Why young men have the upper hand in bed, even when they're failing in life.
By Mark Regnerus|Posted Friday, Feb. 25, 2011, at 12:23 PM ET
We keep hearing that young men are failing to adapt to contemporary life. Their financial prospects are impaired—earnings for 25- to 34-year-old men have fallen by 20 percent since 1971. Their college enrollment numbers trail women's: Only 43 percent of American undergraduates today are men. Last year, women made up the majority of the work force for the first time. And yet there is one area in which men are very much in charge: premarital heterosexual relationships.
When attractive women will still bed you, life for young men, even those who are floundering, just isn't so bad. This isn't to say that all men direct the course of their relationships. Plenty don't. But what many young men wish for—access to sex without too many complications or commitments—carries the day. If women were more fully in charge of how their relationships transpired, we'd be seeing, on average, more impressive wooing efforts, longer relationships, fewer premarital sexual partners, shorter cohabitations, and more marrying going on. Instead, according to the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (which collects data well into adulthood), none of these things is occurring. Not one.The terms of contemporary sexual relationships favor men and what they want in relationships, not just despite the fact that what they have to offer has diminished, but in part because of it. And it's all thanks to supply and demand.
To better understand what's going on, it's worth a crash course in "sexual economics," an approach best articulated by social psychologists Roy Baumeister and Kathleen Vohs. As Baumeister, Vohs, and others have repeatedly shown, on average, men want sex more than women do. Call it sexist, call it whatever you want—the evidence shows it's true. In one frequently cited study, attractive young researchers separately approached opposite-sex strangers on Florida State University's campus and proposed casual sex. Three-quarters of the men were game, but not one woman said yes. I know: Women love sex too. But research like this consistently demonstrates that men have a greater and far less discriminating appetite for it. As Baumeister and Vohs note, sex in consensual relationships therefore commences only when women decide it does.
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And yet despite the fact that women are holding the sexual purse strings, they aren't asking for much in return these days—the market "price" of sex is currently very low. There are several likely reasons for this. One is the spread of pornography: Since high-speed digital porn gives men additional sexual options—more supply for his elevated demand—it takes some measure of price control away from women. The Pill lowered the cost as well. There are also, quite simply, fewer social constraints on sexual relationships than there once were. As a result, the sexual decisions of young women look more like those of men than they once did, at least when women are in their twenties. The price of sex is low, in other words, in part because its costs to women are lower than they used to be.
But just as critical is the fact that a significant number of young men are faring rather badly in life, and are thus skewing the dating pool. It's not that the overall gender ratio in this country is out of whack; it's that there's a growing imbalance between the number of successful young women and successful young men. As a result, in many of the places where young people typically meet—on college campuses, in religious congregations, in cities that draw large numbers of twentysomethings—women outnumber men by significant margins. (In one Manhattan ZIP code, for example, women account for 63 percent of 22-year-olds.)
The idea that sex ratios alter sexual behavior is well-established. Analysis of demographic data from 117 countries has shown that when men outnumber women, women have the upper hand: Marriage rates rise and fewer children are born outside marriage. An oversupply of women, however, tends to lead to a more sexually permissive culture. The same holds true on college campuses. In the course of researching our book Premarital Sex in America, my co-author and I assessed the effects of campus sex ratios on women's sexual attitudes and behavior. We found that virginity is more common on those campuses where women comprise a smaller share of the student body, suggesting that they have the upper hand. By contrast, on campuses where women outnumber men, they are more negative about campus men, hold more negative views of their relationships, go on fewer dates, are less likely to have a boyfriend, and receive less commitment in exchange for sex.
