Reasons Why We Buy Gadgets

1. Because it Looks Cool - First and the most common reason why we buy our gadgets. Simply because they are very pleasing in our eyes. When I first saw the iPad, I had no question in mind and had to get one even though I knew that it was just a oversized iTouch. I looks so thin, clean and sassy.

And tons of other people buy their gadgets for the same reason:

Looks so big and glossy right?

Wanna get a pair of these? 

Would be cool to be walking around with a nice looking pair of beats!

How about the iMac?

If you had tons of spare cash would you cash in with one of these?

2. I Wanna Be The Latest - Some people buy gadgets because they just wanna touch the latest of products, without even minding the specs at all or knowing what that gadget does. As long as it is new and popular, we would grab em' immediately. What would the iPad3 look like? Its also cool to be one of the first to be walking around with the latest product from Apple. By then we no longer think about the specs and what it does and we just convince ourselves thats its all going to be good the moment we buy it.

3. The Fear of Being Left Behind - Once the iPad3 is released and everyone and even your friends immediately shifts to the newest and latest and having you sit there with the "then" latest product. Then a sudden feeling of awkwardness starts to creep in making you want to climb up where others are and be updated.

4. Addicted to Superior Quality - Some people just can't get enough with better and better quality. And especially the BIG numbers.

Some of us do not really understand what those words and numbers mean. But somehow even if we do not understand them, we are attracted to BIG figures. Like "high performance", X number of speed, "Ultra" this and that. Makes you wanna go mad just by reading the specs.

But this by far among the four is the most legitimate reason to buy a gadget since there is a logical reason involved and not just buying something all because it looks cool and new. 

And the last reason why we buy gadgets is:

5. Because We Actually Need It - Let's take the cellular phone for example. Most people, especially young people are the ones so crazed about the latest and overpriced cellular phones with lavish features and designs. And would switch to another unit whenever a new one arrives.

But to think, what most of these young people do with their cellular phones are just texting, calling and playing games. If you go it by that, this is what we actually need:

But then I was just trolling around. If you have lots of spare cash then why not take advantage with all of the advance features technology has to offer. But if you are spending cash endlessly with the top 3 reasons above. Then that would be a problem that shouldn't be ignored.

Happiness in 'Doing'

We human beings are funny. We always say to ourselves that if only I can get this thing or achieve that, it would bring us eternal happiness. But once we do get it, we will experience momentary happiness and eventually drift back to sadness. Why? Because we want something else again!

We mistake that happiness comes from achievement. And the longer we go about it we will soon find ourselves completely unsatisfied no matter how much we get. For man is a ever progressive evolutionary being.

What then is the remedy which points the way to eternal happiness? It is the Journey! Not the Destination.

Once we can have our mind detached from the result and simply enjoy the process of doing it. We will soon find that winning or losing do not matter anymore and the enjoyment of the process of going there is much more important. And there we will experience eternal happiness.

But of course we still have our eyes towards our goal so we may have something to aim at, but we are no longer so ridiculously attached to it to the extent that it brings us fear whenever doubts enters the mind saying we might not get it.

The process itself becomes our destination for it brings us joy. But our success rate in achieving the goal becomes so much higher in proportion by doing this than to be rigidly attached solely towards the achievement.



"I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun." ~ Edison

What One Object Can Do

Here is a pencil. To the ordinary eye, the pencil is simply a tool for writing things down. Something very basic, very trivial.

But in a writer's perspective. The pencil is a heavenly tool used for saving peoples lives, a tool for securing brilliant ideas, a medium from which their artistic abilities may be expressed freely and brought to life.

But it is still the same pencil.

We then come to the realization that the power does not come from the pencil but in reality from our own perception of what a pencil can do.

If we can but train ourselves to see more than what meets the eye. We will come to witness the vast possibilities of what one object can do.

And remember, this world consists not of pencils only.

A Dig On Ideas

If you were to ask yourself what would be the most valuable thing to be desired in the whole world. Life would give you one answer: It is Ideas.

Ideas are very often underestimated. To the naked eye it is seemingly unimportant and invaluable. Partly because nobody can see our ideas except for ourselves. It is but a tiny bubble in our head carrying with it a picture of a unique yet unfinished work. But something as subtle as an idea is all responsible for all of the greatest achievements mankind has ever known. And we often mistake their achievements for tremendous physical action and mental fortitude. Not knowing that it is really ideas which motivated people to do those tremendous things. 

