- Created by Xintian Chen
- I love how you counteracted the chapter and came up with an action to avoid being consumed by the ego. You are right when you said that we should just STICK TO THE FACTS. It’s true that we are just making ourselves unhappy and that we have the power to change our current state. We are deemed as rational beings after all. We never have to fulfill a role that we are unhappy about. We can change this. However, I think we shouldn’t think too much about the facts. We also have to consider that it’s okay not to know, because not knowing sometimes leads us to where we should truly be. In one of the paragraphs, Tolle said that “When you fully accept that you don't know, you actually enter a state of peace and clarity that is closer to who you truly are than thought could ever be.”
CHAPTER 5 AND QUOTE FROM STEVE JOB
-Great choice on using Steve Jobs’ message as an example. It was said that it’s time to live in the “NOW.” It’s easier to live with the present and the future if we learn to let go of what happened in the past. It’s okay to say that we are who we are now because of what happened in the past; but, don’t ever let it define your future. It is not an excuse for failure. What happened in the past is a guide to being happy, not being miserable in the future. The longer that we hold on to our past, the longer it is that we have to deal with our ego. We will continue to live on with a life that we do not want.
- Created by Shenping Xie
- You are right when you said that happiness can only be reached in the present with the light of full consciousness. It’s time to make room for the present and stop aiming for future happiness. It seems to me that your choice, Rumi’s principle of happiness, centers on that thought. We should first destroy the barriers that hinder us from being happy now. Not in the past nor in the future. We should not look for happiness rather we should start looking for things that cause our unhappiness now.
Chapter 5
- You’re right. People have the tendency to carry their past experiences with them and to never let them go. We are all predisposed to this and we all have done this every once in a while. These past experiences give us reasons to be unhappy. It would also be my choice to use Tomas’s poem. It’s definitely right that we should live in the present and that we should just take in whatever comes with it and leave the past behind.
- Created by Weichen Zhu
-I definitely agree with you when you said that accepting a role and being a role limits us and it prevents us from taking effective actions. We should not fully absorb a role and be victims of the situation. It should never be our job to blame it on others and on the situation. We should always stick to the facts! I’m happy that you are aware of what’s happening with you when you play video games. The role of being the victim should never consume us. It’s not only your problems and your situation. This kind of thinking limits you from taking an effective course of action.
-It’s sad to hear that your friends had to go into that kind of situation; however, you are right in saying that they should stop thinking about the “he/she lied to me” way of thinking. It’s better to let go of the past and start anew. The past will never have the power to hinder us from becoming better persons now if we don’t allow it too. I also like that part when Tolle describes the duck’s way of getting into a fight. I think it’s about time that we do that too. We should just flap our wings each time we feel mad about things.
- Created by Kaiqi Zhang
- -I’m so sorry about what happened to your dog. Being a dog lover, I know how it feels and you are right when you quoted Tolle in connection to this situation. What we have right now is what we have to live with. We can either accept it or be miserable about it. To be happy requires action. The action required in every situation is to start looking from within, just as what you have said in order to be happy, we should reach within ourselves.
Chapter 5: The Triune Brain: Your Brain
-Your grandfather has gone through a lot and I’m sorry to hear about what happened to him. It is a good example to use for this selection. In this chapter, we are taught on how to let go of the things that burden us. However, we have accumulated emotional pain that still burden us everyday; and these thoughts form our ego that make us unhappy.
- Created by MadhusreeSen
- Khalil Gibran’s Your Children would most probably also be my choice for the part of conscious parenting. We should really let our children make mistakes. It’s the only way that they can learn. Be there for them and guide them but let them make their own move. It’s your responsibility as a parent to be the influential model that they have in leading them to the path that they must take. It would be better if we just learn to let them make mistakes and learn from them. We should not just be there to yell at them and tell them what to do.
Chapter 5
-I agree with what you said that we can avoid making the same mistakes if only we understood how our emotions shroud our thinking. It’s sad to hear what happened to you friend but you’re right! Maybe she was just drawn to the same kind of men and was no longer able to remember the consequences of being with those kind. She shouldn’t be consumed by what she feels. It’s about time that she learn to understand the consequences of being shrouded by emotions.
- Created by Yifan Zhou
-It is hard to have overbearing parents such as those that you’ve given in your example. It is never our jobs as parents to pass on to our children the dreams that we want for ourselves. We are only there to guide them and not tell them what to do. We should learn how to let them create their own mistakes and to learn from them. Just like what Steve Jobs did. He connected the dots from his past and that paved the way for him. That allowed him to be successful in his endeavors.
Chapter 5
-It is easy to have easy thoughts like the ducks. In life, we should just be able to flap our wings and let things go. We do have a more superior intellect than the ducks but still we have trouble getting by the day because of what we harbor deep inside. People should be taught on how to release the things that make them unhappy. We should never be victims focusing on our own problems.
7. Created by Kyle Hill
- I agree that we are what our thoughts have made us. The ego limits us from where we should truly be. It places us in roles that are not who we truly are that’s why we are stuck in being unhappy. We become a person defined by the people who we are with. This is how we lose our identity. This is how we lose track of the destination that we are made to take.
- Chapter 5 (The Triune Brain)
- -When we let past problems be with us in every step of the way, we get nowhere. We go around in circles reliving the conflicts we have with other people that hinder us from being able to forgive and move on to a better future. We should never be stuck in the walls of the past. We will never be able to do greater things if we keep on looking back. Life goes on and you will be left behind if you keep on carrying the past with you.
Answer to question:
- I think what he meant here was that women were not given the chance to fulfill other roles outside of the home. We were only allowed to fulfill two roles and that is being a wife and a mother. We were never given roles in society like the men have. The men have played so many roles outside the home that the ego has consumed them more than it has consumed the women given the limited roles that they were allowed to play during the time of female suppression.
