Change

A fact of life: people change, not always for good and not always for bad. We have all seen our close friends turn into “one of those kids” and we have seen our friends turn into some of the nicest people with the best reputations around. There is no stop button in the direction of change; you are always going either one way or another, towards being a better person or a worse one.

There are people in our lives who affect which direction we are changing, obviously we have our families that for the most part, pull us in the right direction. We have our teachers who will also push us in the right direction. But everyone knows that these are not what influence us the most. I have to say that our peers definitely affect us the most at this time in our lives. I know that I look to my friends as examples on how to dress and act. I don’t mean to sound like I copy my friends; I am just saying that when a friend of mine has an admirable quality, a fun personality, a cute style and so forth, it makes me want to have it too. So I guess you could say that I take all the things I like about my friends or all the things that make life good for them and squash them together to make me. I don’t know for certain, but I suspect that most people do this too.

The problem with this is different people like different things about other people. Say that a friend has a quality that you admire because they look cool or everybody knows them because of it, but it is something frowned on by society unbeknownst to you, and then you want to be like them so you try to apply that quality to yourself, now we have two people with a bad quality influencing their friends in bad ways. It can go the other way too, someone has a good quality and then a few of their friends take on the quality and you have more good people. In this way people are constantly changing, by influencing and being influenced by other people.

Another way that people are influenced is by example, and not necessarily good example. If someone is actively trying to be a better person, then they can learn from example in two ways, the first is by good examples, and the second is by bad. I have learned not only from the good people in my life but also from the ones that made bad choices. I know people who were happy and then started on a bad path and are now unhappy, I now know from observation how to not accidentally get on that bad path. We learn from the bad people what NOT to do to be better people. I think this applies to everyone except for those who are trying to be bad, and in their case I see no purpose in them doing so.

“I do believe I have been changed for the better, because I knew you.”- Wicked

If that could be said about all of us, what would the world be like?


** I have heard from a lot of people that my blogs are “really serious” and “make you look like you have no fun.” I guess that they are, but I want everyone to know that the topics for my blogs are things that I think about when I am on my own, the things that I explore in my mind when I am in a thoughtful mood. Please don’t think that I go around school and discuss philosophical questions with my friends, except with a choice few who also have lots of things going on inside their minds. I like to do other things than ponder the mysteries of mankind. **

Traditions and Habits

Tradition: (dictionary definition) the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, etc, from generation to generation by word of mouth or by practice.

I am not sure that I really like that dictionary definition, it is really boring and does not tell me what a tradition really is to most of us, things we do every week, month, year and so forth. A weekly tradition could be to always go to the movies with your friends on Saturday night. A monthly tradition could be to go to your grandparents house every fourth Sunday. I have never met a person in my life that does not have at least one or two traditions they do on a regular basis, most have at least fifteen.

Habit: (dictionary definition) Compulsive need, inclination or use, addiction.

Once again, I am not sure that I totally agree with the dictionary definition, as it doesn’t really state what a habit is, though it comes a lot closer than the tradition definition. To me a habit is something you do because you have always done it, or something you do because you can’t seem to stop yourself from doing it. As with traditions, everybody has habits, and everybody has good ones and bad ones.

What exactly are traditions? I guess you could call them habits, if that is an accurate way to express them. They are more advanced habits. By that I mean that they are things you always do; only they are more elegant, they have more meaning to them and involve more planning than the average habit. That is why they have a nicer name than habits. From my point of view, I think you could probably call brushing your teeth before you go to school in the morning a tradition because you do it every day at a given time. This means that we could likewise say that going to neighborhood Easter egg hunt at Easter every year could be called a habit.

Of course, nobody wants to use an elegant word like tradition for brushing your teeth, so we gave that the word habit, and let tradition be used for bigger, better events that we would much rather look forward to. Every family is different, we all have different habits and different traditions, I can not speak for everyone, but I really look forward to my family’s traditions every year. Traditions can range from huge to very small, my extended family always has a big Christmas Eve party with all of my aunts and uncles and cousins and second cousins; this would be huge tradition. A small tradition that also happens at Christmas, my cousins and I do this wooden Santa puzzle, and it is always near impossible but we do it every year because we call it a tradition.

Traditions vs. habits, they are really not that different from each other, but when you say the words one after another you think of a big elaborate party when you say tradition, and you think of a nervous compulsion when you say habit. Why is that? Nobody has a good reason, but all I can say is I love my traditions a lot more than my habits. Anybody who reads this, please tell your favorite tradition in a post, I have heard some wild ones from my friends and it is entertaining to see what fun things everyone else’s families do.

