They say hindsight is 20/20, looking back on my life I realize I may have not always been the best person I could have been, I had done some of my best friends wrong. Most of the time it was unintentional, neither the less it was still a bad thing. To anyone I may have done wrong in my past, I hope you can forgive this foolish man for his wrongdoings.
Looking back I also realize how some of the smallest things I did do right helped some on their way in life. A few young teens made a successful life out of the technology industry after having a place to tinker around with computers etc. I will not claim any credit other than I gave them a place to sorta grow, it was all their talent and drive that made them the I.T. Specialists they are today.
I am proud of each and every one of them, though some of them have left our friendship in the past, it still makes me proud I had either played a very tiny part in their development or just got to watch them sprout from a seed to a seedling before the went off to become successful.
I too had friends that helped me grow, a few that carried me a long way too when I was down and out. To those people, I send the biggest thank you of all. I just wish I could repay those people, unfortunately financially I am not doing as well as I wish I was and time and distance have caused us all to grow apart.
Even if I never became what I wanted to be, I am proud to have been some tiny part of some people’s starting point. It makes me joyful to see those teens grown up, with a family of their own, and doing so well in life. I wish them a long, happy, and successful future.
Thinking back to my years in Jr. high school and high school itself, I can remember all the emotional trauma and mental stress of being a teenager. Back then we did not have the internet, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, and other social programs, but we still had to deal with bullying, body shaming and stereotyping, and so on.
I can recall kids being picked on if they were too skinny and boney if they were chubby, or if not as developed as most. The way you wore your hair, the clothes you wore, and even the neighborhood you lived in played a part in the whole thing. Girls, I think had it the hardest, if they were late bloomers or plain jane with average looks due to puberty, they suffered attacks from both girls and boys.
Boys dealt with similar, but it was more focused on how cool you appeared, the clothes and car you had, and if you were athletic and or a so-called tough guy. Hormones and social pressures were murder for all of us during those years, even those who were on the cool person’s list had issues to deal with, so easily one could go from cool to the outcast.
Some teachers may have tried to help students deal with issues, but most chose to just keep out of it all, thinking any intervention by a teacher may worsen the situation. Unfortunately, not doing anything only lead to bullying becoming worse since there were very little to no repercussions for such bad behavior. The Bullying issue is something that needs to be addressed at home first, parents need to apply some sort of discipline when it comes to their children being aggressive toward others. Schools and teachers only can do so much and to be honest, it really is not the teacher’s place to discipline someone else’s child. Teachers are there to teach academics and skills to the students, not parent them.
The Shcool though does have the responsibility of keeping each student safe, and reporting any if not all unwanted behavior to the parents. Sometimes The parents are not even aware that their child is being bullied or being a bully in school. So if they do not inform the parent then no sort of corrective action can be taken from the parent’s side. Then there are the very rare cases where parents either do not care or they support their child’s behavior.
So now, not only do kids have to deal with the face-to-face bullying in school but they come home and get bullied online. Cyberbullying is far easier to commit than face-to-face due to the possibility of anonymity and not having to personally face the victim of the bullying. So I believe that has helped in increasing the amount of bullying experienced by kids.
What is the Solution? well, there is no single solution, It will take a whole lot of different policy changes, parental participation, and probably a bit of counseling thrown in. I am not sure what all is needed to be done, that is for the experts to figure out. All I know is that bullying can scar some people for a lifetime, and there is really no reason to allow bullying to continue.
Only if it was like in the comic books, The strong protecting the weak, The wise guiding the people and so on. But life is not a fairy tale or a comic book, so we all have to do what we can to promote better behavior and discourage unwanted behavaior in what ever means we are able. Unfortunately Bullying does not stop in highschool, it carries on into adulthood, and into the real world. You can see it all around, in the work place, in social gatherings and even in politics.
Well thats my Random thoughts for today
Till next time, Be excellent to one another as they said in Bill and Ted.
In this modern age, the old practice of writing letters between penpals has pretty much faded into the anals of history. Now it is all social media, online communities, email, and chat programs. Sometimes you get lucky and find yourself extended family online, and if you are really lucky you will find someone who is like a real family member. Just because you never meet physically does not mean the friendship you built is any less valid or important to you.
I have been fortunate enough to be a part of one such family, I belong to a community on a 3d environment platform called Activeworlds (www.activeworlds.com) and have been building 3d cities and worlds for decades along side some of the most unique individuals I have ever known. Sure the community is like a somewhat dysfunctional family at times but I love everyone there. Even those who probably do not like me very much.
