On my exciting and amazing journey to the stars.....

[Deliciously Happy]

The Three Days Rule:

In anger, we always make the wrong decision. We make a decision that will show how important we are and that they should not mess with us. We will make a decision that will sometimes, but more likely intended, to end in an ultimate victory for us and ultimate loss for the other side. Thereby, we bypass the always better decision of understanding and leading to happy harmony for the many days/years to come for everyone. Thus, any decision that is thought of during anger, that seems to make sense at the time, should be delayed for three days. It should be reviewed after three days under a calm mind to see if it is still valid, and will lead to happiness and better friendship for all parties involved.

[Deliciously Happy]

I was reading Mitch Albom's book Tuesdays with Morrie and I came across the most wonderful message for marriage that I want to share. This from Morrie for Love and Marriage.

1. If you don't respect the other person, you're gonna have a lot of trouble
2. If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna be in a lot of trouble
3. If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you two, you're gonna have a lot of trouble
4. If you don't have a set of common values in life and the biggest of those values is your belief in the importance of your marriage, you're gonna be in a lot of trouble

[Deliciously Happy]

"Be compassionate and take responsibility for each other." - Morrie from the book Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

[Deliciously Happy]

In the final days of WW II, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor was hung in prison a few weeks before the German surrender. It was one of Hitler's final order as his empire was crumbling. That is because Dietrich Bonhoeffer fought the Nazi as a spy for the allies. He didn't do it for money or the excitement of being a spy, but he didn't want to be stupid and simply confirm to Nazism and watch the suffering of so many people in the evil.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was already in the US in 1939 to teach. He concluded that he could not remain in the US while his country was in a moral crisis.  He knew going back would mean his death. He was a great humanitarian hero of WW II.

He defines Stupidity as follow:

1. Outsourcing our critical thinking to a 3rd party (someone's random teaching or even anger)
2. Willful ignorance (not taking steps to resolving ignorance)
3. Conformity (to the energy and thinking of others)

[Prude]

I was reading Mitch Albom's book Tuesdays with Morrie and I came across the most wonderful message for marriage that I want to share. This from Morrie for Love and Marriage.

1. If you don't respect the other person, you're gonna have a lot of trouble
2. If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna be in a lot of trouble
3. If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you two, you're gonna have a lot of trouble
4. If you don't have a set of common values in life and the biggest of those values is your belief in the importance of your marriage, you're gonna be in a lot of trouble

If you get married, it's already a lot of trouble.

[Prude]

In the final days of WW II, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor was hung in prison a few weeks before the German surrender. It was one of Hitler's final order as his empire was crumbling. That is because Dietrich Bonhoeffer fought the Nazi as a spy for the allies. He didn't do it for money or the excitement of being a spy, but he didn't want to be stupid and simply confirm to Nazism and watch the suffering of so many people in the evil.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was already in the US in 1939 to teach. He concluded that he could not remain in the US while his country was in a moral crisis.  He knew going back would mean his death. He was a great humanitarian hero of WW II.

He defines Stupidity as follow:

1. Outsourcing our critical thinking to a 3rd party (someone's random teaching or even anger)
2. Willful ignorance (not taking steps to resolving ignorance)
3. Conformity (to the energy and thinking of others)

Which one does this fall under: knowing one's death is assured and yet still pursuing that path?

[Deliciously Happy]

"We were born for cooperation, Say to yourself first thing in the morning: today I shall meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, aggressive, treacherous, malicious, and unsocial. All this has afflicted them through their ignorance of true good and evil. But I have seen that the nature of good is what is right, and the nature of evil what is wrong, and I have reflected that the nature of the offender himself is akin to my own - not a kinship of blood or seed, but a sharing in the same mind, the same fragment of divinity. Therefore I cannot be harmed by any of them, as none will infect me with their wrong. Nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him. We were born for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of upper and lower teeth. So to work in opposition to one another is against nature: and anger or rejection is opposition." - Marcus Aurelius

[Deliciously Happy]

Which one does this fall under: knowing one's death is assured and yet still pursuing that path?

Great courage? 

However, for all of us, our death is assured, and yet we are still pursuing, without great courage as well.

I once read a saying that goes: If you ride a tiger, you're going to die. If you don't ride a tiger, you are going to die as well. Therefore, might as well ride the tiger. Dietrich Bonhoeffer chose to ride the tiger. 

[Deliciously Happy]

What a man wants:


“One's own free unfettered choice, one's own caprice, however wild it may be, one's own fancy worked up at times to frenzy -- is that very "most advantageous advantage" which we have overlooked, which comes under no classification and against which all systems and theories are continually being shattered to atoms. And how do these wiseacres know that man wants a normal, a virtuous choice? What has made them conceive that man must want a rationally advantageous choice? What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead. And choice, of course, the devil only knows what choice.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky

[Deliciously Happy]

"Worrying doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength." - Corrie Ten Boom

[Deliciously Happy]

Invictus by William Ernest Henley 1849 –1903. The poem was written in 1875, while Henley was recovering in an infirmary in Edinburgh after undergoing surgeries to save his remaining leg from tuberculosis.

Out of the night that covers me,   
   Black as the Pit from pole to pole,   
I thank whatever gods may be   
   For my unconquerable soul.   

In the fell clutch of circumstance
   I have not winced nor cried aloud.   
Under the bludgeonings of chance   
   My head is bloody, but unbowed.   

Beyond this place of wrath and tears   
   Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years   
   Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.   

It matters not how strait the gate,   
   How charged with punishments the scroll,   
I am the master of my fate:
   I am the captain of my soul.

[Deliciously Happy]

I want to be like the Zen Master Hakuin.

The following description of Hakuin's life is from the link https://kannondo.org/is-that-so/

The Zen Master Hakuin lived in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. He is said to have created the now-famous question: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” Hakuin believed that the understanding arising out of practice in everyday life was deeper than the understanding that could come from practicing in the monastery, since lay people faced more distractions, held more responsibiliti es, and experienced more heartbreak than the monks and so needed to practice with great diligence.

Hakuin was greatly respected and had many disciples. At one time in his life, he lived in a village hermitage, close to a food shop run by a couple and their beautiful, young daughter. One day the parents discovered that their daughter was pregnant. Angry and distraught, they demanded to know the name of the father. At first, the girl would not confess but after much harassment, she named Hakuin. The furious parents confronted Hakuin, berating him in front of all of his students. He simply replied, “Is that so?”

When the baby was born, the family gave it to Hakuin.  By this time, he had lost his reputation and his disciples. But Hakuin was not disturbed. He took delight in caring for the infant child; he was able to obtain milk and other essentials from the villagers. A year later, the young mother of the child was troubled by great remorse. She confessed the truth to her parents – the real father was not Hakuin but rather a young man who worked at the local fish market. The mortified parents went to Hakuin, apologizing, asking his forgiveness for the wrong they did him. They asked Hakuin to return the baby. Although he loved the child as his own, Hakuin was willing to give him up without complaint. All he said was: “Is that so?”