Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Chasing Dreams and Coincidences That Knock You Off Your Feet...

Hello guys! I thought I would relax and cultivate my blog a little by letting my readers in on some pretty interesting stories from my own life.

I love a good coincidence, and fortunately, my life has no shortage of them. Have you ever had a coincidence that knocked you off your feet? The kind of event that makes you think..."There is absolutely, no way, that that just happened!".

A few weeks ago I was sitting upstate, eating lunch with my grandparents on their porch. It is around 4 PM in the afternoon. I get a phone call and its from my college buddy, Alex. The purpose of his call was to talk to me about computers, and in particular, anti-virus software. He tells me that there is something wrong with his computer, and he wants to know if its hardware or software related, and thinks that it may be a virus. I recommend him an anti-virus program, and then we chat about how our summer is going.

The very next day, I'm around my grandparents' porch, about to get my swim-trunks off of the clothes hanger, because I wanted to go to the pool. Its around 4 PM in the afternoon. I get a phone call, and its my cousin's grandfather, whose name is lova, calling me from Los Angeles, California. The time there, is around 1 PM. I say 'hi, hows it going?', and then he lays it down for me.

What do you think he is calling about? Computer problems. But not just computer problems...anti-virus software problems. He tells me that he is getting this pop up that is telling him that he might have a virus (it was one of those ads that get you to buy their software to scan your computer), so I give him the exact same advice that I gave my friend Alex. Yea. That. Just. Happened.

Same time. Same place (from my end, anyway). Same question. Same answer. 

My reaction? As soon as I heard Lova ask about anti-virus software, I dropped on my knees and held my head in my hands in sheer disbelief. Maybe its an overreaction, but these coincidences happen to me quite often. Besides, most people who hear this story also drop their jaws in amazement.

Moving on then, lets talk about dreams. They say dreams can predict the future. Abraham Lincoln had a dream two weeks before he died. In it, he is standing inside the white house and looking at a coffin. He asks someone, 'who is in the coffin?' The reply is "The president of the United States". He paid no attention to the dream and two weeks later, he was assassinated.

So, have you ever had a dream that has come true? Have your dreams predicted the future in anyway?

Originally, I thought about sharing a couple of dreams in one blog post, but I think I will share these stories one by one over time. The main reason is because I want to make these posts easy on the eyes.

Anyway, I'd like to tell you about a dream of mine. I think you'll enjoy this.

A few nights ago, I had a dream and in it I am sitting across a desk. It is a mahogany colored desk, and behind it is a middle-aged man, who has a grey beard, grey hair. I am sitting in his office, and I am going through the classes I have left to take at my college and I am building a schedule for the next (and final) semester. I am going down a list and writing down classes on a piece of paper. The emotions in this dream are nervousness, but the dream ends in relaxation. As I am going down this list, I get nervous and think that I am missing a class or two. I start to panic, but then I look at my record and realize that I have already registered for this class for the next semester, and that the problem is taken care of. I sigh in relief and the dream ends.

A few months ago, back in April, I went to a personal advisor at my college. This is a general advisor who is supposed to give you advice on what classes to take, etc. The subject I came to visit him about was graduation requirements, since like I said, I am going to graduate next semester. He tells me that I'm basically all set for graduation, but there was some caveat in that I satisfied a requirement but it wasn't showing up on my record. I knew I needed to visit the computer science department at my college to get it straightened out. Unfortunately events in my life during this time period had put me in a situation where I could not find the time to do this, until the last week of July.

Last Monday (July 29th), I decide that its finally time to settle this issue. I head over to the computer science department at my college. I walk into the room, and I tell the receptionist about my problem. She tells me that I'm in luck, and that the head of the department has office hours right now. She shows me the waiting room, and in about 5 minutes I'm in this man's office.

There is a desk. The desk is mahogany colored. The man is a middle-aged fellow, he has a grey beard, and grey hair. 

I explain to him my situation. I tell him that I seem to have satisfied a class requirement but its not showing up on my record. He tells me that the degree progress system at my college is completely broken and entirely unreliable. Then he proceeds to ask me if I had filed for graduation yet. I told him no, because I did not see that it would be necessary to do it as soon as possible, since I was following the advice of my advisor. He tells me that I need to file right now, because they will tell me exactly what courses I need to take. He tells me that I should have filed back in the Spring, because this process can take a long time. He also gives me the option of helping me by looking through my record and telling me specifically if I am ready for graduation or not.

I leave his office and go file for graduation. I ask the clerk how long the process usually takes. The process takes a few months. Great. That sucks. I need to graduate in the fall, and I need to know what requirements I have not met NOW, not in the beginning of the fall semester when it is too late to register. 

The head of the computer science department offered me the option to help me look through my record and tell me exactly what I have not satisfied yet. 

In the dream, I am sitting in the man's office, looking through my record. 

I had this dream on the night of July 28th. The events occurred on the next day on July 29th. I rescheduled an appointment with this person on August 1st to look through my record (that is tomorrow). The dream accurately predicted my future, or a potential future - if I want to graduate in the fall.