Just like in real life, I have lost quite a few people who were like real family to me, most of them to death a few to circumstances or they just moved on for one reason or another. Each one of them as they left our community took a piece of me and the community with them. Currently, I am praying for a few of those people in Activeworlds that are dealing with some medical issues of their own. I also worry over one or two that decided to either leave the community or just decided to no longer communicate with me.
The point is, does not matter if it is online, or if its in real life. Friends are friends, and they all mean something to your heart and soul. Just don’t forget those friends online are real people and need your support and deserve respect as well. Cherrish them for there is no guarantee of how long any of us are here on this shiny blue marble we call home. That really goes for both online and real-life people, life is short so forgive, forget and embrace those in your life that you have been blessed with to have as family and friends.
Be good to one another, rememebr to be kind and respectful.
Everyone’s voice is important, every person’s opinion counts in this world. There are many out there that try to make you feel unimportant and insignificant but do not allow them to succeed in doing such things. Learn to speak your mind, but do so with respect for others. If you are the type of person that can not speak up alone, then find like-minded people to help you to get your message and voice heard. As they always say, there is strength in numbers.
Unfortunately, you will occasionally run across bullies in life that want to suppress you out of fear of you and your message and abilities. Most of the time people bully others out of fear of either being bullied themselves or to prevent others from succeeding or surpassing them. But if enough like-minded people join together it becomes harder for the bully to accomplish their goals through intimidation.
Fear can be beneficial, but if you allow it to control you then it is something of a roadblock. Fear is there to prevent you from being seriously harmed by a predator or severe catastrophe. But sometimes we allow fear to keep us from stepping up or speaking up and even worse sometimes we allow our fear to keep us from living and enjoying our lives. So do not let fear control you, speak your mind and live your life to the fullest.
It takes every voice to make a choir sound good, it takes every one of us to make this world better. Many want you to believe that they know what is good for you and that your opinion means nothing. They are not motivated so much by your well-being as much as they are by their greed and lust for power in the end. Sure some may have good intentions but a great number of them are all about being in control and monopolizing wealth.
This is why we need more people to speak up and stand up for all of us, the common people. Write those congressmen/congresswomen and get them to do the job we voted them in to do. They are there to protect and serve us citizens more so than to play to the base of just their political part and spew out rhetoric. We need to also stand up against the powers of big business, big pharma, and their greed.
It is quite disturbing how much more U.S. citizens have to pay for prescription drugs compared to other countries and how many advertisements from pharmaceutical companies we have to endure on television and radio nowadays. They can afford to blast advertisements every 15 minutes on television but yet they claim they have to keep their drug prices high due to research costs. Sounds a bit fishy to me lol.
Well, get out there and let your opinions be known and get your voices heard. Think for yourself and don’t follow anyone or anything blindly.
Is it just me or is every news channel on Cable, satellite, and the internet focused on making every news broadcast political even when the subject is not? They show you the news and information they provide through their political lens. Many of them accuse the politicians of stoking the flames of the political divide when in truth some of the news outlets do more pushing on politicization and that does not help in reducing the political divide in our nation.
Being a middle-of-the-road kind of person when it comes to politics, I am not going to focus on which political position may be right or wrong but more on the fact that politicization of every opinion and most news on the various mediums does nothing but further the political divide and causes nothing but unrest and even violence in the end. Politicians and News Media outlets are only partially to blame, a good part of the blame falls on us, the citizens and viewers.
We spend way too much time glued to our electronic devices watching the news station that best suits our political views and we lose focus on the fact that regardless of our political party we back or our political views, we all are citizens and fellow residents of this great nation. We should be more focused on working together to fix the problems we face here in the U.S. and on finding ways to come up with compromises on the most politically divisive issues.
It is called the United States because we all agreed to work together for the betterment of everyone regardless of political affiliation, race, religion, or sex. We the people means everyone, not just one elite group or only one class of people etc. So let’s get to work on closing these political divides and find compromise on the issues we may all not agree on one way or another.
I myself have chosen to turn off all news from cable, newspapers, and the internet. I only watch the local news for the headlines and weather now. Still a small bit of political bias and opinion but far less than the other media platforms. I prefer to form my own opinions and come to my own conclusions than follow those of others blindly. Free thinking is the cornerstone of a healthy mind and a good worldview.
Take opinions of others with a grain of salt, think for yourself, and always verify any and all sources of information my friends.