The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health data offer other glimpses into just how low the cost of sex is for young men ages 18 through 23. Take the speed with which these men say their romantic relationships become sexual: 36 percent of young men's relationships add sex by the end of the second week of exclusivity; an additional 13 percent do so by the end of the first month. A second indicator of cheap sex is the share of young men's sexual relationships—30 percent—that don't involve romance at all: no wooing, no dates, no nothing. Finally, as my colleagues and I discovered in our interviews, striking numbers of young women are participating in unwanted sex—either particular acts they dislike or more frequent intercourse than they'd prefer or mimicking porn (being in a dating relationship is correlated to greater acceptance of and use of porn among women).
Yes, sex is clearly cheap for men. Women's "erotic capital," as Catherine Hakim of the London School of Economics has dubbed it, can still be traded for attention, a job, perhaps a boyfriend, and certainly all the sex she wants, but it can't assure her love and lifelong commitment. Not in this market. It's no surprise that the percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds who are married has shrunk by an average of 1 percent each year this past decade.
Jill, a 20-year-old college student from Texas, is one of the many young women my colleagues and I interviewed who finds herself confronting the sexual market's realities. Startlingly attractive and an all-star in all ways, she patiently endures her boyfriend's hemming and hawing about their future. If she were operating within a collegiate sexual economy that wasn't oversupplied with women, men would compete for her and she would easily secure the long-term commitment she says she wants. Meanwhile, Julia, a 21-year-old from Arizona who's been in a sexual relationship for two years, is frustrated by her boyfriend's wish to "enjoy the moment and not worry about the future." Michelle, a 20-year-old from Colorado, said she is in the same boat: "I had an ex-boyfriend of mine who said that, um, he didn't know if he was ever going to get married because, he said, there's always going to be someone better." If this is "the end of men," someone really ought to let them know.
And yet while young men's failures in life are not penalizing them in the bedroom, their sexual success may, ironically, be hindering their drive to achieve in life. Don't forget your Freud: Civilization is built on blocked, redirected, and channeled sexual impulse, because men will work for sex. Today's young men, however, seldom have to. As the authors of last year's book Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality put it, "Societies in which women have lots of autonomy and authority tend to be decidedly male-friendly, relaxed, tolerant, and plenty sexy." They're right. But then try getting men to do anything.
Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/02/sex_is_cheap.single.html
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
Article: Pretty first, then comes hot
Bankrupt
by ELUSIVE WAPITI on JANUARY 8, 2012
Behold the New Year’s Eve fleshcapade in London and other cities across England, as laddettes stumble their way through the evening in a half (or quarter)-dressed stupor. Used to be, only hookers gussied themselves up in whore’s uniforms. For these sexual capitalist exploiters of lonely or bored men, dressing like this made sense: it (a) readily identified a woman as a purveyor of sex for money, and (b) coaxed a fellow’s mind into thinking about having a romp in the hay by bombarding it with sexual signals so clear and so loud only the blind and stone deaf couldn’t see or hear them. Used to be, other women, “good” girls, who realized that a portion of their value pivoted around virtue, didn’t want to be mistaken for a slut, whose value as a wife was steeply diminished. Yes, they wanted to signal their beauty, but they didn’t want their comeliness to overshadow the other qualities that made her attractive to a potential husband. Not today. “Pretty”, as this authorcalls it, is dead. Enter hotness”:
Young women today do not seem to aspire to pretty, they prefer to be regarded as hot. Hotness is something altogether different. When women want to be hot instead of pretty, they must view themselves in a certain way and consequently men view them differently as well. Pretty is cherished. Hotness, on the other hand, is a commodity. Its value is temporary and must be used. It is a consumable. The merits of hotness over pretty is easy enough to understand, they made an entire musical about it. Who can forget how pretty Olivia Newton John was at the beginning of Grease. Beautiful and innocent. But her desire to be desired leads her to throw away all that is valuable in herself in the vain hopes of getting the attention of a boy. In the process, she destroys her innocence and thus destroys the pretty. What we are left with is hotness. Hotness is a consumable. A consumable that consumes as it is consumed but brings no warmth. Most girls don’t want to be pretty anymore even if they understand what it is. It is ironic that 40 years of women’s liberation has succeeded only in turning women into a commodity. Something to be used up and thrown out.
