Belief... Like fear or love, is a force to be understood as we understand the theory of relativity... and principles of uncertainty. Phenomena that determine the course of our lives. Yesterday my life was headed in one direction.. Today it was headed in another... Yesterday I believed I would never have done what I did today. These forces that often remake time and space and can shape and alter who we imagine ourselves to be, begin long before we're born and continue after we perish. Our lives... and our choices... our quantum trajectories are understood moment to moment at each point of intersection, each encounter suggests a new potential direction...

Dr. Henry Goose, Cloud Atlas, 2012

Every day I see things I fail to make sense of. The more I interact with people, the more I struggle to understand society. Take the following, for example:

1. People who stand in line for an hour for a free burger.
2. People who never implement ideas they know are great.
3. People who ask opinions about money from their broke friend.
4. People who criticize capitalism when they own an iPhone, an HDTV, and an expensive car.
5. People who give their opinion on a subject they know nothing about.
6. Women who want to find the man of their life, but dress like the woman of a night.
7. People who don't save money when they can.
8. People who complain being gossiped of yet they post every detail of their personal lives on Facebook.

Only some of the small things that define our world's maturity for what it is today.

There are probably 100 others things to stack on this list. But then, I'd just belabour the point and waste time.
And that wouldn't make sense either.

Now imagine if every one of us was to write one's own list down and the next time we go out try and change just one of the things on that list...

Wouldn't that be a sight...

Time as a resource

The passage of time is a concept I’ve spent a great deal of effort trying to wrap my mind around. It is especially problematic because while time itself is a constant, it’s perception in our minds is continuously in flux. It’s worthwhile, if you’re able to, to try and slow time down as much as possible and try to get the most out of each moment. Time itself is far more valuable than money, fame, possessions, etc. – probably the most important real or abstract resource there is.
Value itself can be measured in time, even more so than money, for if you can get others to devote time to your cause, this demonstrates that they are even more interested in helping you/your cause than those who simply give money. Those who say ‘time is money’ are right to a degree, but I’ll go a step further and say that time is more precious than money. You can always get more money – but there is no way to gain extra time; only extend the experience and perception of it.

Time is so important because we only have X amount, where X equals moments in existence. You really can’t stretch it much further than what our physical bodies were designed to handle, but I would say more than a raw number, how you spend those moments, whatever you most intimately enjoy doing, make up the purpose and function of that time. Looking back on life with regret is only a waste of time if you didn’t learn and grow from those experiences, and I do not believe you are ever wasting time if you are learning, growing and broadening your understanding of your interests, your passions and ultimately your identity itself.

Who you surround yourself with and what you do during the X amount of moments on earth speaks volumes for what you represent, and even if you think or speak a certain way, how you spend your time will almost always reflect your true persona. People spend a great deal of time simply thinking about ways they can change their lives, and how “next year of my life” will be better – but this isn’t true, and is an unfortunate squandering of time. Your life will never change and you won’t all of a sudden start accomplishing your goals unless you make a change right now, at this moment in time. Simply thinking about making a change will almost always result in no change.

“Now” is a word that many people seem to have a hard time grasping. It’s very sound gives a strong vibe to the conscious mind very different from that of “tomorrow”, or “this week”. Everyone wants to make changes in their lives, but I’ve discovered that only those who act decisively and have the self-control to put something into action at will are the most successful people, and have the ability to shape their being into a desired outcome. We should all freely enjoy our time whilst also respecting it, and make the most of it to mold ourselves like clay into an ideal self-image of what we want to be. This should be one of our most treasured goals in life, and I think we should all be using our time in this manner.

-Adam Singer, Alex Skeb

Thoughts past midnight

The nights we stay home and spend some time by ourselves are the times some of us do the most thinking. The times we do the most exploring of what's inside of us and what gives us our identity. It's times like these I look back and see what happened to me recently and analyse these memories. See what went wrong, why, and what i should avoid in the future. These memories are not only what makes us who we are but they also help us improve and take us one step further on the way to discovering our true identity. A way that seems not many individuals are willing to walk which can only be interpeted as arrogance.
In our days, a person who has a very self assured identity is regarded as someone who's discovered his inner self and usually emits confidence and strength. -But is this really the case?- for the line seperating confidence and arrogance is obscure sometimes. An arrogant individual won't bother going through this inner exploration, won't reflect to their past and won't look to find what went wrong with situations that decayed. The question arises as to how many of these individuals are out there.... The answer could probably be hinted by a few character traits... How many people wonder when they're doing the right thing and when they're not? How many are so strongly opinionated that can never accept other opinions without argueing? How many after a fight are looking to boost their ego, and are only intersted in getting the last say instead of actually working things out? The answer to the original question is probably an extremely scary figure. There are some questions in life we're never sure of the answers (i.e. am i doing the right thing? do i treat properly the people around me? what would have happened if i had handled this in a different way?). What saddens me the most is meeting so many people that never ask themselves these questions and probably never will. And i ask here how arrogant can one be to have never bothered with the above questions?
The truth is that every single experience in life changes us for better or for worse. The key for this change to be better and not worse is this inner exploration that so few of us actually do. The way to becoming a better person is a neverending journey through life. A true identity is something that is discovered daily and never something that has been figured out. I would never be so arrogant as to say I know exactly who I am