The True Definition of a Successful Person

If I ask most Americans how they define a successful person, many of them will have similar answers. Most people think that a successful person is a person that goes to college, graduates, attains a corporate job/start their own business, have a family, and eventually retire. That is society’s definition of success and we were taught this at a young age.

Think back to when you were in elementary school before you knew about society’s definition of a successful person. Remember when your teacher asked you what did you want to be when you grow up; how many of you became what you wanted to be when you were younger, and how many of you chose certain careers simply because of how much money you would earn? It is rare to hear people talk about a successful person without mentioning how much money they earn. Nowadays, everything involving success is about making a lot of money and living comfortably, but in the midst of becoming “successful” these successful people have forgotten about the importance of being happy and an overall joyous human being.

I know plenty of “successful people” and they may have a lot of money and materialistic things, but so many of them are miserable, angry, or sad all of the time. They sacrifice so much of their time for money, they purchase all of these expensive things, and they hope to eventually find permanent inner peace and lasting happiness, and they never do. Talk to an elderly person, ask them if they could rewind the hands of time would they live their life differently, and I promise that they would give you a long list of things that they would change.

You don’t have to be one of those people that reflect on the past and wish that they would have spent their life doing what they love to do, instead of doing what made them a lot of money. You could live a simple life, dedicating the majority of your time to doing what you love to do; you can earn income from doing it, granted, it might not be a lot depending on what you choose to do, but if happiness is more important than money this should not bother you.

If you love to paint become a painter, if you love to make music become a musician, if you love to write find the time to write a book. The best way to decide what type of career will bring you happiness is to take a look at your hobbies. Think about what you do in your spare time that makes you happy and temporarily take your mind off of all of your problems; is this something that you can turn into a career? If so, then the next step is to decide how you will transition from a career that doesn’t involve you doing what you love to do to one that does.

Make a plan with minor goals for you to accomplish that will lead you to your overall goal. Research the hobby that you want to turn into a career, and see how other people accomplished this, and find articles that will aid you in devising this plan. There is a vast amount of information on the internet, so this should not be a difficult task.

Cut back on your spending; think about the things that you buy and really don’t need and invest that money into purchasing what you need to start your new career. Try to accomplish something daily that will contribute to you completely making this transition.

Don’t let naysayers hinder your progress and talk you out of what you are trying to do. This will try to do this, because everyone won’t understand your vision and your goals, but you can’t let them stop you. When you start to have doubts, think about what you are doing, why you are doing it, rework your plan off and on, and never give up. 

Awake Within a Dream

Yesterday I had a discussion with someone about lucid dreaming, and we ended up discussing the different types of methods that people use to have outer body experiences. Now, I don’t usually discuss my personal experiences when it comes to some spiritual things, because most people don’t understand or some of them will assume that what I am saying isn’t true simply because they haven’t personally experienced it. Lately I have been starting to care less about what other people think when it comes to me discussing this subject, so on this day I told her about my personal experience.

When I was 11 years’ old I could remember going inside of my house to take a nap, because I had been outside playing with my friends most of the day. When I went into my bedroom, I had lain down because I was very tired. After I opened my eyes, I noticed that I was sitting on the edge of my bed and as I looked around my room there was nothing in it except for the bed that I was sitting on. As I stood up on my feet, I felt weightless, as if I didn’t weigh a single pound. I could see something beginning to appear on my bed, once I could completely see what it was; I realized that it was me. How could I be standing up and lying on my bed at the same time? I started to panic, because I honestly thought that I was dead. As I looked around my bedroom everything began to become visible, and it looked exactly how it was before I fell asleep.

I walked outside of my bedroom and I saw nothing, the whole house was empty, and all of a sudden everything and everyone in the house started to appear where they were before I went to bed, but there were a few things that were different. My aunt and my cousin were at my house, and they weren’t there before I fell asleep. My mother and father were watching a different show on television, and there were groceries on the kitchen table, which were not there before I fell asleep. I made attempts to get their attention, but nothing worked. I could even tap them on the arm and shoulders while attempting to get their attention, but nothing would happen, they just continued to talk as if they couldn’t feel or hear me.