What happened in Manchester over New Year’s Eve, and repeated in several other cities across England and doubtless here in the States, is what you get when an entire generation of young women, when asked “what else you got?”, look at the empty cupboard of their life, only to realize they had little else to offer. So they double and triple-down on the only attribute of value they have left, cheapening all in a sexual signalling arms race to the bottom. I find it ironic that the greatest SMP advantage to be had is accrued by women who don’t offer themselves up for sale in the sexual meat market, but instead cultivate those eternal qualities of faith, virtue, chastity, fidelity, thrift, industry, integrity, a nurturing nature, and contentment. Sexuality is merely part of the package, not the whole thing, and it is certainly not packaged and traded upon in hopes of attracting the attention of that hot guy who yourself find hot. I found humorous truthiness in thiscomment over at Hot Air:
"For me, hot is what happens after pretty strips off." martin.hale on January 1, 2012 at 10:31 AM
Yup. Note the order here: Pretty first, then removal of modesty-enhancing clothing, then comes hot. Something else, too. Hotness is more than signalling. It’s a state of mind. It’s an environment, it’s surroundings, it is a climate of trust and safety and intimacy. It’s not simply just dressing like a streetwalker. For the latter is rude, off-putting, disrespectful, and transparent in its naked attempt to manipulate. In the end, if your response to “what else you got?” is to strip off most of your clothes and parade around in a bid for male and female attention, you’re in the sort of predicament that no amount of flesh-baring will help.
Source: http://www.the-spearhead.com/2012/01/08/bankrupt/
by ELUSIVE WAPITI on JANUARY 8, 2012
Behold the New Year’s Eve fleshcapade in London and other cities across England, as laddettes stumble their way through the evening in a half (or quarter)-dressed stupor. Used to be, only hookers gussied themselves up in whore’s uniforms. For these sexual capitalist exploiters of lonely or bored men, dressing like this made sense: it (a) readily identified a woman as a purveyor of sex for money, and (b) coaxed a fellow’s mind into thinking about having a romp in the hay by bombarding it with sexual signals so clear and so loud only the blind and stone deaf couldn’t see or hear them. Used to be, other women, “good” girls, who realized that a portion of their value pivoted around virtue, didn’t want to be mistaken for a slut, whose value as a wife was steeply diminished. Yes, they wanted to signal their beauty, but they didn’t want their comeliness to overshadow the other qualities that made her attractive to a potential husband. Not today. “Pretty”, as this authorcalls it, is dead. Enter hotness”:
Young women today do not seem to aspire to pretty, they prefer to be regarded as hot. Hotness is something altogether different. When women want to be hot instead of pretty, they must view themselves in a certain way and consequently men view them differently as well. Pretty is cherished. Hotness, on the other hand, is a commodity. Its value is temporary and must be used. It is a consumable. The merits of hotness over pretty is easy enough to understand, they made an entire musical about it. Who can forget how pretty Olivia Newton John was at the beginning of Grease. Beautiful and innocent. But her desire to be desired leads her to throw away all that is valuable in herself in the vain hopes of getting the attention of a boy. In the process, she destroys her innocence and thus destroys the pretty. What we are left with is hotness. Hotness is a consumable. A consumable that consumes as it is consumed but brings no warmth. Most girls don’t want to be pretty anymore even if they understand what it is. It is ironic that 40 years of women’s liberation has succeeded only in turning women into a commodity. Something to be used up and thrown out.
