How much ambition is really necessary?

Sometimes people tell me I have to be more ambitious. But do I really always have to be best at everything?

It seems like society sees it as a sin if you don’t seize every opportunity you have, even if it concerns something that is not really important. Is it a sin to waste your talent, for example?

Are you not allowed to be happy unless you achieve more and more?

How ambitious does one really have to be? And how much ambition is too much? Can there ever be too much of it, in your opinion? I would definitely have to answer in the affirmative.

I can be pretty determined if I really want something and I do have dreams and aims in life. But this doesn’t relate to every activity in my life, I don’t feel the need to be more ambitious about certain things.

For instance, I have been doing judo for quite some time now, although I don’t do much lately, actually hardly any at all. Anyway, over the years, I participated in several competitions and I was somewhat successful, for my standards. However, I have always only done it as a hobby and refused every offer to go to a special school that would focus more on sports. Also, I didn’t want to practice every day or go to another more promising and successful club than the one in my town.
As a consequence, some people told me I’d wasted my talent. But have I really? I had a dream, I aimed to take part in the national championship just for once. When I qualified for it a few years ago, it was quite a big success for me. However, I have accomplished my goal, so afterwards I honestly lacked any ambition to achieve more than that.  And why do people think I should want that? Maybe I could have achieved more, but I never wanted to live for it and I knew that I would never be good enough to be really successful. I have always been told that I need to be more aggressive and more ambitious, but that’s just not how I am and I am not going to change with regard to this. So why waste my time, given that I want something else in life?

Moreover, my priorities have changed, they became simpler and more difficult at the same time. Although I still love doing judo just for fun, I don’t care about how successful I am concerning sports, I’d rather like to finish my studies, find a job, travel, have my own little family one day, just be happy. And if I know that living for a sport won't make me happy, I won't do it.

Is it really necessary to be ambitious in every area of life? Does it make you more successful, happier?

Is ambition the key to success? But what if you don’t want that success? What if you’re content with what you have already achieved?

Do you consider it as a waste not to seize every opportunity you have? Does it make a difference for you whether it is about a hobby or a job, for example?

I am not saying that having ambitions is bad. When I really want something, I fight for it, I don’t give up and I do everything I can to get where I want to be. But there are things I just don’t need to accomplish.

Besides, in my opinion, too much ambition can become harmful when it turns into an obsession.

Believing Your Own Lies

We all know that there are people who lie. But there are also people who lie to themselves and who seem to believe themselves.

Are people actually able to convince themselves of their own lies?

Do some people really talk themselves into believing their imaginary stories? Do they even realise anymore that they are lying?

This is a phenomenon that I could often observe with regard to certain people. A person that called me a few days ago told me about what a colleague of hers has done and that she thinks it is terrible. What is remarkable is that this person had done the same thing in an even worse extent over a long period of time. I didn’t know what to say. After all, she should have known I remember what she had done, so normally she wouldn’t mention similar behaviours of others in order to not draw attention to it. The only explanation is that she decided to pretend it never happened and not just in front of others but for herself.

It seems to me that some people actually succeed in talking themselves into believing that their own false behaviour never happened. It is astonishing what humans are capable of. I was aware of the fact that this person tells a lot of lies and tries to convince others of them but so far I have never realised she does actually believe them herself. This does explain some things, it makes me understand things I have never understood before.

What I am not sure about though is whether this is a sign of some serious mental disorder or whether we all do that to a certain extent.

I think sometimes people try to repress bad memories, which is perfectly understandable in some cases. However, is it still normal to behave like any false behaviour on your side  has never existed and to actually believe it?

What is even more extreme is that there are people who build up a whole world of lies. In school, one of my friends told me about a classmate that had made up his own successful band, lots of friends and a girlfriend and that he openly talked about them all the time and that apparently he told everyone how popular, rich and good-looking they all were, in addition to a lot of other rather unbelievable stories. I believe that you shouldn’t judge someone without even knowing him, so I told my friend that it might indeed be only due to unfavourable circumstances that no one had ever seen these friends, band, or girlfriend. However, I got to meet that person and at some point it became impossible to deny that something was obviously wrong with his stories (this is an understatement). No one was sure whether he believed in his own lies. In my opinion, at some point he had started to believe that his stories were true.
He has built up his own imaginary world. 

Sometimes we talk ourselves into believing certain things because we want them to be true.

Some children even have imaginary friends and you wouldn’t consider that as lying.