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this brief look into some of the events surrounding my life. I hope to share more with you soon!





Sunday, July 28, 2013

Nathaniel Branden, Self Esteem, and Sentence Completion Exercises

This is just a repost of a comment that I made on my first post. I just wanted to let you know that a preliminary portion of the material covered in The Six Pillars of Self Esteem is available online on nathaniel branden's website for free. I am just making this post to link that information and how to use it.

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This is about as detailed of a summary as I can give you.
http://www.nathanielbranden.com/discussions/self-esteem/

The exercises that are in the Six Pillars book are different from the ones that I link here, but these will produce the same effect. They're all geared towards bringing more consciousness into one's life.

http://www.nathanielbranden.com/exercises/sentence-completion-i/

If there is something I have learned from my hiatus from blogging it is this: the best realizations are the ones you make yourself. I can't tell you just how powerful those exercises are. Its like the matrix, you have to see it for yourself to believe it.

Since there is no summary on the exercise link for how you would use those exercises, its actually very simple. I'm picking a sample stem from week 1 to illustrate the example.

Every morning, before you do anything else, you write (in a notebook) the following:

"if i bring more awareness to my life today..."

and then you finish the sentence with the very first thought that comes to your mind. You must write as quickly as you can, and finish the sentence 6-10 times. The idea is that you write the very first thought that comes to your mind, without imagining scenarios or how things would play out if you actually did these things that you're writing down. The key is NOT to think. The endings don't have to be profound, they don't have to be grammatically correct, and they don't even have to make sense. As long as you finish the stem, you're fine.

Here is an example usage (from my own life):

"if i bring more awareness to my life today..."
i would walk my dog
i would study more programming
i would visit my grandmother
i would sleep over at my grandmother's house
i would relax a bit more
i would be proud of myself

This is how it should look in a notebook, with the stem at the top, and the endings below. If you're writing with a pen, you can just read the stem once, and then write (as rapidly as possible) the first endings that come to your mind.

If you're using a computer to do this, my suggestion is that you re-read the stem over after every single sentence, and then write the first thought that would complete the sentence stem (but keep the format the same as the above).

After you are done with the exercise, all you have to do is go about your day. You don't even have to pay attention to what you wrote down (though, at times it is quite intriguing what comes up). You will notice (over time) that you have set forces in motion that will make it absolutely impossible to NOT act more consciously in your every day life. The key to the exercises is A) speed, and B) NOT THINKING. You fail the exercise if you start thinking about scenarios, and what would happen if you do X, Y , or Z. Think AFTER you're done with the exercise.

Anyway, that is basically my lifestyle philosophy for the past 7 months. I can't say that bringing more consciousness in my life has made me a whole lot happier (because my subconscious was suppressing A LOT of painful emotions and thoughts), but at least now I know what I need to do to be happy in life. 


If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments section.

Saturday, July 27, 2013

A New Beginning

Just an update, nothing special. I decided to delete all of the previous posts in this blog, simply because it was all utter nonsense. This is me being entirely honest. I had absolutely no idea what the hell I was talking about when I wrote all that crap. I had seen nothing of the real world. Its easy to spew advice and preach about how others should live their life, but when you start to apply it in your own life, you realize just how stupid / silly everything was.

 I see the world in a completely different way now. I still want this blog to have a purpose, since it has *some* visibility on the internet. Since I am still very much involved in self-help and finding ways to improve my own life, I would like to keep this blog open for the possibility of writing here in the future.

For now, I would like to kindly ask for anyone that links here to not remove this blog from their list of associated websites. I have plans for my life in the future and this blog has some level of reach across the internet. It would be nice if I can keep that without sacrificing my own personal integrity by leaving the garbage that was posted here to linger on after my life has changed by a whole 180 degrees.

Before you ask, no, I do not intend to ever make money off this blog, nor will I ever do such a thing. I am however in the process of developing tools that will lead to extraordinary change in one's life and mindset, and I would like to keep this blog around as a way of touching the lives of more people once I have completed my project(s).

For now, I wish you good luck in your journey of self discovery and self fulfillment. As a token of my gratitude, I will share with you a book that has changed my life forever. It is called "The Six Pillars of Self Esteem" by Nathaniel Branden. The only thing that I will say is that this book, and this man have led a vehement atheist to find peace and god in his life. I don't mean that in a religious sense either, as I did not convert into any religion (nor do I intend to). However, I did find spirituality on a level so profound that it has brought me to feel emotions that I never thought even existed, to cry like I have never cried, and to experience life in ways that I have never thought were possible. In short, I have seen the miracles of life unfold before my very eyes.

I'd like to share the story with you, and one day I might get the chance. For now, I leave you with a link to the book.

Have a great day, and good luck.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Six-Pillars-Self-Esteem-Definitive/dp/0553374397/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374941441&sr=8-1&keywords=nathaniel+branden+six+pillars