What happened in Manchester over New Year’s Eve, and repeated in several other cities across England and doubtless here in the States, is what you get when an entire generation of young women, when asked “what else you got?”, look at the empty cupboard of their life, only to realize they had little else to offer. So they double and triple-down on the only attribute of value they have left, cheapening all in a sexual signalling arms race to the bottom. I find it ironic that the greatest SMP advantage to be had is accrued by women who don’t offer themselves up for sale in the sexual meat market, but instead cultivate those eternal qualities of faith, virtue, chastity, fidelity, thrift, industry, integrity, a nurturing nature, and contentment. Sexuality is merely part of the package, not the whole thing, and it is certainly not packaged and traded upon in hopes of attracting the attention of that hot guy who yourself find hot. I found humorous truthiness in thiscomment over at Hot Air:
"For me, hot is what happens after pretty strips off." martin.hale on January 1, 2012 at 10:31 AM
Yup. Note the order here: Pretty first, then removal of modesty-enhancing clothing, then comes hot. Something else, too. Hotness is more than signalling. It’s a state of mind. It’s an environment, it’s surroundings, it is a climate of trust and safety and intimacy. It’s not simply just dressing like a streetwalker. For the latter is rude, off-putting, disrespectful, and transparent in its naked attempt to manipulate. In the end, if your response to “what else you got?” is to strip off most of your clothes and parade around in a bid for male and female attention, you’re in the sort of predicament that no amount of flesh-baring will help.
Source: http://www.the-spearhead.com/2012/01/08/bankrupt/
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Love and Fear
"The emotions that drain you are the emotions that come from fear; the emotions that give you more energy are those that come from love." (don Miguel Ruiz)
-Sent to me today from my friend Conor
-Sent to me today from my friend Conor
Truth
Love and Survival are the same thing, as are Hate and Death.
http://governmentwatch.greatnow.com/html/violent-world.htm
http://governmentwatch.greatnow.com/html/violent-world.htm
Monday, January 9, 2012
Happy New Year
Wanted to wish everyone a happy new year! May we continue with our life resolutions and respect each other the best we can. XO.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself
Source:http://www.marcandangel.com/2011/12/11/30-things-to-stop-doing-to-yourself/]
When you stop chasing the wrong things you give
the right things a chance to catch you.
As Maria Robinson once said, “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” Nothing could be closer to the truth. But before you can begin this process of transformation you have to stop doing the things that have been holding you back.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
1. Stop spending time with the wrong people. – Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you. If someone wants you in their life, they’ll make room for you. You shouldn’t have to fight for a spot. Never, ever insist yourself to someone who continuously overlooks your worth. And remember, it’s not the people that stand by your side when you’re at your best, but the ones who stand beside you when you’re at your worst that are your true friends.
2. Stop running from your problems. – Face them head on. No, it won’t be easy. There is no person in the world capable of flawlessly handling every punch thrown at them. We aren’t supposed to be able to instantly solve problems. That’s not how we’re made. In fact, we’re made to get upset, sad, hurt, stumble and fall. Because that’s the whole purpose of living – to face problems, learn, adapt, and solve them over the course of time. This is what ultimately molds us into the person we become.
3. Stop lying to yourself. – You can lie to anyone else in the world, but you can’t lie to yourself. Our lives improve only when we take chances, and the first and most difficult chance we can take is to be honest with ourselves. Read The Road Less Traveled.
4. Stop putting your own needs on the back burner. – The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too. Yes, help others; but help yourself too. If there was ever a moment to follow your passion and do something that matters to you, that moment is now.
5. Stop trying to be someone you’re not. – One of the greatest challenges in life is being yourself in a world that’s trying to make you like everyone else. Someone will always be prettier, someone will always be smarter, someone will always be younger, but they will never be you. Don’t change so people will like you. Be yourself and the right people will love the real you.
6. Stop trying to hold onto the past. – You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one.
7. Stop being scared to make a mistake. – Doing something and getting it wrong is at least ten times more productive than doing nothing. Every success has a trail of failures behind it, and every failure is leading towards success. You end up regretting the things you did NOT do far more than the things you did.
8. Stop berating yourself for old mistakes. – We may love the wrong person and cry about the wrong things, but no matter how things go wrong, one thing is for sure, mistakes help us find the person and things that are right for us. We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future. Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come.
