Forgiveness

Inserting Red Flag: This post is written in my opinion, and it is not written to offend anyone. This is written in a more social perspective which includes friends, individuals you know, classmates, coworkers, etc. 

Forgiveness. Is it easier to forgive or to ask for forgiveness? Neither. If you are looking for an easy route when it comes to forgiving an individual or asking for forgiveness than you are not in the position to be doing either. Why? I am going to break it down to two sections which will be to forgive, and ask for forgiveness.

To Forgive: 

If you are in the predicament where you are required to decide if you should forgive someone then there are multiple things you have to take into consideration. For starters, if you forgive this individual, would it positively or negatively impact your life? If you know this individual for some time then you should have an idea if forgiving them would be a good idea or will the conflict repeat itself. If not, you need to decide if the conflict is small/pity that can be forgiven and if you think this friendship is worth it. Regardless of whether you know the individual for a short period or long period of time, you should be able to determine if they are worth being friends with. Do you enjoy their presence? Are they someone you would trust? Do you think they are honest? Etc. Furthermore, did they work for the forgiveness they are trying to obtain? Did they just apologize by saying, "I'm sorry" and did not tell you why they are actually sorry? If they didn't explain the reason for apologizing, it's not an apology. Throwing words like "I'm sorry" does not fix a situation. Why are you sorry? What would you do better next time? Honey, if the individual is not working for the forgiveness, they should not be forgiven.

I have met many individuals who forgive because they want to obtain peace and avoid unnecessary drama. Due to this, they say they forgive the person, but they did not want to. To this situation, they should make it clear that is exactly what they are trying to do. They need to make the individual aware that they have decided to forgive them for their own self-peace and not for the individual. Why? They are lying, deceiving, and causing unnecessary drama to be created in the future. Honesty is the best policy and if you do not want to forgive them, don't. You are not doing the individual any favours by forgiving them and not meaning it. Forgiveness is not easy and should be thought about before given. 

Asking for Forgiveness:    

If you are in the position where you have to ask for forgiveness because you have wronged in some way, then there are many things that should be taken into consideration before you do. Firstly, do you sincerely want to apologize to the individual? How do you know? You should feel guilty for the situation you are apologizing for and you should know exactly why you are apologizing for. If you don't know the reason for your apology, then there is no purpose of asking for forgiveness. Don't just apologize because you don't like it when someone is upset/angry at you. Figure out why you are asking for forgiveness. Secondly, you can be in a complicated situation where you are unaware of why an individual is angry/upset at you and you ask for forgiveness. Being ignorant does not help you and you need to ask that individual why they are angry/upset. Furthermore, do not assume the reason they are angry/upset for and just ask. If they don't respond to you, asking for forgiveness is a waste of time and its best for you to move forward. This brings me to the third point, don't run after the individual if they don't want to associate with you at the moment. You are wasting your time and you are annoying them by trying to get in contact with them when they don't want to be contacted. If they wanted to fix this situation and wanted you to ask for forgiveness, they would have left a way for you to do so or confronted you. Pretty much, if they blocked you everywhere, take a hint that they don't want to be bothered.   

That sums up the general knowledge about forgiving and asking for forgiveness. If you do decide to forgive the person who has wronged you in some way, I would like to give my opinion now how you should handle that situation. "I forgive, but I don't forget," is a quote I stand by which means that you forgive the individual, however, you don't forget what they did. Keep it at the back of your head when it comes to them because when they do you wrong again, you will be less surprised and you can change your decision of giving them forgiveness a second time. Also, a note I would like to insert in the end, if you have a forgiving nature, be aware that gives individuals the opportunity to take advantage of you. What I would recommend is keep it to yourself. Don't announce to your friends that you have a forgiving nature, or don't just automatically forgive the individual, take precaution.

"When dieting controls your lifestyle"

Inserting red flag here: This post is from my perspective, All opinion(s) written below are my own. 

I want to give some background information before I decide to continue with this topic. I have done many diets that I have found reasonable or I think will benefit me, and I agree that some of them do work in the short run depending on the person. I am not targeting any particular diet, and this is just what I think/have experienced with dieting. I have always been a bigger body size, and I have always wanted to lose weight thus, I go on “diets.” I am now a believer that changes you make in your life should be affecting your lifestyle permanently. I do not believe in short term results or the quick fix because if I wanted to make myself feel and look better than I would want to obtain it as a long-term result which a diet does not provide for me.

Lower your calorie intact, eat fewer carbohydrates, have more protein, add more fiber, decrease the amount of sugar, become a vegetarian (I am a vegetarian but people do say this.), become a vegan (I do support the cause of veganism, but I am using this in the context of being a vegan just to lose weight), count your macros, and so many other types of diets out there. To be honest, when I read all these different types of "diets" and I see that they are telling me to avoid different types of food depending on the diet and it makes me very confused. Why? Let me break down my thinking process. I pursue one diet and take into consideration all the information they have given, and I decide it's not for me, so I try another diet. When I try the next diet, I take all the core details of the foods to avoid from the previous diet and I incorporate it with the current diet because I remember that those foods are not good for me. It doesn't necessarily need to be a particular food and can be to "avoid foods with high contents of sugar."So when I do this and let's assume that I have gone through several diets, and they are telling me to restrict or lower the quantity of different food types and it gets to a point where I am unsure what to eat, it boggles my mind. Like am I suppose to eat nothing? The problem I find with food is I find a product with a lower number of carbohydrates and fat but the sodium and sugar is high. I always have this issue, the product is lower in particular areas of the nutritional facts and higher in other areas to compensate it. There is no winning to this situation. 

