Friend or Foe?

Who is a "friend"? Someone to spend good times with? Someone to run to if in need? Someone to sell out or in if an opportunity arises? Or, someone to help without expecting anything in return? The word "friend" is so ambiguous that oftentimes, its definition encompasses one who befits more of an "enemy".

Reality Check: The following types or breed of personalities will claim to be "friends", some a crossbreed or mixture of types.

Type#1. "Agendadized" friends - these are the people who want to be your friend for some vested interests. They will always have time for friendship provided you fit into their agenda of interests. They are very accommodating and may even be friendlier than expected. You would meet them everyday from anywhere as these are the people you deal with in your daily life. Sometimes "agendadized" friends seem to be more "real" than other types as they somehow get your life going in some aspects.

Type#2. Sunshine friends - they will always have time for you when there's something regards to merrymaking and excitement. They will even offer to shell out resources etc. But this type would prefer not to be bothered when something is to be troubled about.

Type#3. Sucker friends - they are almost similar as "agendadized" and sunshine friends except they prefer to get something for nothing, hence the term "suckers". They will "come clean" during good times (to benefit from everyone), plus they will come knocking door the day after, expecting some additional favors. You may oblige but never expect to be reciprocated when it's your call. After which, expect not to see them for awhile until such time when they may need something from you again.

Type#4. Judas friends - they will always appear to be the "true friend" type. You would think them the best of friends, trustworthy, loyal, everything thrown in except at the last moment of truth, they will sell you out for cheap sakes at a dime, a penny worth. Judas simply doesn't know which vocabulary the words "integrity" and "honor" belong. Incidentally, do watch the film "Scent of a Woman" starring Al Pacino, Cris O'Donnell and Gabrielle Anwar. Also "True Colors" starring John Cusack and James Spader.

Type#5. Sporadic or time-lapsed friends - these are the friends who would appear out of nowhere, for no reasons, then subsequently hibernate and vanishes into thin air, only to return at a later time as if time hadn't passed. Communications and attempts to make contact with them will likewise bring about sporadic responses, with some replied in detail while others seem to be lost in transit or possibly channeled to another dimension.

Type#6. Virtual Reality friends - they may function like a true friend except they only exist via some electronic media or cyberspace. They may have time for you and even influence your life more than other types. But for some reasons, they may not be present on a physical level, ergo side by side with you in the physical world. In a philosophical viewpoint, virtual friends may sometimes befit a true friend more than any other in the supposedly physical world as they oftentimes and somehow touched our lives with greater impact than any other, which also makes us wonder if reality is actually an illusion and the virtual world being reality in reverse.

Type#7. Illusive true friend - illusive indeed, as this friend is oftentimes mistaken as an enemy. The illusive true friend is one who will share time regardless of situations, without expecting anything in return. One who will stand by sunshine and rain. When the clouds finally settled, you will find a true friend still beside you, side by side throughout helpless and critical times. A true friend has more to give than receive and maybe the only one who will dare to call your prudence, as one has no intention of profiting in any way, thereby has nothing to lose if you will brand him or her as an enemy.

Fallacy on Poverty

Do you spend because you like or want to? Or do you spend because you have to? Do you spend because you have the means to? Or do you spend because it is a means to? We often say or hear the phrase "no money", as if subliminally suggesting that one may splurge if money is available.

The equivocal definition for poverty would be the state of an absence of wealth or inadequacy of resources. Parallax: Cause of poverty - the inability to efficiently manage resources and wealth, thereby resulting to inadequacies and consequential losses. Failure to define will cause a failure to diagnose. The basic cause being an inability to conserve resources against wastage. People dealt with poverty by maximizing resources and income but often neglected on minimizing unnecessary expenditures and wastage.

It is not enough that we tap alternative resources and income, we must also balance-check the way we spend, splurge and waste. The magic formula for wealth management being, maximized production / minimized expense = savings capacity. For instance, one may have an eight-figure income but spends on a ten-figure, technically is still debt-ridden and poverty-stricken. While another may be averaging a four-figure income yet provided allocation for fifty percent savings, hence more adequate. A nation's GNP (gross national production) may be large but if domestic spending, foreign debts and white elephants resulted in a ballooning gap on net earnings and BOP (balance of payments), it still is poverty-stricken. It isn't of much significance how much you made and own if you failed to manage how much you splurged or saved on what you made and own. Even the wealthiest of rich men can't possibly purchase the entire world. Can you?

Check out my article on Indebtedness

Your perceptions and attitudes toward life actually affect the internal you

Your perceptions and attitudes toward life actually affect the internal you which then set the impetus on how other people interact with you. Your mind interprets a perception either as negative, positive or neutral, then sets your attitude in accordance with that perception. But reality is not bound by your perception alone. If you perceive negatively of something, your mind will set the attitude in accordance with that perception, irrelevant of whether such thing is actually negative or not. Hence, it is the internal you, your mind that becomes negative and not necessarily your subject.

A negative mindset creates the moods and attitudes that begets further negative temperaments resulting to a vicious cycle of negative actions emanating from you and consequent negative reactions from others. People who met similar circumstances in life attained varied degrees of resolution because each had a unique way of approaching a situation. Different people set out to do the same task also turned out successful or not because each had a different perception or attitude toward the task.

It may seem unfair but true. Happiness begets more happiness, sorrow more sorrows, anger more anger, love more love, envy more envies, fear more fears, frustration more frustrations, success more successes and failure more failures. Wonder why certain people seem to will-o'-the-wisp in their miseries one after another while others prosper? The key is in their mindset. Their negatively charged mindsets narrowed their peripheral view to a "line of sight focus", consequently limiting perspectives, options, insight and foresight, created a biased than balanced outlook, thereby attracting the consequent scenarios or chained situations which, would not have been had their mindset been positive or neutral. A negatively charged mindset is driven by negative emotions hence, thoughts and actions emanating from such are more emotional than logical. On a meta-physical field, a negatively charged mindset will influence your time and space displacement. You will often find yourself at places in time to experience some misfortunes or missing out on well-deserved opportunities because you were not present when and where you were suppose to. Believe it or not, it is possible to wilfully attract misfortunes and skip out on any opportunity for yourself.

How does one adopt a positive attitude towards life? By changing one's point of view. By adopting parallaxes or viewpoints, dissecting logic and paradoxes and broadening perspectives through a phalanx of pragmatic concepts. One must discover how to manage a situation from multiple viewpoints (parallaxes) instead of a straight "line of sight". Avoid impulsive or urge process thinking as these are dependent on passions and emotions, not based on logic and are always variable as time, environment and other psychological stimuli, hence very unstable. When you manage to change your perceptions from negative to neutral or positive, your attitude will change accordingly and so will your relations with the world.