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Your life can be as open as you want it to be

Looking at the past for me is like looking at the side mirror of a car when it is covered with water drops, like this image:

I love taking such photos as they show me the things I have been through, the things I have seen and even things I may not have noticed. Our lives are like that. We steam ahead looking at the road in front of us, enjoying the scenery by the side and glancing at the past that we have experienced. Giving other people easier access to the things that you want to share from your past makes many people happy. When people easily find out about interesting things you want to share from your past, they will be more interested in you.

Your blog history should be preserved and presented with care too

Same thing happens with your online sites. Make it easier for people to find out what your site has previously done. Your archives page is one of the best ways to do that, and so are the small codes and snippets that can show related posts and previous articles based on keywords and tags on different pages of your site. Your “About” page is important as it shows not only more information about you but also what you have personally done in the past.

Here is a snapshot of an area of my site that shows related posts and tags I wrote and chose, which show readers things I wrote in the past:

Understand the history of your own life and your blog if you want others to understand them too

For me, all of these areas need constant improving. I need to not only improve what I do now but I need to make myself understand my past better. If I cannot understand my own past or have easy ways of accessing it, I doubt I will be able to make it easy for others to know about my past. If I cannot understand the times and posts my own blog has been through, I doubt I can make it easy for my readers to realize the rich past it has to offer and the rich present it is currently trying to offer.

How about you?

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Why the thought of retirement is scary for me

The second thought that comes to my mind regarding this is the possibility of us dying anytime, which makes me wonder how for me retirement is so unattractive because of this second thought being so true. The concept of retirement is taken by many people today to mean that we have to waste and sacrifice everything today in order to be happy financially in the last few years of our lives.

On looking at life as a long-term retirement opportunity

I tell myself the following when I think of the concept of retirement in life: be happy today while helping others, and keep aiming for bigger opportunities daily, and at the same time look forward to a future where happily working towards more opportunities will not be a hassle or waste of time. If I can have a happy and financially stable life today, I will not have to look desperately towards the future for those two things while wasting all the opportunities that can bring forth happiness and other things today.

On looking at blog as a short-term retirement opportunity

I tell myself the following when I think of blogging only for money: be happy blogging today and keep aiming on learning and sharing with others what is learned from life and blogs in order to help others, and at the same time look forward to a future where happily helping others through writing and learning from such experiences will not be felt as a hassle or waste of time. If money comes along writing what I feel people should know instead of writing things I do not believe in so that hordes of people can click on ads, great.

What do you think about retiring and looking forward to an end?

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I was at the Mitsuwa supermarket in San Jose today to buy a rice cooker which I had recently managed to accidentally destroy. While I was in the parking lot putting the things I had bought into my car, I heard someone ask me from behind “Could you please spare two quarters? My sister was supposed to pick me up half an hour ago and I am still waiting.” I turned around and saw a guy in his mid 40’s smiling an uncomfortable smile. I reached into my pocket like before and gave him two quarters. The guy thanks me and walked off to a nearby pay phone, while I continued loading the things in my car. For some reason, I didn’t feel great. I didn’t feel as happy as I usually would. I simply continued loading the stuff into my car.

A picture I took of the guy who asked for 50 cents

Helping someone does not mean you will always be happy later

I thought about this later and found the low or almost nonexistent level of satisfaction I felt very interesting. There could be many reasons for such a feeling. May be I was in the middle of doing other things when this guy approached me. Maybe it was because the haircut girl that I helped before was cute and this guy was a guy. Maybe it was because this guy asked me for money whereas the haircut girl had not asked for anything. Maybe it was because I considered the haircut girl situation an investment while the guy I helped today will probably never remember me again.

It could be any of these reasons, since all of those reasons could make some people not feel happy afterwards. I felt happier giving someone more than $37 before than I did giving 50 cents today. I finally know the reason why I did not feel great in this situation, though I think the more important thing I should share with you is that I realized more than before that the reason you help someone may be as important as the satisfaction you get afterwards.

Do you help people in order to do a good thing or do you do it to feel great?

You can try to think why you help others. Is it because you feel great while helping others, or is it because you feel great after you help others? Realizing whether you help others because that is a nice thing to do or because of the feeling you feel afterwards is an important step towards discovering your own self and your understanding of the role you can play when it comes to helping others.