The light bulb that illuminated the world was once a idea held in mind

Money, a tiny piece of paper that has the whole world working for it was once a idea held in mind

The computer that simplified all our perplexes was once a idea held in mind

All the succeeding evolution of inventions today were all ideas held in mind

The legacy of a person who has died that is passed down from person to person is also a idea held in mind

Without ideas, tremendous physical and mental capabilities becomes futile, because there is no purpose, no destination. Ideas can only be called as such if it is unique and if its a thought no one has thought before. Unique ideas, when acted upon, can change the course of world, just as the previous great ideas have done so far.

Now that we know the value of it, let's start to shift our awareness to be more conscious of them as soon as they appear in our minds and start to take them more seriously. We all had numbers of great ideas that came to us but we never had them acted out. But we know beyond a doubt that it is one good idea [Laughter]

Let us not wait for the time that our ideas may be acted upon by someone else, had we taking our own ideas more seriously. But nevertheless, if you are one of those who loves ideas you may even have to consider yourself to be very lucky. 

We invariably witness that most people do not talk about ideas, and would prefer to talk about things that would just pass. So it would definitely be a pleasure to be one of the few who are very interested in thinking and talking about ideas. Some people miss it out and argue that the best method when it comes to achieving success is by working on their personal development, acquiring more discipline and to strive towards monetary goals. While all of those are well, but without ideas, you will still end up working for people who has them.

But remember as well that ideas are only bubbles in our mind with a picture of an unfinished work. Therefore the courage to put those ideas into action is a necessity to bring those ideas into life. There will definitely be some trials and errors along the way but if a person sticks to the attainment of it, he will inevitably break the ice and put his ideas across.

"What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? A intestinal worm? Uhh.. What Mr. Cobb is trying to say. An idea. Resilient, highly contagious. Once an Idea has taken hold of the brain its almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed fully understood, that sticks, right in there somewhere" ~Inception Movie

Faulty Educational System

When I was in school back then, teachers have always told us that we are all born champions, that we can achieve anything we want, live a happy and prosperous life. Oh you can name so many of them, and the best thing that they have told me that you can only get them if....and only if... you graduate school with a diploma and high grades. At first I believed that, those words seemed so promising to me back then.

But as soon as I got older I noticed something terribly terribly wrong.

Plenty of people are unemployed, and when they do land a job it is rather a job that is completely unrelated to the college course they have taken. Once they are there, they feel stuck and is incapable of creating options for themselves to seek a way out. It is a direct result of a untrained mind.

So I has kept me thinking where did all those promising words went? Even the people at school who told me that are not even living the kind of life they told their students can. And so there I went and did some things differently.

Now I do believe the power of our minds, that we are born with infinite potential, a mind capable of achieving anything it desires just as the quotations above have stated. But question is: Have we ever experienced those said capabilities? There is no method of taking that away from people unless the mind has been trained the wrong way. 

And the only one who is responsible for molding our minds from nursery period until adulthood is none other than Formal Education.

There are many reasons why this is so and these reasons can be readily observed by the ordinary eye. A child's mind is supposed to be free, playful, creative and inventive. Anything like music, art and inventions are the best things a child can do. And those qualities are kind of stuff geniuses possess.

But then as you all know, children are no longer given the chance to decide for themselves whether or not they are going to school but is required to finish 18 years regardless. Education now becomes compulsory. And the subjects that are poured into the child are the ones that would naturally destroy those qualities.

A person spends approximately 18 years in formal education bombarded with analytical left-brain subjects and by the time they finally get out from school, most of the wonderful qualities they once possess have already been diminished. This is simply taking the big picture of what formal education does.

I titled this article as Faulty Educational System because I do not oppose to the idea of schooling and education and I do believe education is for everyone. But it is the system of the school rather and the method of teaching and presenting of ideas are the ones that's faulty.



1. Learning Retention. How long can a student stay listening to a discussion in a classroom and actually understand the point of the topic? Presumably an hour and two, the mind can retain all the important things needed by that duration. But with extended periods of time, retention starts to slow down, which is usually the case in formal education. Once we get tired of reading and listening we usually rest and let our mind recuperate. But what happens in the classroom is simply the opposite, and must go on until the afternoon bell rings. If a students retention rate is good for an average of two hours only but must continue the eight hour curriculum five days a week, considering that he must stay up late at night to finish projects, assignments and review for an exam the next day. I do not think that the student's mind can actually learn if there is too much mental pressure being put together.


