Does lying to ourselves about self-image really help?

We are constantly bombarded with images of how we should look and taunted by pills that make us think we should be happy all the time. At what point do we realize this is all a fantasy world? And we are lying to ourselves if we think we can be anyone but ourselves.

Each morning we drag ourselves out of bed and look into the mirror while we are mindlessly brushing our teeth. We squint and try to focus on the person in the mirror, but what and who is it that we see? A successful business person? A stay at home parent? Or someone who has built there self-image on lies?

It is easy to get caught in the photo shopped world that we live in, with TV and internet ads everywhere we look. They show us how we should look, act and feel. It is sickening how many people take this to heart.

I have never fit the mold for the body type of today’s media. I have had times in my life that I was just way too skinny. I would not eat for a days at time. I felt like eating was a waste of time, as if I was pissed off at my body because I had to do something every 5 hours. Eating just became something I only did when I got headaches or dizzy. This lead to me just becoming all bones. I guess in way I replaced food with cigarettes, which so many people do. There is something satisfying about being skinny and smoking. You can see that in most ads since the 40s. People are skinny and smoking the “right pack” of cigarettes. As if being skinny and smoking is the way it was done.

Even today's mold does not fit me. There is a beard tread that is going through the hipster mainstream right now. I have never been able to grow proper facial hair and really only need to shave about every 2 weeks. Does this make less of a man? Less of a person? I don’t think it does and neither should you. Despite my overly skinny body, once I quit smoking I gained quite a bit of weight. This is another extreme in the eyes of the media. I was no longer the cool skinny smoker kid. I was a fat smokeless adult. Being overweight has always been looked down on in the media image, especially for woman. The standard that we need to be is one sided and if we do not fit that mold we are looked at differently. When we eat, or don’t eat, we are judged by our body type.

So, how do we combat this image? How do we overcome what the media says about body type? Well most people just lie to themselves, but that needs to stop

We look in that mirror in the morning and do everything we to can draw away attention from flaws. Putting on and changing cloths to make us look slimmer or accent feature as to draw attention away from problem areas. In our heads we are laying on the lies about our image as if it is armor that will be stripped away by people throughout the day. Telling ourselves that if we only ate a little less, if we only drank a little less, or worked out a bit more we can be that person, but not today. Today we are still fighting, not living our own lives because our thoughts drift to the stranger from across the room. Is she looking at my attempt at facial hair?  Is he checking out my body or just staring at my stomach? Will she laugh at my blemished skin? Do they know what they are doing to me by staring?

The truth is, it really does not matter. I have accepted that fact that I am not at the right weight, and the fact that I am lazy about doing anything about it. I know that there are somethings about me I can change, others I cannot and so should you.

There are beautiful people everywhere in this world. With their hearts on their sleeve and those hearts are beating and yearning for acceptance that they don’t need. Being happy with yourself and body does not come from anyone else but yourself. You and I are the creators and inhabitants of our body and it is our canvas. We can paint this canvas, we can mold and shape it anyway we want, but we are still master pieces in our own right.

Your image should come from yourself, and not the little lies just to get by. The media and the strangers whose thought you think you can read do not matter. If a change needs to be made then it should be your choice, your decision and your motivation that makes it happen.

I am, who I am, and my body is not the only thing that make me, me. I am a master piece as a whole, and so are you.  

What has your father taught you?

      There are very few people outside of our parents that will have made such an impact on our lives. We seem to sometimes over look that fact, as we might still be growing into know-it-alls. Over time we may learn to listen and even appreciate them, and no one has an impact like that on me more than my father.

      Most people seem to have the opposite problem with parents, I, on the other hand only really grew up with my father and in some ways we grew up together. As he was 15 years old when I was born.

      With having a kid at such an early age, I am sure it was the most challenging things he has ever done in his life, even to this date. He had the know how and the will power to drop out of middle school during the summer of eighth grade and start working to support his new small family. I was too young to remember those days, but I use to hear stories about how hard it was on all of the family. They use to tell me a few Christmas I was the only one that would get presents as there was not enough money for anyone else. That always bothered me as most kids would still be getting presents in their late teens, but not my dad.

