Happiness

My aunt Alexa called this morning and talked to my sister for a while and then to me. After talking to her for about 15 minutes I realized that she is just simply dissatisfied with her life. Later on my sister started crying because of things my aunt said. My sister is in general a very happy person and it really hurts me to see her cry like this. I was rather furious at my aunt. Just because she is not happy doesn't give her the right to make my sister cry, talk bad about my dad etc.

My sister and I ended up talking about our family a bit and how many family members are quite unhappy. My family is not very big and most of them had a rather hard life. My grandparents grew up during world war 2, my mom and her sister grew up in the post war era, my dad's mom put him and his sister in an orphanage and that same lady who technically is my grandma, visited us grandchildren twice our entire life.

This made me realize once again, life is hard and then you die. Period. This goes along with the Buddhist first noble truth that simply states "life is suffering". Now people have told me that this is pessimistic way to look at life. It isn't so much pessimistic but a logical, practical outlook on life. I always tell people life is beautiful and they tell me that it disagrees with Buddhism but I personally think it doesn't. Yes, life is suffering, that's a fact, but it's what you make out of you life, how you see it, how you look at it, that makes it's beautiful. This actually goes with Jay's blog title which says "Dandelions - You see flowers in these weeds". Yes my family had a hard life, but instead of just being dissatisfied and unhappy they should try to see the beauty of life, the beauty of humanity, the beauty of the universe. I now that is it easy for me to say because I had a rather perfect life and it should be easy for me to be happy. But I see so many people like me that had the same type of life and they are just not happy. Life is beautiful people. It's everywhere. It's in the wind that sends ripples across the water in the pool. It's in the rain that splashes onto the newly waxed car. It's in the sun that blinds you when you drive home and bathes the trees with Spanish moss in sunlight. It's in the music your brother plays on his bass or viola. It's in the food your mom cooks.

On a different note I have been a little dissatisfied with my laziness that started when I got home in May. Thus I'm gonna change that and I'm gonna follow this plan for the rest of the summer.

Read and study more about Buddhism
Read the Da Vinci Code
Mediate everyday
Work out at least 4 times a week including Yoga class on Mondays and Wednesdays
Clean out and rearrange the garage so that Dad's car can finally fit in it
Get an A in my history class
Learn how to cook
Don't sleep past nine o'clock
Visit Amy in Fort Worth
Watch Harry Potter and other cool movies that come out
Update my Resume
Organize stuff for moving into the house in August
Eat some good seafood
Get a tan
Finally put up the Monet in my bedroom
Go to Germany....hopefully
Don't complain too much when I get my wisdom teeth pulled,actually no complaining at all
Work on SWE stuff
Go climbing
Drink 2 liters of water a day
and write more nonsense in my blog