I Mean What I Say & Sorry, I Won't Lie to You

I have noticed that a lot of people say I'm sorry a lot for almost anything. I understand what it means and that you are kind of supposed to say it whenever you bump into someone or something. What is weird is that it's just become another phrase that people say without even thinking. I thought sorry was something that you really felt. I thought it was suppose to really mean something. It's now just a quick phrase we use in one of the many ways we try to avoid responsibility.

I guess there is a more overriding issue here than people just saying I'm sorry all the time. I feel like the things that people say these days are just words. They have no meaning. They are just words for the sake of saying something. They become like this by repetition. Or the speaker just wants to say it because someone else expects to hear it. Guys are notorious for this kind of stuff. Whenever they get into some sort of trouble it's always, "Aww I'm sorry baby, I love you." Or some variation of that phrase. We all know that's total bullshit. Plus, the guy is only sorry he got caught, I mean, Rihanna said it best here.

I am just shocked that people just say things that they really don't mean. I think it's very fake to say "see yah later" or "I'll call you later" and then you never do. Why don't we all just be honest? Why do we have to always worry about being politically correct or about not offending people and hurting their feelings? I mean, getting your feelings hurt is part of life. If I chose how I got my feelings hurt, I would rather choose someone saying something honest to my face rather than all this code and lies. I guess if you looked at this at a different angle you could conclude that people are like this because they are actually being nice and they don't wanna hurt/offend people. If you watch TV shows, you'll see that not being honest and upfront never plays out well. Some character will always hurt another character more by not telling them they suck at singing, when they are going on stage in front of hundreds of people than if they told them they sucked. Yes, it's TV but I feel like real life works like that, but maybe less dramatic.

What good comes out of telling people what they want to hear? Another, I guess, part of all this is giving people advice. Most people I know, know that I am a pretty honest, straight-forward person. People don't usually come to me for advice or my opinion on something because they know that I will tell them what I really feel. I understand supporting someone but that doesn't mean you have to lie to them. You can totally disagree with someone and still support them. When people are in a tough time in their lives you CAN still be honest and upfront with them. Everyone assumes that honesty and being upfront are always bad and insensitive things. I just think that sugar-coating things is just dumb and does nothing for anyone especially when the person finds out that everything you said was a lie. I believe I have said it before. Honesty isn't mean or nice. It's just the truth as you really see it. Honesty can be taken to the extreme of course. However, not saying something is different than lying or saying something slightly different with sugar-coating.

The bottom line is that if we keep saying all these things nonchalantly and we don't follow through, what good is our word? I mean, maybe it's just me because I am sure there are people who upon hearing something from someone like, "I'll call yah later" or "We will hang out tomorrow," just ignore it and don't even take it seriously. I am sure there are people who don't even care about people's word. Why doesn't anyone care anymore? Why are we allowing people to just lie and say whatever they want without true meaning? I guess there are some people who just live in each others lies. Anyways, I will write another post soon, and I mean that.

When Time Are Tough, We Need To Be Tougher

Natural disasters are horrible, no matter where they are or who they affect, it's always a tragedy when lives are lost and property is destroyed. I have seen a lot of good things from people after the Haiti earthquake. Countries were all getting money and supplies out to the country as fast as they could and individuals here were donating as much as they could. During tragedies we always seem to put down everything and help others, but only for a minute, then we move on.

In times of tragedy, a lot of people want to donate to charities to help whoever is affected by a disaster, for example, the recent earthquake in Haiti. Unfortunately, there are people and even entire companies who use this time to con people. So what are good charities? I am not gonna get into that because the whole point of this is to explain that we, as a nation and as human beings need to keep strong and tough and aware of what is going on. We cannot just drop everything that's going on and throw money at something just because it seems like the right thing to do.

Everyone should know by now that Haiti is poor as hell. It isn't one of the poorest nations in the world, those are all in Africa. Haiti is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere however and the closest to the USA. Haitians already had it rough before the earthquake ever hit. There have been several specials on TV and online about the history and politics of this country that explain what it is all about. The problem here is that we are just throwing money at a nation that really needs food and water. How do we know where the money is actually going? In times where aid is needed we need to think and make sure that what we are doing is actually helping people.

