google-site-verification: google2a63d702a01151e0.html

Blowing It Scenario #106-Buying Into Diamond Marketing.

Diamonds Are Abundant And Artificially Kept Scarce By One Company Who Maintains A Monopoly On The Industry.

Can we finally get passed this idea that diamonds are anything more than a simple polished rock. We’re near given a complex when buying fancy jewelry or engagement rings. The prices are exorbitant and the marketing has been done so well that nearly everyone from the opposite sex requires diamonds to be “happy” with there proposals and subsequent nuptials. But Diamonds are not only abundant in nature they can now be grown in labs. Yet they cost nearly five hundred times that of the value of gold. Which is actually scarce and can’t be easily manufactured or reproduced like that of diamonds.

Companies have since began manufacturing these artificial diamonds that are indistinguishable from the real thing but at slightly lessor cost. And we are still required to show our love through these over priced rocks. Now the company that maintains the monopoly on the diamond market is crashing the price of the artificial diamonds (again I should mention are indistinguishable from the real thing without high tech equipment, yet still far over priced for a man-made rock) in the hopes of creating a sense that these new diamonds are such a lower value. But they didn’t price it so low that it could be construed as play jewelry. But listen to those words, “they didn’t price it.” Meaning the price is purely controlled by one company, with hardly any competition.

They literally can set the price at anything they want. As a matter of fact, they probably made the lab made diamonds so low that it will keep every competitor out of the market, as well as attach a sense of high devaluation to the artificial diamonds. So in turn their is now that much more perceived value in the real, highly abundant, diamonds. It’s more genius marketing and the vicious cycle will continue on. Until we the people who are being marketed to wise up to the scam and put our hard earned money elsewhere.



Thank you very much for taking the time to read our post. If you like what you read, or even if you don’t, we would love to hear from you. Please join our email list here. Or if you want to comment on this article, or write your own in our Forum. Please sign in here and if you are new to the site you can register here. This website is not intended to be a blog. We want it to be a place to help others grow and learn from mistakes and the Forum is where that begins. Please tell us your stories.

 

 

Blowing It Scenario #105-Assumptions.

What’s That Old Saying? “When You Assume Something, You Make An “Ass” Of Both “U” And “Me””

It’s a ridiculous statement but there are some truths to it. Assumptions are pure guess work that you deduce through personal biases. Depending on what we assume, we could be setting ourselves free or shackling ourselves to ideas that are massive hindrances to our progress.

We’ll tend to assume another persons emotions. Sometimes we’ll assume their desires, what we think they want or don’t want. If you always assume no one could ever be into you, or no one will ever want what you’re offering. Your actions will manifest those feelings. And you’ll never take action to counteract those assumptions. You’ll simply go through life assuming that the glass is half empty and no one will ever fill it up. It’s what gets us into trouble with relationships, work and life in general. If we assume our partner is feeling a certain way, we could be completely neglecting their true emotions.

Not all assumption are bad but wouldn’t you rather know instead of having to guess. Instead of assuming we could just ask for what we want or how another person feels. There is another old saying “if you don’t a-s-k you don’t g-e-t,” It’s silly but true. If you don’t ask for what you want or what you assume others want from you. You’ll never receive what you need, be it companionship, information, sales, help, etc.

That being said, there are some blind assumption that can be positive and keep you on a path you would normally divert from had you not made those false positive assumptions. If you assume great things will come your way, you’ll probably be on the receiving end of great things from time to time. However that could also set you up for disappointment too. If you assume nothing, everything that comes to you is a gift, not just the great things. If I were to assume that these words I write are completely worthless and they hold no value in anyone’s eye, I may have stopped at article one. But if I assume the contrary, I might continue on writing forever in the hopes this reaches you and provides you value. That can be a benefit of assumption. There will always be both a negative and a positive to the equation. But when you frame assumption in a positive light you can keep going through adversity in the hopes of being right later on down the road.

Blowing It Scenario #104-Smart Homes And Inviting Recording Devices Into Them.

Smart Homes Of The Future Are Intended To Make Our Lives Easier But At What Cost.

