widespread use of e-readers and having paperless classrooms, but is this really catching on? Many schools are getting things like laptops and tablets to do work on, and even when I was in high school we had recently gotten the addition of Smart Boards to our classrooms. Even with theses advancements I still see plenty, if not the vast majority, of students still carrying around a backpack full of textbooks and taking notes with pen and paper. I do have to admit to seeing more and more students using laptops in college classes for note taking, but there is still a large majority who strongly dislike typing out their notes. For me it depended heavily on the type of class. Some classes were great for just plugging away on a keyboard for notes, like history classes, but others, such as math and science, were almost impossible to type out notes for. This was mostly due to the addition of diagrams and pictures within my notes that a computer could not easily or quickly produce. Then we move onto e-readers such as the Kindle, IPad, and pretty much every other tablet and smart phone on the market. These have become incredibly popular, but by what I have noticed they are largely used for productivity and gaming. Most people that I meet still prefer to read a paper book or have a physical textbook. I personally would take a hard cover book over a kindle book any day. The reason behind this is mostly unclear to me and I just seem to prefer to hold the physical copy of the text in my hands. I know that there are many out there who love reading digital books, and there are a great many pros to e-readers. The usefulness of technology is not at question here because I know that technology advancement has many pros. What I am wondering is how likely it is that we will move to a completely digital era where libraries no longer exist (at least physical ones do not), writing by hand is a lost art, paper is the equivalent of stone tablets, human cashiers are no longer needed, and anything else that people can make digital.  This seems like the future we are heading towards, yet people seem to still be holding on to things like books and records. Talking about records, the music industry is seeing a large comeback in vinyl. In a time that we thought everything was becoming an mp3 we are having a massive popularity in bringing back vinyl. Even modern bands are releasing albums in vinyl. I can personally say that I have a record player in my room with a decent collection of albums, but I also have a type writer and an 8mm projector so I am not sure if that helps reflect society at all. A lot of people will blame to being part of the "hipster" movement that is going through the college generation right now, but are college students not the future working class? If this is getting more and more popular than maybe once the college generation right now gets older we will see a slight decrease in the movement towards an electronic future. Maybe a completely digital society is like an asymptote on our graph of life where it is an area that exists but we will never reach it due to our unwillingness to complete let go of items such as books, vinyl, pen and paper, and many other things. We will forever get closer and closer to it, but never completely make the transition.
Sincerely - CO

Locked 6 Feet Underground

Many people will argue that chasing after beauty and physical appearance is shallow and foolish, but that one should chase for knowledge and intellect. I will agree that obtaining knowledge is far better than acquiring physical beauty, but why go after either? We teach people that being smart is the key to success in life, yet I strongly disagree. It is the key to success in THIS life, but what good will the knowledge do once it is laying in a box six feet under the surface doing nothing? This may sound a bit dark, but it is the truth. This is a truth that I came to realize about a year ago. I was chasing after a physics degree at the University of Tennessee when I began to think about my death. To some this may sound creepy, but I am not referring to the actual act of me dying, but what my death will mean and how I will feel about my life right before death comes to me. This is a very popular question for many philosophers. Everyone has heard the big speeches on how wealth is meaningless and cannot be taken with you once you die. Side Note: I want to share my religious beliefs so that people will understand where I stand and what I mean when I make certain comments such as "THIS life." I am a Christian. Some may ask what denomination I am, but to them I will reply with the same answer that I am a Christian. I do not group myself, and find the idea of denominations within the Christian faith saddening and a great weakness for Christians. End of Side Note. So we understand that collecting massive amounts of wealth, though many may still do so, is self-centered and only an earthly desire. What I am trying to say is that the pursuit of knowledge is the same thing. We have all heard of the people who describe themselves as "not being people persons" and they usually spend their hours with hobbies or obtaining knowledge/skills. Is this any different then the greedy Scrooge who shunned people in his pursuit of more wealth? Knowledge is just as much for ourselves as it is for anyone else. It is true that some use their great intelligence to help people, but the same can be said about money. There are people in this world who have acquired great wealth honestly and use it to better others lives as well. This is a great use of wealth and there is nothing wrong with it, but when the wealth is used purely for selfish, self-indulging