I started to become frustrated, and at that moment, everything disappeared. Everything around me turned white, and I became trapped in this empty space with no way to escape it. A lot of numbers and shapes started to appear, there were so many that the white parts of this empty space that I was in became difficult to see. I closed my eyes and when I opened them I was back inside of my house. There was something coming out of me and it was colorful, but they were colors that I haven’t seen before, it was coming from me and going towards my bedroom. It was broken off in the middle and the other half was coming towards me from in my bedroom. It looked like mist, but it was, thin, spinning, and it was very colorful and bright. Both ends of this mist were about to come in contact with each other, and the closer they got to each other the more I could feel myself losing control. When both ends finally connected I shattered into a lot of pieces and I could see each piece as it sped towards my bedroom, and the light that was emitting from me was extremely bright and pulsating. After the last piece went away it pulled all of me in the same direction, and this colorful mist was connected to me and my body that was on the bed.

All of a sudden, I woke up and I could barely breathe. I walked through the inside of my house like I did when I was asleep, and everything looked exactly like it did in my dream. My aunt and cousin were there, the groceries were on the table, my parents were watching the same movie, and my aunt and cousin were having the same conversation. I never told anyone about this, because I knew that no one would understand. It would be almost sixteen years later before I had this experience again, but this time I learned how to have outer body experiences on my own without having to wait for them to randomly happen. Lucid dreaming was something that just started to occur regularly after I turn 26 years’ old, and they still continue to happen, but it wasn’t until I meditated during a lucid dream that I came to understand how to have an outer body experience whenever I wanted to have one.

I was in a dream that had a lot of people around me, and I made them all disappear, if you have been lucid dreaming for a while this is most likely an easy thing for you to do. I didn’t like the location of the dream, so I made myself appear at a beach. I changed the sky to yellow, purple, and dark blue, and the sun was green. I floated there, in the sky, looking down at the sand and the water, and then I closed my eyes. I did Isha Kriya meditation for as long as I could without losing focus. I was doing this for what seemed like a long time, and I started to see visions of me, but physically I knew that it wasn’t the person that I am now, meaning that it was a different body, but it felt like I was watching something that I saw before. I was with a child and a woman on a beach similar to the one that I was at while meditating. For some reason I started to become afraid. I felt like I was becoming trapped in this dream, and when I opened my eyes I was standing right beside my body, just like I was when I was 11 years’ old.

Social Media and Relationships

Love can be a beautiful thing, and when you are in love you want the whole world to know. People tend to get on sites such as Facebook and express how good or bad their relationship is going. Most people discuss the good things, while some speak of the bad ones. The thing that a lot of people tend to forget is that the statuses that they are posting will be viewed by hundreds, maybe thousands of people. First, I will break down how people view the things that you post about your relationship.  

About 50% of your Facebook friends will think it is nice that you are posting the good things about your relationship, or they will be truly concerned about the bad things that you post. Each of those Facebook friends might even be in relationship too. Those are the main ones that will like or comment on your status.

There will be about another 40% that will not see it or they will see it, but they will not pay much attention to it. This does not mean that they dislike you or that they are jealous of you, it just means that the status may not interest them or perhaps they did not get online that day.

Finally, there is one more group; this is the final 10%. This is the group that is jealous because you have something that they wished they had. They could be the ones that were single for a long time, and constantly see you updating your status saying how much you love your significant other, and how happy you are to be with them. Your happiness hurts them, because they want to experience true love, and knowing that you have found that before they did makes them want to ruin what you have going on with the person you love.

The 10% will do whatever it takes to put an end to your relationship or to cause problems for you and your significant other. They will also do whatever they have to in order for them to find out who you are in a relationship with, and they will ease their way into his or her life. They may start out by liking some of their statuses or pictures. They may comment on their page off and on. Eventually they will message the person that you are in a relationship with. They will pretend to only want to be their friend, like most people do when they first meet. Eventually, the person that you are in a relationship with may give him/her their phone number so that they can contact each other outside of Facebook. Most men are aware of the real reason that they are getting a girl’s phone number, and that she may want more than a friendship if he is in a relationship, because plenty of women want what another woman already has. Females on the other hand may not realize a man’s intentions, especially if they are approached while in a vulnerable state. I am not saying that all men wait until a woman is going through problems before they get to know her because it will be easier to get what they want when she is like that, but a lot of them do.

