You Look Pretty...

You gotta look pretty in this world. Of course it depends on your profession, but you gotta at least know how to look nice. I'm not saying you have to go out there and spend all your money on the latest runway picks, but you do have to do stuff to make yourself look nice.

I saw something on the news the other day, and it was related to politics and the man just..wasn't attractive. And I thought, I hate to sound shallow, but in politics if you want to be successful, you have to look nice. You just have to. Maybe it shouldn't be that way but that's the way it is now, and trust me: you can't overturn this one. Because we are driven by aesthetics.

I hate plastic surgery and everything, so I definitely don't support going there. But I feel like people who look attractive think differently. That's a huge claim to make, but I've seen people become so much more attractive from a different way of thinking. And that thought is typically related to success. It is thought that shapes the decisions we make, and as Albert Camus put it (and I strongly agree), "Life is the sum of all your choices."

Success is so superficial today. We look at the end result of everything and be like "wow, you made it so far, I admire you you are an amazing person you like, made it, dude," not realizing that they are just like us, working and chipping away at the David that is their lives. As Alan Watts put it, we think in terms of material success, and thus there is a start and a finish, and the goal is to get to that finish! Go get it! This has caused our thought process and internal programming to be totally backwards! Backwards in the sense of the "proper" (or perhaps, smoothest/easiest) methodology of getting what we want. We think that once we get what we want we will be happy. But once you get there you realize that you feel a little different but you're just who you have been, and you cover this up and try to bury it with "oh but this is what I want next! :D"

Start with your internal programming and thought. People who are successful think differently, not have different stuff. They have different stuff because they think differently.

Now I'm willing to extend this to the idea that people look different because they think different. I don't know how many people would be willing to take my two cents on that, but I don't find it far-fetched.

And now going back to the exterior material world we live in, we are driven by aesthetics - not just in looks - and aesthetics create a serious strong incentive, subconscious or conscious. Though often subtle in most professions, attractiveness will help you in your career. To varying degrees of course, but we are driven by aesthetics, and given that I believe people look different because they think different, the intuition is sure as hell a good/valid one. There are always exceptions, but it will always be the starting point.

Passion and Creativity (and Alcohol)

I've had a lot of confusion with life for a long time. Being forced to work so hard for good grades for so long was all I knew about my life for a long time. Since I never got for-real-serious all A+'s (even if you've got an A grade point average overall, you could STILL DO BETTER!) I always had something to work towards. Then I got into some great colleges and was like "Wow! This is what my parents wanted me to work hard for!" Then now I'm college, and I'm like...am I seriously just doing everything over again so that I can get into good grad school??! It must stop somewhere, right? What am I doing work so hard I mean I am learning but...?

Then I discovered an amazing book, and in the middle of reading it, went through a breakup that cut it close. The amazing book kept me hanging on and knowing that I could do something in my life, but it was so hard because I wondered why I put myself out there that much just to break up, and also feeling like it never got THAT good before it ended. I wondered what the point to anything was. Was it really that amazingly important that I got into such a wonderful awesome pawesome college? (It's wonderfully beautifully amazing, but you're kind of like ".....okay, and?...so what?")

I then was introduced to this video by a friend of mine, right after I brought up the same concept in different words (I used something like life is us working on a canvas and people come into our lives drawing parts and you gotta take those people in while they're there)

Today was the first Thanksgiving I had with a family for a long time. It was wonderfully fun, and I kept thinking life is supposed to be full of the smiles and laughter we shared tonight. One thing that was really fun though was that I finally got some alcohol to play around with.

Bartending. I love it so much. I thought I loved it because it was cool to be like "Yeah, I bartend," but having people compliment me on the drinks I mixed tonight, I realized I genuinely just love it.

I love the way you put things together for something so wonderful. Alcohol itself is something amazing. The way it kind of loosens you up. And being able to make it taste so much more amazing than any fruit punch you can ever make is just. Wow. I am always so surprised at how good I can make things taste (haha) (seriously though! Come have some!). It's like when you're playing a sport and you hit this make this perfect shot or move you totally didn't know you had in you. Well, it's that for every drink I make. That rush that I got when all the alcohols were pulled out of the cupboard and placed in front of me, the scent of squeezing fresh organic limes, the way it feels when you shake that drink up between your hands and the "oo"s and "ahh"s going all around...and the moment people TASTE. Taste. Wow. That is really good. What is it called? Oh, I kind of made it up :)

It's this like little thing that grows inside you, and the adrenaline that builds in you from happiness. Like when you go on a roller coaster and that feeling you get when you're just falling. Except it's completely controlled by you (as in you know exactly where it's coming from), and it doesn't scare you. It just is. You are flowing out those amazing energies that launch your creativity and happiness. And you know you could just do this for a long time and still feel that warm fuzzy softly exhilarating rush.

That is passion. That is what we are here for.

Now of course, my life's calling isn't bartending, but it is something I love. Badminton likewise and many other things - singing, guitar playing. If we could live in those moments, and dance and sing to the music that's playing, I think the quality of our lives could be greatly improved. Sometimes we do these things and even though we love them we don't get ourselves immersed in that rush! Learn to live in the rush. Live in the now and live in the beauty of that feeling. Because I guarantee you, that rush, even if you fake it for certain things, will bring you physical manifestations of the feelings you are producing.

Go out there and do something that makes you rush. Or even better, learn to build that rush within you consciously, and go put yourself out there on your little emotional high. You'll be amazed at what happens to you. 緣份 [yuan fen] (the ties you have with others; being the right person at the right place at the right time) will bring you to amazing places and people. Trust that (I love my Asian background for teaching me about yuan). Live in the moment. Stop waiting for your amazing things to come to you, or waiting to be happy in your afterlife or "once you get there." Learn to do it now! It'll be the difference in the qualities of people's lives, and you best better wanna be one of those high quality lifestyles!

If you need an event bartender call me!

Peace,

And Love,

Blaize