If you look through my blog you will find my journey to enlightenment. The things in this blog are what amuse me, enlighten me, inform me and teach me about the things I did not learn in school.
1. This is not the end. You are going to survive. There’s no point in pretending that life is always great. Sometimes we trip and fall, or we make terrible mistakes. Allow yourself to heal, then get up and start again. Take one or two small steps … and know you’re going to survive!
2. Everybody makes mistakes along the way. You’re only a failure if you give up and don’t try. Accept that you are human … and move on with your life.
3. Positive thinking leads to positive results. If you think you can succeed then there’s a good chance that you will. The mind is very powerful – we create what we believe.
4. Success is closer than you think when you are down. Mistakes can be our teachers; they don’t mean all is lost. In fact, you’re one step closer to getting what you want.
5. You are not your mistakes. Don’t fall into the trap of defining who you are by different things you do – or by your failures and mistakes.
6. There are very few mistakes which are truly devastating. Mistakes are merely setbacks – a few clouds in the sky. Get up, keep pushing forwards and move towards your dreams.
7. A failure is sometimes a blessing in disguise. Not getting what you want can sometimes be a stroke of luck. It makes you reconsider and try some different things … And these can often lead to better opportunities.
8. You have the power to determine your own happiness. – You can hold onto the pain and the failures of the past – or you can choose to let them go and fix your eyes on what’s ahead. It’s up to you to choose what will become your destiny.
1. Before you can let go, you must face whatever happened and accept that it is part of your past experiences. Suppression doesn’t work as a long-term solution. It can only be a band aid that brings temporary relief. Talk to someone you trust, or write about it in your journal. You need to share what has happened, in order to move on.
2. Identify the lessons you have learned from what has happened. There’s always a lesson – so look for what you’ve learned. It doesn’t make it better – but it does lessen its power.
3. Write the lesson down on a piece of paper and repeat it to yourself when you’re hit by painful memories. For example, if you’ve been scarred by abuse, then you might write something like: “My experience of abuse does not determine who I am. I’m a stronger person now, and that is not my destiny. I’m choosing my own future, and the person I will be.”
4. Repeat this mantra often so it takes root in your mind. Allow it to be stronger than the bad experience. Say it often – till you mean it– then you’ll start to feel you’re freer. Persevere and keep on fighting when the old memories return.
5. Seek to be a person who’s a peace with themselves. When peace is your focus, old thoughts and memories have much less power over how you think and feel. However, seeking after peace must be a conscious, constant choice.
6. When the past tries to intrude focus firmly on the present. Ground yourself in what’s happening around you in the room, and try to breathe deeply - and deliberately relax. You are here in this moment; you’re not living in the past.
7. Forgive – for your own sake. Try to heal from what happened – then let resentments go. You don’t want them in your life for they’ll just tie you to the past. You may need some help with this – but it is worth the daily struggle. It is a powerful tool for moving forward, and being free.
That’s Louis Rossman, a repair technician and YouTuber, who went viral recently for railing against Apple. Apple purposely charges a lot for repairs and you either have to pay up or buy a new device. That’s because Apple withholds necessary tools and information from outside repair shops. And to think, we were just so close to change.
My mom has an iPhone 6 Plus and hasn’t even had it for a year when one day it suddenly died and would not charge. So she took it to an authorized Apple repair place and they charged her $50 for a diagnostic only to tell her that she would have to buy a brand new phone.
So she decided to go to the AT&T store to talk to our usual guy that upgrades our phones and handles any problems for us. She tells him what’s wrong and he takes her phone to the back only to come out two minutes later, puts her phone on charge and it comes back to life.
She asks him what was wrong with it that he managed to somehow fix when the people at the “authorized apple repair place” couldn’t. And you know what he told her?
“There was just a bit of fuzz in the charging port.”
I FUCKING KNEW IT. Listen, I have a MacBook from college. The charger has died twice, and I had to get a new one. This happened for two years in a row around the same time each year. I’m fucking convinced that their hardware is rigged to “expire” in order to force people to keep buying their shit.
