Curse the Girl Scouts

I have been trying to eat health the last couple of weeks or so. I really don't have a huge choice as to what I eat but I try. This eating health usually consists of eating more veggies and eating less needed things like cakes and ice cream. Recently a work buddy of mine just recieved over 200 boxes of Girl Scout cookies in the mail. I took some of the boxes as a gift even though I kept thinking this is a bad idea. As I was on the internet oddly enough, I opened a box and ate one, then two, then three, a whole box of cookies. I wondered, "what am I actually doing?" So I decided to read the nutrition facts. Apparently I just consumed over 200% of my daily saturated fat and over a thousand calories. So what did I do when I discovered such information? Come on do you really have to ask? Yep I shrugged my shoulders and opened up another box.

I have to tip my hat to the Girl Scouts. KFC's Colonel has nothing on these ladies. Whatever secert ingredient that the Colonel puts into his chicken to make you crave for it daily is nothing close to the cookies. Also you feel kind of bad if you don't eat them. I'm looking at a box right now and there is a picture of girls learning how to train and handle owls! How cool is that! I want girls to learn how to handle birds of prey. With a motto like, "Courage, Confidence, Character" you have to eat the cookies. Hey I want young girls to grow up to be women of bravery, confidence, and principles. I gotta eat those cookies. Come on all those hopes, dreams, and smiles on the box can only happen if I open it up, right?!? Heck the box is even made out of 100% recycled paper. This is a win win situation. I don't smoke so my arteries can take a slight hit. It is my duty to sacrifice a little to gain so much. Hey I know what you are thinking, I'm trying to shake responsibility for eating over 2000 calories and 400% of my saturated fate intake for the day. The truth couldn't be farther, I'm taking credit for it. Curse you Girl Scouts putting me in this impossible position to do good with bad. Or is it doing bad for good. Hey now they are getting into my racket!

If one of my childhood heroes wans't the Cookie Monster then I think I would have some serious ideological problems. But luckly C is for Courage, Confidence, Character and . . . Cookie? Well that is good enough for me.

Spread the Poverty

I just read an article in Scientific American. The article pointed to evidence that when people think about money or are introduced to stimuli that would invoke thoughts of money one becomes less likely to ask for help or to help other people. I thought the result was fairly interesting but not all that shocking. After I thought about it for some time I noticed an oddity about the study, there seems to be a link between asking for help and having a desire to help other people.

This seemed very counter intuitive to me. For the most part, the people I know that help people the most are least likely to ask or accept help from another. I have always attributed this character flaw to a bit of hypocrisy in all of us. I think the core of is one is to prideful to accept help as it seems like a weakness and one is willing to give help as it seems like a strength. So it is OK for others to be weak but not me. This of course is never really the case as asking and accepting help often requires one to swallow ones pride, or deal with some other fear of inadequacy; in such the asking requires more strength than most acts. It is those acts which dominated the urges that would hinder self improvement that require the most strength.

But I digress. I have long thought that not asking for help was fundamentally an issue of pride and fear. After much thinking and a deeper understanding of the article in Scientific American it has become clear to me that not asking for help is fundamentally an issue of greed. When one helps others one gets the benefit of altruism. When one does not allow others to help them one denies that gift of altruism to others. That seems quit selfish to me. I get to enjoy the benefits of being benevolent but you don't. I can not view that as anything else but hording. Thinking of money instinctively brought about selfish behavior in the study, one of which was not asking for help. I remember a long long time ago I said to someone, "Hey sometimes you have to serve by letting yourself be served."

Alls well that ends well

First I would like to say I'm not a communist or a communist sympathizer. With that being said I would like to make a grip about capitalism. There is this general notion in a capitalistic system that all things can be boiled down to capital. In most cases this is true. A house can be converted into capital thus be transferred to cars or a wide variety of things. Heck capital can even be converted into some non materialistic things such as feelings of enjoyment and such. Now comes my grip; the notion time is money and money is time. I agree that time does equal money. The more time you invest in obtaining capital the more money you will probably get. However, this does not mean that once you get that capital you can regain or buy that time back at a later period. Granted there are things that capital can buy that will maximize you time, but time spent is time spent you don't get it back. So where am I going with this you may wonder. Prepare for the rabbit hole. . .