What do you think? Do you always feel the same when you help someone offline or online, or does the level of satisfaction you feel differ for each situation? Do you ever think or worry about the satisfaction you experience later on, or do you focus on helping someone since it is simply a nice thing to do?

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Emotional satisfaction should sometimes be kept away from business deals

Emotional satisfaction is important in any relationship, whether personal or business. While it is good for people to realize when they are not being treated right, it is good to keep our expectations for satisfaction of our personal emotions separate from some business deals if possible. For example, if you are looking to buy a computer from a store, the bad attitude of the cashier at that store may not be the best factor you should focus on when trying to decide if you should buy from that store. The cashier could be having a bad day or may even be a really rude person, but that does not mean you will run into similar kinds of people if you contact customer support later on. The good computer deal you may be getting at that store may be worth dealing with that rude cashier for 2 minutes. We can try to avoid having our own attitude change because of such a rude person.

This can work in the other direction too. If you buy something because of feeling emotionally happy over the way you are treated by someone instead of feeling happy about what you are getting from a business deal, chances are you will be highly dissatisfied if you experience any problems later. For example, just because a car sales person is extremely nice to you when you buy a car from a certain car dealership does not mean that same person will be nice to you later when you bring your car in for repairs. In fact, you may not even be able to get direct help from that specific person and may have to deal with a completely different group of people who may be extremely rude. Will you not recommend such a sales person to someone who only wants to buy a car for a good price without the need of any future help from that car dealership?

Secure your emotions in order to make better decisions

In certain situations, being treated like a customer instead of an individual may make sure that the other party will not take advantage of you through a business deal in the guise of personal or emotional satisfaction. A business deal will specifically outline what both parties should expect and avoid while a contract is valid, making sure both parties know what they to expect and what not to expect. Try not to involve your emotions or make things personal when involved in business deals, otherwise you make it easier to have your happiness and emotions influenced by outside factors. Such an influence may in turn easily affect your business and personal decisions.

If you can realize when your personal emotions and feelings are making you decide something more than the business deal at hand itself, you can be better equipped to realize when a business deal is good even when you are not personally and emotionally satisfied, or when a business deal is bad even when you are personally and emotionally satisfied due to different factors.

What do you think about this?

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Do not make an argument personal

When you argue about something, you are basically saying the other person is wrong about that thing. Such an interpretation is natural and instant. You have to go an extra step and show that you are attacking the argument only and not the other person. If you disagree with a person instead of their argument, you make the whole argument a personal issue. When it comes to personal issues, people automatically become defensive. I have seen several relationships since childhood, both business and personal, where people in different situations focused on showing that the other person was wrong instead of disagreeing with what had happened. Most of such relationships ended in disasters. The more you disagree with a person directly, the more the other person will feel defensive in an argument.

Only the other person can let you win an argument

Disagree with arguments and make friends with people who have different views. If you cannot do that, disagree with issues and be a stranger to other people. That is better than making others think you are trying to prove them wrong. Talk about the issue, and focus on the arguments. Never argue to prove you are right. If you are right and argue only about the validity of your points in an argument, the other person will acknowledge with their own free will that you are right about a certain issue. That is the only way in my view an argument should be won.

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Here are the rules as Vera describes them:

Following are the ten unknown habits that I have probably not mentioned before [personal stuff], and after that are the 6 people I would like to request participation from for this meme.

1. I prefer not having ice in anything I drink.
2. I prefer night to day.
3. I look forward to rainy days.
4. I respect people based on what they do [mental, verbal and physical] and what they avoid doing [mental, verbal and physical], and not who they are.
5. I have at least 2 confirmed stalkers who became obsessed with me because of this website.
6. After writing something for the first time, I always like to rewrite everything again in order to have smaller and clearer sentences, even though I sometimes find it boring to read what I have written already since I already know what I wrote.
7. One of the reasons I like the internet is because it has the potential to treat everyone equally, and such a mentality can hopefully flow back to the offline world. Whether or not we actually use such a potential is up to us.
8. I love actors who make you focus on the story and not the acting. Same thing goes with special effects. The minute someone starts to think during a movie “Wow, that is good acting” or “Amazing special effects“, as is the case with most recent movies, I start to realize that the acting and special effect was not good enough to be realistic. You should only realize that something was good only when you step back and realize that it is a movie you are watching, and not a documentary.
9. I like cats and I also object, while trying to understand, their usual habit of playing with food before the kill.
10. I do not fake my smile. I do not like people faking their smile all the time also. For me, smiling simply because it is a nice thing to do is fake. Smiling when saying “Hi, how are you?” should be a real one. If you have to pretend to smile, you are faking it. Try to leave your worries behind and focus on that moment of interaction with other people as a way to forget your stress, whatever it may be, and thus put on a real smile since you are so happy to be focusing on something not stressful.