Wait, people are just now learning that Apple has some of the shadiest business practices?
You know this isn’t really just apple, company’s do this all the time, everything is rigged to expire and all they want is your money.
Ohhh no no no, this IS JUST Apple.
All companies want you to buy their new products. None have gone to the lengths that Apple Inc. has gone to make end user repairs as impossible as is legally viable. I have been repairing electronics and computer systems privately, commercially and active duty in the US military for about 30 years.
Apple puts extra effort into special hardware requiring proprietary tools that are only legally produced by their licensed manufacturer and can only be purchased through licensed repair shops if at all.
Companies like iFixit can only exist as profit making companies because they are able to make workaround tools and kits that are still profitable but less of a blatant ripoff than Apple.
Apple has been doing this forever. The way Apple treats consumers is abysmal, and people still eat their products up.
This is called “planned obsolescence” - many companies do it, but Apple has made it into an art. Basically, companies - tech companies in particular - have realized that if their products are manufactured too well, they won’t be able to sell you a new one in three years. So, in order to keep consumers coming back for more, they design your gadgets to “expire” in all manner of ways; Apple is infamous for pushing software updates that render older model phones and computers useless right before releasing a new product so that consumers will be forced to purchase the newest version of a gadget they already have.
The best way to fight back against this kind of wasteful, predatory, capitalistic schlock is to learn more about how your gadgets work so that you can repair them instead of replacing them. This man is doing the Lord’s work.
I get asked a lot in stream about maintaining my 10 year old mac as my main comp and why I won’t be getting a new one when I can’t maintain it anymore. This bullshit is why. I want this here so I can point to it as I divolve into unintelligible on screen ramblings about my adventures in apple upkeep. Get fucked so hard, Apple.
This is the election that counts. Start educating yourself now on who will be campaigning to be your congresspeople/governor/etc.
Register to vote NOW. Don’t wait. You can do it any time.
This is the fight we need to win. VOTE
VOTE
VOTE
Also…reminder to pay attention to all local elections and VOTE. These elected officials are the people most likely to directly impact your life in the short term.
This has to start now. Right now.
Get your birth certificates. There may be a fee or long wait times. Make sure you get a certified copy.
Make sure you have ID. Dig into your state’s laws and the whole Real ID thing, because (and sorry I can’t research this now, but pneumonia) I believe there are certain states whose driver’s licenses don’t qualify for Real ID.
Make sure you’re registered to vote. Google it. Follow the instructions for your state.
Know where your local polling place is or find out if you can vote by mail.
Vote in ALL your upcoming elections. Yes, that means the little ones for city council or dog catcher or whatever. Vote those racist, homophobic, bigots out at every level.
They’re like weeds. You can pull up every visible bit, but if you leave one tiny segment of root, they’ll just come back.
To quote Mira Grant, rise up while you can. Because the Republicans are way the hell worse than zombies.
Damn skippy! My mantra all year has been “Come on, 2018…”
alcohol culture is so wild…people all over fb will be sharing a meme like “i can’t have just one glass of wine, it’s always 2 bottles and 3 people i can never look in the eye again” as if that’s normal? but if a meme like that was going around about cocaine or any other drug, everyone would be like “sounds like a drug problem bruh”
alcoholism is SO normalized and it’s such a toxic environment honestly
This article is a fascinating and horrifying observation of alcohol culture in present-day America – especially in the context of women and the “wine mom” attitude seen on Facebook in particular. It’s one of the most eye-opening things I’ve ever read, tbh.
“She offered these women, many of whose grandmothers were born into slavery, a way to contribute to the cause that would not raise suspicions of white employers who might fire them from their jobs.”
Tens of thousands of people in Rio de Janeiro and other cities across Brazil have taken to the streets to mourn a murdered politician who had campaigned against police brutality.
Marielle Franco, a 38-year-old Rio city councillor, was viewed by many as a champion of women’s rights.
Ms. Franco and her driver were both shot dead while in her car on Wednesday.