You can debate that I can go into a raw fruit and veggies type of diet or extreme veganism (not trying to offend anyone) I would call it where you avoid everything except natural foods. It sounds like a great idea until I go to the doctors, and they're like my sugar is high, so the doctor would like me to cut down on particular fruits and vegetables because they have a higher natural sugar content. So I get rid of root vegetables and fruit with high sugar content and now I am in a position where I am eating a different variety of fruits and vegetables that can be counted by two hands. See the issue with diets? IT'S ALWAYS ABOUT RESTRICTION. You can say that oh well if you do a 1400-calorie diet, you can eat whatever you want and it just needs to be within that calorie intake. How is that not restricting yourself? Manipulating words to make a diet sound like you can eat whatever you want and lose weight is not fixing the issue. Don't get me wrong, but big boy gotta eat. 

Okay, let's say that this diet works out and I lose a lot of weight, and I am content with the results I am at. Then I think to myself, and I got the results I want, so now I can eat normally like I used too before I started the diet because there is no point in restricting myself anymore or motivation to restrict myself. Pretty much, this backfires and I end up at the same position I was at before the diet. Like seriously? Was there a point of me doing this? I know, you must be thinking I have low self-control and I did this to myself, and you're 100% correct. But this is the reality of dieting for my situation, it just backfires in every direction. Side note: dieting is a whole life process by itself because you need to think about everything that you consume in your body and make sure its compatible with the diet you have chosen to pursue. So along with backfiring on results in the long run, it's a complete waste of time for me. 

My solution? What I have been doing since the beginning of this year is taking things out/changing things in my lifestyle that I know that I don't require and I make sure this is a lifestyle decision. If I make the decision to keep it out, I keep it out forever. They are not huge changes in my life that will clearly backfire but small changes I can survive with like taking out Ice caps from Tim Horton's from my lifestyle, changing white bread to whole-wheat bread permanently, adding fruits and vegetables to every meal, or drinking more water progressively (I am used to drinking two bottles of water which is equivalent to four cups, now I drink three bottles.) Along with these changes, I have added some sort of physical activity in my daily routine to help me out and I keep this going consistently. I have seen results and these changes are things I can do for the rest of my life without having an issue. I don't know if this will work for you, but it is working for me and it's not complicated to do. 

It might seem like I am bashing diets, but this was purely my experience and if dieting works for you then you should totally pursue it, and I am with you 100% as long as I don't think it's dangerous to your health. I wish all of my viewers a healthy and prosperous life. 

"Learn from your past, don't live in it"

Inserting red flag here: This post is from my perspective. All opinion(s) written below are my own. 

I would just like to say that I am guilty of holding grudges for a long period of time and I let my past control what I do in the present. The past has a huge impact on the decisions I make today and it molds my values and beliefs. So do not read this post and think I am a strong individual who has his life under control, because I am in the same or even worse position than you, the reader, are at the moment. You might be thinking, "Why are you making a blog post about not living in your past if you live in your past?" I would first like to say that you have a point, however, I see this blog post as a letter to myself. I will come on my blog page every day, and I will look at this post and it will remind me that past experiences and events don't control my present. But enough of this self-reflection, lets get back to what this blog post is actually about. 

The problem I tend to see people, including myself, have is that they have a series of bad events or conflicts and the outcome of those events and conflicts causes some type of internal shock. This internal shock now resides with you for a huge period of time controlling what you say, do, and think because you know you don't want the same outcomes to come again. You, the viewer of this blog, is probably wondering what I am talking about? The best way to explain is to demonstrate it is through an example. An example can be that you gave advice to your friend that backfired and your friend got extremely angry at you. Due to this situation, the outcome became a burden on you, and you decided that from now on you wouldn't give people advice because it causes fewer complications. Yes, I agree that this does cause fewer complications because the reality is that you should not be interfering in other peoples conflicts and you're not their spiritual adviser. Your friend, family, significant others and side hoes, should be solving their own problem themselves and you should be going on through your day without that complication. However, it doesn't always work that way because that same friend comes back to you for advice even though it didn't end well the last time you gave advice. You are now in a predicament because your past experience is weighing down on you telling you not to give advice while your friend is standing in front of you asking you for advice. If you say no, it will cause an issue. If you give advice and it backfires again, it will also cause an issue. Now your past is weighing down on your present situation, and you are stuck. What do you do? You use your past experience as a learning experience and you let it go. You do not forget it, and you just stop it from controlling your current situation. What would I do if I was in your position? I give advice if I can and I will explain in very stern words that this advice is my opinion, and I am not telling or advising your friend to take it. Any decisions that your friend makes due to the advice I gave, is fully their responsibility and if they get upset like the previous time, I will no longer be in-service as a friend or adviser. Now you must be thinking, "What did you learn from your past experience?". It's quite clear, by saying what I said, you have learned to communicate better with your friend that the past situation was unacceptable and you will not accept the same outcome this time. Furthermore, you have made it clear that the advice is just advice, you are not forcing any decisions upon them. They have to make the decision themselves. Thus, you have learned quite a lot from a past situation without it burdening and stopping you from doing something in the present situation. 