9. Stop trying to buy happiness. – Many of the things we desire are expensive. But the truth is, the things that really satisfy us are totally free – love, laughter and working on our passions.
10. Stop exclusively looking to others for happiness. – If you’re not happy with who you are on the inside, you won’t be happy in a long-term relationship with anyone else either. You have to create stability in your own life first before you can share it with someone else. Read Stumbling on Happiness.
11. Stop being idle. – Don’t think too much or you’ll create a problem that wasn’t even there in the first place. Evaluate situations and take decisive action. You cannot change what you refuse to confront. Making progress involves risk. Period! You can’t make it to second base with your foot on first.
12. Stop thinking you’re not ready. – Nobody ever feels 100% ready when an opportunity arises. Because most great opportunities in life force us to grow beyond our comfort zones, which means we won’t feel totally comfortable at first.
13. Stop getting involved in relationships for the wrong reasons. – Relationships must be chosen wisely. It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company. There’s no need to rush. If something is meant to be, it will happen – in the right time, with the right person, and for the best reason. Fall in love when you’re ready, not when you’re lonely.
14. Stop rejecting new relationships just because old ones didn’t work. – In life you’ll realize that there is a purpose for everyone you meet. Some will test you, some will use you and some will teach you. But most importantly, some will bring out the best in you.
15. Stop trying to compete against everyone else. – Don’t worry about what others doing better than you. Concentrate on beating your own records every day. Success is a battle between YOU and YOURSELF only.
16. Stop being jealous of others. – Jealousy is the art of counting someone else’s blessings instead of your own. Ask yourself this: “What’s something I have that everyone wants?”
17. Stop complaining and feeling sorry for yourself. – Life’s curveballs are thrown for a reason – to shift your path in a direction that is meant for you. You may not see or understand everything the moment it happens, and it may be tough. But reflect back on those negative curveballs thrown at you in the past. You’ll often see that eventually they led you to a better place, person, state of mind, or situation. So smile! Let everyone know that today you are a lot stronger than you were yesterday, and you will be.
18. Stop holding grudges. – Don’t live your life with hate in your heart. You will end up hurting yourself more than the people you hate. Forgiveness is not saying, “What you did to me is okay.” It is saying, “I’m not going to let what you did to me ruin my happiness forever.” Forgiveness is the answer… let go, find peace, liberate yourself! And remember, forgiveness is not just for other people, it’s for you too. If you must, forgive yourself, move on and try to do better next time.
19. Stop letting others bring you down to their level. – Refuse to lower your standards to accommodate those who refuse to raise theirs.
20. Stop wasting time explaining yourself to others. – Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it anyway. Just do what you know in your heart is right.
21. Stop doing the same things over and over without taking a break. – The time to take a deep breath is when you don’t have time for it. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting. Sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly.
22. Stop overlooking the beauty of small moments. – Enjoy the little things, because one day you may look back and discover they were the big things. The best portion of your life will be the small, nameless moments you spend smiling with someone who matters to you.
23. Stop trying to make things perfect. – The real world doesn’t reward perfectionists, it rewards people who get things done. Read Getting Things Done.
24. Stop following the path of least resistance. – Life is not easy, especially when you plan on achieving something worthwhile. Don’t take the easy way out. Do something extraordinary.
25. Stop acting like everything is fine if it isn’t. – It’s okay to fall apart for a little while. You don’t always have to pretend to be strong, and there is no need to constantly prove that everything is going well. You shouldn’t be concerned with what other people are thinking either – cry if you need to – it’s healthy to shed your tears. The sooner you do, the sooner you will be able to smile again.
26. Stop blaming others for your troubles. – The extent to which you can achieve your dreams depends on the extent to which you take responsibility for your life. When you blame others for what you’re going through, you deny responsibility – you give others power over that part of your life.
27. Stop trying to be everything to everyone. – Doing so is impossible, and trying will only burn you out. But making one person smile CAN change the world. Maybe not the whole world, but their world. So narrow your focus.