Amazon Echo, Google Home, Apple Home Pod, Nest Security Cameras, Amazon Security Cameras. These are all devices that can record you at anytime, unwittingly and send that information anywhere. This is what recently happened with Amazon’s Echo. A couple’s private conversation was recorded and sent to one of their contacts. This is just a small hiccup but it exposes the technology for what it truly is, a recording device to collect data on it’s users.

Simply put we invite these recording devices into our homes where we conduct our most private and intimate moments in life. And we expect these corporations that own the technology we use to just close there eyes and plug their ears while we have these moments. It’s just not how the business works, everything you do provides data, that data is then used by or sold to other companies trying to profit from your information. It’s now so invasive that the European Union recently passed the GDPR General Data Protection Regulation. Where they don’t allow these companies to track their citizens personal data. That is a step in the right direction and good for those who live in the E.U. because the rest of us have every app we download tracking our every move.

Just about every single app we now download to our phone for some reason requires access to our speaker, our camera, our personal photos, our contacts, everything. It doesn’t make any sense, and yet it makes perfect sense when your business is data driven. It’s so powerful to know when you eat, sleep, go to the restroom, what shops you frequent, what you buy, how much you drive, where you drive too, what websites you frequent, what photos you take, are you willing to tag those photos and interconnect them with others, how much exercise you get, what you talk about, what you text about. All this information is compiled into one tight little package about you. Where we can than in turn be swayed and directed into any number of funnels the powers that be want us to be shuffled into. Technology is a blessing and a curse, yes it has made our lives easier in many ways but we won’t truly know the consequences of it all because we could be on a completely different trajectory had we never been guided down the paths that our tech has guided us down.



Thank you very much for taking the time to read our post. If you like what you read, or even if you don’t, we would love to hear from you. Please join our email list here. Or if you want to comment on this article, or write your own in our Forum. Please sign in here and if you are new to the site you can register here. This website is not intended to be a blog. We want it to be a place to help others grow and learn from mistakes and the Forum is where that begins. Please tell us your stories.

 

 

Blowing It Scenario #103-Opposites Attracting.

Not Sure How This Idea Behind Magnetism Became A Common Saying About Human Relationships.

Tell me if you have heard this one before or if you’ve ever told yourself, opposites attract? It’s a very common saying and belief. And although it’s very true if you are a pair of magnets. It doesn’t so much correlate to humans. Humans are so much more complicated then the north and south poles of a magnet. A more truer statement would be like attracts like. Where similarities draw in those with other similarities. Not the opposite. If you try to go after the opposite you’ll be in a constant battle. You’ll want one thing out of life while your opposing partner wants something completely different.

Opposite can sometimes challenge you in certain areas and if you are looking to be challenged it may be something you sign yourself up for. This can sometime help you in improving but it will be trying if you make a life of it. It’s great when you can complement someone else’s weaknesses with your strengths or vise versa your partner helps you where you struggle. In those situation though you’re not working as opposites, you’re working as two parts to make a whole. You are both working towards a common goal. Not opposing each other but working together, it’s two fundamentally different things.

The only real situation opposites attract in a relationship is if their is a dominant and a submissive. Where one exercises their will, while the other submits to it. This codependency is not too uncommon and if it works for you great. You can continue to tell people opposites attract. But for the rest of us, relationship are more of an ebb and flow, a get and give back mentality. A continuous effort between two to work fully in unison. Yes, you will have to at times give way to your partners demands, but most of the time you’ll want the same thing, so it won’t be hard when it comes to that. But it’s simply not as cut and dry as opposites attract because in that sense you will constantly be butting heads working towards opposite goals, opposite wants and opposite needs.



Thank you very much for taking the time to read our post. If you like what you read, or even if you don’t, we would love to hear from you. Please join our email list here. Or if you want to comment on this article, or write your own in our Forum. Please sign in here and if you are new to the site you can register here. This website is not intended to be a blog. We want it to be a place to help others grow and learn from mistakes and the Forum is where that begins. Please tell us your stories.