Next I would like to talk about holistic health. (how are these topics related? Just stick with me on this.) I would like to define what I consider holistic health. Holistic health to me is realizing that all aspects of you life effect your health. That is to say your social relationships have just as much bearing on your over all health as how many miles a week you run. What holistic health isn't to me is the use of crystals and snake oil to cure negative health conditions. Don't get me wrong I think alternative medicine has a great role in one's overall health, but when it comes to needing a kidney transplant you need to see a doctor. I've also noticed the aspect of alternative medicine that seems to be most successful are areas regarding pain management. Pain management is a huge deal in overall health. In order to have a holistic approach to health you have to fix and develop your non health related fields in order to be healthy. Some of these fields include increasing your faith, developing meaningful ties with your family and friends, etc.

So how does my grip with capitalism and holistic health relate? The answer is one word marketing. Lately holistic health has been associated with the concept of wellness. Because of this there has been a flood of wellness products that have arisen. Hey feeling a little unwell, then just take a sip of this new wellness drink and you'll be ok! Better yet spend the weekend at this wellness spa and it will magically erase the fact you have ignored your health for the past six months! We have gotten to the point where we think that if we work 70 hours a week that you can buy your health back. The problem is that your holistic health takes time and work. No amount of capital will replace that. You can't buy a 3 mile run every day. You can't buy being there for your kids. You can't buy having conversations with your parents. You can't buy going on that hike (but you can buy some really good hiking trips, but you still have to go on them). No amount of wellness products and services are going to replace the core of holistic health. You have to place your health as a priority. That takes time and often a lot of work. In these times we have become so accustomed to being able to buy something and/or have it quickly that we forget there are no capital solutions to the human being.

The Hype

A long long time ago I use to debate which band was the greatest of all time. Now you might observe I am not a musician of any sort or a historian in the area of music and if you haven't I'm confessing it now. Needless to say due to my complete lack of qualifications and the complete lack of qualifications of the people I associated with there was virtually no meaningful products of these debates. One comment does stick out in my mind however, "Led Zeppelin is the most overrated band of all time, it doesn't take away from the fact that they are the greatest of all time."

This statement lead to a vast new way of thinking for me. The concept is simple, one could be overrated and yet still be the best. For instance one could think that Michelle Jordan was the greatest basketball player ever and still overate his ability to win the game. One of the problems with being overrated even if you are the best people tend to get a warped image of you, and in turn a lot of unfair criticism comes your way. I think the United States is in this boat. We are overrated, lets face it. We are no longer the industry leaders in a lot of sectors, and our social stats in certain areas are less than what could be. However this does not mean that the United States isn't the greatest country here on Earth. It just means we've been hyped and now the illusion of the hype is fading away. Personally I'm glad the hype is going away. So what wisdom can we derive from this? None. There is nothing from the fading hype that will help us. So why bother blog about this you jerkface? First it's my blog and I blog what I want. Second this just gives me a perspective on the next big hype, China.

Yep China is the next big hype. Don't get me wrong I think China is an amazing country filled with potential and will have a huge impact on the world. I also think China is hyped just like us, or US err whatever. So what advice do I have for China? Get ready for the criticism. You thought the rest of the world was tough on you before, just wait. You need to do this, you need to do that. You will never make it so everyone will be happy, and some how everything will be your fault.

You know they say that China is the next super power that will match the US supposed hegemony over the world. I can't wait.

The Most Dangerous Game

I love water. Water is a great thing. I love the ocean, lakes, rivers, and drinking water. As with the rest of life your love can be the one that hurts the most. I remember back in the day I use to play this game called gulp poker. Since the group decided not to bet money we would bet drinks of water. (Neither I or my friends were into drinking spirited beverages.) I'm also a horrible poker player, but in this area I have a lot of wealth. Yes I can drink a lot of water. One game my friend/nemesis(at the time) got me pretty good on one hand. I ended up drinking so much water that I threw up, well water. Now you would think that my water stupidity would end there; oh how little you know me if you thought so. I've discovered a new game. The game is called lets drink all the water in the buffalo (or whatever ride you are in). Now the game starts to really get interesting when you load about 24-30 liters of water in said pimpin ride. I ended up drinking 7 liters of water in one sitting. Needless to say this is a stupid game, but hey it's what I do.