Faulty common beliefs

Do your parents know best for you? No, you know best for you, and if you don't, you better start making it so.

"Casual sex is all about physicality, not about psychology". Wrong. Casual sex is possible by projecting a personality onto a stranger. When you get to know someone better it's less easy to project a personality on them. You must actually like them for who they are. Casual sex is very much about psychology, only it involves projection rather than actual knowledge of the partner.

Does god exit? No. "God" is an invention of man, held as a belief out of conformity, psychological weakness or lack of critical, logical thinking on the subject.

"Bad guys get away with it". Wrong. Bad guys may not feel guilt, but the way they experience life is influenced by their principles making them less happy or even full of negative feelings toward themselves, the world and other people. Their punishment is a spiritual one - and not in the afterlife. (there is no afterlife).

"Being practical means that I go after the career that offers the most money with the most stability". Wrong - being "practical" is realizing that your life is only worth something by being exiting and happy, therefore pursuing a career that will satisfy and engage you - level of lifestyle comes second. What good is a great apartment if you come home to it unhappy and tired?

"Ah... the ideal life is life without having to work, only sitting in a Jacuzzi and watching TV with my friends". Badly mistaken.
The happiest people are those who engage in the adventure of using their skills to create new things. They can experience pride and satisfaction in their own mind, independently of others - it makes you strong and gives your life a sense of purpose. It allows you to experience that you can do things well, which is fuel for living. True relaxation comes with a productive lifestyle, not without.

"If I lie, I benefit from it and others lose". Other people may lose from your lie, but you will not benefit either. Benefit is not measured primarily in material terms.
Notice that the man of integrity and principles has confidence in himself, while the one that lies and betrays his beliefs is scared of what everyone else would think of him. Which one do you think feels better?

"I am a better person if I give the slimiest sleezbucket the benefit of the doubt". No, that makes you a coward, or conveniently unrealistic, but not a hero.

"Guns create violence". Human beings create violence. The bad ones start it and the good ones use it to finish it. Disarming your self defense will not make an evil man any less evil or more compassionate. It simply makes it easier for him to hurt you. So no, guns do not create violence - in fact, in the right hands they are necessary to fight and end it.

"If I will suck up to a girl I have better chances of catching her romantic interest". Big mistake. No decent person, especially women, likes a groping man. women like men who pursue their own pleasure and pursue it confidently and openly. (No, you are not a sleezbucket to pursue your own pleasure. How else would you rather live, as a slave?)

"Winning always comes at the expense of someone else losing. Life is about hurt others to gain, or hurt yourself to benefit others". This is a common world view and is absolutely false.
Life is best when you are in a win-win situation with people around you: In friendships that provide mutual gain, in a great business deal both sides get what they prefer to have (you get the chicken, they get the cash).
If you are a man of honor and by being yourself you are hurting someone else, then their pain is a result of their own fault - not your creation. Therefore, you do not gain at their expense: You simply gain, and they simply suffer by their own doing.


This concludes my advices for today on common yet faulty beliefs. Hope you found it useful.

"Community service" and help in good will

Yesterday, September 11th, Obama made a speech to the nation claiming the significance and meaning of the day is "community service".

Take a moment to ponder: what exactly is the meaning of "community service", and is it really the reason so many American citizens helped others during the event 8 years ago?

To "serve" means "work for or be a servant to", "do duty", "devote (part of) one's life or efforts to" another person.

Is this what was the help about? Were those who helped saw themselves as servants of the ones under the ruins? Did they see it as their duty to selflessly serve the men in need?

I don't think so. Those people were proud, not humble. They saw themselves as soldiers, not as servants.

"Community service" and what was going on there that day and in the days that followed were complete opposites.

Those people who helped others did not do so because they thought their duty is to sacrifice their lives so that others may live. I believe they did not do it out of moral duty, but out of a spiritual, selfish reason - they valued the lives of the kind of people under the ruins, who shared their values and the American love of freedom.

They were angry at the terrorist attack which stood directly against what America is stands for, and by helping others they were fighting for and reaffirming their own spiritual values.

This was not service to the state or the "community". It was devotion to their own ideals and values.

This is a very important distinction to understand: If someone is doing something for someone else, it could have two opposite meanings. The "Stalin" meaning of "you are not important, live for the greater good", and the American generosity.

If both are "doing something for someone else", what is the distinction between the two?

It is this distinction that Obama wants people to lose. He wants to take the second meaning of genuine generosity and replace it with the "Stalin" meaning of "live for others".

He wants to scare people that if they don't agree to his idea of "community service" that they are not generous, when in fact generosity and "community service" are complete opposite.

Generosity is an extension of one's spiritual values toward another human being who shares them. It is those spiritual values that allow a man to truly value human life, and thus see them as worthy to preserve.

The man whose sole value is to sacrifice his life for the "community" is incapable of valuing human life.

When I help someone, I do so because their own well being is a selfish value to me. I do so because I see in them the spiritual values I respect and have in me: integrity, courage, determination, honesty.

Does Stalin ever helped anyone? He talked a lot about "service of the greater good", "service to other men", "service to the state" - Did he ever help another soul?

His kind is a void. He has no spiritual values. Human life means nothing to him. This, is the meaning of true selflessness, of "community service", of living for someone else.

Yes, the help is extended to someone else, but the reason is not selfless service, but pride, justice and profound individuality.

Keep in mind this important distinction: Selfless service or selfish generosity? The two could not be further apart.