Lessons learned

(1) to errr is human, to forgive is divine 
(2) it is my responsibility to free my mind.

(3) keep it up. Don't stop being great. 
(4) with mistakes we learn and gain 
(5) I am now finding solace in how life never remains still 

(6) “Stay away from what might have been and look at what can be.” ~Marsha Petrie Sue

(7) always remember the trichotomy of control
(8) Some things are up to us and some things are not up to us. – Epictetus

(9) when the stars align to offer something, by all means don't go against them. 

How Swimming got her groove back

I've decided it's time I posted a list of things that helped me get my groove back. My Comeback started in 2012 October during the evening of Hurricane Sandy. PK and I used the storm to generate a plan to excel in all areas of our life and operate at a very high efficiency level. Thus began the journey of 430am wake-ups, standing all day, cold showers, working out/eating clean, being hyper-productive. Yes, the ride is really rough and we keep having to reinvent ourselves since we're both still on it, but the important thing is to never get off the path. After 18 months, I am about mid-way through graduate school, building up my medical school apps and wholeheartedly have my chutzpah back and am on track to continuous improvement. PK will be med school bound in just a few months (congrats PK)!! Point is that being resilient and determined is key and definitely remain positive especially because she and I were both trying to achieve this goal for many years now. Here is my credo. If you never quit you will achieve your goals, it's only a matter of time. Most of what I listed here is taken either from Stoicism, Harvard Business Review, Buddhism, military/Navy SEAL ethos, and weight loss motivation. There is a single thread that connects all these ideologies: at the end of the day your mind is the only thing standing in your way! If you can recognize that and learn to conquer it then you are golden.

(1) Your mind can destroy you or it can make you stronger. Your choice.
(2) Your thoughts shape reality
(3) Responsibility=having the ability to respond.
(4) If your life is sinking, look to yourself to find a way to make it better!
(5) "What matters is not the little things, but whether you have the inner strength to realize how little such things matter." Stoicism: Live it. Learn it.
(6) “Where life is possible, it is possible to live well.” -Marcus Aurelius
(7) The single most freeing asset is genuine self-awareness
(8) "I can deal with whatever happens and I can handle it." -more stoicism
(9) Resilience
-adopt a mindset of growth:Focus on how you can grow, especially during setbacks
-invest the time and energy to develop and maintain healthy habits
-bring yourself back to an emotional and physical state where you can constructively confront your problems
(10) Become a fierce lady
(11) 14 habits to make you stronger
and 21 ways to earn the respect of others
(12) Make a vow to become mentally tough. Here, use this to lay out your plan.
The Big 4 of mental Toughness: part 1, 2-Breathe, and 3
The Basics: The first fight is in your mind.  You must win in the mind, before stepping foot onto the battleground. Overcome your fears, steel your resolve, maintain an offensive mind set, develop skills, knowledge and personal power, and do NOT succumb to mediocrity. Develop a winner's attitude and a non-quitting spirit. Eat weakness for breakfast. Use the energy to drive you to greatness. Control your mind. Do not wait around to be told what to do. Stride forth with courage and confidence do not be not the object of a weak mind.

GOALS: single point focus, uncommon resolve, a positive mind, discernment, high pain tolerance, unflappability, heightened awareness, 
(I'll give you the links to read the details but I'm just copying and pasting the essential elements.)
-Positive mind: maintain a vigilant watch over their mental state, control [your] minds and channel  thoughts to positive and purposeful things. When things go wrong, seek the silver lining and act on it. Don't dwell on the negative, instead re-frame it to the positive so that it can serve you.

 -Single point focus and uncommon resolve: Masters are unflappable, unfazed and dead certain in the midst of the most intense, chaotic and grim circumstances. Humbly accept your responsibility.  Use disciplined training and practice of a worthy pursuit, [to] gain mastery over [your] body, mind and emotions. Masters reduce their mental attention to a single point focus regardless of what is going on around them. Clear the clutter in our minds and focus with intensity on the task that must be done right now but do not lose awareness of surroundings. Masters develop this resolve by developing confidence through training, and courage through a faith-based humility. If our actions are aligned and in integrity with our purpose (as our belief and faith tells us), then we know we are doing the right thing, regardless of the outcome. Any purpose worth living for is also worth dying for. 
Examining your beliefs, then taking action to upgrade your beliefs about yourself and your purpose in the world, will lead to uncommon resolve in your missions. 
Inoculate yourself against failure: How? Desire: you must desire the outcome as if your hair was on fire. Belief: you must believe in your purpose, your mission, and yourself. Attitude: you must have a positive attitude, drive and be able to mobilize a team with it. Discipline: you must be willing to give up unnecessary attachments and commitments, and put in the right amount of daily effort toward your goal. Determination: you must have an unwavering commitment to finish the job, stay the course, and never, ever quit.