But where is the cross point between lying and having your own view of the world? If you believe your own lies, are you telling the truth? There is this quote that I mentioned in a post in the beginning of my blogging days: Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

Don’t we all have our own views and opinions about who we are and how the world looks like? And if we don’t actively think about it, we think that this is how the world actually looks like. But what if it does in fact look completely different for everyone else? And I am sure it does.

So do we actually all live in our own imaginary world?

Why do we believe in certain values?

Last week, one of our professors told us about the result of a survey that showed that 47% of Americans agreed with the following statement: It is necessary to believe in God to be moral and have good values.

I do not know about the reliability of this survey, but I think it is a quite interesting question: Is it necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values?

In my opinion, an individual does definitely not have to believe in God to have good values.

However, I happened to read another statement that describes a scenario in which no one believes in God and such a thing as religion does not exist. What this person says is that without God (or people believing in God), there would also be no morals and no good values because people would not believe in a higher judgement after death. But is this really true? (Note that this is not a discussion about whether a God exists; this is rather about what would happen if people didn’t believe in his existence, if there didn’t exist any religion at all.) I believe that even if nowadays there were no one to believe in God, good values would still remain. But what if religions would never have existed? Do our values and morals really exist because of the existence of certain religions? But who does really believe in the existence of hell nowadays? If people do believe in God and therefore believe in good values, do they really do that because they fear punishment? Isn’t it rather because they believe in a good or loving god?

Assuming that morals are not the origin of religion, why do we believe in them? Why do we think certain things are immoral? Who decides what is immoral? Don’t there have to be some given rules that someone specifies? What are “good values” anyway?

Is it all a concept of treating others the way you would like to be treated yourself?

The truth is, usually being selfish and ruthless is the best way to be successful in certain things in life. My brother has always been indicative of this fact. He always lied, never cared about anyone but himself, wouldn’t even think about helping another person and there he is with plenty of friends, money and time, and girls running after him. Yet I honestly don’t know how he can even sleep at night, knowing about all the things he has done.

My brother definitely doesn’t believe in some values that are generally thought to be good. But what if he has his own values? There has to be someone who decides what is good.

So, if not acting according to certain values like honesty and kindness makes us successful and if we don’t fear hell after life, what makes us still believe in them?

I think there are many influences that affect our values, maybe some of those are defined by religion, some certainly by our culture (in my opinion, this has a huge influence on a lot of people and there are clearly different values in different cultures) and some by our close environment, like family. That is where we get to know about certain values, but what makes us really believe in these?

I truly believe in some values, I have mentioned some in several other posts, amongst them kindness and honesty. But I can’t explain the reasons. I believe they are good and right and in my heart I know they are, but it is difficult to explain why.

What are some values you believe in? And why are they important for you?

I would love to hear some opinions to any or all of the questions.

Who would you be?

Everyone has a role model. Who is yours? Who was your role model when you were a child?
If you could be anyone, who would you be?

Every now and then I read questions like these. Every time I think about it, but I don’t have an answer. I think the first role model for little children are their parents. But then comes the time when you realize they are not inerrable. So most children then choose some celebrity as their role model. They have posters hanging in their bedrooms and want to be like them.

I never really had that. In fact, I have never really understood the wish to be like some celebrity.

The point is, people admire them for a certain role they play in a movie or for something they achieve in sports, for example. It is comprehensible that they would like to emulate them in these actions. But, and this is what I have always considered, they don’t know who these people really are. How can you know about their personality? How can you know what they had or have to suffer in their lives? You don’t know who they really are. You only know a little excerpt of their lives. So why do you want to be exactly like them? Furthermore, they are not perfect.  They can’t be because no one is. So I don’t see a point in wishing to be someone else.

Whenever someone asks me who I would like to be if I could choose anyone, I don’t have an answer, at least I can’t think of any specific persons. There are certainly a lot of things I can learn from other people and a lot of things I would like to adopt from others. And surely my life is everything but perfect. But I am who I am. So all I can do is try to improve who I already am instead of wanting to be someone else.

However, I do consider it as reasonable to try to follow certain actions, behaviours or features. It makes sense to admire these. 

When you admire someone for being a good person, it certainly is a good idea to try to be that too, in your own way. If you admire someone for being a good writer, you can try to be become an equally good writer. But you have to try to find your own style.

Nevertheless, I was wondering whether it is even possible not to have any role models. Does everyone have one without even noticing? Do we have many?
Aren’t there always people we imitate? How else would we learn anything? Or do we invent every action new for ourselves?  

