I read two books so I can discuss, compare and contrast their philosophy, find the pros and cons of each philosophy, and see if these two philosophies apply to my life. The first book I read was The Four Agreements. The author’s name is Don Miguel Ruiz. Ruiz comes from a family of healers. They wanted him to follow in their footsteps, but he decided to become a surgeon. He had a near death experience and this experience changed his life. He and a few of his friends were driving when he fell asleep at the wheel and his car crashed into a concrete wall. He had an out of body experience. He remembered pulling his friends away from the car. Afterwards, he devoted his life to learn more about self- inquiry. He learned the mastery of the ancient …show more content…
ancestral wisdom along with his mother. He wrote this book so people could have a guide to personal freedom and break free of domestication. He began by explaining the history of the Toltecs and who they were. They were men and women of knowledge that lived a thousand years ago in Mexico. They were scientists and artists who created a society to preserve the spiritual knowledge and practices of the ancient ones (xiii). He wrote about how each person lives in their own dream. We have been domesticated by society to believe, think, and act a certain way. It begins when we are kids and extends well into adulthood. We are punished when we don’t stay in line and we are rewarded when we stay in line. We lose sight of who we are because everyone is vying for our attention. When we are at home, our parents teach us what to believe because they want what’s best for us. When we are in school, we are taught to believe everything the teacher says because they are the authority. When we are at church, the pastor tells us what is considered moral. We are never able to think for ourselves or express who we are individually. The first agreement, he mentioned is Be impeccable with your word. Many people spread poison through the air by saying negative things about others and themselves. This can cause others to have a negative opinion about themselves and they will spread the poison to someone else. An example he gave was of a mother who was having a bad day at work. When she got home, her daughter started to sing. The mother’s head was hurting and in a moment of anger and frustration, she told her daughter to shut up and that she had a horrible voice and no one would like her. As a result, the daughter stopped singing. She became shy and would not speak up in class. The saddest part is the mother had no clue this was a result from what she said to her when she was younger (35). Another example he gave was Hitler. With just the use of his words he was able to commit mass genocide (28). Words are powerful and when used incorrectly, can cause massive damage. Each person is a magician and they have the power to wield white and black magic. We have to learn to break spells and it can only be done when we tell the truth (37). Never accept agreements that are created to tear us down. If we accept these negative agreements, we are doing ourselves an injustice. He also talked about hell and how it is not a place of eternal burning with Satan. Hell is on earth and we experience it everyday. Ruiz believes if we become impeccable with our words, we can live in heaven even though others around us are in hell (46). The second agreement is Don’t take things personally, even if someone is complimenting you. If you take things personally, you are acting selfishly because you think it’s always about you. The third agreement is Don’t make assumptions. We like to make assumptions because we do not ask questions or get clarity on the information given to us. Communication is key if a person wants to avoid miscommunication and unnecessary drama. The last agreement is Always do your best. A person’s best differs from time to time. If you are sick one day, you are not going to perform as well as when you were well. Never try to do more than your best. This can damper any productivity a person has. Ruiz believes people focus more on the reward than the enjoyment of doing something a person loves. You will get more out of life when you do not concentrate on receiving a reward. The second book I read was Mastery by George Leonard. Leonard got his black belt in Aikido. He was also a former United States Army Air Corps Pilot (59). He was inspired to write this book because of his love for martial arts. Aikido is considered by many to be the most difficult to master (xiii). After he got his black belt, he began to teach it at an aikido school. He met different types of students and he soon discovered that it was not always the most talented ones persevered on acquiring their black belt. He explained the meaning of mastery. Mastery is a process or journey everyone goes through when wanting to obtain a new skill or talent. It starts with baby steps, then it progresses into more advance areas. He gave an example of a teacher who was teaching an adult student how to play tennis (9-11). The student was impatient because he wanted to play tennis as a pro. He asked her how long it would take in order for his body to automatically know when to get into position. His instructor told him it would take an average of five years before he would be able to become acclimated to the physical demands of the sport. He then asked her how long until he could play competitively. She told him he could play with friends in about six months but if he wanted to play to win, it would take a year and a half. He became discouraged and tried to find another sport that wouldn’t take as long to master. Society is transfixed on finding and taking the easy way instead of facing challenges that come in its mist.