-Discernment: The path to mastery is often a lonely pursuit requiring long hours of training and sacrificing many pleasures as one remains focused on a narrow lane of highly important tasks. Further, as one progresses toward mastery their ego is tempered with humility, and the spotlight is not very alluring. Avoid faulty thinking and start to cultivate right thinking through trial and error. Develop a greater ability to ascertain truth, and apply wisdom in our lives.

-Awareness: Develop an uncanny 6th sense of your environment and what those around you are thinking. Long periods of silence/meditation/yoga will heighten your awareness. 3 Techniques-concentration, meditation and contemplation. Fox Walk!

-Be unflappable: gain control over your physiology with breathing practices such as Box Breathing.

-Develop a high Pain tolerance: Suffer in silence. Look for actions and goals that require an unusual element of suffering to succeed. You will come to appreciate and enjoy the hard won rewards of your personal growth earned through this trial by fire. Develop this through the deliberate internalization of any expression of pain or discomfort during periods of suffering. Swallow the natural yearning to wince, cry out in pain, whimper and project weakness…all acts that will undermine your mental toughness. You can only make life better for yourself and others by embracing the suck and being helpful rather than selfishly think you are the only one suffering. Smile in the middle of a challenge--this will give you strength and train your pain tolerance to a new level.  
 
-The Winning Mindset:

• Stay focused and relaxed, adaptable to the changing situation.
• Know that you are going to succeed – there will be no wondering.
• Tap into energy that lies deep inside, allowing you to be capable of at least 20 times what you think you are.
• Control fear and turn stress into success.
• Keep goals very short, and be prepared for whatever comes your way.
• Find humor in the challenge through a positive attitude that keeps you and your team motivated.
• Be decisive and confident, a true leader.

 Use this quiz to assess your start and end points.

(13) NEVER GIVE UP
-Don’t be put off from your past failures. Welcome them, and then destroy them.
-STOP FOCUSING ON NEGATIVES
-Push past plateaus
-Nothing worth having comes easy
-Eat clean, train hard, and results will follow.
-Let go of the people who don’t support you. You should still have a social life and enjoy yourself, but don’t feel pressured into things you don’t want to do, or if they don’t complement your decision to get healthy.
-People who can, overcome obstacles. People who can’t, make up excuses.
-Don’t lose sight of what you really want, for what you want right now.

(14) Become an expert (in anything) through deliberate practice.
Here the the outlined steps.
-Have a rage to master!
(Here's their HBR Article)

(15) 4 Books that are a must: The Alchemist, The Little Book of Talent, The Art of War, The Art of Living

(16) Never stop trying to get better.

(17) Find authentic happiness now (whatever your current situation is.)

(18) Do it or die trying. Basically, cultivate grit.

(19) Find a way to make your life work. Never give up. Never give in.

(20) Have an Undefeated Mind. (A very important book to read. Also a must.)

Here are some essential websites:
Lifehack
Asian Efficiency
UPenn Positive Psychology-Building Resilience
Expert Enough
Raptitude
One Thing Today-PK's blog on gratitude and learning, we should all do this everyday!
The Positivity Blog 
Marc and Angel Hack Life 
Life hacker
3 Quarks Daily
The Energy Project
The Bulletproof musician
Tiger Mom Says (This is a good one to whip you into shape)
Tiger Dad
Zen Habits
Mind Hacks
The School of Life

Here's just a great overview of Stoicism. It is really not what most people think it is (stoic=no emotion). It's more about ignoring negative thoughts and focusing on the good to get better and taking ownership of what you can control. Here is a comprehensive site on the ideology including basic principles.  I've posted this post before too but here it is again. Anyone interested in learning more about how Stoicism can be applied to daily life I highly recommend Irvine's book.