Anyway, I do think people in our environment can have a huge impact on us.

I was sometimes surprised by the influence one's friends can have on one's behaviour. My brother used to have a very changing circle of friends. Every time he had new friends, his taste in music changed (it was easy to say, you could hear it everywhere in the house) and every time he adopted their vocabulary or behaviour. For instance, when he had friends who smoked and drank a lot, he did that too.

This makes we wonder, are we all just a copy of our environment?

Obviously, one’s environment and especially friends can have a huge impact on one’s behaviour. So are we just lucky to have a “good” circle of friends? But then again, don’t we choose our friends?

Did you adapt yourself to become more like your friends, perhaps without even noticing?

Maybe the question should rather be Who are you? instead of Who would you be?

Coming back to the initial question, I always tried to find my own way.
I am not sure whether that is even possible or whether it is just an illusion and actually we are all just a mixture of all the people we meet. After all, I don’t invent any new behaviour, do I? But maybe we can decide which ingredients from which people we choose and consequently become the best result we can.

Certainly there are always people who influence us, our personality, our behaviour. I think it is good or even necessary to have people who inspire us. But in the end, you are an individual and you should make the best out of who you are instead of copying someone else.

Are there any people that inspire you?

Do you have a role model? Do you even want to be someone else?

Whose fault is it?

Lately, I have been thinking about victims and offenders in certain situations. Don't we all rather like to see ourselves as victims? It is so much easier to blame someone else for things that go wrong in our lives. 

I mentioned this in several posts, I have never had a good relationship to my parents or to my brother, due to things happening that I have no words for.

There is this idea that in some cases it is not only the offender’s but also the victim’s fault because the victim lets it happen and doesn’t defend himself.

Let me explain. When I was a little child, I was rather shy. Actually that is an understatement.  I was very shy, I almost never talked to strangers, and in particular I avoided talking to adults. I think I was afraid of doing something wrong. I was also a compliant child, I did everything my parents asked me to do, although apparently often doing it wrong in their eyes.
My brother, in contrast, was quite revolting and whenever he didn’t get what he wanted, he created terror. Besides, he had a talent in lying and ingratiating himself with others, especially with our mother. As a result, it didn't matter much how I felt about certain decisions, which was kind of my own fault.
For instance, there were these humiliating situations my brother liked to spit on me, literally, just because he thought it was fun, or because he knew I didn't like it, or without any reason at all. My parents decided I had to endure this because they didn’t want to have troubles with him and I, on the other hand, didn’t cause so much trouble, so it was easier that way.
This was only a little prelude to things he later committed.

However, I remember exactly this one moment when again my mother decided it wouldn’t matter what I wanted because my brother wanted something else and all of a sudden my father said: Why does she always have to back down? This was the moment I decided he was right and I began to express my own opinions and to disagree with my mother. As a consequence, our relationship became even worse with every year that passed.

Anyway, I never really defended myself much when I was young, so I made it easy for my parents and my brother to take advantage of that. On the other hand, I was just a little child and all I tried to do was to make my parents love me or be proud of me.
But shouldn’t my parents have known better?

One thing that I also considered is, what if my brother was made the way he is now? Is it even his fault? Are maybe my parents responsible for the way he behaves? Was he taught to behave ruthless?

I consider that possible. Nonetheless, even though he might not have had the right education, he should know some basic things, he should know things like sexual abuse are wrong. Or can he have lost the ability to feel someone else's pain?

If someone was raised thinking that he can just take anything he wants without any consequences, is it his fault when he continues thinking that way once he is an adult?

It almost seems as if he is a victim.

So whose fault is it really? Who is to blame?

Is it the one who does something wrong? The ones that didn’t teach that person what is wrong? Or is it the one who didn’t defend himself or herself enough?

In my opinion, you can’t just make someone else responsible for your own decisions. Even if it might partly be my parents’ fault, even if they partially made my brother the way he is, you cannot blame them for everything he does. I mean, wouldn’t that result in going backwards more and more? What if my parents were treated badly as children? Was it then their parents’ fault?

At some point, you are responsible for your own actions and you cannot blame someone else for committing a crime. At some point, you just have to decide to leave the vicious circle, you have to know about your responsibility for your own actions. A difficult childhood is so often used as an excuse for behaving badly. In my opinion, it might sometimes explain some behaviors, but it doesn’t excuse them.  
Finally, at some point and in some cases, it might also be important to stop whining about your victimhood and start seeing yourself as an independent being.