      As I got older and I started to see things a bit more as an adult. I understood the need for alone time, and why he would always just sit on the couch and tell me to let him relax before playing with me. I saw that construction job he took to support me was taking its toll on him, even though he was barely thirty. The work, plus an early onset of juvenile diabetes did not help.  It never stopped him though, even recently he said “I’d rather work and when I can’t work anymore I might as well be dead”. It does not seem my generation has that same kind of worth ethic. As if we have lost some of the grit that help make the generation before us able and willing to tackle anything.

      Despite the worth ethic differences my dad never wanted me to go into the construction field behind him. Always making me stay up late to study for the spelling-bee, which never helped. I would still get stuck on any word larger than 4 letters. He wanted to know that I would not put my body through the same hell in order to make a living, but I liked helping him. I was never cut out to move one hundred and forty pounds of liquid concrete over 2x4s in the mud at 6:30 in the morning using just  wheel barrel, but I tried. Each time I spilled it I had just seconds to grab a shovel and pick all up before it started to set up the yard of some stranger.I found a certain love for manual labor. I think it has to do with the same relaxation that you get from working out. Or maybe at the end of the day you can look down at your work and see you have made a difference. You can review your work and people will admire or even live in what you have built. There are very few professions in the world that can give that kind of satisfaction.

      Despite his best effects I still dropped out of high school and ended up working in a factory with him. Each day we had the floor plans to make a new prefabricated house. Each section was reasonable for putting together a certain room, or hall way. I however was not skilled enough for even hammering nails apparently. I had to hammer mesh tacks for the roof support beams. It was hot, and there was no AC in that metal warehouse. No one cared about anything but getting paid and smoking, or in the case of the supervisor, doing cocaine off of his desk. Either way, at the end of each day I was tired, sore and well...wanted a cigarette and my pay check, but I still knew I helped build someone’s house. After a short time though I was cut from the line, I supposedly spent too much time drinking water. Not sure what I was thinking trying to stat hydrated going manual labor in 90 degree weather. They kept my dad on though.

      After some time from going from dead end security job to security job I had a sit down conversation with my dad about what I want to do with my life. I had always had a knack for fixing computers since I was fourteen years old. We threw around some ideas and despite my better judgement we decided to make my hobby, my job. I ended up starting out a community college which I thought was a waste of time, but my dad never saw it that way. I guess any college seemed like a good one from his point-of-view. I worked through it until I dropped out from school yet again. He was disappointed although he would never had told me that out right. He always seems to want to say something direct but it is like he knew he had never been in my shoes. Despite that, he understood what it meant to be ageing and no chance of retirement so he would still press.

      I eventually got into a university and started to make real progress there. Faltering before it was time for exams and my dad trying to talk me down into taking one question at a time. Even though he had no idea what I was learning about. The way he speaks about complicated topics has always been a sort of comfort for me. That each time life gives you shit the only thing you can do is press on, and that is what he would do, except he used his back in summer heat. I can see each sun bleach spot on him where is skin has just given on pigmentation completely.

     With his consistent ear to vent to about subjects above his head I was able to push through my degree. I did not even want to walk down the aisle. I thought it was so stupid to go up there and be handed a blank paper and wait 3 weeks for the real thing to get to your house. When you opened it, it is just be a consent reminder of looming debt pressed on cheap leather. He pressed and I caved, even buying the pre-walk pictures so he could brag to his friends.

     Now that I have come full circle and have a kid of my own I cannot look at him the same way. I cannot understand how he did it alone, never taking child support until 2 years before I was eighteen. Just the seer ability to be standing in the fire day-by-day and not crack. I even catch my safe saying the same thing to my son he used to say to me when he had enough. Phrases like “Don’t put that rock in back in your mouth or I’mma pop you” or the legendary “You want me to give you something to cry about?”

