What is the most important attribute that will get us through any situation in best ways possible?

Over time, I have come to reach the answer of the question, and that is composure. I will relate the answer to Zen/Buddhism’s promotion of finding the stillness in mind, a imperturbable sense of calmness through continuous self-examination and self-discovery. Just a reminder that I am not preaching philosohy or religion, instead, I am stating something that has worked well for me and I believe in now.

I can still feel angry, disappointed, sad, happy, estatic, but I have come to realize that whatever emotions and feelings I may get, there is a stillness in my mind that can be kept. My mind is a part of my entity. Those emotions are not. And with a calm mind, I can maintain my awareness, assess the situation, and come up with the best way to respond or to handle those emotions. Some simple examples (taken from my personal experience):

• If you play basketball for a long time, fatigue starts to build up and your shots are becoming more inaccurate and your body becomes less coordinated, would it do you any good to fret and get scared to take shots?
• If you are a singer, half way into a song, gone over the most difficult part, and all the singing muscle becomes really tense, would it do you any good to panic and start thinking about not hitting the right pitch?
• If you are to present in front of some very important individuals, in school or at work, would it do you any good to get so nervous and studder through the presentation?

As smart as you all are :) the apparent answer to all those are, “No, it is best for us to remain as calm as possible in order to make it through the situation with best possible performance.” I am not saying we should never be nervous because that is not possible, as I get nervous myself too! But staying calm and keeping a still mind will allow us to deal out the best cards we can at those moments, albeit subpar. It could only be worse if you get nervous, panic, and have a mental break-down.

In other words, there is no reason for us to fret or panic about anything. The only thing panicing will do for us is to make matters worse. Even if the situation is desperate, dire, and nothing can be done to help, we can reason that everything will come to pass in life, which is the truth. Why should we panic, fret, and worry ourselves to death? Just aim and do our best possible with support of a calm and still mind.

The quote provides the most suitable description of what I just mentioned:

“When the mind begins to become still, we then begin to truly see it. When you first try to stabilize and pacify the mind, initially it will become very busy because it’s not accustomed to being still. In fact, it doesn’t even necessarily want to become still, but it is essential to get a hold of the mind to recognize its nature. This practice is extremely important. … Eventually you will find yourself in a state where your mind is clear and open all the time. It is just like when the clouds are removed from the sky and the sun can clearly be seen, shining all the time. This is coming close to the state of liberation, liberation from all traces of suffering. … The truth of this practice is universal. It isn’t necessary to call it a religion to practice it. Whether one is a Hindu or a Moslem or a Christian or a Buddhist simply doesn’t matter. Anyone can practice this because this is the nature of the mind, the nature of everyone’s mind. If you can get a handle on your mind, and pacify it in this way, you will definitely experience these results, and you will see them in your daily life situation. There is no need to put this into any kind of category, any kind of “ism.” Venerable Gyatrul Rinpoche

So remember, you can be nervous, you can be angry, you can be overjoyed, but maintain a still mind that will help you get through any situation the best way possible.

The main reason for the title of this post sprouts from reading one article and another article regarding attempt to pass legislation that set aside 20 billion will help people from foreclosures in the subprime mortgage sector. And I won’t get started on how the goverment is over-spending (our poor tax money…) It’s a whole other rant.

Anyways, you ask, how does the legislation relate to responsibility, or the death of it?

Here is some background info, in a nutshell:
Yes, the subprime mortgage exists to help people with lesser credit to obtain money to be able to purchase a home. But couple years ago, a lot of people, who I would assume did not think and plan logically based on their cash flow and how the possibility of rate adjustment would affect their payment in future, take on these loans to purchase a home. And I am certain among those people, there are plenty who took it to the extreme to buy something they can only marginally afford. On top of that, they probably take the risk of buying such homes with the assumption that the market price will continue to rise. Needless to say, now that the market price is stagnant and probably will drop some more, and time has reached to point of rate reset, they can no longer afford their payments and face foreclosure.

Here is the answer why having the legislation is an irresponsible deed:
The word of significance from my explanation above is, RISK. Any market/business out there involves risk. Like buying stocks, people understand (I hope they do…) that they are at risk of buying something that which the value may drop and therefore, they can lose money. The logic isn’t too far off here. These people, who are now facing foreclosures, borrwed money and borrowed more than they can afford. There’s also probability that they did not try to fully comprehend the terms – what could happen with the rate and how a slight change in rate can strangle them by taking loans to the extreme. They took the bet, and they lost. Like gambling in casino, you don’t get your money back when you lost. Period

This takes me to the conclusion that the folks proposing the legislation are simply silly. If they go ahead with that, why don’t they have legislation to help cover the people who lost in the stock market. Next, help the people who started business and completely failed. While we are at it, let’s have legislation that bails out the folks who lost their shirts at casino. This really makes me want to laugh.