As we age, most of us face times when we feel as if we are burdens on others, that we are not wanted, needed, or loved. This is pretty normal I believe, we tend to value our own worth by the actions, reactions, and words of others. As much as we all know that we shouldn’t rely on others to establish our self-worth, we still do to a degree. So when life gets hectic, overwhelming,, and full of distractions, those we love don’t always show us attention, and become irritable and stressed. We sometimes get the end of all the stressors in our loved ones’ lives, they unintentionally unload all the frustrations and stress on us.
This can lead us to believe that we are no longer loved, wanted, or needed in their lives. We must remember that everyone has stress and life can be challenging for us all. We need to put away our insecurities and help our loved ones. Once we are able to stop worrying over if they do or don’t love us or need us etc., then we can work on helping them through the turbulence that life loves to throw at us all. We love them, and more than likely they love us as well, they chose to be with us in the beginning or are our blood relatives and will continue to be by our side.
Wasting so much time and energy worrying about if you are loved, wanted, or if someone sees you as a burden is pointless. Instead, we should use all that time and energy on making life easier and happier for everyone involved. Love is supposed to be a shared experience, unconditional and selfless. Though it may occasionally dip and sway off track it should always return to its course. I say just love the person you love with all your heart and let the rest take care of itself, don’t waste your precious time on worry or doubts. Life is short so we need to embrace life and love full-heartedly.
I always thought as a child that there was more out in the universe than just us humans far as life is concerned. I was an avid believer in UFOs / UAPs as well as a child. As I grew older I of course kind of put away such things as believing in little green men or at least I stopped thinking about that subject. Now as I am getting up in age my mind has begun contemplating the idea once again.
My way of looking at it is that with such a vast universe, having only 1 small blue planet with sentient life would be such a waste of space, and also believing we are the only intelligent life forms in the said universe is a tad bit arrogant. Far as the ancient alien theory goes, I do not totally subscribe to the notion that humans are so helpless they could not build anything on a grand scale like the pyramids. There is no reason for me to believe that we required help from some extraterrestrial source to build or achieve what we had in history.
I can not rule out the possibility that there was some influence or help from an extraterrestrial race, but I have not seen anything that proves to me that there was at this time. Sure some of the things humans have done in the past can be a bit perplexing due to the known technology that ancient people possessed during the time of such megalithic builds like the Egyptian pyramids. I believe we do not possess all the knowledge of what technologies and techniques the ancient humans may have had, I believe we just have a general idea of what they may have had.
I believe as we discover new technology and further our scientific knowledge we may discover how humans achieved what they did back in history. We also may discover life outside of our solar system and maybe even outside our spiral galaxy. Some want to think if there are other living beings out there in the universe that somehow would cause conflict with the religious community and their belief systems.
From one Christian’s point of view, I have not found anywhere in the bible where it says that there are no others in the universe, nor have I found where it had anything in it saying that there are others either. I just do not see what difference it would make if God were to have more than just one planet he created life on. Some may disagree with my opinion concerning this, but I still feel it is quite arrogant to think we are the only ones in the universe.
Now that the U.S. Government released videos containing what they call UAPs, it at least gives some credibility to the subject. You tie that together with the privatization of space exploration, we may see more money being available for scientific research of UFOs/UAPs and related subjects. Maybe the age-old stigma associated with UFO sightings and so on will be finally put behind us.
There are so many possibilities for the origins of the UAPs in the Videos released to the public. They could be extraterrestrial, Interdimensional, time travelers, or possibly even from earth. Experimental technologies of one nation or another, that either our government wishes not to disclose or is not yet aware of. The origin and purpose of the UAPs has yet to be determined or yet to be revealed to the public. One last possibility is that it is no more than a missinformation camaign by our governmet.
Just some thoughts on the subject from a average person, and just what was on my mind at the time.
This is the only life you are given to live in this time and space we occupy, so you should make the most of it. Life is a precious gift we have received and thus the lives of others are just as precious. How we go through this life, how we live, and how we treat others is solely up to each one of us. I would like to think that since we only have this one life we all would try to live it in harmony with each other and take care of each other as well.
But being the human beings we are, we tend to complicate things with our unbridled emotions and selfishness. We allow anger, hate, and fear to last longer than they were meant to, sometimes we even allow such emotions to rule our entire lives. For the most part, fear and anger are only meant to last for the moment that they were needed and then they are supposed to just turn off. Some of us tend to hold on to anger and fear so long that it becomes hate.