Promises promises...

Everybody loves a person who keeps their promises, but is there anybody who honestly can say that they keep EVERY one of their promises? I don’t think so. We all would like to, but it is impossible unless you are a superhuman. Everybody is human, so we all forget about things that we promised someone else we would do; we accidentally are late for a dinner we promised a friend we would be on time to; sometimes we even purposely break a promise. Wouldn’t it be great if everybody kept all of their promises? Actually it would not be, we would have no free will and our lives would be ruled by the things we told each other we would do. There would be no “I actually don’t feel like going to work today, I will take a sick day.” No, that would not happen, we would have to go to work because when we took the job we told our boss we would come in every day unless we were deathly ill. I think the world is actually better because every now and then we don’t keep our promises.

One example of what I am saying is in politics. I think most of us know that there is hardly a politician out there that keeps EVERY SINGLE PROMSE that he makes while running for office, they might be able to keep most of them, but not all of them. They can say that they will keep us completely safe from terrorism. That would be nice, but it is a really hard promise to keep. Now, nobody wants to be killed by terrorists, but I’m saying that if we were 100% safe from them then we would be in trouble if one somehow snuck in, we would not know what to do or how to handle the situation if that happened. Do not think that would ever, ever want a terrorist to attack us, and I would love to be 100% safe if I could, but the fact is, it’s never going to happen. It’s impossible to be certain we are completely safe. (Also, if it sounds like I am saying we are doomed because the government can’t protect us, I’m not, I’m just saying we should always be on our guard because it is one of the promises the government can’t fully keep.)

There are a lot of examples I can go into besides the one about the government. Who hasn’t ever told your parents that you will clean your room, do your chores, homework etc. after you go to your friend’s house and then don’t do it? Who hasn’t left your homework until the next day to do during reading time so you can play video games or something after you promised yourself at the beginning of the school year you would always do it the night before?

All I’m saying by this is that life is more interesting, and possibly more enjoyable because of the promises we do and don’t keep. Am I saying it is ok to break promises? No. I’m just saying breaking one now and then is not the end of the world because it makes interesting experiences for us as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone in the long run.

More than 7 wonders of the world

America is absolutely amazing, we live in the place where we can do practically anything we want, we can worship whoever we want in whatever way we choose, we can say anything we want, we can do anything we want to do as long as it is legal, we are all given equal opportunities to do whatever we dream we can do, providing that we are willing to work for it. There are plenty more reasons that I love living in America. There are thousands of people around the world that would give anything to come and live here. So why do some people want to get out of it and live somewhere else?

My guess is because they want to have a change of scenery, or have a new experience, or something else like that. I personally plan on living in our amazing country for the rest of my life, but I, like others, would love to experience a change every now and then. I am not talking about ever living there, but I think it would be cool to be able to go to all of these other places that I see in pictures and movies that look so beautiful and different.

I guess i'm one to talk about wanting to see the world, I spent a year in Western Europe when I was four years old because my dad was relocated to Germany, and then again when I was eight years old. While we were there my family and I took mini trips within our big trip and saw most of the countries surrounding Germany and The Netherlands where we stayed. This is something that most people can't say they have done, most have never left our country before. I wouldn’t have except that my dad’s work paid for our air fare and stay there. Because of going to Europe, I know that there are things out there that are really cool I never knew existed. Which means there are other wonders somewhere on the earth which are beautiful and worth seeing.

To name a few things i've heard about and want to see are the Aztec ruins in South and Central America, Sydney harbor and the Sydney Opera House in Australia, the coral reefs in the Caribbean, Mount Everest. I want to see everything in New Zealand, Ireland, and Norway because the pictures I have seen of them are so beautiful. I want to see Africa, all the animals and the beautiful sunsets there that I hear about all the time. I want to see penguins in Antarctica! There are lots of other things I want to see elsewhere in the world, and I am positive there are other things in every one of these places which are equally special yet not as publicized. Of course, these are all wants, with a lot of hard work and a little luck I may be able to someday see a few of these places.

My point in writing all this isn't to share my wants, but to point out that our planet is filled with beauty, it’s all around us and all we have to do to find it is look. Most of us don’t realize there are people around the world who hear about our one of a kind Great Salt Lake, and want to come and visit our vast salt flats. We (me included) don’t realize the beauty of the lake, because we see it drying up and it has always been around us. That may be how others see their things, and they don’t realize they're beautiful either. I guess that all I’m trying to say is we may not be able to ever see penguins in Antarctica, we want to, but it will never happen. Instead we should notice what we have and be thankful for it.