Religion and Tyranny

A Tyranny is a nation under a cruel or oppressive form of government. Leaders of such parties often shows a religious side for no other purpose than to better control the populace. Hitler was a tyrant that used religion to convince a nation that the Jews were bad people for their involvement in Jesus' death. If Hitler was, truly, the religious man he professed to be to his people he wouldn't of committed such atrocities.

Religion can be a wonderful thing when it is used for its intended purpose but a really ugly one when used as a mean of control or as a way to meet some selfish, tyrannical, end.

Tyrants using religion as a mean to control the populace isn't a new, nor original, idea. Aristotle said, almost 2500 years ago in his "Politics" book: "...Also he should appear to be particularly earnest in the service of the Gods; for if men think that a ruler is religious and has a reverence for the Gods, they are less afraid of suffering injustice at his hands, and they are less disposed to conspire against him, because they believe him to have the very Gods fighting on his side..."

This was as much of a problem then as it is today.

According to the "planetrulers.com" there are currently 50 dictatorship in the world. Tyranny and dictatorship are interchangeable terms. I don't have data on how many of those dictatorships uses religion as a mean to control but I find it frustrating that there are still so many of these oppressive forms of governments around in this day and age. Don't you find this frustrating?

The Best Thing About Me

Even though I work full time, I often go through interview exercises in my head. I do so to prepare for future job search.

One of the questions I ask myself, during these imaginary interviews, is "What is your best quality?" and there's one answer that comes up more so than others which is: I understand the importance of staying humble. 

A person stops learning as soon as he considers himself an expert. Daniel R. Castro, in his book "Hidden Solutions All Around You", said "Don't be blinded by your own expertise." Richard Feynman refers to it as the "ignorance of experts".

I believe strongly in this philosophy because I have seen it first hand. I saw people come to my project being so confident in their abilities that they didn't bother learning the new things to accomplish the task at hand and that ultimately lead to their downfall.

If an expert is not humble then he not only set himself up for failure but he may also come across as arrogant, rather than confident, to his peers.

I believe so strongly in this philosophy that it's been the motto of this site (listen to those with the fruit from the tree) from the very beginning. Be humble my friends and learn until the day you die.

Do You Make Your Bed In the Morning?

There's a video of a military general stressing the importance of making your bed in the morning. This is a discussion I also had with one of my mentors who, coincidentally, had been in the military for 20 years at an earlier time in his life.

One day, I shared with my mentor my dreams of a better future and my mentor said "Those are big plans but are you making your bed in the morning?" to which I replied "That's stupid! What does that have to do with anything?" What he said next was along the lines of what was in the video.

He said that if I ever wished to take care of big things in life then I needed to first take care of the little things and he said that while he doesn't know everything happening in my life he does know that I sleep in a bed and that I should start by accomplishing the little thing, of making my bed, before doing anything else.

I hadn't asked whether or not he was making his bed everyday because I knew he did just by how much attention he paid to the little things in his life - a likely result of his military training.

That discussion happened roughly 6 years ago and I wish I could tell you that I've been doing my bed ever since but on most days I haven't. Recently, the video with the general talking about the important of making your bed has resurfaced in my life and I was reminded of that discussion with my mentor. 

This post is to let you know that I have now committed of making my bed made every morning. Are you with me?