Happiness vs truth

"I used to think that everyone is in search of happiness. Truth is, most are in search of truth. Why? Truth hurts, ignorance is bliss." - Thoughts kept

"Ignorance is bliss." - Thomas Gray’s

How to be famous

"You won't be recognized for the amount of help you do, but for the amout of people you impact." - Unknown

I remember this from an old Youtube video about "how to be famous". It would explain that if you help one person a lot, that person will be happy, but barely anyone will know who you are, or that you are a good person. On the other hand, famous people are there because they can reach millions of people with a song or a movie.

It's easy to connect things that aren't related

"It's easy to connect things that aren't related." - Thoughts kept

Human brains are wired to like and search for patterns. This can be helpful to solve riddles, misteries, murder cases, whatnot. It can also be misleading, we could see patterns where there aren't, blame things on someone or something incorrectly. Focus. Identify the true causes of things and motivations of people. 

The greatest gift is serving

"The greatest gift is serving." - Ulises

It's funny how this takes two meanings when translated. It sounds like a "gift" you give someone, but the original meaning is a "gift" you're born with, a quality. Ulises is a guy from my sister's church, he is really devote, really friendly, and all about serving and going beyond "fair". 

In my point of view, when things are fair, they're even (and I'm all about justice). But, when you serve, you need the balance to always tip towards the other's side, to always have the losing side of the bargain. If things are fair, you're not really serving, it's just normal trading.

Don't try to solve people's problems

"Don't try too hard to solve people's own problems. Give advice, help, just be there, and be happy." - Thoughts kept

Sometimes I do try too hard, and frequently fail. It's like when women tell you about their problems but don't really want you to do anything, just listen. It feels really nice for someone to listen to you, I can tell now. I didn't know what it meant to "be there", a typical phrase about friendship. It's pretty simple, really. 

If someone wants to talk to you, listen; shut up and listen, try to see things from their perspective, it's what they really want (not exactly what they need, but I prefer to make people happy first, and help second). 

Sometimes they can't find you; visit them, send them a message, ask how things are going. This is also common advice about keeping in touch with you parents. You don't have to make compromises, you can say you "have to go" if you don't want to talk much, but keeping in touch once in a while can really brighten people's day.

When someone talks about their problems, you can give advice, but frequently it's optional. As I said, sometimes we just want someone to listen to us.

Finally, you can help, but only if they ask, or if they're ok with it. Helping when not asked to can go wrong in many ways. Best case scenario, you have exhausted yourself trying to help someone and it didn't work, or it did work but they don't care or notice that it was because of you. Worst case scenario, you made life harder for them, or for yourself.

My old future

I was walking through my hometown market the other day and looking at all the things they sell there. All kinds of food, but also toys, dresses, rope, lamp oil. A little bit of everything, but mostly things for "town people", really cheap stuff.

When I was younger I'd walk through there and think, "I'll be like the adults buying here someday, and buy some of that, and some of that..." 

I'll never buy any of that. I have to thank God and my parents, my "economic class" is way better than them at my age. This market is an old vision of my future, something that was probably going to happen but never really happened.

2020 has taught me something

"If 2020 has taught me something is that we can be better, we just have to try." - Thoughts kept

Just like how we look back at sanitary measures in medieval times and think "Eww! Gross!", I think we've made a great improvement in our quality of life thanks to the Coronavirus epidemic. Not only that, but we also took a great leap in our usage of the new technologies, technologies that have existed for years and no one cared enough to ditch our traditional way of learning, buying, communicating... Everything! 

I think 2020 was a great year!

You can't expect someone to make you feel better

"You can't expect someone to make you feel better. You have to be better for that someone." - Thoughts kept

Isn't that just cute? I guess things looks cute and nicer when you're in love, but I think I can live by these words.

It is better to have loved and lost

"It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." - Alfred Lord Tennyson

I sometimes walk away from nice experiences, I even stop myself from loving someone or enjoying something too much, because of the fear of losing it.

"I don't wanna fall in love because I'm always prepared to lose." - Thoughts kept

I really shouldn't be like that.

It's better to love and lose. 

It's better to try and fail.

It's better to get rejected, than never knowing the answer.

How to like people

How to like people | Derek Sivers - https://sive.rs/d1p

Many people have entered my life in the past year, and not all of them I really like or want to spend time with. But people are fascinating, people are fun, people can really help, people need you. I really like Derek's post because we know these things, we just forget, or prefer not to think about it.

Life moves pretty fast

"Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different?" - C. S. Lewis

I might focus too much on the past, but there's truth to this. Everything is constantly changing.

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." - Ferris Bueller

Don’t cry because it’s over

"Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened." - Ludwig Jacobowski

This has been really hard for me to follow. The main reason I'm ever sad it's because I think back of the nice things of the past, be it my childhood or literally earlier today.