Are you proud of your country?

While walking across the town I go to university, I can often see people with German flags or caps with the German flag on it, especially during summer time. Seeing these signs, you can be sure they are tourists. Germans don’t wear such things, except during the time of the World Cup. Actually, while the German football team plays, you can see flags everywhere, especially on cars, but these flags disappear as soon as the event is over.

I also observe the American elections. By doing this, and by studying and reading in general, I noticed that patriotism seems to play an important role in America and also in Great Britain. In fact, I think it is specifically important for Americans and, in contrary to Germany, it is considered as something absolutely positive and indespensable.

This is very different in Germany. Due to our past, we became extremely careful with things like national pride. Although these times are gone and most people who were living that time are dead, this has not changed. Most people don’t feel proud when they think of Germany and patriotic statements are always handled very critically. At the same time, there are people who say that this is all exaggerated and that Germany should start to feel something like national pride again, as long as it doesn’t convert into nationalism.
I am not really sure about what to think of all these discussions. On the one hand, our generation is not responsible for what happened during the National Socialism. On the other hand, it is definitely a good thing to be sensitive regarding these topics. It seems that Germany knows only extremes.

Should Germans develop patriotism again?

My personal point of view is the following. I don’t really feel proud of my country. It’s not that I don’t like it though. Nowadays, there are definitely a lot of positive things here. I mentioned that there are a lot of tourists in my university town and I must admit that it is a quite beautiful town, especially during summer. But I don’t really understand that concept of national pride.

In my opinion, to be proud of something, you have to achieve something or you must have had some influence on the thing you are proud of.  What exactly are people proud of when it comes to Germany?
Moreover, there have already been so many problems in this world because people somehow think their country is superior to others.  I do not understand why people keep thinking this. After all, they didn't even choose to be born in that country.
Maybe it is not bad to support the country you are living in by being proud of it, as long as this doesn't include debasing other countries.

So, although I like that town, I am not proud of it because there hasn’t been any contribution on my side. However, somehow it doesn't seem to be inappropriate when other people are proud of their country, it seems to be natural for other nations.
 

What do you think of patriotism?

Are you proud of your country? If so, why?

I would love to hear some other opinions and I am willing to change my mind, so please feel free to share your view.

Are you extraordinary?

A few days ago, I talked to a friend about university which somehow turned into a not very serious discussion about whether he was exceptionally smart (he said he wasn’t). Eventually, we ended up arguing about the meaning of being extraordinary.

So, in his opinion, to be extraordinary you have to belong to the absolute top of something, regardless of what we are talking about, for example, you have to be a Einstein or Newton or Shakespeare to be really great and extraordinary in what you do. His definition was rather very exclusive. In contrast, I said I believe that there are a lot of ways to be extraordinary and that we can all be extraordinary in something.

This whole discussion made me think a little further. I mean, is there really something like being extraordinary? Are we not all at some point extraordinary? No one of us is the same and especially for friends or loved ones we are unique. In fact, we are all unique. But, on the other hand, what about persons like Einstein? Would you say they were ordinary, nothing special? You certainly can’t say that either.

Anyway, what is ordinary? There certainly is an average height or age of all persons you can measure, but it is more difficult when it comes to the personality or abilities of people. Besides, what does an average age say? Relating to this, are you extraordinary when you are younger or older than the average number? I am certainly not a statistics expert but you don’t have to be one to know that the mean average of something doesn’t necessarily indicate much without further information. And even if there is, this is not about statistics. How would you measure a person’s uniqueness?

Moreover, do we really have to be extraordinary? Do we always have to belong to the absolute top? Do we have to be better than everyone else? There is always someone that is “better”, so if you really want to be the best at everything, you will never be happy.

That friend also said that to be content or proud of himself, he would need to be the best and, for instance, not just the best in his university but in the whole world. He also admitted that this is very unlikely to happen but that it is a good way to improve his accomplishments constantly. Maybe it is, but I think you can be happy with what you have achieved and improve at the same time.

Instead of being the best compared to everyone else, would it not be better to focus on your own aims? I think we automatically always compare ourselves to others, I do that too. And maybe this is the only way to evaluate ourselves and improve what we do. But instead of looking at the other ones, sometimes it would just be better to focus on our personal aims. When my friends and I graduated from school, we had all very different grades, but we were all happy because we had all managed to reach our own personal goal (or at least most of us). And isn’t this enough?

On the other hand, of course, without comparing, there wouldn’t even be such things as grades, thus it is necessary to value anything.