On top of this and outside of the financial arena, responsibility is also non-existent. A few points of support are:

• Most recently, from the Virginia Tech shooting, I talked about how people fail to look into themselves for the source of problem
• Another recent case, check out some news on Alberto Gonzales. The dude used 50+ times of “I don’t recall” as his answers in his own defense. Isn’t he the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation? If so, I would say, whether he is willing or not, whether he likes it or not, it’s his job, and he should be aware of the firing process of eight attorneys. Since he doesn’t recall of of that, he deserves to be fired, as a normal employee would on a job.
• A case of parents suing frat/school for the demise of their under-age-son because of alchohol. My argument – did the fraternity or the school make the decision for the boy to sneak in and over-drink? Even if it’s due to hazing, the kid chose to join the frat himself. I am sorry, but he has made a stupid choice.
• Few years back, a case where people attempt to sue the big four fast food restaurants “lying” to customers and need to offer healthier options to. What the heck, c’mon, we all know fast food are not healthy. Go eat something else if you want to be healthy or add exercise to the agenda.
• Domestic (unmarried) partner claiming the other person has held them back in life. This is an example I observed from personal life and my argument – pure excuses.

The list could go on if I really want to keep digging, but I think I have stated my point. It would really help if people do THINK before they make a decision, and also understand that whatever outcomes are the direct result of our own decisions and actions, and we need to stop blaming and take responsibility.

Like I said before, I have made the “final” payment for my car a little over a week ago and finally received the Certificate of Title :) So now I really, literally own “my” beautiful Scion tC.

Two good things I want to reiterate by doing this:
– I’m automatically “making” 6.15% return after tax
– The joy and happy feeling of having one less loan account to look at

So if you have outstanding loan/debt, you can get the same things by paying them off. Start with the one with the highest interest rate.

The days have gone, and we all know about the Virgina Tech shooting. Now we are asking ourselves, “How do we deal with the tragedy?”

Here’s my interpretation and observation. The event is a tragedy by itself, and no doubt each and everyone of us are saddened by it to different levels depending on how closely we are related to the event.

But you know what? I am saddened. I am VERY saddened, and troubled. TRULY! Not by the tragedy itself, but by a bigger tragedy the way I see it.

Glancing over many the media coverage about the event, I have a tough time accepting the topics of the coverage. It just seems to me that people are just pointing fingers, blaming any fact/person (gun-seller, video game, movie…) they can lay their eyes/hands on, or just having their own political agenda (eg. school safey, security, gun control…).

Instead, I would like us to pause and take the chance to ask ourselves some questions and look into ourselves. I tried to find something that’s similar to what I propose here, but to no avail… If only we can stop pointing fingers for a moment and think? That maybe Seung-Hui Cho would not have done so if he was shown some caring and kindness along the way he was growing up. How could he ever get so angry? Maybe a few sincere simple words were all he needed… like in one of the last scenes in American Beauty, where Mena Suvari asked Kevin Spacey “How are you?” and meant it.

He has come from Korea with his family and appeared to have lived a very modest life style. Two things come to mind – the difficulty of adjusting to a completely new country and environment, which I myself has experienced and can relate to and plus the difficulty of living perhaps a more modest life. On top of those, who knows what kind of treatment his family received and himself received in school in a younger age. And then there’s also the treatment and condition amongst his family. I think if they look into his history, they can most likely find something starting from there. (they probably have already but who want such boring story anyways) These are speculations, but whatever his experience was… all together have turned him into such a lonely soul… so isolated, so lonely and it hurts so bad…

The problem with this approach is that it requires us to stop blaming others and take the blame ourselves, that “we are bad ‘friends’ (quote and quote)”, “we are bad parents”, “we are not kind enough”, or even “we don’t really give a damn about other people anymore”. It is obvious that no one would want to admit to those, and it is pretty hard to swallow. Therefore, we people are more prone to take the easy way out by pointing fingers.

The problem is that if we just blame other people and things, we fail to accept the flaws in us and try to correct. I propose that we are to consistently evaluate ourselves and to pay attention if we’re showing kindness to others. We are all human beings living under the same sky, on the same earth, breathing the same air, so I think it’s fair to all of us to spend effort to reach out to others when they need it. And also communicate to people, among family, and I mean “real” communication. Throw away the sexiem, racism, discrimination, skin color difference, sexual orientation diversity, religious bias, age gap, principle difference… all that crap and stop alienating ourselves amont ourselves. Show kindness and love, shed some light on others, care, and most importantly, these should all come from the heart and that we really mean them.

I would like to ask us all to stop and think about this for a moment. It gives me bigger chill that none of us seem to think like this… Let’s end “this” tragedy…

PS. I sincerely wish I have a better way to scream to the world about this.

Humans are such silly creatures and can’t seem to stop from killing each other in a rapid pace…

Not only there are wars going on, we’re also shooting each other to death… as gunman kills 32 at university.

Einstein is right… Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe. It’s saddening to see people lose themselves, give up on rationalization, and deprive himself and others for a chance.