2. Subject Interests.  Everyone is unique. We have our own tastes, likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses and speciality. If we are to observe our mind and the way we learn, we get to notice that we only actually learn when we have taken a keen interest towards a certain subject. A person who is very interested in music can learn about music a lot faster than those who have a little interest in music. And on the other hand those who have little interest in music in their part have their own individual interest and can learn faster in their own field of interest better than the one who is in the field of music. But what happens in formal education is that they let every kid study all sorts of fields whether they like it or not and very much expecting them to excel in each one. And if a kid doesn't excel, he is immediately ridiculed as dumb.


3. The Illusion of Memorization. If we say study, in school the first thing that comes to a students mind is memorization whereby information is loaded into their memory bank so it will be well ready for the exams. But if you try and look within your memory bank right now and see there if you can trace  any passages from textbooks and literary discussion from your school days. None, absolutely none. All that remains there are those lovely and painful memories or those information that were valuable to us. Simply put that only the impulses which impacted us greatly will continue to remain in our memory bank and those information which our brain finds of little significance, for instance boring discussion and textbooks, is easily flushed out. Which proves that nobody really learns when using the method of 'memorization', which is the trademark of Formal Education.

4. Psychological Effects of Examination Scores.  The original purpose of exams were to measure how much a student has learned. And examination scores are served as basis to measure the student's accumulated knowledge. So for instance a student receives an F for a grade signifying failure, so logically in order to pass succeeding exams and to prevent ridicule in classroom and spanking at home, he must by all means achieve sufficient amount of grades. That alone will land a strong psychological impact upon students where it will cause them to have their attention focused entirely on achieving high scores to pass exams instead of actually learning which was the original intended purpose.

5. Stereotypes.  I do believe this is the worst of them all. When we say the word "smart" inside the classroom, it generally refers to someone who has high grades . So what happens if a student don't get high grades, what will people call him? Dumb. Kids don't know any better during that time, if a student does not pass an exam or excel in a certain subject does not mean he has learning problems, but the stereotype "dumb" keeps on going on letting students believe that they have some sort of learning incapabilities. And most students carries this all their lives believing that they're no good.



So this is what's eventually gonna happen:

The methods formal education use in teaching are really out modeled and are really the primitive way of doing it, a really dumb way of doing it. Students can hardly learn the way they should be with the use of such methods.

Though it seems that everything we have run through now are quite disappointing, there is though, one thing in formal school which I find impressive: Their accurate system which aims to form a strong belief in every single individual on how they should live their lives.

First of all education does not teach us when it comes to money. Second they promote their students to become employees and professionals (I think that's what they mean by the "bright future") And third, emphasizes the importance of diplomas to "ensure" a student's future.

That alone establishes a strong control over the belief system of people and will lead to this:

But enough about those stuff. What can we do then? What are the alternatives? I do believe there is one, and that is Self-Education.

We might not have noticed it yet but we all have learned more in our own environment than in school. Take our dialect for example, presumably we are all enrolled in English based schools and we know for a fact that only few comes out literate in English even after finishing college, but when it comes to our own dialect we all became proficient with it even before reaching the age of puberty and that goes without the support from formal education.

The bottom line is, we all have choices. Aight? This is a idea that has been going on ever since and here I have quotes and words from famous men of the past who has the same idea in mind:


"No man who worships education has got the best out of education.... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete."  ~G.K. Chesterton


"The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think - rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with thoughts of other men."  ~Bill Beattie


"An educational system isn't worth a great deal if it teaches young people how to make a living but doesn't teach them how to make a life."  ~Author Unknown


"It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense."  ~Robert G. Ingersoll


"Education... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading."  ~G.M. Trevelyan


"Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding."  ~Ezra Pound


"He who opens a school door, closes a prison." ~Victor Hugo

I stumbled upon this website called anti-school.org which is also against educational system and I personally loved the contents there. And here is one of the contents I found there which I find most intriguing:

Fact - Parents require ‘education’ more than their kids.Disagree?? Then answer the following fundamental questions…....

• By 'investing' lakhs of rupees and almost 20 years to get this degree, what have I, or others like me got in return??
• Is the work that I am doing today, in any way related to what I learnt in school and college??
• The person who opens schools, does so keeping in mind the future of children or his own future??
• The teachers who come to school; do they come to 'teach' or just to complete their job??
• Who is the person who issues 'degrees'? What is his standing in society??
• Is anything taught in schools which you can't learn sitting at home yourself??
• By simply tying a black coloured belt on my waist, will I become a black belt karate champion??
• By 'purchasing' an MBA, MTech or MSc degree, can anyone ever become a Master of Business, Technology or Science??
• After investing lakhs of rupees and 20 years, does any school give a guarantee that my child will not join the battalions of unemployed youth just as I had joined after my ‘graduation’ ??
• Does any School teach you how to earn money??