In my opinion, it is in human’s nature to always strive for more, but in the end we’ll just have to accept that we can’t always be the best.

So, even if we can’t be the best, can we be extraordinary? Are we all extraordinary persons because everyone has something at which he or she is especial compared to others? Or is this something that refers to very few persons only? After all, the term extraordinary indicates this.

Is there such a thing or are we all unique? Or is being unique something totally different? Maybe everyone is unique but not everyone can be extraordinary.

Do you think you are extraordinary? Do you want to be?

What does being extraordinary mean to you?

My friend and I still didn’t agree in the end and although there is probably no right answer and it all depends on different definitions and points of views, I would love to hear some other opinions, ideas, experiences or whatever you have to say.

Quote of the week #7

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

William Shakespeare

Today’s topic is all about names.

Certainly, a rose would be the same if it had another name, although it is the same in German and French, each with a different pronunciation. Anyway, I don’t want to explain the tasks of language here.

What I am more interested in is the names of persons. It is only recently that I have realized that I have an unordinary relation to names, you might even say it’s strange. 
Apparently, the name of another person is something very intimate for me. Of course, this is illogical, as everyone has a name and everyone can call you by that name.
When I meet people and make friends with them, they very soon address me with my name all of the time. I have realized that I actually only call my closest friends with their names and that it takes me a lot of time to address someone with his/her name in real life, but when I do it, I like to do it and mention their names very often.  I don’t think at all it’s inappropriate when people say my name, I think I even like it, it’s just that I don’t do it. For example, someone asks me “[name], do you want to go the cinema tonight?” If I ask that question, I only use the name when it’s a close friend. Maybe I’m crazy.

However, it made me think about names and their importance for us.

At least for me, names indicate a lot of intimacy.

So, what’s in a name?

What does our name mean for us? Is it just a word? Is it us? After all, we identify ourselves with that name.

Would you like to choose another name for yourself? Would that make a difference? How important is the name you choose for your children?

Here’s another quote:

In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.

Hubert H. Humphrey

Things are what they seem to be, but does the name determine what we seem to be? Or does our personality and our behaviour have an influence on how our name seems to be?

What is the cause and what is the result or is it reciprocal in a way? Is there any connection at all?
Would you feel different about yourself if you had a completely different name, would other people expect someone differently? How much of your name determines what you seem to be?

Or, ultimately, does it only depend on who uses your name? Does it not make any difference what your name actually is but what people make out of it?
For that purpose, a last quote. It’s one that I really like and it is from a little child called Billy who was asked to define love. Can you believe he was just four years old?

When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.

Did you ever realize it makes a difference? I did. There are people who pronounce my name in a way I don’t like and there are other people that make it sound valuable.

They make your name sound unique.

Parents - What do we owe them?

“After all I’ve done for you…”. A popular sentence and I am sure some of us have heard this sentence from our parents. But what have they really done for us?

The reason for us existing in this world is that at some point of their lives our parents decided to have a baby. In some cases, it might not have been a planned child, however the decision was made to bring up the child. They raised and funded us for years.
Does that mean we owe them our lives? Do we have a debt to pay for the rest of our lives?
The common opinion is that we are in their debt because they raised and loved us regardless of what we did. Having such parents you should definitely be thankful.
But what if they didn’t?


Certainly, we should be grateful and respect them to a certain extent. But do we really have to accept all of their statements? Do we have to obey and love them unconditionally?

Let me tell a story of a little girl, just a small insight.
She’s sitting in her room, thinking of how she can make her mommy proud of her, but she can’t imagine anything else than she has already tried.
Christmas is coming and she’s writing a wish list. All she writes is this: I wish that my mommy loves me. Then she hides the note in a drawer, never showing it to anyone.
A few hours later, her mother tells her she hates her more than anything else and she wishes she would never have been born. She tells her she is a slut and the worst child one could imagine and that she doesn't even deserve to be alive. She’s yelling at her for about an hour and strangling her for a couple of seconds, getting caught up in her contempt.  The reason for this is that the girl told her it was cold in her room whereas her mother thought it to be very warm and she hates too much warmth.
The girl tries to be strong, as she always does, she hides her tears until she is back in her room. There, her brother is already waiting for her, naked, as if he wanted to proof her being a slut. She screams, but nobody would ever listen.
 

I can see no love or respect here. There are so many cases of domestic violence and they shouldn't be tolerated. Unfortunately, parents do not always know what is best for their children, despite this so often mentioned argument.

