idk just doodling

Lala.

Sugar. This one was done at
this site and then I went over the lines in SAI.
My assignment from Shannon was to read The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz...
I found the book to be very unrealistic and there were parts of it I didn't agree with at all, but if I quit being so critical and just look at it overall, it was an okay book. The four agreements are nice ideas I guess, and they're something that can be applied to your daily life to an extent, but to live by them completely seems really ridiculous imo.
What I mean is...
Okay like, the second agreement was what bothered me the most, I suppose. "Don't take anything personally" is the second agreement, and this really means don't take ANYTHING personally, whether it be positive or negative.
"It is not important to me what you think about me, and I don't take what you think personally. I don't take it personally when people say, 'Miguel, you are the best,' and I also don't take it personally when they say, 'Miguel, you are the worst.' I know that when you are happy you will tell me, 'Miguel, you are such an angel!' But, when you are mad at me you will say, 'Oh, Miguel, you are such a devil! You are so disgusting. How can you say those things?' Either way, it does not affect me because I know what I am. I don't have a need to be accepted. I don't have the need to have someone tell me, 'Miguel, you are doing so good!' or 'How dare you do that!'...
You may even tell me, 'Miguel, what you are saying is hurting me.' But it is not what I am saying that is hurting you; it is that you have wounds that I touch by what I have said. You are hurting yourself. There is no way I can take this personally."
I cannot possibly agree with such a way of thinking! Firstly, humans all desire to be accepted, so yes, both praise and criticism will affect me at least a LITTLE. It is impossible for it to have absolutely no effect on me, and I do not want to be that indifferent to the opinions of those around me in the first place!
And to say that what I am saying is not hurting the person I am speaking to, it is that person hurting himself, that is absolutely ridiculous. If I insult someone, it is MY words that have hurt them. Such a way of thinking is almost like not taking responsibility for your words/actions, is it not?
So yes, that chapter bothered me quite a bit... but the rest of the book wasn't too horrible. Some of it was really good, some of it was really bad.
My next assignment is Ishmael by Daniel Quinn but I have to wait for it to arrive in the mail... I hope I will like this book a bit better than my previous assignment :(