Speaking of aid, something that kind of disturbed me while I was watching the news was a group of Haitians in the road asking for help and screaming about how we should help them so badly. The news even said that they so desperately need our help. Before you think I am a heartless jerk, let me explain myself. Our country (the USA) has it's own problems right now. I think we have done more than enough helping over the past 10 years with other countries, not just Iraq. With the economy the way it is and everyone upset about health-care and concern for Obama's next moves, we need to focus here. We should have made huge donations of food that were from everyday Americans and sent that other to Haiti and be done. Anything else would be from people own willingness. Instead Obama dropped everything and said we are all about Haiti. The problem I have with this is just a larger version of welfare. If you just give people money and act like you really care, nothing will be solved. They won't learn anything. So it bothers me that Haitians just want everyone to come to their aid. They need to learn what to do during these types of disasters. They need to learn how to build their buildings so that they don't come crashing down so easily. If we just come in their and fix everything up, what will that mean? What will that say to them? If something goes wrong, you can count on us to help you through. No need to be a self sufficient country. It bothers me that people act so helpless when we are human beings. We are supposed to use our brains and adapt to many situations and change with our environment. It seems that no one wants to do that on their own these days.

Now, I am not against helping them, I just think the way we are doing it isn't quite right. You can even see how pissed the people are when Diane Sawyer is just sitting there talking about the destruction, etc and pretty much just exploiting them while being such a great journalist. At that time I would put down everything and start physically helping the people and moving bricks and rubble. I am all for helping out fellow humans but at the same time we need to remember that people die, there are disasters and not everyone has an equal chance of survival. It's sad and it sucks but it's fact. We need to remember that we aren't God. I mean if we are gonna inhabit this whole planet we need to know what to expect. We need to know that all of our technology and all our brain power together can't stop things like this from happening.

I Would Be The Same Person If I Were Skinnier, Fatter, Taller, Etc

I never really realized how much body image was important to people in our society until I met a few people who, through their stories, showed that people can be cruel and all of a sudden be nice solely based on your waist size. Personally, I have never been really skinny or really fat. I do workout and I choose to because I like it, it is good for me, and just to look good really. I admit that I was somewhat brought into the working out thing from images on TV, magazines, and other guys at school who worked out. However, in my mind, I didn't think working out and getting muscular would maybe make me liked more or that I would become popular.

This post is addressing people who were fat or skinny at one time and decided to lose/gain weight and lift weights for social reasons. Everyone says they workout for health benefits, etc, but let's face it, cosmetic reasons, whether they are the number one priority or on the bottom of the list are always part of it. I cannot speak for people who were obese or skinny before, so I will say what I have seen and what I conclude from people who have told me their stories. I can give some perspective into being picked on based on physical appearance since I am shorter than average (although weight can be changed and height cannot).

It is no surprise that being overweight, especially during adolescence, is hard. Kids are not easy on people that are "different." It is hard being overweight or even too skinny. In high school, people were not afraid of offending people and hurting their feelings. Throughout high school I would see kids being called names for being overweight or even too skinny. I can imagine that years of that verbal abuse would make someone either very depressed or angry and bitter. Maybe some kids just decide to lose/gain weight and even try to act differently to fit in.

In my experience, and I am mostly going off my experiences so don't get all worked up cuz I am not making a generalization, I have seen kids who have, let's say lost weight and toned up a lot end up acting like total assholes. The people who used to be funny and who had some morals and values now had way too much confidence and no morals or values. Now they are in a different crowd and they use their little story to make people feel sorry for them. I can't believe people notice you just by some physical change. Do they really care about the person?

Out of school, you see this on TV as well. All those ads with people looking like crap and acting unhappy and then they lose weight and BOOM they are popular and happy and have this attitude all of a sudden. As if they are worth something now. And now they kick ass and don't care what anyone thinks about them.

Besides the health reasons for someone loosing/gaining weight, I think that people do care about what people think about them. People don't want to be teased just because of their weight. I always feel, however, that weight is something that CAN be controlled for the most part and you can change it. As long as you remain who you are, then a drop or increase in weight shouldn't change your personality. If anything, it may make you more confident but if anything more than that then I feel like people lose their originality. There are some things you cannot change though. I know that everyone has preferences about what they like physically in the same or opposite sex, but for me, it's a weird issue.

According to this site, the average height of males in the USA is around 5'10. However, European countries win with having the tallest males in the world. The U.S. falls right after Europe. That's great and all but I have no roots in Europe or anything. The average heights for other regions such as in the Middle East, East Asia and South America are much lower than that. Maybe me being Colombian has something to do with my height or my upbringing, etc. At the end of the day the height I end up being before I stop growing was pretty much determined at birth.