 

 

Blowing It Scenario #102-Enabling Others To Be Helpless.

We Often Think We’re Helping Others By Giving Them What They Want Or Think They Need But Not Allowing Them To Do It For Themselves Often Hurts Them More Then It Helps.

A 30 year old man in upstate New York had to be summoned to court by his parents this week. Because they had already served him multiple eviction notices which he disregarded and continued to stay in their home rent free. Good for the parents finally taking action to set this man child free. However it’s about a decade too late and how do you think he learned this behavior in the first place?

We live in an era when we are constantly enabled by our parents, our technology, and by those closest to us. We learn how to be helpless. If you are given everything through out your life, do you think you will ever develop necessary skills or the belief that you have to work for these things? No, you’ll just go on believing that everything should be handed to you. You won’t see that someone does in fact have to work to pay for your existence. You do others a disservice if you are constantly giving them money, or food, clothing, and shelter. Yes a loving parent will always take care of their child. But at some point, say when the child reaches an age of self sufficiency, which ultimately should be around their teenage years. You have to begin to apply some tough love. Make them work for what they have, charge them rent, show them what the real world is like. Do it gradually at first and show them how it’s for their own best interest. Because if you wait too long, it may just turn into a debilitating phobia. One that will see constant struggle throughout life because they were never given the tools to live outside the bubble you built for them.

Recently this happened in my home state. The police were called into evict a man in his 50’s who had been living in this home with his mom his whole life. She had passed and the father wanted the son out of the house. He had a large cache of weapons he had collected over the years and when the swat team came to evict the man. He killed himself but not before setting fire to the house first. The man would rather die and burn down his only sanctuary then have to participate in the real world. This is an extreme example but this is how the man was raised. We’ll call it extreme learned helplessness. It’s the same thing that happens with addicts. We give into their request so often, thinking we’re helping them but ultimately we hurt their chances of improving. If we provide them with everything they request or we think they need, they don’t have to put any effort in to achieving anything for themselves. This applies especially to money. However if they need help for recovery, do it, but keep tight capital controls on the funds and make sure it’s strictly going to where it’s best suited for that.

Really we should all do our part to be self reliant and help those around us to do the same. We help others by guiding them, first to self sufficiency, then to self reliance, ultimately putting them on the path to self mastery. Where they can, in turn, guide the next group of individuals.



Thank you very much for taking the time to read our post. If you like what you read, or even if you don’t, we would love to hear from you. Please join our email list here. Or if you want to comment on this article, or write your own in our Forum. Please sign in here and if you are new to the site you can register here. This website is not intended to be a blog. We want it to be a place to help others grow and learn from mistakes and the Forum is where that begins. Please tell us your stories.

 

Blowing It Scenario #101-Sexual Repression.

Does Sexual Repression Manifest Itself As Sexual Aggression?

Withhold anything that’s strongly wanted and there will grow a burning desire to obtain these things. Sometimes these wants will be transmuted into new desires. Does the same hold true for sex? Sex is simply a part of human nature and will always be desired in some form or another. Make it a healthy desire. Don’t suppress it but also don’t attack it or others. All sex must be mutually desired.

Today an archbishop in Australia was charged with covering up sexual abuses of his colleague, another priest. This is the highest ranking member of the church to be charged. It shouldn’t matter who you are or what your profession, no one should be outside the purview of justice and I commend Australia for going after sexual predators (especially those of minors) and those who protect them. Even if those men claim to be men of god and are high ranking priest.

4,400 men and women have come forward with stories of sexual abuse by the church from 1980 to 2015. None of this has it’s place in any church, or society as a whole for that matter. This is just in Australia, around the world there are so many more claims. What is it about this environment that makes sexual assault of minors so prevalent? Is it the fact that those involved know so much of their actions will always be covered up by the powers that be? Or is it the fact priest must remain celibate and by repressing normal sexual desires they become altered in someway? Manifesting in the worst way possible, as predators to youth. I will truly never see how children become the object of there desires but we as a society need to examine these things so we can hope to prevent them in the future.