Quote from Wikipedia:

John Caldwell Holt asserts that youths should have the right to control and direct their own learning, and that the current compulsory schooling system violates a basic fundamental right of humans: the right to decide what enters our minds. He thinks that freedom of learning is part of freedom of thought, even more fundamental of a human right than freedom of speech. He especially states that forced schooling, regardless of whether the student is learning anything whatsoever, or if the student could more effectively learn elsewhere in different ways, is a gross violation of civil liberties (Holt, 1974).

Video of David Icke in his take on Education

Lazy People Are Not Lazy

We know these people, we see them everyday. They dislike work and chores, when going to school they sleep, when they get back home they eat. They do not seem to have a clue on what they are to do in life and prefers to go out and have fun or rather play video games the whole day. This what the world calls the lazy people.

Now, what is this article all about? When I observed lazy people, such as myself, I for one is one of the lazy ones out there, after some careful observation, I came to a conclusion that most lazy people are not lazy after all.  
         

                              

Laziness strongly suggests inaction. And when you go around with all the lazy people you may know, whether it may be at school or anywhere, they all are lazy when it comes to the things they do, but then all their actions are just being dictated by other people and told to do things they dislike and abhor. But my God once they are set free, they play video games the whole morning, party all night and play ball the whole afternoon. And I kept wondering, are these people really lazy?

People were not designed to be lazy. People's desires are just suppressed and eventually forgotten that's why people end up lazy all their life. But if given the chance to do things out of absolute free will, they can consume the whole day doing just that.

If a kid who always gets an F in school and prefers video games than study, vast majority may ridicule the kid for being lazy and will never get ahead in life. But if that kid were to be sent to work in a place full of video games and make a living out of it, will he ever get tired? No, and maybe he can "work" in longer hours than most of us do and who knows maybe he can create a game for himself and make a fortune out of it

We are just born in a world where a "way of living" sheet is already placed on our lap without knowing it and are told that if we desire a good and prosperous life we must abide to what it says.

                 
                                   SCHOOL->WORK->FAMILY->RETIRE


But then we are all born different, we have our own interests and purpose. What we want are different from others, but we are repeatedly told to do things against our will, making life boring and people who lives life like this will eventually snooze--laziness.

So how do we get through this then? If you are lazy, stop telling yourself that you are lazy and know that there is something out there that might be your passion, then make it your profession, and I bet you will never get tired doing that. And if you ever find someone who you think is lazy, know that there is always something he can do that no other man can do if only he finds out what it is.

A Simple Way for Getting Smart

They say that the average person only uses 10% of his brain's true potential. It may be true but by it it has limited the thinking of men that 10% is the furthest they can get. Unknown to them that the percentage of the brain he is using is constantly increasing at certain times and decreasing at some point due to certain reasons that has prompt it. There are reasons behind intellectual inclination and declination, therefore if man knows how, he can freely increase his intellectual abilities at will.

Think of the mind as a vehicle. A vehicle in itself is designed for reducing human efforts largely in means of transportation. But despite all its capabilities, a vehicle cannot function any of them without FUEL. The mind therefore, has capabilities we are yet to know of, but is kept dormant because of the absence of FUEL. Our mind requires this certain fuel in order to accelerate our mental process to a high plane. Then the 10% in which we are used to is gradually stretched higher.

Now this mental fuel which I am talking about is unlike mechanical fuel which must be bought. You need not to, for this mental fuel is produced within. It is our EMOTIONS. Our own emotions are our mental fuel. Think back of the times when you were inspired over a great idea, it can hardly get off your mind and thoughts, ideas and plans quickly came rushing in your head without any effort, your intellectual abilities have increased. But notice when you are bored down and out, not a single whisper of idea comes to you. You see, our emotions fuels our mind to function higher and better and without it, we are like zombies.

Now that you have taken emotions to a brand new perspective, I'd want you to be aware that this precious fuel is often times wasted and depleted through unworthy tasks (too plenty to mention) which could have been directed into achieving constructive ideals.

If you look at the greatest people from the past till our present time, all of them without exception are people who knows how to direct their emotions along with a specific purpose or ideal, they work hard until that ideal is achieved, and when it is, they become inspired yet again for another bigger and greater ideal and begins again to work until it is at hand. They never get enough of it, its an addiction, but the difference is simply that their emotions have served them for the better unlike most which have made their emotions contribute to their own loss.


                         
 Credit goes to whom I learned this from: Gilbert B. Guiroy Founder of Oneness Society

Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant. There is a fuel in us which needs to be ignited with sparks.
Johann Gottfried Von Herder