28. Stop worrying so much. – Worry will not strip tomorrow of its burdens, it will strip today of its joy. One way to check if something is worth mulling over is to ask yourself this question: “Will this matter in one year’s time? Three years? Five years?” If not, then it’s not worth worrying about.
29. Stop focusing on what you don’t want to happen. – Focus on what you do want to happen. Positive thinking is at the forefront of every great success story. If you awake every morning with the thought that something wonderful will happen in your life today, and you pay close attention, you’ll often find that you’re right.
30. Stop being ungrateful. – No matter how good or bad you have it, wake up each day thankful for your life. Someone somewhere else is desperately fighting for theirs. Instead of thinking about what you’re missing, try thinking about what you have that everyone else is missing.
When you stop chasing the wrong things you give
the right things a chance to catch you.
As Maria Robinson once said, “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” Nothing could be closer to the truth. But before you can begin this process of transformation you have to stop doing the things that have been holding you back.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
1. Stop spending time with the wrong people. – Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you. If someone wants you in their life, they’ll make room for you. You shouldn’t have to fight for a spot. Never, ever insist yourself to someone who continuously overlooks your worth. And remember, it’s not the people that stand by your side when you’re at your best, but the ones who stand beside you when you’re at your worst that are your true friends.
2. Stop running from your problems. – Face them head on. No, it won’t be easy. There is no person in the world capable of flawlessly handling every punch thrown at them. We aren’t supposed to be able to instantly solve problems. That’s not how we’re made. In fact, we’re made to get upset, sad, hurt, stumble and fall. Because that’s the whole purpose of living – to face problems, learn, adapt, and solve them over the course of time. This is what ultimately molds us into the person we become.
3. Stop lying to yourself. – You can lie to anyone else in the world, but you can’t lie to yourself. Our lives improve only when we take chances, and the first and most difficult chance we can take is to be honest with ourselves. Read The Road Less Traveled.
4. Stop putting your own needs on the back burner. – The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too. Yes, help others; but help yourself too. If there was ever a moment to follow your passion and do something that matters to you, that moment is now.
5. Stop trying to be someone you’re not. – One of the greatest challenges in life is being yourself in a world that’s trying to make you like everyone else. Someone will always be prettier, someone will always be smarter, someone will always be younger, but they will never be you. Don’t change so people will like you. Be yourself and the right people will love the real you.
6. Stop trying to hold onto the past. – You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one.
7. Stop being scared to make a mistake. – Doing something and getting it wrong is at least ten times more productive than doing nothing. Every success has a trail of failures behind it, and every failure is leading towards success. You end up regretting the things you did NOT do far more than the things you did.
8. Stop berating yourself for old mistakes. – We may love the wrong person and cry about the wrong things, but no matter how things go wrong, one thing is for sure, mistakes help us find the person and things that are right for us. We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future. Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come.
9. Stop trying to buy happiness. – Many of the things we desire are expensive. But the truth is, the things that really satisfy us are totally free – love, laughter and working on our passions.
10. Stop exclusively looking to others for happiness. – If you’re not happy with who you are on the inside, you won’t be happy in a long-term relationship with anyone else either. You have to create stability in your own life first before you can share it with someone else. Read Stumbling on Happiness.
11. Stop being idle. – Don’t think too much or you’ll create a problem that wasn’t even there in the first place. Evaluate situations and take decisive action. You cannot change what you refuse to confront. Making progress involves risk. Period! You can’t make it to second base with your foot on first.
12. Stop thinking you’re not ready. – Nobody ever feels 100% ready when an opportunity arises. Because most great opportunities in life force us to grow beyond our comfort zones, which means we won’t feel totally comfortable at first.
13. Stop getting involved in relationships for the wrong reasons. – Relationships must be chosen wisely. It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company. There’s no need to rush. If something is meant to be, it will happen – in the right time, with the right person, and for the best reason. Fall in love when you’re ready, not when you’re lonely.
