Life’s greatest lesson

I believe that the greatest lesson I have learned during my life is that surround yourself with good trustworthy people. This lesson is something that I have learned over the years as I bounced from friend group to friend group trying to find people I can truly connect to and have deep trust with them. This has been beneficial because my group of friends has probably stopped me from making bad decisions in my life probably unintentionally without them knowing they changed anything. I disagree that the Odyssey portrays parts of one’s greater purpose as one’s greater purpose varies from person to person and can not be pinned down by one purpose even if religion says we have one ultimate purpose in life. As I’ve talked about before my constant jumping from friend group to friend group trying to find someplace where I fit in really helped me realize this great lesson and once I found a great group of friends I finally realize this now looking back on my life as a whole. I believe that I have not experienced nearly enough of what life has to offer to determine what life is truly about as I have only lived 15 years of hopefully a long life so I hope to eventually figured out what life is about but it is too early in my life to figure out what life is about.

The Lying Games

In books 13-14 Odysseus finds himself back on his own home of Ithaca. When he arrives he is immediately met by Athena who asks who he is and how he gets here, this is the first of two lies that Odysseus tells during these two chapters. The second one comes when Odysseus convinces the loyal swineherd that he knows how Odysseus is doing. This begs the question: When if ever is okay to lie to anyone loyal to you or anyone you trust. And is it ever beneficial to lie to people close to you.

I personally believe that lying is not completely okay, especially if it is lying to people close to you. I feel that if you lie to people close to you, you are unintentionally alienating yourself from the ones closest to you. This is because if you lie to people close to you, you either feel subconsciously that you can not trust these people that you consider your friends and family, or this means that you yourself are extremely paranoid about what is going on and that you will not realize that people are not there for you before they leave. That is also why I believe it is not beneficial to lie to people close to you as you slowly alienate yourself from your friends and family if you routinely lie to you.

Getting to your goal, by any means necessary

I believe that goals are supposed to act as the ultimate end, and even if you take detours and always don’t make the choice that goes right to your goal that is okay. It all comes down to your personal judgement and if you believe that your goal can wait and that this detour is paramount to your beliefs and desires. As long as you eventually get to your predetermined goal at some point or another it means you are a successful person. Now if you delay and never finish your original goal that means you failed yourself as an individual and possibly other people as well. Now how you get to your goal is up to you, if you want to take the proper and accepted route that’s okay. If you want to take a more shady route to achieve your goals that is okay as well, it is all determined by your moral code and what you believe is right and wrong.

Death: The Ultimate Inevitability

Death is an inevitability that everyone who was ever born will face. Taking this into consideration, everyone considers what will happen after death. These views vary greatly from person to person and no one’s views on the afterlife are exactly the same. Me personally I have two different views on the afterlife, the one I want to encounter and my more realistic version of what I think will happen after death. The reason I believe in a more realistic and a dream afterlife is because my more realistic version of afterlife is extremely depressing and something I can’t think about for a long time. My more realistic version of death is just an empty void, after you pass on from this world I feel that you consciousness slips from this world and you are left in an empty void to contemplate your life and what you did. I believe that this version of afterlife that I think about has to do with me being completely removed from religion in my life. On top of this my parents never really pushed any of their beliefs upon me so I was really able to develope my own opinions on what I believe. I am an extremely realistic person at heart this seems like a practical and realistic belief and because of me having nothing to impress upon me a belief about the afterlife I stuck with my belief up until today. My more dreamy afterlife would probably be me with every video known to mankind and not needing sleep and being able to have anything that I would need to get maximum entertainment out of the rest of eternity. This idea fluctuates from what I am feeling on a day to day basis. Now this idea just came about when I thought what would be fun to do for the rest of eternity and has no other reasoning behind it.

What I hope to learn

Throughout this search into my inner self I hope to truly learn more about myself and hopefully more about my family and my community. This greater understanding of myself will probably come at a cost though. I will probably have to block out my past thoughts about myself to find a deeper and a truer understanding of myself and how I feel about my friends and family. Throughout this inner “Odyssey” of sorts I hope that I can find a understanding of what Odysseus went through and his inner thoughts and possibly “walk a mile in his shoes” to figure out what truly goes on in his mixed up head of his and get a deeper connection to him and feel more for what he has to go through.