reasons then it has become corruptive. Knowledge is the same way. If one uses their knowledge to help the people around them then it is a great gift that God has given to the person, but if their knowledge is used against others or is hoarded up inside their head for their own enjoyment then it as well has become corrupt. I am not saying that one should not become an intelligent person because they should. There is a large difference between being educated and chasing after knowledge relentlessly. During my freshman year of college I was on a path where I wanted to learn as much as I possibly could, and I was not doing it to better society. I wanted it because I felt a satisfaction from becoming smarter and smarter. It corrupted me the more knowledge I gained because with each bit of intellect came a growing ego. Everyone can see where this is going. It becomes a snowball effect the same way money does for a person. The actual paper money is not evil or bad at all, but what we do with it is. Same goes for knowledge. When it comes to death, knowledge is the same as money. All those things you learned are going to sit in your head or disappear when you die. Honestly I am not really sure how it exactly works when you die of course, but I am positive the earthly knowledge will have no value where we are going after death just like earthly treasure will carry no value. Some may be fussing in their head that in one's life they could write books upon books to leave their knowledge to the world which is very true, but will those books not eventually decay as well? Maybe you passed on what you know to someone else, but can you not do the same with your money? All that will create is the knowledge being passed down from generation to generation never actually gaining any value for a person after death. It will always be an earthly treasure. My point to all of this is that we should be making our focus not on appearance or knowledge, but on other people. The souls of the people you interact with every day will carry on after death, and will remain just as valuable. The connections you make with people will change them and could effect their future for eternity. People want to say "I am just not a people person" and to them I respond "to what value then do you have to God." This may sound harsh, but is it not true? God loves everyone equally no matter where or who you are, but God wants to grow his kingdom. Not being a people person does nothing for God's kingdom and does nothing for God. He will still love you just as much as anyone else, but you will serve no purpose for him because the only thing that will be increasing in your life are things that are worthless to God. I don't say this to sound condescending or to tell people that what they are doing is a waist of time, but I say it only to share with people a fact that changed my life. Those of you working towards a career or already in one, that is great and there is nothing wrong with it. Gaining knowledge is great, but it is how you use it that matters. It is fine to use it to get a great job or advance your career, that is why you got it in the first place most likely, but do not forget about all the other people while you are doing it. I made a personal decision to change my major and dedicate my life to God as a pastor. That was merely a personal thing that I felt God has been leading me too, but I do not think that if you do not do this that it is wrong. I actually believe the opposite because many people do amazing things with their knowledge and in their careers that save lives and help thousands of people. My only complaint with society is that we need to get back to the important things in life and that is people.
Sincerely - CO

Coworkers

So I have decided to post again today because I have missed a few days and just want to do some typing right now. The topic I want to at least start on is coworkers because so many people hate or at least strongly dislike a lot of their coworkers or bosses. I honestly don't understand this a lot because I have never had problems with coworkers or bosses in any of the three jobs I have worked so far. I stayed in my first job for three years and loved. If it wasn't for me becoming a giant slacker through my freshman year of college I would still have it. Then my second job came around, which was also in the food industry, and I loved that job as well. The people at both places were great, welcoming, and the managers were all really cool. I never had enemies. Granted there were some people I didn't agree with on some things and we weren't close friends, but I didn't ever have a true enemy or someone who I argued with on a regular basis. Also take into this was the food industry which is known for being a very stressful and poor coworker and boss atmosphere. I realize that there are special cases where bosses truly are unbearable, do horrible things, and treat people terribly, but I believe that for the most part how much you enjoy work and get along with coworkers is completely up to yourself. Yes people can sometimes be annoying, but it is you who chooses how you react to that. You can brush it off, realize how insignificant it is, and make friends or at least not enemies with them anyways. This may be hard to do and take a lot of will power, but it will definitely be worth it. I cannot tell you how many times a certain relative of mine has job hopped due to drama at work. It makes you miserable because you spend a ton of time at your job. Do you like drama in your family? I would guess for most that you do not, and statistically people spend almost as much if not more time at work than they do with their families (yes, this is a very sad fact). So why would you want work to be filled with drama and people you don't get along with? There is more than two people that you have problems with at work odds are you are at least a good portion to blame for this. Fighting and arguing takes two or more people, not just one. I am not trying to act perfect because I have definitely gotten in disagreements with coworker, but never at the cost of a friendship. They are always resolved by the end of the discussion and I can usual make sure no one walks away hating or strongly disliking the other person. Just remember that contrary to popular belief...you are not the center of the world. I know this is Earth shattering news to some, but it can be a huge eye opener. You are just another employee just like they are, and maybe, just maybe, you don't have the greatest and brightest ideas all the time. Realize that from their perspective they think they are just as right as you do. People get in this mind set that everyone else in the world are complete idiots, and they know how to do things better than everyone else. Of course you think your ideas are best because they are YOUR ideas! Your manager is your manager for a reason. Granted some get into position like that based on politics and butt kissing, but for the most part people are in positions of leadership because they were once in your shoes and were promoted. This means that they probably know what they are doing, not always but most of the time. Most employees want to think that they can run everything better than every boss they work under, yet they have no clue what the boss's job actually consists of doing. I worked for one manager who told me that he use to think managing a restaurant seemed so much easier than the hourly employee job until he got into the position and realized how much stuff that they have to do that no one even sees. Then he thought that the General Manager must have it easier then, but then he got there and realized their job was even harder than the regular manager's job. The grass is always greener on the other side, but they are paid more for a reason. Most of the time when you think a job seems like a piece of cake it is because you have only seen a small portion of the job. So before you get all ticked off because your manager can be a jerk sometimes (not excusing being a jerk to people which is completely not cool) just think about all the crap he might have to do on a daily basis that you never see, all the crappy employees he has to put up with (possibly even yourself included), all the crap he might get from his bosses which could be even worse than he is, and still be making the crappy pay that most restaurant managers make. Often time anger is like a snowball that starts at the top of the chain and works its way down until it is unloaded onto an hourly employee. I use to wonder why one of my managers were always in a bad mood, but then one day I saw how crappy her boss treated her and realized exactly what put her in the bad moods. You are not the only one in the world with problems, and honestly, based on the average American problems, your problems are probably absolutely nothing! I am not trying to act like I am happy all the time and that life is just a giant box of rainbows and joy because its not. I am just saying that it all comes down to perspective. There are plenty of times that I get down and ticked off, but I usually don't stay that way for very long. This is a change that I have undergone recently, and I love it. It has changed everything I do because now I don't stress nearly as much and get along amazing with people. I use to have anger issues as a kid and was a giant worry wart, but then I realized how much my problems don't matter and tried looking from the other person's perspective. It is easy to get angry and to want to get back at another person, but what takes true talent and work is choosing to not let it effect you and returning that bad treatment from the person with kindness. I know it sounds super cheesy, but it is completely true. Most people don't expect you to respond nicely when they are being hateful and are looking for some drama, so when you respond nicely and don't get upset it will often times leave them very shocked. This could even change their mood completely and make them feel ridiculous for being a jerk. I know I commented in the last post how crappy society is becoming, but at the same time people still are genuinely nice (most of them). If you just don't attack back and sometimes just listen and let the person get it all off their chest, then it may never turn into the drama scene it would if you started firing back. Most people don't want to be hateful and mean, but just get caught up in the moment and their emotions. Some people say that it is good to argue and get things out, and I completely disagree. It is good to not bottle things up and to get things off your chest (or vent) but this does not have to mean getting in an argument. Arguments are not good no matter how they happen and to whom they are happening with. They don't solve problems, and usually result in just more anger and problems. I want to clarify that there is a big difference between arguing and debating. I love to debate with people all day and bounce feelings and ideas back and forth, but I can't stand to argue. I will end here and stop rambling on about things that everyone has heard over and over again for years. From a person who has had anger issues to the point of receiving an anger management video from another kid as a birthday present, just don't do it. Don't fire back and get revenge. It solves nothing.