Can you imagine how long it takes these children to recover any self-esteem?

So why do we still keep in touch with them? Why do we not break off all contact after having been grown up? 
In spite of all that happened, we still feel a certain liability, a duty or a guilt towards our parents.
Society tells us we should be grateful. After all they have done for you, you don't want to come home for Christmas? How can you be so selfish?
Above all, we can't erase family ties. It's still our family, after all.

When our parents betray our trust, abuse us, intentionally hurt us, do we still have to be grateful?  Parents should love their children, they should show them their love, but what if they don’t? What do we owe them?

When they wrong us, we might be willing to forgive them more easily than others, but injustice stays injustice.  

Basically, we should respect all human beings. But I don’t think we owe them our unconditional respect and gratefulness.

Respect should be mutual.
Of course, it is a good thing to respect our parents, but shouldn’t they pay us some respect too? Once we are adults, we make our own decisions and naturally sometimes (or often) we disagree with other people, which also include our parents. We have a right to form our own opinions and our parents should respect this. They should accept us as autonomous individuals with possibly different views.

Most of all, they should love and support their children when they are little, providing a basis for the respect and appreciation to be mutual.

If our family bond hurts us more than it does anything else, it is maybe time to loosen the ties and forget about the predetermined obligations.

After all, blood relationship doesn’t necessarily heal everything, it doesn’t convert injustice into fairness.

Would you break the law to save a loved one?

Recently, I stumbled upon this question.

It instantly made me remember a workshop at university concerning cultural differences. The teacher, a woman from England, who has already been travelling to a lot of countries doing her workshops, asked us the following question: If you knew your friend was driving way too fast with his car and the police asked you about it, would you lie and not reveal your friend’s fault? We all agreed we would in order to protect our friend, although he has been doing something wrong. Then she changed the question. It’s the same situation as before, but this time your friend killed someone because of driving too fast. This time, no one wanted to lie to the police.

Apparently, this is typical for Germans. The woman told us that whenever she asks this question in another country, there are usually a few people that would still cover up for their friends. In Germany, rules and laws are usually more important. In my opinion, you can’t reduce it all to cultural differences, but I think there is a tendency due to cultural backgrounds.

Anyway, should we put laws or allegiance to a friend on the first place? If you knew your friend was doing something wrong, would you cover up for him? And does it make a difference whether there are any bad consequences due to his behaviour?

So far to this question which isn’t exactly the same as the one in the headline.

Would you break the law to save a loved one? This is also a question we discussed at university and I remember the following problem. I think there is even a popular theory behind it, but I don’t really remember the name of it. It was about stages of moral development.

So, let’s say your wife/your husband is deathly sick and there is exactly one medicament that can save him/her. There is also only one pharmacist that sells this drug, BUT to a price that is absolutely exorbitant and way more than you can afford. There is no chance you will get this money soon enough. The only way to get the drug would be to steal it. Would you do it and why/why not?

Let me give you a few hints.

On a very easy basis, should you not steal it because you might get into prison or should you steal it because your wife/husband is an important person to you? Should you steal it regardless of the importance of this person to you, because we should always try to help others? Should you steal it because the right to life is more important than property right? Or should you act according to law, because after all it secures our all individual rights against those who disobey them? Or should you steal the drug because the dignity of human life is above all other values? Should you not steal it because theft should never be the basis for any universal rule of action (as in the categorical imperative according to Kant)?

Finally, in your opinion, is there a difference between what you should do and what you actually would do?

I would love to hear some opinions, thoughts, ideas or answers to any or all of these questions.

Quote of the week #3

An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight... the truly wise person is colorblind.

Albert Schweitzer

There are a lot of controversial quotes on this topic and all of them contain something true, but I like this one the most.

Whenever someone asks me whether I am rather an optimist or a pessimist I am not sure what to answer.

What is the best way to see the world?

Is it better to be an optimist or is it easier to be a pessimist? Does it make any difference for our lives, for how many goals we achieve? In my opinion, it does. How we live our lives and how many of our dreams are going to be fulfilled… that depends a lot on our attitude.
I have realized that whenever I dream high, I have higher goals and whenever my goals were higher I did actually achieve a lot more. And to have these dreams results from hoping for the best. Of course, the aims we have in life should still be realistic.

Pessimism is supposed to prevent us from disappointments.  But can you actually enjoy life while seeing the worst part everywhere? Can you even appreciate the little good moments that are so important in life?