More details are provided in the series/label "The Comeback" and here are some of the key posts:
Conquering pain and being limitless
No Excuses Play like a Champion
2012 Lessons/Summary
It is in the power of the mind to be unconquerable
Articles on performing at your personal best, Excellence, and expertise (Also there is an article on the stigma of working hard to achieve means you can't hack it on natural talent--a point I find atrocious and utter nonsense. Per #13 above, Nothing worth having comes easy.)
Think Different
This is your life, do what you love and do it often.
Victorious Warriors Win First and then go to War
Your Desire to change must be greater than your desire to stay the same
Every morning we are born again. A summary of 2013 and being reborn.
Building Confidence

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you
really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived
through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the
thing you think you cannot do."  -Eleanore Roosevelet

Key To Life

Sia-Elastic Heart

Greetings dear readers!

I'd like to start off my first formal post of the year by declaring my commitment towards better healthcare and posting tips and information for others on how to get there. I hope my readers will come along with me on this fun journey.

There are some fundamental aspects of healthcare that I believe are crucial to living a healthy life. My point in introducing this is threefold: (1) We are one person and by virtue of our singularity every aspect of our lives contributes to the whole self. Thus, it is not possible to truly excel long-term in one aspect whilst compromising another. (How can you exercise at your best if you have not properly nourished yourself or received adequate sleep? How can you be motivated to exercise if you are not at ease internally?)
(2) Believing you excel in one aspect while consciously compromising yourself in another aspect is at the height of hypocrisy. I've touched base on this before, but I'll be more straightforward this time. Running around doing yoga every week is wonderful, but when you supplement that with copious amount of alcohol consumption every weekend you are only fooling yourself. I use this particular example because I see it nearly every weekend as I live above a yoga studio and there's a bunch of undergraduates who live in my building, and also because in general I just know way too many people who try to tell me how great shape they are in and then proceed to imbibe heavily on the weekends. To truly be in integrity is to live your ideals/values in all your aspects of your life.
(3) Although we are one person, we are one part of a greater context. We are all a part of this world and to believe our actions are benign and don't impact our neighbors or the world is a limiting viewpoint. I choose to elaborate this simply: by not taking care of our fundamental aspects of personal healthcare we are not allowing ourselves to be fully present in this world for ourselves, our neighbors, our communities etc...

Onto my aspects of healthcare:

(1) Nutritional Health
(2) Fitness
(3) Sleep/Rest
(4) Spirituality/philosophy

These are the 4 main aspects I believe must be in tune in order to be a functional person. I am still learning about each of these and will try to be as comprehensive about this information as possible. I am thrilled to see this article from the WSJ, so it appears that many of us already are well on our way to better nutritional health. I also hope to bring back philosophy into the mainstream. I've previously declared that I participate in the practices of Stoicism and I'll dive deeper into the philosophy throughout the year. In ancient Greece and Rome there were schools of philosophers where one could go to ponder the aspects of life and the human condition and then come together to discuss such subjects in an effort to establish the collective unconscious. Religion has replaced this for some but what are the rest of us to do? I seek to present (or re-present? I guess an entire philosophy on it's own exists to realize that no thought is ever actually original) questions that make us think and establish our beliefs. Some of you may be wondering "what about social/family life?" or "what about professional life?" I didn't include career in these four because I think these four are required in order to be functional (and exceptional) in one's career. By the same token, social and family life I think are super important so perhaps they ought to be on the list. To be frank I don't know what more information I can offer about them except that they are required for adequate mental health and I think on some level they are included under #4. (Let's all stop talking about minutiae and start talking about big ideas!?)

I'll close this post by stating this: As per The Critical Thinking Guide, a well-cultivated thinker will "thinks openmindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences."  What I hope to convey by mentioning this is that an aspect of being a good critical thinker is evaluating and re-evaluating established beliefs. Therefore even though things I will post about are evidenced-based (and I will provide links to current literature for your benefit), these aspects are the subject of ongoing research. Should some new information arise that sheds further light on something I've previously posted I will be sure to include that into a re-evaluation process and I hope that this urges us all to continuously question what we believe. Medicine, much like life, is a subject rooted in evaluation and re-evaluation so let us enter this journey with the mindset to do the best we can with whatever information is available at the time.

On a different note entirely, I did want to post this from yesterday's NYtimes because I felt it is important editorial and I am thankful the Times has addressed this. 

Time to hop aboard for our maritime adventures!