Thank you very much for taking the time to read our post. If you like what you read, or even if you don’t, we would love to hear from you. Please join our email list here. Or if you want to comment on this article, or write your own in our Forum. Please sign in here and if you are new to the site you can register here. This website is not intended to be a blog. We want it to be a place to help others grow and learn from mistakes and the Forum is where that begins. Please tell us your stories.

 

 

Blowing It Scenario #100-Lack Of Action Or Poor Action Choices.

The 4 Stages Of Action Theory.

Action is paramount to life. And this is our basic theory on how different actions impact you in different ways. You can add complexity to any given idea and the same holds true to this theory. But for sake of argument I have simplified it to four specific stages. These are what I believe to be the four stages of action.

First and most powerful is “Persistent Progressive Positive Action,” this type of consistent action will put you on the road that leads to success. It’s the actions that challenge you to constantly improve and to get better in any particular area of life. This is where we want to strive to maintain. Actions rooted in stage one will drastically improve your life and the lives of those around you.

Second is “Passive Action” which ultimately leads to mediocrity. This type of action is, at the very least positive, in the fact that you are taking a small action every day towards an easily attainable goal (say getting yourself to the end of the work day) and not standing still. It’s this type of action where you have reached a certain level over understanding and cease to make any more larger improvements. This is your 9 to 5 people, improvement is slight and minimal at best but it’s far better than inaction.

Which leads us to the third stage “Inaction” this action or lack there of, leads to atrophy, if you don’t use it you lose it, and complete inaction is death. If your heart, lungs, or brain are inactive you are effectively dead. Inaction can spiral you into a state where even the easiest of task can feel like climbing Mount Everest, steer clear of this phase if you can. It takes way more energy to move a stagnant object then it does to push one already in motion. Stay active and you’ll never have to worry about moving the immovable object. At the very least stay in stage two.

Lastly our fourth action is “Negative Action” these are the actions that inevitably lead to destruction. For example these are the actions that put you in jail or worse. Your drug users and thieves. Those using actions to commit poor acts that impact them negatively or work against their progress. However, we will see that this can be a highly useful tool in the four stages. It is when one begins to decline from peak performance that they can apply this stage. If you a the greatest in the world at what you do and you begin to decline in skill after applying every possible strategy to improve. It could be time to apply stage four and retire from that given arena. That’s not to say giving up, when you leave one area of expertise. You should begin immediately back in stage one with the next project you plan to master.

These four stages are brilliantly displayed in a documentary I recently watched called “The Fear Of Thirteen.” It’s a life story told by a man who spent over 20 years on death row, all because of the actions he took throughout life. Seemingly small actions that exploded to catastrophic results throughout each choice he made. He began in a world of negative actions both taken against him (he is raped as a young boy, which was not handled early on and we can see it snowball into self destructive tendencies later on in life) and applied by him. He started out as a small time crook robbing cars and using drugs. Which is always going to be a path that leads to negative results.

He finally gets arrested for his actions and at the time of arrest he chooses to be slightly difficult with the arresting officer (another stage 4). They book him for his crimes and add evading arrest and attempted murder of an officer. So he’s looking at hard time now. While awaiting trial for these accusations he came across a news article about a women who was raped and murdered. In his infinite wisdom he decided that he would turn states evidence about this crime. One he did not commit nor did he know anything about it but he figured if he could make up a convincing story he could roll that into a plea bargain deal and get a lesser sentence for the crime he was booked for. So he decided to make up a story to tell the cops about a guy he once knew as a heavy drug user and throw his name under the proverbial bus (stage 4). He spins an elaborate story about the murder and how this drug user commits it. What he didn’t know was that drug user had since cleaned up his life (stage one) and was clean and sober and nowhere near the scene of the crime. So after the trail for his current charges (theft, evading arrest and attempted murder of a police officer) was held. Most of the charges were dropped but since he provided so much in depth information on this other crime, the rape and murder of a women. And the person he implemented was not the murderer, he inadvertently became the only suspect in a crime he did not commit (stage 4).