Leonard believes they are cheating themselves from pleasant and rewarding experiences. We as humans can construct and invent. We also have the ability to use linguistics, musical, mathematical and logic, spacial, interpersonal and interpersonal, bodily and kinesthetic to express what we want to say (Leonard 12). Our ancestors had the ability to come together as a well-knit social group. This is one of the things that separated them from animals (12-13). According to Leonard, the path of mastery can bring rewards and heartache, but in the long run you will learn more about yourself. A person must practice diligently to hone their abilities even when there are no immediate results (15). He delved a little into the science of how our brain changes over time after constantly doing something. Karl Pribram was a neuroscience professor at Stanford University. He explained brain body systems. He also explained the habitual system (Pribram 15). In order to learn a new skill one must think and make an effort to change and develop a new way to think and replace old patterns with new patterns. The cognitive system is associated with the habitual system and the hippocampus ( the base of the brain), is associated with cognitive and effort system. Also, the cognitive and effort system become subsets of the habitual system to teach it a new behavior …show more content…
(16-17). Generally, learning begins in stages and each stage ends when a person learns what needed to learn. Sometimes a person does not see results until a certain stage ends. Leonard believes it is good to practice just for the sake of practicing. Leonard listed the challenges we face in American society regarding the war on mastery.
Our society is focused on spending and being a part of the latest trends. They teach that you can get rich quick by the use of violence. There is no growth or patience. Many people believe success should be handed to them without practice or work. This thinking is disastrous in the long run. He mentioned drug abuse and how it stems from society’s view of a good life. The so called good life is a series of climactic events (32). Quick fixes touch everything in our lives. Even the medical fields have fallen prey to this method (33). Since the pharmaceutical companies have taken over the medical field, doctors are no longer correcting ailments. Instead, they prescribe medicine to mask the symptoms. This new wave of thinking has put the country in debt and has created an even bigger gap between the rich and poor
(37). There are millions of people who are dedicated to process and not just the reward. Love of work and staying with it is nourishment (45). He gave five keys that are important in order to stay on the path of mastery. I’m just going to list the two that I found interesting. The first key is Instruction. A person needs to learn mastery. They need a master teacher (55-56). He gave examples about his time in the military and how he wasn’t the best instructor. He concentrated on soldiers who were already proficient instead of concentrating on the ones that needed more guidance. He learned from this mistake and later on in life he got a chance to correct his error. The second key is Practice. Practice increases perfection. When each person continues to practice, they will eventually see results. Learning is continuous and mastery is practice and it is also staying on the path (80). Both books were created by authors who went through challenges in their lives and found a solution to their problems. Ruiz and Leonard wanted people to excel and become more aware of their actions whether the actions were positive or negative. Each has philosophies and methods on how to improve the lives of others. Ruiz dealt more with the spiritual aspects of growth while Leonard detailed the science and mentality for growth. Each book gives valuable information on how to live a successful and complete life. I believe Ruiz did a wonderful job in writing this book but I disagreed with some of his suggestions. I don’t believe a person is being selfish if they take comments personally. When people say mean and hurtful things, they direct those comments to someone else and it is normal to feel upset about it. He didn’t take into account different personality types and how they handle emotion. However, I agreed with him when he stated we should ignore those comments. I agreed with Leonard’s statements regarding how society puts too much emphasis on buying and selling. I think the only con in Leonard’s book is it was too short. I would have liked to learn more about his opinions and solutions regarding mastery. It is going to be a challenge following the guidelines these two books offered but it can be done. I have played the piano on and off for about four years. Since I have started college, I have resumed piano lessons. I want to play like a pro but that comes with constant practice. Sometimes I don’t believe I have made progress and I want to give up. After reading Mastery, I have found the incentive to continue honing this skill and just because I do not see results at the moment does not mean is it not happening. I am going to be patient and enjoy practice. The Four Agreements taught me how to live in harmony with those around me and how not to judge myself and others. It is going to be difficult to follow this rule since I am a person who judges. When people act or dress a certain way, I automatically judge that person. I enjoyed both books and I even allowed a friend to borrow The Four Agreements. I learned a lot and I am going to apply these lessons to my life. Works Cited Ruiz, Don Miguel. The Four Agreements. San Rafael: Amber-Allen, 1997. Print.Leonard, George. Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-term Fulfillment. New York: Plume, 1992. Print.