Once the person from the 10% gets your boyfriend/girlfriend to contact them outside of Facebook the next step will be for them to meet in person. Plenty of you may read this and say that your man or woman will never fall for that, but you would be surprised at how wrong you are. And if you think that way, you probably were already in that situation and were unaware of it. The 10% of people who are jealous of your relationship will go through a lot to hurt your feelings and end your relationship, but there are ways to avoid this.

1. Always be aware of statuses that people may make toward you without saying your name. Some people will make it known that they are jealous, but they will create a subliminal status to get it off of their chest, while keeping your name out of it. You can easily delete them before they even attempt to break up your relationship. 
2. Pay attention to the people who comment and like your status. Most of them may have good intentions, but some of them may comment or like your status only to be nosy, and to see all of the comments that you receive on it before they inbox and attempt to try to get to know you while you are going through relationship problems.
3. You need to understand that anyone can become jealous. Do not think that only your enemies and people who you do not know will try to sabotage your relationship, because a friend will do it too. Think about it, a friend sees you talking about your how good your relationship is online, and in person. If it is a friend that is not loyal they will eventually get curious about what he or she is doing to make you so happy. As time passes they will want what is yours. Even though you all may hang out together in person that might be too risky for him/her to try to talk to your man or woman when you are around. They may flirt with your significant other while you all are in public, when you are not paying attention, but they will not do anything to make you curious. Ask yourself, what is the easiest way for them to try to talk your boyfriend or girlfriend? The answer is by messaging them on Facebook or a similar social media site.
4. Be aware of a person pretending to care in order to get close to you and to separate you from the person you are with. Everyone needs advice sometime, but be aware of people that will try manipulate you to get what they want. We can easily say Facebook destroys relationships, but we as humans have free will so we are the only ones can mess up our relationships by giving in to temptation, and by not showing self-control.

Why are you afraid?

A wise man once said that fear is a form of insanity, because we fear situations that we have yet to experience. Think about it; you might fear that you are going to lose your job, you might fear that you won’t have enough money to pay your bills by the time they are due, you might fear that your boyfriend/girlfriend might break up with you, all of these things are scenarios that you have created, because you are letting external situations control you instead of you controlling those external situations.

These different scenarios that you create with your imagination are the type of scenarios that creates fear. How many times have you been afraid of what might happen only to find out that things did not turn out the way that you thought they were going to turn out, and you realized that you were afraid for no reason at all? This form of insanity has become acceptable, because most humans suffer from it. We believe that it is normal for humans to fear the unknown, but you can change this way of thinking.

To overcome fear you have to step outside of your imagination, and live within reality. Your imagination will drive you crazy if you constantly use it to try and figure out what might happen in the future. When you are rooted in reality, and focused on the present, you will not worry about what might happen, and you will devote the energy that you were wasting on fear into regaining control of the situations that caused you to be afraid in the first place.

Life is too short to live it fearing things/situations that have yet to come into existence; it is a terrible way to live. Remember that we all have freewill and you can use that freewill to fear what might happen in the future, or you can use it to regain control of those external situations that are making you imagine what might happen. Do you want to live your life consumed by your fears or do you want to live your life to the fullest? The choice is yours.

SHE DESERVED TO BE RAPED?

A few days ago I was at a store not too far from where I live, and I overheard two guys, and a woman talking about another woman that accused a guy of raping her. I can tell that they didn’t believe her, it also seemed as if they personally knew this woman. The woman said that the girl was a liar and an attention whore. That is when one of the men said, "She is always dressing like a whore; if it did happen she probably led him on."

Lately, I have been hearing plenty of men saying that women deserve to be disrespected if they wear revealing clothing. In this particular case, the woman in the store agreed with them. Sometimes I think that men just speak without even taking a second to think about how stupid they are about to sound. I don’t care how revealing a woman’s clothing is, no woman deserves to be raped, or disrespected because of what they are wearing.

Men are known for making those ignorant comments, but it really baffled me to know that there are women that agree with them. If it was their sister, mother, or their daughter being violated for what they were wearing, I am positive that they would start to see things differently. It is a shame that it takes for a person to personally go through this, or for them to have a friend or family member become a rape victim before they realize how insensitive they were being by disrespecting those women that have been hurt by these animals.