The Art of War (lessons)

The Art of War is actually one of my favorites. I refer to it frequently to heed advice on becoming more tough and also to reinforce my conviction that the way I've chosen to go about things is really the best way for me and aligns with my philosophical belief system. Things are rarely what they appear to be; I've waited to do things which has brought many others to question my commitment, interest, and conviction to succeed and pursue what I've set out to pursue. Moving and starting graduate school I am definitely closer to what I eventually want to do, but what most don't know is that grad school was in my plans for a while now (years in fact) and it's nice to be in a program that values my approach to medicine and is trying to help me get there in the best way possible. Here's to a kind fall!

The unexamined life is not worth living/Lessons

The unexamined life is not worth living -Socrates

Swimming has gone out to sea (meaning back to Detroit) for the weekend for a dear friend's wedding (Congrats S&Y!) and has returned with an airplane anecdote. This weekend proved to be highly productive, but has also curtailed my sleep a little. Swimming is excited and ready to start grad school in a few weeks (albeit in Cleveland), however,  I'll always have a little Boston edge in me.

On my way to detroit I had the luxury of sitting next to a priest. I took this opportunity to get back on religion's good side by choosing to strike up a conversation with him (I had formerly upset the Reverend that runs my front desk by accidentally not attending his dance recital/sermon last year and going to brunch with a friend instead--shame on me.) Anyway, I used the opportunity to learn about religion and ask him questions on the coexistence of philosophical thought and religious beliefs (we both agree that the two in fact complement each other and this priest had studied Philosophy in Rome--how lucky!) I was so enthralled with my priest's discussion that I took a risk and opted not to read the flight safety card this time. I usually always read the safety card since I'd like to be prepared and lead people to safety should something bad happen, however, I figured the priest would help us out in this case so I figured I'd just ride on his cassock this time. Anyway, I came out of this experience with a some solid lessons and a better understanding of certain aspects of religion.

(1) The unexamined life is not worth living. Probably one of the most famous Socratic quotes, but very relevant. As I cultivate my scientific thought, I have gained a deeper understanding about the idea that much of life is about asking questions and inquiring about the truth. Let's all be seekers of the truth.

(2) Being in the world is an opportunity in its own right. For some perspective, I feel lucky to go places and do things and I don't think I take that for granted. In fact, I take advantage of the fact that I can meet and learn about people from all walks of life and feel privileged to one day be a physician and have the opportunity every day.

(3) (Unrelated) but standing in an attack position seems to be effective at asserting power, confidence, and respect for Swimming's elder sister in a male dominated field. Methinks it's time to try that.

(4) Make the time to do what is most important to you and your future. -Swimming's former boss Dave (thanks! I need the extra motivation!)

(5) Find out who other people really are and how/what they think by asking questions.

With that, I leave you with the end to my story: I exchanged emails with the priest and parted ways and had a fabulous time at the wedding this weekend. To my surprise, I received an email from the priest saying the following:

Dear Swimming (name changed on purpose),

I think it was providential that we met yesterday - a dad wanted to switch seats with me, so I ended up beside you. I hope I didn't confuse or bore you...

Here is my email if you have any questions or concerns. Thank you for your example of openness and thirst for the truth - God will bless you and already has!

Have a great Sunday!

Conquering Fear: Another Stoicism Lesson

"Adversity strengthens not just our particular abilities, but our very soul." (A very good blog post that addresses the practice of conquering personal stressors.)

I'd like to leave behind today's deluge of misery with some discussion on the Stoic/philosophical approach to conquering fear as well as the clinical approach.

I'm typically a believer in experiencing frequent discomfort. A major Stoic principle that I continuously try to employ is the idea of constantly placing yourself in situations of discomfort in order to foster personal growth. Basically, perform self-induced exposure therapy until you are desensitized to nearly everything and not just conquer pain and fear (which I seem to harbor an abundance of) but also conquer yourself. This, however, begs the questions (1) how much is too much? and (2) is it worthwhile to elicit and fully experience fear and pain in every aspect of my life? Short answer is I just don't know. Today I became entrenched in a duel with one of my most deep-seated fears and it seems to have only induced further anxiety and insomnia. Point being: no fearlessness in sight. Yet.