Sincerely - CO

The Road Less Traveled

My apologies for taking so long to put another post on here. Things have been busy the past few days and I have not gotten a chance to make another post. Some may resort to just throwing together a tiny insignificant post just to make sure they have one for that day, but I only want to write posts that are longa and have meaning. I am not saying that a post has to be long to have meaning, but I am merely stating that I want it to be a solid, good post. If I can't take the time in a day to sit down and write a good, lengthy post then I would rather not write one at all for that day. With that said I am going to try and cover quite a few topics today, and most are about the giant road that so many travel down in our society and the thin, narrow road that few even look at. I love Christmas, and it is by far my most favorite season of the year. I am so enticed by this holiday and season because of all the joy that is connected to it and how it is such a cheerful time. There are things going on though that are getting worse and worse and they are really beginning to irritate me. I will try to not be the typical blogger critic who spends all his or her posts just complaining about everything he or she can think of, but this does need to be stated. I can't stand the complainers who just complain just to complain and feel important, so I am writing this in hopes that someone may read it and actually take it to heart. BLACK FRIDAY NEEDS TO STOP!! It sickens me how people act on Black Friday. Okay I get it you want a deal, and you want to save some money when buying gifts. That is great, and I like a good deal too, but at what cost? First, lets get a few things straight, Black Friday does not give you a deal on much at all. Everything is marked up an average of 30%, so if you are not getting an item at more than at least 30% off then you are actually getting no deal at all. Second, the items you are buying are special Black Friday items that are made with far cheaper materials. This is why a lot of the electronics malfunction or break shortly after Christmas, and the month of January is spent returning things or getting angry over stuff that has stopped working. Companies anticipate Black Friday and make things a lot cheaper to make sure they are still making a nice, fat profit. So when you thing you are getting a steal of a deal you are not, and you are actually getting exactly what you pay for. You pay less and you get less. For the sake of my point though lets disregard those two truths and pretend that you actually are getting an amazing deal. How much morality and humanity are you giving up to save those few dollars? There is the typical complaint about it starting on Thanksgiving, which many have heard before from others I would guess. This is true though, because that is an entire day dedicated to giving thanks for our good fortune and all the things in our lives that God has graced us with. Instead of doing this though millions of people freak out over Black Friday, loose sight of the important things in life, act like a brutish animal, leave their families, and spend their Thanksgiving fighting people for items that will eventually break or decay like everything else. It just drives me crazy how materialistic people have become. I get that you want the deal, but for Black Friday I did not leave my house until around 4:30 and I casually went to one store, got what I wanted, and left. I still got my deal, I still got the gift I needed to buy, I still got it very cheap, and I did it all without missing time with my loved ones or fighting people to do it. I am not saying that Black Friday as a day needs to stop, but how we go about it has to stop. Stores should not open until 7 or 8 in the morning on Friday like they always do, and people just need to calm down. How sad and barbaric are we when we will stab another person over a parking spot or trample a person to death over a discounted toy? It sickens me to hear about things like that and if I had been a police officer at that Wal-Mart when that happened I would have started arresting everyone in the front of the line who even walked by that poor employee without helping or stopping. For a person to be trampled to death at least 40 to 50 people had to have walked by him stepping on and kicking him as they did so without even caring enough to help. So 40 to 50 people (probably even more) participated in killing a person so they could save some money. Does anyone remember the movie where the couple got a choice to push a red button and receive a million dollars, but someone in the world would die? The majority of people would agree that this is morally wrong and you should not hit the button, but by what I see Black Friday is even worse! Not only are we killing someone, but we aren't even getting a million dollars for it. We are doing just to save at most probably around $100 to $150 dollars. This is less than half the price of the new game consoles that just came out! So as a society we are agreeing that a human life is worth less than $100 and in that case we need to let all the hit-mans and assassins know because they charge an average rate of close to $20,000. If only the angry wives knew that all they had to do was pay a Wal-Mart customer $100 to kill their husband instead of a hit-man thousands. This should be a season of joy and happiness, but because of greedy, self-centered Americans there is multiple families grieving this season over injured family members and even one that is grieving the loss of a loved one who was only there because he needed to work. We have become a society centered