When people say that women deserve to be disrespected because of what they are wearing, they encourage this type of behavior and make it acceptable by blaming the victim. These women aren’t asking to be disrespected; they are not asking these men -not men, more like sexual predators- to rape them. We need to hold these men accountable for their actions instead of demonizing the victim who had no control over the person that chose hurt her.

I don’t expect too many men to change their ways, because for years women have been trying to show them that they should be respected regardless of how they are dressed, and they are still blaming the victims. I hope that all of the women that have started to support the nonsense that some of these men have been spewing will realize that women have been through too much throughout our history, and to tear each other down by saying that some women deserve to be violated isn't conducive to all of things that women have been fighting for and are still fighting for.

The next time that any of my readers see a woman that is wearing revealing clothing; don’t be so quick to assume that she is a whore or a slut. Some women are proud of their bodies and they love to show it off, it doesn’t mean that they should be hurt because of it. There are some women that like to rebel against what most people consider to be normal, and by wearing what they want they are showing the world that they refuse to conform to what society views as being acceptable. I used to be one of those foolish men, judging women based on their appearance. Now I know that I should never do that, and maybe, one day, the majority of men in the world will see things the way that I see them.

Alone but not lonely

When I say that I feel alone, I don't mean that I physically feel alone. I feel that the way that I think and the way that I see the world is different from the way that a lot of people see the world. I feel like I am a prisoner being held hostage by my own thoughts. It doesn't matter how much I try to escape them, they always follow me and they will never let me get away. I often wish that I didn't have the urge to want to change the world. I often wish that I wasn't obsessed with finding out how humans came into existence, and what our purpose is in life. I often wish that people could see the world the way that I see it, and realize that by uniting, and setting aside our differences we could make this world a better place for us all.

If you saw the movie called the matrix then you could understand how I feel. I see people going to work everyday , and slaving their lives away only to continue to struggle. I see wars being fought, not for our freedom, but to benefit the wealthy and those that are in power. I see big pharmaceutical companies keeping cures from the public, because there is more money to be made by managing our illnesses instead curing them. I see people being forced to sell drugs, rob people, live on the streets, and live paycheck to paycheck because the monetary system is flawed, and designed to create these problems. I see people voting during election season not realizing that their vote means nothing at all. I see the media and the government manipulating the public on a daily basis. I see all of these things, but I see so many people that don't see them happening, or they see them happening, but they are too afraid to stand up and make things better.

As I said before, I am a prisoner being held hostage by my own thoughts. I used to be different and I used to think differently. Now I feel like I am trapped in a world surrounded by mental slaves, and I feel that it is my duty to wake up as many of them as possible. There are times that I want to go back to the days where I didn't care about any of these things, but if I had the chance to do that I am positive that I wouldn't do it.

WANTS VS NEEDS

I often hear women say that there are no more good men in the world. When I hear that I instantly feel the urge to correct them. There are a lot of good men in this world, the reason that a lot of of women can’t find a good man is because they let their wants over power the things that they need in a man. This can easily lead to a woman giving her heart to the wrong man. The outcome is usually her thinking that all men are the same due to her poor choice in men.

These type of women think that they NEED a man that looks perfect, has a lot of materialistic things, or one that’s popular and makes plenty of money. All of those things are not needs, those are wants, and a great deal of women tend to confuse those two things.The only things that a woman “needs” from a man is for him to treat her like a queen, love her with all of his heart, have goals to become successful. He should be faithful and respectful, and he should always do what he can to keep her satisfied. Those things that I just listed are the only things that a woman  really needs from a man, but when you let the things that you want in a man overpower the things that you need in a man you tend to end up with a man that will only be in your life temporarily. 

I am not saying that you shouldn't look for a man that possesses some of the things that you want in a man, what I am saying is that you should put your needs first and realize that even if he don’t have the things you want in a man you could still build a strong relationship off of him being able to fulfill your needs. When you go for what you need in a relationship you will start to attract good men, and realize that you were wrong when you assumed that good men didn't exist anymore, and you will see that you were just looking for the wrong things, which lead to you finding the wrong type of men.