I would like to tag Ashley, Suki, Mike, Nicole, Ronalfy and Vixx. I know everyone is busy and many people do not participate in memes anymore. So even though I have to tag other people, I do not expect you to participate. Your participation in my site by reading my entries is already more than enough for me.

Thank you Vera for tagging me. Thanks for reading.

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You may already know who Ronald is. In January I participated in the Peeve Week that Ronald started and managed. I would like to thank Ronald for hosting this contest. Ronald also supported me and my site in the WTLC Blog Essay Competition, even though he had entered the competition with his own post titled “Things you should avoid blogging about“, which gained the most traffic in the entire competition.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks again to you for supporting me all this time. Without your support, I may have probably lost a lot of interest in this site and my writing. Now I have to figure out how to spend the prizes from both contests. I am also wondering about the possibility of running a competition myself on this site. I will think about it some more.

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I got on the BART and went to San Francisco to do different things. I paid for different things with my card. At one store I decided to pay with cash. I reached in my pocket and found nothing. I was surprised until I realized I had given the haircutter a $37 tip for a $15 haircut, paying a total of $52. Since it was my mistake and she had innocently enjoyed from it, I decided to let her enjoy the money.

I viewed this loss of money as an investment

It is sometimes all right to ask for some money back if you accidentally overtip someone. In this situation, since several hours had passed already and because of the fact that I would be going to the same place in the future, going back and claiming the money which now belonged to her would have actually upset her. I was the one who had made a mistake. I will tell her next time about it while making sure she does not feel uncomfortable about the situation. I can then look at it as an investment, making a new friend along the way and increasing my list of connections. In Orange County, even the smallest gestures and actions helped me in different ways in the long run. I hope I can share those stories with you one day. I hope I can make such investments result in skyrocketed returns like never before in this new place.

Being nice to people and not taking the joy away from them, when you can afford it even a bit, does wonders in the long run. I would want the same joy to come to me, so I would love to give such joy to others when I can, or at least not take it away from them if I had the power to. Invest in good people by giving them happiness and by not taking away their happiness, and you will get the same returns in larger proportions and different forms.

What would you do in a similar situation? As for me, I do have to be careful the next time I decide to tip someone. Also, I think having shorter hair after having long unmanageable hair for a while seems like a fresh change that goes along with the recent move.

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While driving, I saw and experienced a few things. Nothing was divine or spiritual, so I apologize if you were expecting something similar to those. I saw a few analogies to how to run and do different things while driving, which I will share in the next few week with you. A few things that prompted me to realize those things were truckers getting together to take a rest, cars going up and down a hill and staying in specific lanes most of the time and changing lanes sometimes, and having a car driven by a total stranger drive with me for a while just to pass time. I will explain these things as time passes.

I realized yesterday that waiting for over an hour and 50 minutes for Gaim to download over PeoplePC means I should start looking for ways to optimize the time I spend on different things. Even though I will be moving soon, I ordered Comcast to be installed in my current apartment. They allow for a monthly contract, so it will be easier for me to move to a more permanent house and have the internet service moved along with me. I found out that Comcast is one of the few broadband providers that cap your downloads. That means there is a limit on the number of megabytes you can download in a month. If you reach that limit, you may get suspended from using Comcast for upto a year. I will try to talk about that more later this week.

I am getting a steady flow of gmail invitation requests along with a few other emails that I will respond to soon. If I do not respond to your email within 48 hours, I probably overlooked your e-mail or did not get it. Either way, please use the contact form to contact me and let me know that you sent me an e-mail. I will try to look for it.

Thank you.

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What this means for you in terms of interacting with me and my site is that I might be responding to e-mails and approving comments within a span of about 12 hours instead of the usual average of 2. It is easy for me to write posts while I am offline though. After moving, I will have PeoplePC dial-up internet for a while. I will later get Comcast, which will probably get me speeds of up to 6 Mbps, even though my first choice is the new Verizon FIOS, with which I could get a constant and steady rate of 15 Mbps downloads. Since San Francisco does not have Verizon FIOS as far as I know, Comcast will do. Until I get any good broadband connection, my online adventures may be somewhat slow during the month of February.