completely around ourselves and we are raised with the lesson that our own success is the most important thing. We trample over anyone who gets in our way (pun not intended). It infuriates me to watch how people deal with others in the world. People are so focused on their own lives that they treat everyone else like dirt. I will stop rambling on about this, because it is something that is so obvious in society yet so ignored. I went on for a bit too long with that one topic, but I believe that it needed the attention. The next thing I want to talk about is another topic that is no more happy then the previous one, and that is the things that are beginning to become acceptable in our society. I just want to point out that the title is what it is for a reason, and that is because I am talking about things that are becoming major problems. This applies to so many things from television to clothing, but the biggest one that bothers me the most is television and movies. Clothing is definitely a probably with it getting more and more promiscuous, but I won't go on and on about that. I feel like the former is a much larger issue. TV and movies is a huge part of our society now, and almost every kid is raised watching one if not both. I have been noticing the more and more that I go out to the movies or turn on the TV that it is getting exponentially worse. I will flip to a simple show on TV and start watching when all of a sudden this incredibly vulgar joke is made or this scene appears that is very inappropriate. I don't mean to sound like the old grandpa about this, but how much is too much? I child could have accessed the exact channel that I was watching. It was not an adult channel, but rather just one of the average channels among the basic listings. It would infuriate me if I had a child and he was watching what appeared to be a funny show that all of a sudden started talking like that and showing extremely unnecessary scenes. It did not add anything to the show or make it any funnier. It is beginning to get to the point where we cannot have a show or movie without some form of sexual theme to it. If you are a giant pervert and want that in your movies and shows then go on the internet because there is tons of it for you, but keep it out of basic cable and movies. I can't stand to be watching a great movie, but have it be ruined by a completely unnecessary scene that added nothing to the plot. It is different if movie just "implied" that something happened, but to come right out and borderline make a pornography for a few minutes in the film is completely ridiculous. A great movie to use as an example is the movie Internship. Don't worry I won't give any spoilers, but I will say that the movie overall was very mild. There wasn't hardly any inappropriate jokes or bad language through the whole film except for one small scene that lasted probably about 15 to 20 minutes. It showed multiple scenes of nudity for long periods of time and was extremely sexual. It added nothing to the plot of the story that could not have been achieved much easier, and it did not fit with the entire rest of the movie. I feel like those things are added because the director is probably some old guy who wants to film some boobs and uses his movie as an excuse to do it. Everyone knows what I am talking about when I mention the obviously not needed scenes in movies where there is just random nudity for no apparent reason. If a person wants to see that then go watch porn like all the other perverts out there, but a movie should be based on plot and acting not the amount of sexual comments or scenes you can show. The rating of these movies are also getting lower and lower. What would have been considered an X rated movie is now in the R rated range and things that would have definitely been R rated have become PG13. We have these ratings for a reason and that is so parents can make sure their kids aren't opened up to all that. I know some will yell and say that a child needs to be opened up to how society truly is, and to that I say bull crap. It is bad enough that society is actually like that, but that does not mean that an innocent kid needs to see it or hear it. It is proven that the earlier you are introduced to those kinds of things the more okay you will think they are. We need to get a grip on our morality and realize how far our values have fallen. This change in our film and TV is having a huge affect on the coming generations. They are getting more and more number to things that they shouldn't even know about at their age. What is sad is that I wanted to end the post on a happy note after all the negativity, but I can't think of any news that I have gotten lately that is happy (this is why I avoid the news completely). Everything I have heard about lately involves Black Friday attacks and madness, more crime, or other depressing things happening around the world. I just wish we could get back to the important things in life and that is people. I wish we would stop focusing so much on ourselves and start focusing on others. There needs to be less sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and more love (not that kind of love), people gathering together, and joy. What I feel for our society is not so much anger or hatred, but more along the lines of great sadness for the condition we are in and the even worse future we are heading towards. For any people who agree and want to see more love and caring in our world please comment or follow or anything else you can do because it would really mean a lot to me to see that there are others who want to get back to the important things in life.
Sincerely - CO