14. Stop rejecting new relationships just because old ones didn’t work. – In life you’ll realize that there is a purpose for everyone you meet. Some will test you, some will use you and some will teach you. But most importantly, some will bring out the best in you.
15. Stop trying to compete against everyone else. – Don’t worry about what others doing better than you. Concentrate on beating your own records every day. Success is a battle between YOU and YOURSELF only.
16. Stop being jealous of others. – Jealousy is the art of counting someone else’s blessings instead of your own. Ask yourself this: “What’s something I have that everyone wants?”
17. Stop complaining and feeling sorry for yourself. – Life’s curveballs are thrown for a reason – to shift your path in a direction that is meant for you. You may not see or understand everything the moment it happens, and it may be tough. But reflect back on those negative curveballs thrown at you in the past. You’ll often see that eventually they led you to a better place, person, state of mind, or situation. So smile! Let everyone know that today you are a lot stronger than you were yesterday, and you will be.
18. Stop holding grudges. – Don’t live your life with hate in your heart. You will end up hurting yourself more than the people you hate. Forgiveness is not saying, “What you did to me is okay.” It is saying, “I’m not going to let what you did to me ruin my happiness forever.” Forgiveness is the answer… let go, find peace, liberate yourself! And remember, forgiveness is not just for other people, it’s for you too. If you must, forgive yourself, move on and try to do better next time.
19. Stop letting others bring you down to their level. – Refuse to lower your standards to accommodate those who refuse to raise theirs.
20. Stop wasting time explaining yourself to others. – Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it anyway. Just do what you know in your heart is right.
21. Stop doing the same things over and over without taking a break. – The time to take a deep breath is when you don’t have time for it. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting. Sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly.
22. Stop overlooking the beauty of small moments. – Enjoy the little things, because one day you may look back and discover they were the big things. The best portion of your life will be the small, nameless moments you spend smiling with someone who matters to you.
23. Stop trying to make things perfect. – The real world doesn’t reward perfectionists, it rewards people who get things done. Read Getting Things Done.
24. Stop following the path of least resistance. – Life is not easy, especially when you plan on achieving something worthwhile. Don’t take the easy way out. Do something extraordinary.
25. Stop acting like everything is fine if it isn’t. – It’s okay to fall apart for a little while. You don’t always have to pretend to be strong, and there is no need to constantly prove that everything is going well. You shouldn’t be concerned with what other people are thinking either – cry if you need to – it’s healthy to shed your tears. The sooner you do, the sooner you will be able to smile again.
26. Stop blaming others for your troubles. – The extent to which you can achieve your dreams depends on the extent to which you take responsibility for your life. When you blame others for what you’re going through, you deny responsibility – you give others power over that part of your life.
27. Stop trying to be everything to everyone. – Doing so is impossible, and trying will only burn you out. But making one person smile CAN change the world. Maybe not the whole world, but their world. So narrow your focus.
28. Stop worrying so much. – Worry will not strip tomorrow of its burdens, it will strip today of its joy. One way to check if something is worth mulling over is to ask yourself this question: “Will this matter in one year’s time? Three years? Five years?” If not, then it’s not worth worrying about.
29. Stop focusing on what you don’t want to happen. – Focus on what you do want to happen. Positive thinking is at the forefront of every great success story. If you awake every morning with the thought that something wonderful will happen in your life today, and you pay close attention, you’ll often find that you’re right.