     I employ all of you to take this time, to look back at what you had, and who you were and try to see the difference your father has made in your life. Even if he was not around, or was a deadbeat, you may not have learned what do in life from him, but you sure learned what not to do.

 
What did your father teach you?



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Why do we have fake arguments in our heads?

      Have you ever been you are running through a fake argument in your head someone? Or Are tired of someone at work or home and fantasize about what a “throw down” argument would be like with them? After your fake argument, were you pissed? Relieved?

      The world we live in seems to draw out the worst in people, yet it is looked down upon to call people on their bullshit. As if it is acceptable to act out, but not okay to react to it. I am not sure when this started to be the case. It has plagued us in the real world for some time and the only place this is does not apply is the internet.

      The internet is where everyone is fearless.  There is a level hatred unrivaled on the web. Where people can say the most nasty and terrible things imaginable to people, or groups of people, and it has almost become acceptable to do so. If you go to a YouTube channel or a Facebook post, people will say whatever it is they want, but I doubt that is true in real life. The internet is a vast place for people to just vent on one another. It allows anyone, regardless of age or maturity level to put out there opinions and with little-to-no consequences. With no real threat of penalty, people are just going off at the mouth on one another in a way never foreseen.

      This “no fear internet” phenomenon I believe has spread into the real world in the form of the “fake argument." We fantasized in our heads about what we would say to someone or try to script out an argument in our favor. Driving in the car or taking a shower we mold and build ourselves up for the “big throw down.” We plot and try and predict what the other person will say, or how they will counter. Sometimes even working ourselves up and getting mad at the other person for thinking they might say something. We get emotionally tangled into a fight that has never happen, nor does the other person even know about it.

      This can work us up and make us even angrier at the person who has said nothing to us. So why do we do it? Is it because we do not have guts to say some of these things in person? It is a way to vent without getting in trouble? Or it is a method of preparing for something that we have been taught to avoid? 

      I think it is a little of all the above. Most people seem to avoid conflict at all costs and this method of being able to try and work out problems in our heads helps understand the situation. It allows us to try and look at things from the other person’s point-of-view. Maybe this process helps them realize that they are not one hundred percent in the wrong. Or that they are taking full advance of someone and something needs to be said. 

      There becomes a certain point that we all come to where we need to get out what is on our mind. The fake argument allows us to go through what it is we need to say. Instead of going in to argument all worked up and not having a method of delivering the point. This will also allow us to make sure that we hit all the issues, that we are having and what is it we want to happen or need to change.

           As annoying as this can be, I think it is a health way to get things out into the open in your own mind before going off half-cocked.


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Is Game of Thrones an original idea?

Often times TV shows tend to try and paint a picture that somehow links up with the real world. Creating situations that you might come across on a daily or maybe even a yearly basis. That somehow our normal lives can cross paths with our entertainment…Although I am not sure this is ever the case in Game of Thrones.

                It is no secret that Game of Thrones is one of the most popular TV shows out right now. What is it about this fictional? Why can we not seem to get enough? I believe it is because it is not like the real world, that it is not the same old situations told over and over again. It is fresh.

The interesting thing about it is that there are hard core fans of the books and that of the shows, but as we know they do not always clash that well together later in the TV show series. One has to wonder why the show chose to stray away from the books. Is it that the books could not keep up with the thirst of the fans, or was it that the social media has changed the way that we now view movies and TV?

Do we, the people, have the power to stop a TV show from killing off a character? or making an event be pulled from the recording? Are we that far involved that we can affect not only the bottom dollar but the fates of our favorite characters?

I think we do have this power and I think that social media and blogs like this one are the one holding the cards in the final outcome. We have become not only consumers of products and services but in the making of our own entertainment. We just have to have our way no matter what the circumstance are, or who it effects.

This makes me think that we are missing out on true entertainment and the production companies bowing down to the mighty media will not be a good thing for show business. We can already see this in the movies that are coming out now days. They just keep remaking the same movies over and over again. Some of the most recent ones are Point Break, Poltergeist and Charlie and Mad Max to name a few. Where have all the original ideas gone?

