How would you describe your outlook on life...

[Guest Game of Chance]

I thought about creating an I'm too apathetic to care option...but I thought those two were suffice.

[Draco1958]

Need a third option....LIFE SUCKS!!!!!!!!!

[bean]

I picked the second one. Not to be bitchy, but for the most part, life is what you make of it...if there is something you don't like, change it!

[Homicidalheathen]

I voted as goth as my dark soul would allow with the choices given. Sigh.

[JaneDead]

i don't think my answer would fit either of those 2 options. they are both too one way or the other for how i view things. i definately don't feel the world owes me a damn thing... but i can't say i "crave" "success"

i'm sure by success you just mean basically taking care of yourself, doing things to better yourself... and by that definition then i guess i "crave success".

but too often i view people and their ideas of "success" as being something different. something more along the lines of making a lot of money, turning your head on those may need you or your help along the way. sometimes to me success seems to be all about me me me. now i don't think successful people owe those less fortunate a hand out or anything like that, but i think being successful in life also means being humble and not high and mighty and powerful and better than everyone else.

like i said, i am sure this is NOT what you meant but you know me and how i have to see things in my own way and well this is where my thoughts have lead me.

i'd say instead of feeling i am owed something or craving success - i'd rather strive to be a well rounded person who won't forget where i came from in order to get where i am going.

i also believe success comes easier to some than others. all you successful people can argue that with me but you know what, you really can't argue how anything is possible for everyone. it is just not. "you want it, you can do it" no, not always that simple... maybe for you it was, but not everyone is like you. would be ideal though wouldn't it? to have a world full of successful people who were not poor, needy, disfunctional or broken.

sure it is hard work, but not everyone has that motivation. intelligence helps, not everyone is that bright. sometimes it is opportunity but you know what not everyone in this world knows how to see opportunity and seize it.

well i started to type a STORY here but i just deleted it all and will keep this as is :whistling

[saechalyn]

I certainly don't think the world (or anyone) owes me anything. I'm not the most ambitious person ever, but it's important to me that I support myself.

[Shade Everdark]

The world owes me. When it comes down to it, the world owes each of us something. One death apiece. For an unlucky few, the world gets to collect that twice.

Okay, okay. To be serious, and non-gothy, for a moment, I think both choices are ultimately bunk. Does the world owe me? However much I might want it to, no. But I certainly don't think opportunities can simply be created out of the ether, or worse yet, alchemically transmuted from problems.

You can give me all the anecdotal evidence you like, but life just doesn't work like that.

[Scary Guy]

It sure as fuck owes me. Every other moron on the planet thinks the world owes them, I might as well go along with the crowd.

OK the world might not owe me anything, but the government sure as fuck does. They'll suck you dry if they can get their fangs into you.

If life is a game, cheat your ass off. Thats the best way to look at it.

I'm a realist, and in reality none of this is going to matter in the end.

To be honest I could have much less than I do now, but what I have (like many others in the world) is still not enough.

[Fierce Critter]

Count me in with JaneDead & Shade.

[Guest Game of Chance]

There was a reason why I only created two choices. I had a feeling that neither choice would appeal to the majority of the board. It was my goal to force a choice.

[Guest Game of Chance]

i also believe success comes easier to some than others. all you successful people can argue that with me but you know what, you really can't argue how anything is possible for everyone. it is just not. "you want it, you can do it" no, not always that simple... maybe for you it was, but not everyone is like you. would be ideal though wouldn't it? to have a world full of successful people who were not poor, needy, disfunctional or broken.

sure it is hard work, but not everyone has that motivation. intelligence helps, not everyone is that bright. sometimes it is opportunity but you know what not everyone in this world knows how to see opportunity and seize it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm a Darwinist. Can you tell?

[JaneDead]

I'm a Darwinist.  Can you tell?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

and i am forever seeing all the shades of grey and off white and pure white and black but yet the darker black as well.

[JaneDead]

There was a reason why I only created two choices.  I had a feeling that neither choice would appeal to the majority of the board.  It was my goal to force a choice.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

well i won't be voting so no force there

[Fierce Critter]

well i won't be voting so no force there

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ditto.

[Brenda Starrr]

I'm grateful for what I have. I worked hard for it, too. Both Wayne and I feel like this.

[wood]

i say both. the world owes me, but yet i like the experience & i crave success.

[Nienna]

What about: WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS?!?

[Guest Game of Chance]

well i won't be voting so no force there

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The funny part is...by not voting, you've made a choice

[JaneDead]

that made me think of this lyric:

if you choose not too decide you still have made a choice...

now that song will be stuck in my head.

and yes i have made a choice BUT you wanted me to choose one OR the other and i choose NEITHER.

yeah, i can be a brat but you know that already.