Of course, you have to consider the problems in life. But in my opinion, being pessimistic means to not want to change the bad things but to expect them everywhere and take them as they are, when one should rather look for a solution or a way to improve things.

The problem about being optimistic is that one can be disappointed a lot of times, because there will always be bad things in life. There is a great risk that your hopes will not be fulfilled, at least not all of them. But I think an optimist will have more fun in life and he is able to enjoy the good things.

But is always being optimistic even possible, given that there is so much injustice in this world?

Maybe, staying realistic, hoping for the best and knowing about the worst is the best way.

After all, our life is an adventure and it always contains ups and downs and to know the value of the ups there must be the downs.

Finally, a little note out of my life, which could also be seen in a wider context.

A lot of people are greatly interested in daily weather forecasts. I always try to stay informed about everything and I am interested in a lot of things, but the weather report certainly doesn’t belong to these. There are a lot of things that can be changed, even if this seems to be impossible. But one thing that I am sure I have no influence on is tomorrow’s weather and I certainly can’t change anything by watching the weather forecasts in TV. To know about this, I just wait for tomorrow, then go outside and see how the weather is. Call me crazy, but this is how I live.

Moreover, I think there is no need to be either optimistic or pessimistic about tomorrow’s weather. When it is raining, take an umbrella with you, if you don’t have one with you, it’s all right, you are not going to die because of getting wet. As long as there is no hurricane, there is no need to worry. Besides, there are always advantages of rain.

And, you know, the sun will shine again for sure.

Quote of the week #2

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

Marcus Aurelius

I like this quote, since a lot of people don’t seem to recognize that there are different opinions on things they consider as a fact. I think it is always a good way to stay open-minded and to try to understand the other perspectives.

My aim is to post one quote every Sunday that somehow refers to the previous week. I also hope it inspires some people to think about the referred topic. 

Based on a controversy I had a few days ago, today’s topic is about opinions, or rather differences in opinions.

I was having a few arguments with a family member this week, who couldn’t accept me being of another opinion concerning an important topic; the details are not of importance here. Anyway, when I was talking to a friend about it, his advice was to just agree with this person in every point. He said, when I know I am right, all I should say is “OK”. When someone is telling you that the colour of the sky is green, don’t tell him it is blue. Just agree, because you know you are right and disagreeing would just cause troubles.  

I see his point, but nevertheless I had to contradict.
This is just my opinion, of course.

Anyway, who determines what is right and what is wrong? When it comes to laws the answer is obvious, but what about other issues? After all, the problem is that both persons having an argument are convinced of their opinion being the truth. Even if it is obvious that you are right, is it really? It doesn't seem to be for at least one person.

In any case, I think it doesn’t make it any better to agree with someone when you think he is wrong, because this lets him feel confirmed in his thinking. In the following, I am using “the sky is green” as a metaphor for topics that are of greater relevance.

A family or even a whole nation is not able to perform in a good way if their members are not allowed to express their point of view. Just imagine the government told you that the sky was green and nobody disagreed. Imagine you’d get into prison if you told them your opinion. I know that this is happening all over the world and I know that it did happen especially in Germany. But look at this country’s horrible past (I don’t have enough words to explain how terribly shocked I am every time I just imagine it) and you can see what this leads to. People must be allowed to give an opinion without getting punished for it. This is even a human right, which you can find in Germany’s Basic Law now.
Everybody has the right to advance his opinion, as long as it isn’t illegal or a violation of human rights.

Maybe I should have differed in a more accurate way between politics and families, but is there really such a great difference? Families do have their own rules, too. And I think since I am of full age, I should be allowed to say what I think without getting in trouble and without courting their resentment. Provided that I don’t hurt anyone with my opinion, which is certainly not my purpose.

Let’s say I am convinced that that the sky is blue and you are convinced of it being green. Why can’t we discuss it and if we still don’t agree in the end, we just accept the fact of being of another opinion? Wouldn’t this be a good way? And who knows, if you give me persuasive arguments, you might even persuade me to believe that the sky is green.

I am aware that all my above mentioned words are just another opinion. I am convinced by my opinion. However it may seem inconsistent to say that everybody should express his own opinion and that nothing is the truth, because isn’t this just an opinion, too? So what if someone doesn’t agree?

I think you should always consider your counterpart’s point of view. If he has a different one, you should accept this. And you should try to continuously rethink your own point of view. Because after all, is it really possible that you are always right? Maybe the sky is neither green nor blue but purple? Or does it have a different colour for every human being? At the same time, if we are convinced by our opinion, we should definitely defend it using good arguments. After all, what kind of world would this be without opinions and people standing up for them?