My sentiments are validated by both philosophy and science alike. Epictetus in his Discourses states that "neither a bull nor a noble-spirited man comes to be what he is all at once; he must undertake hard winter training, and prepare himself, and not propel himself rashly into what is not appropriate to him." (I feel a little better.)

I strongly questioned today's shock-exposure (known formally in behavioural therapy as Flooding) from a number of perspectives. Firstly, how important is my success (or rather failure) during this exposure as a predictor of success in my actual career and/or personal life? For me it was probably minor at best. The Stoic ideology that I adopt is that conquering any sort of fear is a victory of both personal and professional growth, so naturally I feel like a bit of a failure. This leads to my next question: how appropriate was the intensity of the situation to stimulate growth instead of retreat and trauma/more fear? A quick literature search yields a study that shows a relapse in individuals treated with flooding versus those with systematic desensitization (gradual exposure.) There's also been some conclusions drawn that Flooding can actually have adverse effects and cause further trauma in an individual which explains my sentiments after the fact. Although I feel a bit defeated, it appears that science is a little on my side too by explaining why I was unable to overcome my fear. Feeling more ok? Maybe.

(Some basic info on exposure therapies which are used to treat anxiety and OCD.)

This week's lessons learned continued

Ed Sheeran-Sunburn

(1) When we love we always strive to become better than we are. --The Alchemist
(2) Find a way to make your life work.
(3) Per Epictetus (famous Stoic) suck it up, move beyond misery, keep fighting.
(4) Resolve to be better everyday.
(5) I love and practice Stoicism because it pushes me to deprive myself and endure various internal and external stresses in life. Resilience makes you immortal in this realm.
(6) I personally invest myself in every relationship/friendship in my life fully. Despite coming off as self-absorbed, I genuinely care about other people and consider people. When you know me you know me for life (unless you criminally offend, then it's game over.)
(7) "We are only half awake"
(8) Greatness is a process.
(9) I choose to love all things and people greatly.
(10) PK is a wonderful friend and baker. Below is a photo of the cookie box she gave me. Isn't this cute? I like it when my food is in the shape of wild animals. These cookies were delicious, thank you PK!

Some musings

Birdy-Without A Word

(1) “It is not within our power to forget or gloss over circumstances which we believe to be evil…They tear at us, buffet us, goad us, scorch us, stifle us — and you tell us to forget about them?”
 -Cicero

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/a-crack-in-the-stoic-armor/#more-49485

While I love the theory and practice of Stoicism, the post above from The Stone adequately captures the inadequacies that I've encountered upon how to appropriately deal with certain life events through Stoic ideology. Refinement appears to be in due order.

(2) Here is picture what I hope to be my new doggie. I found this furry guy outside Whole Foods today and he seems to be eager to pose for my picture. I don't suspect I'll be able to get a doggie anytime soon since I found out I'm allergic to dogs and cats, but on the off chance I do get one I would like to name him Captain Furrgeson or Professor Snout.

(3) A picture of my gorgeous Christmas ornament! For some reason I find ships (or perhaps it's the concept of aquatic voyages) incredibly intriguing. Although I don't really celebrate Christmas I thought this was too pretty to pass up. Plus, the fact that I can look at a tiny ship in the ocean makes me feel like a giant.

(4) Here's an extremely interesting video clip from Jimmy Kimmel Live (it's short and I promise it will make you think) http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HxlGI4OzeBk

(5) Lastly, another reason David Geffen is pure awesome. The problem of medical student debt

Another mini Stoic lesson

Ellie Goulding-Explosions

I've put up the following quote before but I am posting this again especially as a reminder to me.

If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.

-Socrates

Without getting too detailed into where this coming from I will say this. I do think the above statement is true and yet I still I struggle with accepting change and have so for quite some time now. In fact, I have an intrinsic fear of change to the point where I essentially become riddled with anxiety as I seek to figure out what I can control. This is tough because my beliefs in fatalism run deep and it sometimes makes things difficult for to recognize what things I can control. The Stoics believed in fatalism, but also embedded into their ideology was the notion to only be concerned with  things we can control and things we can partially control. I would like to think that one-hundred percent of the time we always have control of how we react to things so maybe that's the place to start. More on this later...

3 Cool Career Choices

Simon and Garfunkel-The Boxer

I've been thinking a lot about my career lately (insert panic attack.) While there's nothing in this world that can possibly deter me from wanting to be a doctor I was thinking about these 3 professions that would be cool if they existed (or still existed.)