30. Stop being ungrateful. – No matter how good or bad you have it, wake up each day thankful for your life. Someone somewhere else is desperately fighting for theirs. Instead of thinking about what you’re missing, try thinking about what you have that everyone else is missing.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Winter Film Reviews: Sleeping Beauty and Shame
Sleeping Beauty: I went and saw Sleeping Beauty on Sunday, Dec. 7 in the afternoon. I wanted to see this movie out of sheer curiosity, as I've read a lot of mixed reviews from it being slow, mediocre to being senseless and pretentious. Regardless, I never ever listen to any sort of review and always decide on judging for myself. Anyhow, Emily Browning was by far the masterpiece of this film. Her role of Lucy was both courageous and annoyingly apathetic. Lucy is a struggling college student, trying to make ends meet, by taking odd ball jobs, 1. allowing herself to be experimented on while fighting her gag reflexes and 2. dealing with a terrible boss lady in another sterile corporate office. While all of this goes on, we notice that she enjoys random sex and playing around with her sexual power but also giving it up, at the simple game of coin toss. There is no real explanations as to why she is detached, almost doll-like in her dealings with sex, which leads us to her new job in where she takes a sleeping narcotic in order to allow men to do whatever they please while not being allowed to "penetrate her vagina". Not a must see, but for those of you who are curious about sexuality and why people do what they do, as I am, why not. Emily Browning is definitely talented and while she was naked in more then half the film, which was not sexy at all, as (I would assume) is intended for the viewer that is paying close attention.
Shame: Again, another film about the detachment of human emotion from sex without any explanation. Why is this? I don't understand why films these days are just all about the act and nothing is offered about the reasons behind the detachment. We went from a puritanical society, total complete conservative views to sex and now, just someone who is accepted as a sex addict as if its something seen as normal and everyday? I am not convinced.
Brandon is a sex addict in New York City, perhaps the most convenient place to be one. We see him awake from a one night stand that he's just had, lying in bed, before he gets up to use the shower. This is his everyday, sex with stranger, they leave, he gets up takes a shower and we see him cleaning himself well. While this is all happening, his sister is calling, leaving messages, desperately trying to reach him, while he continuously ignores and goes on watching his porn in order to get off. On top of this, we see the close relationship he has with his boss, a total douchebag who makes Brandon look like a saint, when we find out that he's married with kids and spends his nights prowling the city for any willing woman. In comes his sister, who ends up showing up without any (real) warning and Brandon has to deal with her. We see them joke around and fight like any brother and sister would, although, there is a bit of an underlying feeling of incestuous behavior between the two, that just doesn't sit quite well with me, and is again, left unexplained. We also find that his sister is mentally fucked up, when it comes to her casual sex. Any reasons for this? Why are Brandon and Sissy so fucked up? We don't know. All we know is that they come from a very bad place.... While I was left a bit annoyed (again) with no real explanation of why and how, I did appreciate Brandon's downward spiral, how the idea of sexual excess can lead anyone of us into depravity.
Shame: Again, another film about the detachment of human emotion from sex without any explanation. Why is this? I don't understand why films these days are just all about the act and nothing is offered about the reasons behind the detachment. We went from a puritanical society, total complete conservative views to sex and now, just someone who is accepted as a sex addict as if its something seen as normal and everyday? I am not convinced.
Brandon is a sex addict in New York City, perhaps the most convenient place to be one. We see him awake from a one night stand that he's just had, lying in bed, before he gets up to use the shower. This is his everyday, sex with stranger, they leave, he gets up takes a shower and we see him cleaning himself well. While this is all happening, his sister is calling, leaving messages, desperately trying to reach him, while he continuously ignores and goes on watching his porn in order to get off. On top of this, we see the close relationship he has with his boss, a total douchebag who makes Brandon look like a saint, when we find out that he's married with kids and spends his nights prowling the city for any willing woman. In comes his sister, who ends up showing up without any (real) warning and Brandon has to deal with her. We see them joke around and fight like any brother and sister would, although, there is a bit of an underlying feeling of incestuous behavior between the two, that just doesn't sit quite well with me, and is again, left unexplained. We also find that his sister is mentally fucked up, when it comes to her casual sex. Any reasons for this? Why are Brandon and Sissy so fucked up? We don't know. All we know is that they come from a very bad place.... While I was left a bit annoyed (again) with no real explanation of why and how, I did appreciate Brandon's downward spiral, how the idea of sexual excess can lead anyone of us into depravity.
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