There is such a vast well that we can draw as a creative yet destructive species. There is potential in everyone and there are ideas that if brought to life just will not die. I think we see this most in the Indie world. Indie music and movies are becoming more and more part of the norm. We also see this products in like the craft beer and organic foods. There is a movement away the social and cooperate owned media.

That is where Game of Thrones lies, in the feasting and itchy underworld that is an “original Idea”. It dares to go against the norm so much it does not even follow the books it was based off of. It employs mostly actors that are not from the United States and hires ex-porn stars to do nude scenes. How could it not be one of the most unique shows on TV?

Other shows and productions companies should take note from this and the Indie industries and realize that people want they have always wanted…what they don’t have.

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Are Video Games Bad for you?

At what point are videos games “rotting your brain” and how does this effect social skills?

    I don’t think that they do either. As a social norm if there is A problem that requires actually effort and responsibilities of individuals the only way to make it go away of course is to blame someone, or something else. Video games have been this target for some time now and it does not look like it is going to let up.

    What is it that we get out of video games? Simulation? Relief from boredom and too much free time? I feel like it is more of a “Challenge accepted” then “I have nothing better to do”. Video games in my youth allowed me to not just live in a fantasy world but it is where I found a real challenge. School for me was not where I found where the limits of mind could be reached. As each year went by things just built a little more on themselves and nothing really new was added in a way to tie it all together. Each class was a snapshot of a subject or idea. These snapshots were then passed on as “all you need to know” and that always left questions for me. As I have always been a big picture kind of person I did not like knowing bits and piece and often what was left out of class was much more interesting.

    I was always playing video games throughout my younger years but it wasn’t until I received a computer at age 10 that I really started to get into them. The earlier games allows you to do things like editing maps and creating worlds that you and a friend could go in and play together. Without even knowing it I was creating simple computer programs and testing them. This kind of mental simulation was addicting, being able to take a little bit of information and create something using only codes and images. How could you not fall in love?

    Once I was hooked on the creating part of videos games I found playing them much more enjoyable and I even looked at them differently. I often wondered why I could do this, or that in the game or why this didn’t look right. This led me to having to dive into the hardware of my computer to figure out why my game looked differently and why it was not running very fast.

This lead into a whole world of math and hardware that I don’t think I fully understand to this day, but it allowed me to learn yet again. I was able to see the whole picture all the time, I did not have to wait after class to ask anyone to explain it or try to figure out what the books where trying to say. I was the creator of my own world and it used my hardware to do it.

    Once online gaming became very popular I was able to play other people from around the world. This soon sparked groups of people who would play the same game together and try and fight against one another or the computer. This fell down with my set of skills once again. Strategy, patients, and the willingness to be cut-throat when need be. I began to really get to know a few people on some of these online games and really started to developed and relationship. It was then I was asked to join my 1^st online gaming community. BloodLust Soldiers.

    It started out just a small 1^st-person-shooter gaming community that would love to go from game server to game server smashing the competition, but then it became more. I would spend so much time with these people I would know them by voice and even there playing style. I would know what is going on in their life to a degree and often times have long conversation about life, love, and among other topics. They started to become a family, of course helping with personal matters as well as issue with my computer.

    Whenever I was having an issue with my computer they were always there and at age 15 I was eager to learn. I was taught everything from how websites works and how to make them, to how hardware communicated and functioned inside of a computer with the software. I am not sure if it was because I was a teenager or what, but I thought I knew it all when it came to computers with their help.

    As my computer knowledge and my skill at video games grew I started to look into working on computers for a living. I started taking classes at local community college to see what it would be like. I dropped out of most of the classes as it was all just a bit to “text book” for me. After 2 years of messing around and just being in my 20s. I went back to school and started my bachelor’s degree in computer networking. I felt like I was learning everything all over it again, but in the end I was able to re-enforce my knowledge and add on it.