(1) Philospher-It should come to no surprise that I long for this to be a profession since I've indicated my love for philosophical theory (esp. Stoicism which I try to actively practice) multiple times in other posts. I find it a little disheartening that the occupation of lifelong contemplation of our existence, reality, and our roles in society/the world, for all intents and purposes, is nonexistent. Back in Ancient Greece, large schools of philosophy were an integral part of the civic infrastructure and were professions that contemplative individuals joined to learn from previous scholars and either continue the education through formal rhetoric or diverge and establish new-found ideologies based on their studies. These were devoted individuals who loved knowledge/the art of thinking and even sacrificed their lives for their principles (ie :  Socrates, Seneca etc...) I understand that religion has partially served to fulfill this role in society, but what about for those of us who wish to pursue The Thought without being entrenched in theology? I try to comment and think about the world, society, and my role in society on this blog, but it's a little difficult since I consider myself just a disciple of Stoicism and I have no Stoic teacher to whom I can ask questions or learn from. 

(2) Tooth fairy-Basically my favourite book as a child was "No Tooth, No Quarter" and I really wanted to be a tooth fairy until I realized it wasn't a real profession. Actually, I wanted to be Queen Denteena-Queen of tooth fairy land.

(3) Explorer of the world/voyager--No one does this anymore. Or perhaps we are all considered explorers of the world these days. Either way, I'd be thrilled if the King and Queen of Spain gave me a bunch of money to go on a nautical voyage with large ships, but unfortunately I don't see that happening anytime soon.  

Another (quick) lesson in Stoicism: The pathology of the human psyche

Florence + the Machine: "Dog Days" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsr8oXxzFEI
 
This Stoic lesson stems from an issue that I have been struggling with during the past few weeks and I believe I am close to a resolution. Sometimes individuals display a multitude of pathological behaviours that others (including myself) cannot reason. The Stoic philosophy as a response to this is the belief that people are fated to behave a certain way. This behaviour is not something that we can control (obviously) nor is it something they can control either; it is set by the three fate that have predetermined the past, present, and future. Furthermore, upon an encounter with such a behaviour it is always easy to put the behaviour, your reaction, and your impact in cosmic context. Basically, we will all be dead eventually and none of this will matter. See! Now I feel a little bit better already that my problem has no real impact on the universe.

A Lesson In Stoicism: Handling Insults

Listen to: Far East Movement "Ain't Coming Down"  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQiEc1fp7LI

I believe in Stoicism and consider myself a practicing Stoic, so I frequently refer to the teachings of Seneca and Epictetus for guidance in my life. I read several Stoicism books last year that helped breakdown the philosophy in a way I could apply it to my life. Last week I came across a lot of insults; some came from individuals I had just met and others came from people I knew. My instinct is to instantly shut-down because they are exhausting and no fun. Naturally, I referred to my Stoicism notes on how to better handle these situations. To summarize, basically they should have no affect on me and the ultimate goal is indifference. As I've alluded to before, I've overcome significant obstacles in my life and to have my mood of the moment soured by a misguided individual (whether passive aggressive or just aggressive) is silly. As a Stoic, the thing I ask myself everyday is if I was governed by reason today. Succumbing to an insult, whether it be by a counter-insult, my mood, or behaviour, does not leave much room for reason. Hopefully one day I can just shrug off insults as a good Stoic would.

Nota Bene: I've been putting music in my posts because I love music and these are from my playlists. I give links because I think the songs themselves relate to my posts so the idea is to listen to the song while reading. Today's song doesn't exactly relate but I made the connection between the lyrics and "Clouds" (Aristophanes.)

I made a prosperous voyage when I suffered a shipwreck -Zeno

The biggest misconception people have about me is that they think they have me figured out. In spite of my age, I have had a substantial amount of life experience that I don't get credit for or that people who meet me cannot conjecture. To list things now would only be out of hubris, so I will conclude this with a quote from a Stoic (very fitting for me.) Those who are familiar with the school of thought and can identify the major principles of Stoicism have a glimpse of some of my beliefs. True to the irony of the reputation of Stoicism, its ideology is also frequently misconceived by the masses.

I made a prosperous voyage when I suffered a shipwreck
-Zeno of Citium

Listen to: Skrillrex "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSeNSzJ2-Jw