November 21, 2008
Knowledge
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Knowledge is a strange word as no one seems to actually be able to agree on what it actually means and it is defined in so many different ways.
It is generally understood to be defined as skills and expertise acquired through educational experiences and an understanding of a subject including the facts.
Knowledge comes about through lots of different processes of perception, watching, communicating, reasoning, mixing with other elements, learning and associations with others. Knowledge is generally understood as having a confident understanding of a particular topic or subject with the ability to use that knowledge for the advancement of man.
The great philosopher Plato stated that for the concept of knowledge to exist three criteria must exist. Any statement must be justified, must be true and must be believed for knowledge to be present.
There are different types of knowledge as follows:
Situated knowledge is the first knowledge we will discuss and this is based on knowledge known due to a specific situation. You may need to get more than one opinion to be able to make a full knowledgeable decision. Different people may have different information about the same item or subject.
Situational knowledge is often the result of trial-and-error experiences.
Scientific knowledge is generated using data rather than trial-and-error. Scientific knowledge is more accurate and is deep rooted in cultures, traditions and languages.
Experiential knowledge is a knowledge that is achieve after a personal experience. This is first hand experienced understanding.
Partial knowledge states that it is not possible to have a complete understanding of a subject and decisions are subject to error when based on partial knowledge.
Biological knowledge is the areas of knowledge that are rooted in our DNA. Babies have an immediate desire to drink milk. They have not experienced this before, yet they subconsciously know that they must. In fact they are not aware of the condition that they should do it – they just do it. This is a biological instinct.
Divine knowledge is what separates man from God. It is what man is aspiring to find. This knowledge is generally thought to bring us escape from our confusion here on earth.
August 15, 2008
Joyful
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I got on a plane once returning from Cebu to Manila and sat two seats away from me was a man I had never seen before. As I sat talking to my friend, he leaned over and said:
“Excuse me, but how can you be so happy with all the shit in the world going on?”
I replied “Easy…It’s not my shit!”
He looked at me like I was an idiot and then burst out laughing and said “That’s brilliant - that’s just brilliant.”
We talked for the rest of the journey and four years later we are still friends.
Have you ever woken up in the morning and for some reason that you can’t put your finger on, you just know it is going to be a great day and of you go happy and full of joy!
What a difference you bring to the world by just being joyful. A smile, a thank you. a hello or just the bounce in your step. The world loves joyful people and you know what all the problems in the world…
Well it just isn’t your shit. So don’t worry about it and just smile.
Easy to say no, but then your house is being taken away from you because you haven’t paid and the price of everything is going up so much and how will you cope.
You know what, no matter how much you complain about it, there is nothing you can do about it. So live with it and be happy or complain. It’s up to you.
And you know what else, no matter what they do, you will still go on every day. Day in day out so at least just be happy that you can go on.
Here are 5 tips to be joyful in the face of everything that is happening around you:
1. Put the humor in Life.
2. Practice Gratitude
3. Choose to be a giver than a taker
4. Live in the moment
5. Find the “bless in the mess”
The secret to finding joy is by being satisfied with what we have and instead aspiring to be better. It is the person that you become that will bring the joy rather than the things that you have. Joy is not the same as pleasure. Pleasure is a feeling that is normally followed by disappointment as we come down from the high, but joy is deeper than that. Joy is a spiritual feeling.
In a Christian world, we strive to surrender ourselves to “thy will be done.” Equally you have a purpose on life and your own personal will must be done also. When you are achieving your will that is when you become joyful. As long as you are within the feeling of your will, you will experience joy.
To conquer a mountain must be incredible. What more to accomplish an almost seemingly impossible task of conquering something as complex as you. Conquering yourself brings about self discovery and you will experience a joy like never before as you meet yourself for the first time.
There is really only one way to obtain joy and that is through love. Love for the world, love for your fellow man and love for yourself.
A man is paid in direct proportion to the service he renders mankind. The love that you get is dependent of the service you render. The money you have, is dependent on the service you render mankind. It has nothing to do with putting yourself first. It’s all about service.
I believe that this is a step to success. My life started to really gel when I stopped thinking of me all the time and started thinking about what I could contribute to others. I found that i actually liked helping others and as a result I became happy.
I found that all the help I gave to others came back to me multiplied by massive amounts and most of my problems started to float away. Oh how joyful!