    As I would sit through each classes listening to the instructor go on about a piece of hardware I would think back to the first time I tried to work on that part and broke it and had to have my fellow gaming community mates assist me with putting it back together. They would laugh and poke fun at me because they knew I would be too hardheaded to ask for help until it was too late. That didn’t stop them from walking me through fixing it using a voice program.

    As my years in school went on I started to be able to help other younger members with their computer issues. I was able to even mentor some to a degree as I was in my youth. The gaming community has been a big part of life and now it is going on 14 years old. We have a yearly get-together so that we can see one another in person and just be a misfit family.

    Like all things in life, you need to take it in moderation and each individual needs to know their limits, but for me playing games and being a member for BloodLust Soldiers has been a life style choice and has been one of the biggest factors in my success in life and my career choices.

So if you are on the fence about letting your kids play games, show an interest and to use it to your advantage to expand their mind. 

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Do we deserve to be loved?

We always seem to be looking for something better, something more fulfilling, which is very easy to do when the lines are drawn for products and services, but not so much people. People…well, I don’t like to deal with people, I like dealing with individuals, and it is on the individual level that we build relationships and can rid ourselves from the mass hysteria.

What does this mean as a person are trying to find someone to be with, or to just see where a relationship might go? It means, we are at huge a disadvantage and it may not be for the reason we think.

Some say that finding the relationship type or the right person, is half the fun, but not for everyone. Those who are out searching for a companion in the real world, or even media linked dating sites, will quickly tell you that it is not a “big single’s party hookup” like seen on TV and rarely fun. There are no one nightstands every night out to the bar or techno club dance floor relationship sparked over fifteen dollar drinks and a dance song that never ends. The reality is that people outside of places like that know that at some point they have to come back to the real world and when they do, they do not always like the person who they brought back, or …themselves.

Of course in life we can only control ourselves, but what does that mean when trying to find a relationship? Everything. I am a strong believer in the idea that “You cannot truly love someone else until you love yourself”. This means to be in a state of giving and willingness to open your life and yourself to someone else you should know and love who you are, the latter being the hardest part. We as people may care and give to one another, but at a certain point there is nothing more we can give, because we did not get what was needed in return. I hate the idea this comes from another person, because often times it is what we did not give ourselves.

                In a way we are in a relationship with ourselves which the normal things you would expect to find in a relationship such as giving, taking, appreciating and loving. These things are often not considered when looking in the mirror, that we are not just the person in the mirror but we are everything we think, do and act on. Whether through our own eyes or someone else’s; and this means responsibility for happiness is up to ourselves, plain and simple.

In order to be ourselves and love ourselves we need to understand that we are perfectly imperfect people. As a person we are the only ones that can define ourselves, through our own mind and eyes. Once this idea is in place, one can really look at themselves and find out what they like or may not like about themselves. It does not, however, have to be so black and white. Often times, the decisions that we make are based off of what is known in the here-and-now and we do not always know the full details of the situation. I cannot stress that last point enough, because it ties into forgiving yourself.  Which for most people is one of the hardest steps to overcome, but the most necessary. Through forgiveness, we can move forward in our mind and in our life towards who we want to be and how we want to act.

I, like most people, have always found that the past haunts us all, but that if I think hard enough I can always say, “if I did not do that or make that decision I would not be here in my life today.” Maybe the place you are now is not where you want to be, but if you are thinking about this, then that means the change has already started.

Change is not an easy thing to do I had to fight off the idea that “Why do I deserve to be happy with someone else?” What have I done in this life to make me worthy of such a rare thing? That is when I realized that I don’t… I don’t deserve to be happy in life and relationships until, I am happy with myself. Now with being happy with myself I have so much more to give. I know myself in and out and I am able to see the flaws and mistakes that other people make are similar to ones I have or made myself. Despite the way it may feel, no one is alone in the mistakes department. Through loving yourself and forgiving yourself, one will not find happiness because as a whole person you will be creating it.

I will be posting more on some ways to be happy with yourself in the next few days. If you like what you read please follow me via email over on the right. – if you are viewing this page on a mobile device you may need to click “View Full page” to subscribe.

               
Thank you,
Mark