It was an open and shut case, he was convicted of her murder and sentenced to death. While on death row he was not allowed to speak. For two years he was in complete silence, complete inactivity(stage three). While in prison he made even more negative choices. At one point he escapes transfer and goes on the run making many more mistakes while on the run but ultimately turns himself in because he knows if he doesn’t life will constantly be a struggle. His story takes a positive turn finally when at one he was given a book to read on death row, he had never read before but soon fell in love with the practice he began reading everything he could get his hands on always making progress to get better. He met a woman at this time and after getting to know her better he finally confesses to her he never killed that women. They begin to take positive actions to clear his name, filing petition after petition (stage one). Soon their is a breakthrough in DNA sequencing and the blood at the crime scene could now be tested. He tries over and over to get the blood tested. Years and years of walls and barriers to no avail. But its not all for nothing. No one ever completes the full test and when it seems like all hope is lost after 20 years on death row. He commits the biggest act of defiance and ask the governor to have his execution to be moved forward and instated promptly (stage four when all hope is lost). The governor surprised at this point, wonders how a man so fervently trying to display his innocence for over a decade would all of a sudden want to be executed. He immediately orders the medical examiner test the blood from the crime scene and it is proven he is not the murderer after all.

He is eventually released from prison but not before they take away all his freedom one last time, they take all his books and everything from him but what does he do with this time. He doesn’t stay inactive or begin sulking, he spends his time envisioning the perfect future he wants to build for himself when he finally gets out. And in turn he eventually makes that vision reality (stage one). Hopefully you can see how the choices we make and the actions that follow, can easily turn the tide and change the direction of your life completely, however small or large. Knowing that, you can use this information as a guide to improvement, stay out of the final two, sometimes three stages. unless the fourth stage is absolutely necessary completely avoid it. Be persistent, be positive, make progress by always taking massive actions towards those type of goals.



Thank you very much for taking the time to read our post. If you like what you read, or even if you don’t, we would love to hear from you. Please join our email list here. Or if you want to comment on this article, or write your own in our Forum. Please sign in here and if you are new to the site you can register here. This website is not intended to be a blog. We want it to be a place to help others grow and learn from mistakes and the Forum is where that begins. Please tell us your stories.

 

Blowing It Scenario #99-Selfish Acts.

Imagine If We Changed The Name Self Help Industry To “Other’s Help” Instead And We Focused On Improving The Lives Of Others, How Much More Beneficial And Further Reaching That Would Be.

Not that their is anything wrong with self help but when we stop at just the self we aren’t really improving anything around us. We put so much time, energy and money into self help but the crux of the matter is when you’re just helping yourself you’re neglecting everything else. You have to realize that those in the self help industry are successful because they’re applying the very principles of other’s help by trying to help you improve. Those in need of self improvement will be far better off if they just apply their efforts to helping just one other individual. Because that self improvement must see the light of day and must be payed forward for it to have any real impact on your life.

If we simply end at just the self, we can develop a selfish attitude towards the world around us. Once we’re in a selfish state we’ll think what’s mine is mine, screw everyone else. We’ll see others as selfish individuals who leach from society we’ll act out in negative ways to hold on to what we think is ours and that doing our part to help our fellow man is beyond us. It should be left to those who have more. This line of thinking is completely flawed and has no bearings in our culture.

We could think of work as helping others and not just a paycheck. We could do rewarding work that does in fact help others. We could think of the payments we give others as helping another individual in some way. We could donate our time, money and energy to helping others in need. Because when we do, each small act of kindness tends to have a multiplier effect (selfless good begets more selfless good) and the magnitude can sometimes be felt around the world. We may not see the effects all the time but trust me they are there. And they are working and the results can be ever lasting.

Nothing great was ever built alone it takes so many helping hands along the way. Their is absolutely no such thing as self made, banish that idea from your mind. In order to just be on this earth it took two parents to create you. In order to survive past childhood multiple selfless people took care of you and fed you. When you hear the word self made you conjure images that they did it all alone that absolutely no one helped along the way.  We are always in some way going to be reliant of others, albeit someone to purchase your goods and services or to supply them. Be self reliant as much as humanly possible but also know everyone needs help from time to time. Give it more than you get it and the world will change for the better around you.



