do you hear them or see them? the souls earth???

When did you start getting information from these souls. sorry to ask I am a little confused why I keep making the same mistakes over and over, I wonder if God is telling me that I cannot leave something behind. Or someone???

I must admit, however, that for the sake of essay structure & attraction value, I exaggerated my “battle” with the Ferrari, somewhat. The actual conflict was not nearly as intense as it is described in the essay, and the peace was never really in question. I felt that depicting it as a battle would add more drama to it, and that it would lure the reader in to the story and my conclusions.

I am not against buying branded goods per se - I myself still some branded goods because for certain items, I prefer higher quality that lasts longer. Stuff that’s cheap & needs to be constantly replaced is, in my opinion, somewhat wasteful & not environmentally friendly. Shoes, for example: I’d rather buy slightly more expensive shoes that can last 3-5 years, rather than buy cheaper shoes that need to be replaced every 1-2 years.

On the other hand, I think it’s probably not very healthy to only buy branded goods for the sake of brand or status. According to some (or many) people, that status reflects “success” or “having it all”. But in my opinion, success in life is not defined by material success, and having lots of money is not the same thing as having everything. Being rich in money does not mean being rich in heart, mind, love, wisdom, happiness, or life. This is why I believe that status symbols are an illusion - they do not reflect true success or wealth at all.

I never ended up buying a Swatch. Ever since I lost the rolex, I haven’t bothered to wear a watch at all - I just use the clock on my cellphone. I like the freer feeling of not having anything on my wrists.

But even without such material, in 15 billion years, I’m sure life has managed to evolve on other worlds. And statistically speaking, the probability of there being advanced civilizations in the universe is quite high, in my opinion: the human race itself, we managed to get from inventing the car to flying a rocket to the moon within a span of less than 100 years. So from flying a rocket to inventing an interstellar spaceship, let’s be very generous and say that this next technology level takes 1,000 years to develop. 1,000 years is just a second within the timespan of 15 billion years. It would be exceedingly arrogant to believe that no other species has done it, or that the physics of it is just impossible - when we ourselves do not know everything there is to know about the physics of the universe.

In any case, whether we believe in aliens or not is not the most important point. They probably will not become too involved in our affairs, just as we do not get overly involved in the affairs of cockroaches.

To believe that human evolution is the pinnacle of life development in the universe is not only arrogant, but also just self-ignorant. If the best societies and systems we can come up with are these economic systems which promote a “dog eat dog” “rat race” “every man for himself” “survival of the fittest” way of life, then are we really that civilized? If human beings are so intelligent and evolved, how come we have so many people who are unhappy, hungry, and poor people in the world? Realizing that we are actually still quite primitive is the first step towards advancement. No student ever learned anything if they first believed they were already very advanced and knew everything.

And since most people, in general, don’t like to change (especially when it comes to fundamental values, beliefs, and actions) then I will always be frustrated, disappointed, disillusioned, and unhappy. This doesn’t help me, and it doesn’t help the world - so changing others was not the answer.

This is when I also realized that one’s own personal happiness & peace should not depend at all on the choices and actions of others. If it does, happiness will most likely be impossible, because we have now placed it beyond our control. We have literally put it in the hands of other people. But forcing others or expecting others to change is not the way, since nobody likes to be forced to do anything, even if it is good for them. In any case, there is greater peace of mind when we don’t expect others to change.

One small irony is, once we begin to change, and we don’t expect others to change, then sometimes, others may naturally change in different degrees - sometimes a little, sometimes more. Perhaps they see in us, that we decided to change, and we became happier because of it - so now they, too, believe that happiness is possible for themselves, by changing themselves rather than the outside world, the latter being the much more difficult task.