If you live in Southern California and we have not had a chance to meet yet, I might be coming back here once in a while a day or so. May be we can hang out then. If you live in Northern California, let me know and we can get together some time. For me, it is always nice to meet online people in person, except for the time when an online person turned out to be an obsessed individual who immediately started making plans for us to be together forever and started following me everywhere and making interesting threats. Getting a restraining order can be a very interesting experience sometime.

Orange County has given me shelter for almost 10 years, with occasional prolonged disruptions of different sorts in between. From opportunities to making money to having fun to meeting good people to facing life to dealing with drama to taking care of childish people to getting stabbed to dealing with people from other states who disappoint you even when you dedicate everything to help them, Orange County has made a lot of things possible. I want to see if Northern California will produce more positive experiences compared to Orange County.

Thank you for supporting me via this site all these years time. Even though changing cities should not affect a site, I know my site could not have come this far without your constant interaction, support and feedback. Thank you.

I personally find the Bay Area beautiful and full of life. Now it is time to find out if I find it as attractive living there as I did visiting the area.

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Here are the 5 things that I may not have mentioned before on this site, or in person, and things that you may not have known or guessed before. It was hard for me to pinpoint only 5 things out of the countless things that never get mentioned on this site, so I’ll stick with the following five simply because they are related to this site and show something about me.

1. I don’t like doing favors because of obligations, and I try to do things first without asking for anything in return. Online, I do my best not to post comments on a site when it is assumed that I must post a comment. I do the same thing with links; I rarely ask for link exchanges. Instead, I like linking to sites even if those sites do not or would not link to me. Similarly, I post comments on sites even if the owner of such sites have stopped posting comments on my site.
2. Online, I have a few nicknames that many people, both mature and immature, have called me in the past. These nicknames have become so popular that many people online only know me by these nicknames.
3. All posts except a few that belong to the “update” category have a reason and a message behind them. This includes posts ranging from reviewing online services to movies to personal stories and narratives.
4. I do not like to follow the typical trend of posting about a certain topic simply because it is the season to do so. I do, however, love reading such articles on other sites as it seems that many people can write just about anything so beautifully that one feel relaxed and drenched in their writing. Why do I love something which I myself don’t do? Simple: Just because I do not do something or at the moment think that I cannot do well does not mean that I have to condemn and avoid it.
5. I try to avoid small talk. So if I ask you “How are you doing today?” online, I’m actually interested and am ready to listen to whatever comes my way, whether it’s for a minute or for a long time.

For this meme, I would like to tag Ally, Birdie, Simply-Precious, Jerine, Sawai and Valerie, if they have time, would like to participate and haven’t already done so. I’ll send a message to those who have been tagged to let them know about this. This post will also be linked to from the “About” page soon.

Thanks Daniel for the tag, and thank you for reading.

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Should things be written without hiding any piece of information? That would result in everything being written, resulting in the whole personal life becoming everyone’s business. With password protected entries, anything can be discussed on the site, both personal and non-personal. A third approach would be to discuss many things that are non-personal in the open, like right now, and some personal things in password protected entries. I personally like to write everything that I can say face to face also. So far, nothing I’ve written on this site is hidden from anyone. I don’t like the feeling “Oh, what if he/she reads that entry?” I would prefer to write in the open so nothing is hidden, and anyone involved in any story I mention knows that I’m saying it.

Now, with password protected entry or a normal entry, one can always conceal the real names and very specific details about something and some people, to make sure that no one is clearly and directly identified, nor linked, to any posted story.

It becomes a question of ethics; what should be discussed, or what should not be discussed? What do you think? Are password protected entries the way to go? Should personal life and analysis ever be discussed online? Did you ever think of the choices to make when posting password protected entries, and personal stories, online?

Here is a picture of a set of decoration bell-type cylinders, stone, hanging. The spiral formation was really beautiful and I wanted to take a picture that showed the closeup of a part of one of the pieces, while showing everything else as a background image. This is the best I could do with the settings I wanted; I had to hold the camera as steady as possible, above me, as the pieces were hanging from the ceiling and I do not have a tripod, yet.

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