Forgiveness, is something we all need in our lives but tends to be one of the hardest things for most people to embrace. To forgive someone is just as beneficial to the forgiver as it is to the forgiven, some times even more so for the person who forgives. To forgive someone lets you free yourself from the hurt, anger and pain associated with the person you are forgiving. Holding a grudge eventualy causes you more pain and grief than you deserve.
Life is too fleeting and precious to waste time on fear, anger and other negitive emotions. We should try our best to live life with love, compassion and understanding while doing our best to help one another along the way. Enjoy the moment and worry little over the past and not worry about the future for it will take care of itself. Plan for that future but don worry about what it may bring. Live in the moment and be all you are meant to be.
In the past few years, it has seemed like our once proud and wonderful nation has begun a downward spiral, what once was looked upon as the beacon of hope and once a leader in technology, science, and human rights has fallen into decline. Between the Sitcom, we call the federal government, Inflation, and the economic downturn there is very little hope for a quick recovery from the pandemic and the political nonsense that resembles a carnival sideshow.
Political parties lost the ability to govern democratically due to a combination of partisan politics and small factions in both parties seeking fame through soundbites and social media popularity. It is pretty obvious that most of what we see going on in congress is either a distraction created to keep us divided or it is a result of the poor quality of senators and house representatives within congress itself.
There is so much that needs to be addressed and fixed in our nation, we need both parties to put aside their differences and work for the people. More investigations only equals more tax dollars wasted and time wasted that should have been spent on dealing with the issues at hand. The new speaker of the house needs to show some grit and stand up against the extreme element in his party and show some true leadership. But then again Democats and Republicans alike need to return to a more moderate and centralized style of politics and/or governance.
I think the public has had enough of this division and inability to get things done in washington. Both parties are to blame for the mess we are in, the time for finger pointing is over and it is time to get back to work and do what is best for our nation and those that live in it. In the end it doesn’t matter if someone is liberal or conservitive, we all are citizens of the United States. We all matter and those in office were elected to represent not a portion of the population, they were elected to represent everyone in their state and in the nation as well.
Well this is my political rant for this month, I wish you all the best my friends. Be good to one another and be compassionate to all.
Elderly people are not disposable, they are the people who helped build this world you are enjoying now. Many of those we call elderly once built the cars we drive, and designed the buildings we live in. Some may have just cleaned the buildings we worked in or served coffee to our parents and grandparents before or after work. Heck, a good portion of the elderly is in the U.S. federal government and they even cast aside the elderly at times.
Seems like the focus is always on the children or the younger working-aged group of citizens when it comes to congress and our government. But then why should a senator who makes a 6 figure salary and has a guaranteed retirement from our federal government worry about social security or the welfare of the elderly citizens that still can vote and contribute to society through the experience they have and the wisdom they have gained.
My opinion is that if they want to cut the budget look to their own salaries and retirement packages, their perks for being in office, and the wasteful spending in the defense budget instead of trying to cut social security or veterans benefits. Cut out some of that pork barrel spending in bills passed, and do straightforward bills without all the little perks for their states that do nothing but gain them possible votes.
Don’t even get me started on how tired I am and probably most people are with the partisan bull that does nothing but keeps congress from getting anything meaningful or worthwhile done. Or how money from lobbyists keeps what the people want from being passed due to money coming before constituents to some people in congress.
No government is perfect, there is always some sort of corruption and/or under-the-table deal going on. Just wish those in congress would remember they are elected to represent all of the citizens not just the base of the party they are in or the lobbyists that paid them the most money. The Meaning of We the people of the United States in the constitution is that the government is for the people and by the people, not just one party, group, social group, or individual.
One of the problems is that being a senator or representative is seen as a career instead of a civic duty by many of them in office. They lost their way and serve money and party over the people who voted for them. Wonder if they would be different if they made minimum wage and couldn’t receive any money from lobbyists and if they had term limits similar to a president. Who knows, it is what it is and unless we get more politicians that do it for the people and not just for the party and money it will remain as it is.
More than likely Social security and other social programs that were created to help the less fortunate will be constantly underfunded and at threat of being sunsetted until there is some sort of change in congress. Sad those that worked all their lives and helped build America and funded the federal government will be considered as a burden on the government. Human lives should always be more important than party politics or satisfying the political base that got someone elected.
Well, that is the opinion of this near-retirement-aged man, agree or disagree it is what it is. I wish everyone Happy Holidays and pray we all can find peace and happiness in life.
One Lifetime Blog 
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