Thanksgiving

Is life supposed to be difficult?
One view of my life would be that whenever things get too easy, I've either created problems myself, or had external problems imposed on me that bring me back to the struggle.
This relationship hiccup / breakup is definitely one of those incidents. Perhaps the reason is because I was becoming too complacent... life was too easy, and maybe that's just not how things are supposed to be.

Watched American Gangster over the weekend. There was a very interesting compare/contrast between the two main characters. Frank Lucas (Denzel) is a mob boss who would steal and kill to attain success. He has respect both in public as well as with his family. He takes care of his family (and the implication is that he's good to his organization as well). So, he's basically well-loved by all, except for a small number of enemies. Richie Roberts is a detective and saying he's a stickler for the rules would be an understatement. He is disliked by other cops, his partner, and even his family. Much of his initial notoriety is due to finding one million dollars in unmarked bills and actually turning the money in. As the movie presents the situation, it seems as if that is a more unbelievable event than Frank casually murdering a rival in cold blood in the middle of a crowded street. Richie's wife leaves him and takes his son out of state, apparently due to his strict scruples even more than his workaholic tendencies.

Which one of these men is a model for how to live be respected and successful? Obviously not Richie. I'm not buying the epilogue summary at the end of the movie which tries to give him a happy ending. The manner in which he took down Frank Lucas would be even more offensive to his law enforcement colleagues than turning in the million dollars, because he used Frank to prosecute a large percentage of the narcotic cops for taking payoffs. That would only continue the path he was on in the movie. Sure, it takes all kinds, and Richie fulfills a valuable role, but there's only a small number of his type required to keep society running smoothly. He's not the role model of how to be - or an example of what values are important.

Another interesting question is that Frank apparently achieves redemption by turning in those cops. So, does that make him "a good guy"? Does that somehow make up for his past?

What's really important in this life? Frank seems to be the better model... Throw out the murder and selling illegal substances and you have a successful business manager or CEO. And CEO ethics are definitely closer to gangster than Richie's. All successful medium to large business is based on a pyramid, where the customers far out number the employees, and employees out number executives. The first grade level idea of somehow convincing everyone in the country to give them a dollar, to create wealth, isn't so different from any other business on the planet. Frank efficiently convinced a large number of customers to give him more than his product cost him. That's exactly what running a business is.

I also want to be a successful businessman, but definitely not at any cost. So now that I'm evaluating my life, I'm torn between whether that's a noble goal and some self doubt as to whether I can achieve the goal. Perhaps I am missing something important that would clear it up a bit?

On the ex-relationship front, I've been working hard to stop thinking about her constantly in a needy way and to get over the loss of the relationship. Been thinking that even when we were together and everything seemed perfect, maybe it wasn't healthy to do things like watch her sleeping and find peace in her breathing. That always gave me the feeling of warmth that everything was right in the world... Maybe it's important not to let those core feelings depend on another person - even if their involvement is totally passive. It would be better if I had control of that feeling inside myself and could call on it at any time without requiring some external situation to be met.
Life is Beautiful is one of my all-time favorite movies because of that exact reason, Roberto Benigni's character never gave anyone the power to take away his happiness. Even in a Nazi concentration camp he was able to be exuberant about life. If there is any trait I admire most, it would be that. In high school, during the time when I formed my initial philosophy of life (b4 seeing the movie), I fixated on the idea that "Happiness is a choice". The meaning being that happiness is internal and not external. Until that point, I often let external influences get me down and felt that certain external things would need to happen before I could be happy with life. However, the realization that all I had to do to be happy was to choose it was a major shift in my life. Since then, I've been a much happier person, and I believe connected much more with the world and people around me.

Sometime earlier this year, I decided that I trusted my ex completely and loved her absolutely. That was probably fine, but I now realize that along with this realization I made a terrible mistake and also gave her the key to my happiness. If she wasn't happy, neither was I, and if she was, then I was too. I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if that was the exact moment that she started to feel differently about our relationship. That does seem like too much pressure. I don't think I was too ridiculous about it, but I definitely have learned an important lesson here. I need a corollary to "Happiness is a choice" which adds that one should never give that choice away under any circumstances. Of course, it makes sense not to be affected when you are caught in the rain, or someone steals your pen, etc... But I had never considered that giving up this choice to the person you love could be just as bad if not a worse idea.

I really like this lesson because I think it is more core than some others floating through my head, such as "you can never trust anyone" or "women are cruel", etc. It's really the first positive spin I've been able to come up with for this whole painful situation. I think that by embracing this lesson and living it from now on, I can avoid things like trying to hurt other girls to make myself feel better. And hopefully I can avoid desperately clinging to my ex. Unfortunately, I think that once given in the way I did, it may take more than an instantaneous decision to regain full control over my right to choose happiness. And I'm sure that I'll long feel that perhaps she will love me again. Perhaps now that I've realized the lesson, that's the first step towards reestablishing the relationship. Can't rush anything though - she definitely has things she wants to learn and/or experience before she'd be ready to return to our relationship.


It's quite appropriate that this is Thanksgiving weekend, because it's so easy right now to focus on how bad things are; but in reality there is so much I'm thankful for.
I live in paradise, and have all my basic needs covered - food, shelter, etc. I'm thankful for my family, friends, acquaintances, etc. I'm thankful for the people in this world who have done so much for me - even if I don't have any direct contact with them - the soldiers, ancestors, etc. I'm thankful for all the opportunities I have had and continue to have. I'm thankful for everything that has made me what I am.

Back to the relationship, I'm thankful for having had an amazingly good relationship for three and a half years. The relationship really did give me hope that two people can be truly happy together, which before then, I'd really only imagined and never experienced. The fact that it's not good now doesn't diminish how awesome it was for that time.

I'm thankful for my job, car, coworkers, neighbors, cat, condo, health, basketball, myspace, computers, and everything else as well.

I really do love this life - it truly is beautiful
even if it has do be difficult, I'm sure there's a good reason for that =)

on that note - if you have an extra 3 minutes and 40 seconds, take a look at this vid =) It starts off slow, but then gets more interesting... I like it WAY better than the plastic bag video in American Beauty =)
Daft Bodies - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger