Pages

Monday, September 9, 2013

Dedication

Making the most out of our lives and our situations requires us to be dedicated. It was during the more humbling parts of my life where I began to understand the importance of dedication.

When I first decided that I wanted to be a writer, I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. I thought I was fairly good at writing but when I began to read other blogs and more articles, I realized just how far down the ladder I was compared to others. My goodness, how will I ever be taken seriously? I quickly realized that even though I did not want to give up, I knew I had to dedicate myself to improvement and developing better writing skills. It's been a few years now and I still find myself unsatisfied at times but, I just keep typing away. I keep reading. I'm done with writing my book; I am in the process of rewriting some things and putting it all together; it's all very new to me but, I refuse to give up.

Monday, September 2, 2013

The Art of Forgiveness

Growing up was rather difficult for me. I suppose this can be explained by my environment but mostly had to do with myself and how I responded to situations in my life. Being upset with others and expecting so much from them, while putting too much pressure on myself always left me disappointed and angry. At a very young age I was jaded and depressed. In short, I was selfish but I did not realize this. Still, there was something inside me that wanted more in life. I would look around me and notice others and realize that there must be a possibility for me to be happy as well.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Social Skills Vs. Intellectual Skills

This particular post is merely me pondering some things I thought I would share and would greatly appreciate input from anyone.

Sometimes in life there are questions that may plague your mind, even if in the end they don't really matter when it concerns the giant picture. Still, I often find myself pondering things like these, and quite often.

One thing I often question is which skill is more valuable? Social skills or intellectual skills? It almost feels like you have to choose one or the other and try to learn the most you can. It seems that individuals who excel at one are always missing the other. If a person is highly intellectual and they choose a life focus in the academic world, they typically lack savvy social skills. Those who are artful in their approach with others are indeed intelligent but are typically not described as being scholarly. Obviously this is not always the case. Occasionally you can run into those highly motivated people, who seem to have a special sparkle about them. They are extremely social, witty, fun, insightful, and seem to be able to engage in conversation on a wide range of topics, having great knowledgeable information. I have had a desire in me to be that type of person but honestly, I spend so much time questioning how to go about doing this and analyzing exactly who I want to be that my quest for greatness has been rather long and drawn out.

There are times when I feel very confident about how I interact with people but then sometimes things happen and I am criticized for being tactless or too forward and sometimes even obnoxious. There are other times when I feel very secure in my intellect. I look around and see stupid people everywhere. I even go so far as to make fun of idiots who don't know simple things or are clueless when it comes to math or science. Then I end up running into a situation where I am challenged on something I should know and I end up feeling humiliated because I failed. One thing I have learned is that I should never underestimate others and never overestimate myself. Be confident in what you know but also confident enough to know you do not know everything. Be willing to learn from others as well as teach others.

Both social and intellectual skills are important and I try to improve on them as often as I can. The fact is, we all need other people and we need to learn how to deal with them and interact with them. We also need to find ways of doing this in a positive manner. We cannot simply learn how to take advantage of others.

Social skills are valuable in understanding people and connecting with people on a personal level. We learn valuable information from people but if we are difficult people to get along with, our opportunities of forming connections and learning become limited, ultimately hurting ourselves. Interacting with others can also create spiritual growth. Love is a powerful and necessary human feeling. In order to experience this, we must have interactions with others. Social skills help us to form a more happier home. We learn to get along with our family in order to have a peaceful household that works together as a team, making life for the individual inside the family unit easier. When we have a strong family and strong friendships, we can find security in a world of chaos.

Intellectual skills are important so that we can understand the physical world around us. For example, having knowledge in the area of economics can assist us in how we handle our money and finances. We can better protect ourselves and our families when we have knowledge in this particular area. Gaining knowledge of technology gives us security, knowing that we can navigate ourselves around a world now filled with technology. Learning about any of the sciences gives us the ability to better understand our world, how it functions, and how to invent and improve things for ourselves and for other people. Mathematics is the universal language that connects us with our universe. It is used in every discipline of study and helps create better brain patterns that train us to think about things logically; we can become better problem solvers, finding solutions without interference of irrational feelings that work against us.

I do believe one of the most important things in life is just being an honest person, a good person, someone who is nice to others and forgiving. Having social skills and intellectual skills are both important but is one greater than the other? I'm still not sure. What are your thoughts on this?