[Steven]

It sure as fuck owes me.  Every other moron on the planet thinks the world owes them, I might as well go along with the crowd.

OK the world might not owe me anything, but the government sure as fuck does.  They'll suck you dry if they can get their fangs into you.

If life is a game, cheat your ass off.  Thats the best way to look at it.

I'm a realist, and in reality none of this is going to matter in the end.

To be honest I could have much less than I do now, but what I have (like many others in the world) is still not enough.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

alright this guy really, really now, needs a cookie

[Steven]

I think were introduced into this life via some early years of parental pre-programing. We carry that with us into the future - either as life tools or scars or both.

We enter into an idealistic phase, passionate, real, yet not really within our grasp yet. We study and embrace much - yet accomplish little on our own power and resources, but great plans we have, and vast amounts of energy. And we are so sure, that we are right.

Then we enter into a psuedo realistic stage - where jobs and insurance and mortgages and the overall machine begins creeping in, and we discover our want of self protection and varying degrees of confusion within our comfort levels. And we discover bitterness as we begin to acknowledge that our previous ideals are simply not as simple as they used to be. Nor are we as energetic as we once were.

And then we hit the crossroad. What to do, what to do?...... when we've got one foot in both stages, because we have to decide on something.

Some people develop extraordinary super powers of blame. They take all that early passion and vision and utilize it in in confirming that the world has conspired against them. Once again they study and embrace much - only the focus now is one of confirming personal doom and self righteously earned bitterness. They shut down, become reactors at best- claiming to be pro-active but dealt a dirty hand. Then we breed and teach that to our kids: "look what they did to us"

Other people develop other super powers where they embrace all the wonderful flavours of Euphamysticsm that society has laid out as a framework in our American caste system. Their personal vocabulary is peppered with self defeating stigmas desribed by catch words like ADD, SAD, NA, AA, co-dependent, bi-polar, insomniac, etc. etc. etc. and although some of these terms definately DO apply to certain people with legitimite needs, suddenly it's a VERY crowded room full of "me too's"....simply because of a "professional's" diagnosis and a billion dollar industry that places happy pill ads in our magazines and constantly suggest that we lack coping ability. We accept the life terms handed out to us:

"Doc says I am THIS. Or you are too? Me too, only my sister is THAT, and you know my roomate Thelma, well her sister's boyfreinds uncle is both THIS and THAT and his mom of course was THIS and I saw this episode on Orah about THAT and it made me so depressed that I'm going to see my doctor about a new prescription so I can sleep because he says I might be THIS, THAT, and some of the OTHER and you know I always feel it kick in when winter hits or my credit card bills go up....sighhhhhhh"

We never fix a thing. We takle many things. We beleive in very few things outside of our ailments. Then we breed and teach that to our kids: "it's hopless....you have a weakness, a sickness for life, dont trust yourself, get medical help first, careful - dont push yourself too mcuh too fast..."

And there is another group who has more often than not spent time in both camps and quite simply, thank god, is sick of it all. They develop humility - which in its truest sense is the willingness to take a good hard look at oneself and take stock of strengths and weaknesses in order to facillitate change. They kick their own asses. Cut certain negative elements and people out of their lives. Set goals to paper. Own their own mistakes. Form community in small groups of like minded people who are likewise searching to improve their situations. They learn from one another. Develop the charector to say to a trusted friend or mentor "hey I'm all fucked up in this department - will you help me?" They start re-programming their minds. Go back thru their developmental history. Seperate bitternesss from applicable experience. Search for confirmation. Test their theories, test themselves. They develop identity, purpose, life-force. In doing so they break away from the machine that everyone else so readily recognizes and yet is not liberated from. And hopefully, they too develop families, or re-develop their existing fgamilies, and teach these things to their kids: "you can do it"

a rare breed this latter group.

But they exist.

[DisturbedMania]

I picked the second option because no one, not even life, owes me anything. But, my belief would be:

I'm here to deal with some karma and learn a few life lessons. After that I'm outta here!

[Shade Everdark]

I subscribe to the bitter, cynical, pessimistic camp.

They leave me alone there, and I like it that way.

[Guest Game of Chance]

I think were introduced into this life via some early years of parental pre-programing.  We carry that with us into the future - either as life tools or scars or both. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I would agree with this. However, the human mind's greatest ability is the function that allows it to be reprogrammed.

[Steven]

I would agree with this.  However, the human mind's greatest ability is the function that allows it to be reprogrammed.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

yessssssssssssssssss........grasshoppah.

a shame though that it seems as if the majority of us fail to capitalize on that very fact and instead choose to move about the planet as if we are cursed.....