What was the point of this blog post? If I were to give you an honest answer, there is a reason your past is called the past. It should not intertwine with your present and pull you down. It does not mean that you keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again because I am telling you to not let your past control you. If you know that a past situation does not have a solution and its best to avoid the situation overall, then by all mean do it. Our lives are too short to be having constant drama or causing conflicts over and over again due to the same scenario that happened in the past. Learn from your past experience and let that learning experience help you approach life from a different perspective. 

"Change is inevitable"

Inserting red flag here: This post is from my perspective. All opinion(s) that are written below are my own. 

Change is a constant in everyone's life. We all go through change whether we want to or not. Change is a common factor between me and the viewer reading my blog post. We might not have the same changes, however, a change happens in our life one way or another, in a positive or negative aspect. I can wake up one day and decide that I want to move to a new city or I can just want to eat something different today. Regardless of how small the change is, they are changes we make willingly and others that are forced on us. You must be thinking, "How can you be forced to make a change in your life? You have control of what you want to change." To that, I agree and I also disagree. There comes times in your life when nature takes it course and you have no control over the situation or the situation is too foregone to stop the change from happening. I will give some life examples of where I did not have the option for change to occur. 

Broken Friendships: 

There comes a time in many peoples lives where you experience a friendship breaking due to mistake you made, mistakes they made, or the friendship is not really there anymore and both parties of the friendship realize that. Of course, there are many reasons to why a friendship can break, but, the three stated above are the reasons my friendships broke. I am not going into details about broken friendships due to the topic being about change, however, this is a situation where we have little to no control over the situation and the changes that revolve around it. When someone is exiting your life, you no longer have association with them. You do not see them regularly at school, talk to them on the phone, go out with them or even see them as much as you used too. If they were important to you, you would miss them for a period of time, which is also a change because you went from seeing them to missing them and its perfectly normal. The best way to deal with change is to accept the change and in my case, I accepted the fact that my friend will no longer be there and I will find other friends to associate with. This doesn't happen automatically and does take a great deal of time depending on what your relationship was with this friend but, it doesn't mean its not possible. One aspect with change is that its adaptable, if you are willing to adapt to it. When my friendship broke, I denied the change which made me have feelings of annoyance and displeasure because I was upset that I would never see them again, however, through time I realized that I will use their friendship as a learning experience and move forward. I will learn from the mistakes I made, mistakes they made, and mistakes that could have happened if the friendship continued and keeps them in my arsenal. My friendship with them will help me become a better person so when I associate with people in the future, the same mistake does not occur, thus adapting to the change that has occurred in my life. 

Mismatched Career Path: 

You must be reading this and wondering what a mismatched career path is? Well its when you decide to go down a career path and realize it's not for you. You had hopes and expectations on what this career path would be like and you ended up disappointment or in loss of words because this is something you do not want to do for the rest of your life. You might argue that you can avoid mismatching career paths by researching properly and understanding what it is and I will give you credit for that. However, there is a huge difference in reading a job description on career cruising and experiencing the career firsthand. This happens to many people, and they assume after reading a career job description that this is what they want to do and when they get there, they realize its nothing that they had hoped. There are a few aspects of change that can occur in this whole ordeal. First, as a person grows older, they have room to change their personality, likes, dislikes, interests, etc. So as you are going through school for such a long span of time and you start changing as a person, which is absolutely normal might I add, then its normal to dislike what you thought would be the best career path for you. This change to your personality happens a lot without you noticing that it is happening to you, in actually you have no control over it and you end up disliking what you thought you liked. Now don't get me wrong, people probably do notice, however, I didn't and I feel like I don't like the career path I chose to obtain. Second, which is going to be my last experience because I realized that this blog post is getting really long, is when the career you have chosen to go into has started to change in responsibilities or knowledge required while you are in school. It's normal for jobs and careers to change or increase the responsibilities in the workplace, in the slightest. For example, a computer programmer needs to stay updated with the current technologies and computer languages or you will have conflicts with basically doing your job. So, if I were to be learning a language in post-secondary and by the time I graduated, they decided to change it significantly, I would need to adapt to this change and learn the most recent practices for coding. You can see where you have no control over the situation because whether you like it or not, the coding practices have changed and is required to be learned to stay updated with the industry. 

So, what exactly should you take from these long ass paragraph? Change is going to happen whether you like it or not, so make the best of it or change it again to give you positive results in your life. Some changes are uncontrollable, and you have to adapt with in order to move forward in life or determine if the chosen career path is right for you. Regardless, change is inevitable.