But should we really agree on everything someone says in order to avoid a conflict? Can this really be a good solution?

In my opinion, it isn’t.

If you disagree about any of these thoughts, please feel free to tell me. I am always happy to broaden my mind.

If you could live your life over again...

We have an advertising spot here that says: Wenn du dein Leben noch einmal leben könntest, würdest du alles noch mal genauso machen?

Translated that means: If you could live your life over again, would you do it all the same again? The answer in that spot isn’t too serious. Something about “I would buy my glasses right from the beginning at [insert name of optician here].”

But I think this question is very interesting and not at all easy to answer.

Would I do it all the same again? Well, at first, it depends on the interpretation of that question. If I just turned the clock back, I guess I would do it all the same again. Because I would still be myself and most of the time I acted the way I thought to be the best. Of course I made a lot of mistakes, but still, the time I made them I didn’t recognise them as mistakes.

But let’s say I stay the person I am right now, with my current knowledge and experiences and I could change anything. Would I do it then? Still the question isn’t easier at all. It raises more questions.

How far did my past experiences influence the person I am right now? Would I act differently now, make different decisions, would I have different opinions on the same topics if I had had a different childhood? Would I even be someone else? And the more important question: Do I want to be someone else?

After all, we are supposed to learn from our mistakes. But do we really do that? Don’t we make the same mistakes all over again sometimes? After all, we are not perfect.

How much of our personality is already determined when we are born? And how much can it change? How much of it is affected by our experiences?

In my opinion, we have something like an individual basic personality. And this personality is formed later by our experiences. I think our experiences play an important role in our lives. Nevertheless it all depends on your given personality, too. I don’t think that we would all be the same if we had the same experiences. I think these experiences rather stimulate some of our features that are already existent. At the end of the day, our actions are still our own decisions and we can’t blame a difficult childhood for doing the wrong thing or use it as an excuse for wrong decisions.

So, to come back to my initial question, would I change anything? I am still not quite sure. There are one or two experiences I would like to change. I wish I had acted differently there. But after all, I also think they are an important part of my life. And I am content with the person I am now. Of course I am far away from being perfect, but at least I can say I try to do my best and I am constantly trying to be a good soul. Still am not absolutely sure. Wouldn’t it be better to change bad decisions though?

 
If you could live your life over again, would you do it all the same again?

Would you?

My point of view

I absolutely believe that we should all concentrate on the good things in life, that we should enjoy every little moment and be happy about all the little things that happen around us. I believe we should be grateful for what we have.  We should smile more often to other people (at least here in Germany people don’t do that too often) and we should try to share our happiness. Life is wonderful and valuable and it is too short to be unhappy and to have a negative point of view.  I am absolutely convinced by that.

Nonetheless, of course I know that life is often hard and unfair. Actually, you could say that I had what people call a difficult childhood. Maybe that is where the problems start. Because as I just said, I think that we should all concentrate on the good things in life and be happy about them. This is what I think. But what I feel is so different sometimes. You could say, there is a great difference between my thoughts and my feelings, between the things that I tell other people and the things that I actually feel. Often I concentrate too much on the negative things, I forget the positive ones and I am not grateful for all the good things that happen to me. And I am so often jealous of other people. I don’t really live the life I would like to live. But at the same time I am not able to change this, since I can’t change the present without endangering my future.

But of course I don't tell anyone. I keep smiling and try to convince myself of my own opinion.

Anyway, I won’t change my mind about concentrating on the small good things in life, because, after all, what else can you do to survive the difficult ones?

Introduction

At the very beginning, I would like to introduce myself. I am a young woman, I was born in Germany and I still live there. I love travelling, reading, doing sports and all the other common stuff, like going out with friends. And of course, I love English. Unfortunately I have never been to Great Britain or America before, but as soon as I have the possibility to go there, I will! So because of my fondness for English and my hope to improve it that way, I decided to do my blog in English. Please feel free to correct me, I am quite sure I make a lot of mistakes.

So what is this blog about? I always think a lot about everything and in particular about what life is all about, especially my own, of course. And I realized that I can’t just keep these thoughts in my head without talking about them. I also love writing and since I already filled a lot of diaries with my thoughts I decided to share them from now on. I also hope to get a few other opinions about my topics. So this blog isn’t really about one special topic, but about life, opinions, ideas and everything that seems important to me.

I hope you enjoy reading.