Thank you very much for taking the time to read our post. If you like what you read, or even if you don’t, we would love to hear from you. Please join our email list here. Or if you want to comment on this article, or write your own in our Forum. Please sign in here and if you are new to the site you can register here. This website is not intended to be a blog. We want it to be a place to help others grow and learn from mistakes and the Forum is where that begins. Please tell us your stories.

 

Blowing It Scenario #98-Projecting Insecurities.

Projecting Your Insecurities Upon Another.

Projecting is sometimes a defense mechanism for these insecurities. If you’re uncomfortable with a certain appearance, lifestyle, race, or gender, you may project insults at them in order to overcompensate for those insecurities. For instance if you think some one of another gender can do better work than you, you might ridicule their abilities to shine what you might think to be a better light upon yourself. If you’re a parent who never lived up to your full potential you might project on to your children the life you wanted to lead but never accomplished.

Projecting is very telling of who and what that person doing the projection is all about. It’s weakness in the most blatant form. Displayed for all the world to see. Bullying and bully’s are massive projectors. If you are making fun of someone’s say appearance for any reason what so ever I can guarantee you have have an area of your life you are very insecure in. And it might just be their own physical appearance they’re insecure with. This applies to everything even beyond appearance. If you deride another their are deeper seeded issues that need to be resolved within yourself, not the person you’re applying your derision too. Sometimes bully’s can seem to be the most popular, don’t buy into this air of vanity. It’s a facade and it’s a rare exception, not the rule. Only the insecure sheep would follow this self-conscious Shepard.

It should be said that some projecting is actually very healthy though. If we use it to build up another. It’s when we use it for honest encouraging praise of another that we see our best results in life. Both within ourselves and the other. That is positive projection and the only way we should be projecting upon another.



Thank you very much for taking the time to read our post. If you like what you read, or even if you don’t, we would love to hear from you. Please join our email list here. Or if you want to comment on this article, or write your own in our Forum. Please sign in here and if you are new to the site you can register here. This website is not intended to be a blog. We want it to be a place to help others grow and learn from mistakes and the Forum is where that begins. Please tell us your stories.

 

 

 

Blowing It Scenario #97-Casting Judgments.

Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged.

Or as the legend Bob Marley sings, “judge not, before you judge yourself.” So how can someone who writes judgments on all areas of life consider judging a failure. Well it’s quite simple these are simply opinions I hold, open for all interpretation and open to be judged. If we cast judgment we should be willing to take it and to grow from it. It’s when we sit upon our ivory tower casting judgments prior to knowledge. Or when we hold closed beliefs, that we are right and everyone else is wrong. Those are the kind of judgments I’m referring to. The ones that stunt growth and progress, and tend to hurt you or others. Or at least place those around you in a negative light.

Somethings in life are however negatives, war, genocide, epidemics. When you reveal your position on these subjects you will come off sounding negative. It’s just human nature, in these cases I believe negativity restrains further negativity and you’re working towards a positive. If I deride drug use, it’s not because I have disdain for the user or I’m judging the person who uses, it’s because I believe it has a negative impact on society and I would like us to do more to help them be better. If I berate arguments, compromises, materialism, screen time, dating apps, so on and so forth. It’s only because I believe certain aspects have a negative effect and I feel a conversation about them can have a counterbalancing impact.

Again these conversations are strictly one mans opinions and they are free to be judged and picked apart. I absolutely welcome it. That is what self discovery is all about. The disagreements you have and the positions you take, will reveal a lot about you to yourself and to the world around you. Try to make them positive. Leave others in the light of your most positive glow. And if you must go negative just try to make sure it’s in order to combat other negativity.



Thank you very much for taking the time to read our post. If you like what you read, or even if you don’t, we would love to hear from you. Please join our email list here. Or if you want to comment on this article, or write your own in our Forum. Please sign in here and if you are new to the site you can register here. This website is not intended to be a blog. We want it to be a place to help others grow and learn from mistakes and the Forum is where that begins. Please tell us your stories.