I always knew I was smaller than the other kids back in grammar school, but it never had a huge effect on me. Or I didn't really think about my height as being a problem to people or myself. In addition to being shorter, I was somewhat quite in middle school and high school, so I was pretty much a prime target for bullies. I was not bothered as much as other kids you hear about but I had my share of bullies and mean kids in school. Not understanding why these kids did what they did I just shrugged it off and as time went on I developed a backbone and used my words to fight back. I think my confidence rose when I realized that what I said to people made a difference and people left me alone. Looking back, I think that being short was something that was normal to me. It didn't make me feel unwanted or bad. I did wish that I were taller sometimes but at the end of the day I was and still am happy with my height. In fact, I don't want to be taller. I am 5'4 and proud to say it. I think American guys are too tall anyway. I mean there are 14-year-old kids who are taller than guys that are in their 30s what the hell? I guess it's the opposite extreme, but being short is awesome.

Sure, I have been turned down by girls who say they don't like short guys, but I don't care. It probably wouldn't even work out with them anyways. I do agree that being with a woman who is somewhat taller than me would look weird but I am not opposed to being friends. If I do meet a girl that is like 5'6 or something and we really like each other and she doesn't care about height, then I am sure that I will overlook the height issue as well. I feel like my personality should outweigh my height and my build. I feel like I am confident enough that my height shouldn't get in the way of anything.

At the end of the day, all the wishing and hoping you will look a different way doesn't matter because you should realize that you are where you are now BECAUSE of who are you, not what you look like. Even if I was 5'11 and skinny, it wouldn't have had a huge effect on my personality. I would have been raised the same way and everything. I am sure it would have changed my social life but I still feel like it wouldn't affect me. There is always someone out there who is taller, shorter, prettier, fatter, uglier, cuter, skinnier, more muscular, etc than you. The best thing is to like who you are now. Even if you do choose to lose/gain weight or get plastic surgery just remain true to you. Getting caught up in these things just makes your life miserable.

I Asked A Question and Got All This Attitude

Back in high school, my teachers were pretty cool. They seemed to actually like their jobs and they didn't take their anger out on their students. I am sure there were some like that, but I was lucky enough to have the teachers that cared. I never remember or I have just never experienced a run in with a teacher. I never back talked to a teacher and the teacher never gave me problems. The relationships were always student and teacher. If I asked a dumb question or didn't understand something, the teacher would try to help me understand and try their best to explain things.

When I got to college, all this changed. Professors are so different from teachers. For one, they make a lot more money and they are true experts in their field (arguably). I also guess that they expect much more out of us since we are supposed to be old and mature college students. Whatever the case is, some professors act like they are the cherry on top of a brownie sundae.

It has happened a lot over my college career. From freshman year to my junior year. I would ask a question, it may have been stupid or worded poorly but when I asked it the teacher would look like what the fuck? They would make this face and then say something like I don't get what you are asking and then some smart comment and I would not get a chance to explain. At that point I usually don't say anything and let it go. But I really should say something. When a teacher acts like that then we are now equals. We are not student and professor at that point. They could have been professional and asked me to explain and let me talk. Why do they have to laugh and essentially mock me? Sometimes, but not always, the kids in the class would laugh with them. I find it very frustrating being ignored or unheard when I know that I have tried. I at least ask questions in class and want to truly understand what is going on.

This happens with service people as well. For example, I asked a girl at a restaurant if I could get a different side order instead of something nasty like coleslaw, and the girl said with this attitude out of the clear blue sky, "Coleslaw is one of the two sides so you have to get it." Not only was I being forced to order the dirt that is coleslaw, the girl decided to talk to me like I just said something that upset here. I know some people hate their jobs but that is no excuse to be rude.

I don't get why people will attack you when you are doing nothing and being nice. Then when you speak up and say something and try to defend yourself, they get even more mad but they are usually surprised that you spoke up. They finally shut up and don't usually say much after because they know you will hand their asses to them again if they say anything rude to you. I noticed that in high school when I opened my mouth and said something back to the haters, they shut up afterward. It's like people can and will stomp all over you unless you show some back bone. I have to say that I see it a lot and a lot of people let it slide because they don't want the confrontation. But they will not learn how to stand up for themselves if they don't say something to at least one person who is giving them shit. I mean, for example, a professor couldn't do much but kick you out of his/her class for talking back or something. As long as you don't talk back to someone who may have a weapon.

I may seem like I am confrontational and have all this attitude but I really don't use it unless I have to. I do notice that most people would rather say nothing or avoid a situation rather than be up front. Most people seem to just blow things off and not care to talk. Some of those professors that avoided and mocked my question were probably just afraid to answer or they didn't even know the answer. I know that I am not afraid to ask or answer anything. I don't get why they can't. I sure as hell will tell them how I feel the next time they give me crap for something I say or ask. Everyone has the right and everyone can stand up for themselves in a situation as long as their defense is justified. It just bothers me how these higher education people think they are the shit when they are not.