In the book High Price, highly credible author and neuroscientist, Dr. Carl Hart explains the misconceptions that everyone normally has about drugs and their users. He uses his own life experiences coming from a troubled neighborhood in Florida. The book consists of Hart’s life growing up with domestic violence in his household and the chance he had to come out and excel academically. He talks about the war on drugs and how within this war on drugs we were actually fighting the war with the wrong thing.
Why was Cortes with 508 soldiers able to conquer the Aztec Empire with millions of people?
The first misconception claims that there is the notion that “evil” is only something committed by despots and tyrants, such as the atrocities studied in human history. Second, is the notion that the medical community is complicit in the decline of society by engaging in a “ridiculous pas de deux.” This meaning that eminently predictable problems attributable to bad choices made by individuals are conceptualized and treated as medical ailments, such as depression. The following point states that while few individuals specifically seek to do evil, virtually all of the evil in modern life (at least within non-tyrannical societies) is caused by the choices made by persons throughout their lives. Fourth, the idea that passing judgment on moral choices and irresponsible behaviors is “wrong.” As a final point, he expresses that the state blindly enables the conduct responsible for the decline of society by rewarding and incentivizing personal irresponsibility.
Throughout “Chasing the Scream” many intriguing stories are told from individuals involved in the drug war, those on the outside of the drug war, and stories about those who got abused by the drug war. Addiction has many social causes that address drug use and the different effects that it has on different people. In our previous history we would see a tremendous amount of individuals able to work and live satisfying lives after consuming a drug. After the Harrison Act, drugs were abolished all at once, but it lead to human desperation so instead of improving our society, we are often the reason to the problem. We constantly look at addicts as the bad guys when other individuals are often the reasons and influences to someone’s decision in
On Chapter 7, Frances describes ways the diagnostic inflation can be tamed. He stated, “We are spending a fortune fighting the losing war against illegal drugs, while barely lifting a finger to fight an easily winnable war against the misuse of legal grips”(p. 211). Before reading this book, I would have never imagined that we had a problem with people being prescribed an excessive amount of drugs they do not need. I agreed with Frances when he mentioned ways big pharma could be tamed such as reducing or removing advertisements on televisions, magazines or internet. Advertisements are very powerful and pharmaceutical companies have snuck their way into the homes of individuals. While I was reading France’s ideas, I agreed with a lot of them, but I felt that the people are still
Drugs are used to escape the real and move into the surreal world of one’s own imaginations, where the pain is gone and one believes one can be happy. People look on their life, their world, their own reality, and feel sickened by the uncaringly blunt vision. Those too weak to stand up to this hard life seek their escape. They believe this escape may be found in chemicals that can alter the mind, placing a delusional peace in the place of their own depression: “Euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly halucinant,” (52). They do this with alcohol, acid, crack, cocaine, heroine, opium, even marijuana for the commoner economy. These people would rather hide behind the haze than deal with real problems. “...A gramme is better than a damn.” (55).
The reason with the old ways do not work, Alexander say, is because “self-destructive drug users are responding in a tragic, but understandable way” (226). It is not their drug- problem that caused the dislocation, but the dislocation that cause the drug problem. He uses the term dislocation to describe the lack of integration with “family, community, society and spiritual values” (226). Alexander goes on to explain that history proves that inability to achieve health opportunities can take on the form of violence, and damaging drug use. Therefore, the “drug problem” (226) is not the problem. The problem is more the “pattern of response to prolong dislocation” (226). Alexander supports this by explaining the reason for the dislocation as being globalized by a society that is market driven which can only be established by the displacement of tradition, economy, and relationships. This has been seen in history before in England during the 19TH century, when “a brutal, export-oriented manufacturing system” was accompanied by work...
Conrad, Peter. The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007.
One of the main questions that will shape this project is: how would our society be different if people were less dependent on “taking the easy way out,” often using drugs, in order to solve their problems? Currently, I believe that our society would be more productive and learn more if people stopped relying on finding artificial solutions to their problems. Also, people would more easily notice the reality of society, allowing them to notice and solve problems in the world. A claim that I would like to explore would be the idea that this dependence is entirely negative to our society. Some people may argue that people may be better off relying on easy escapes to their problems, as they remain less stressed instead of enduring the hardships of life. I would like to weigh and analyze the positives and negatives of people artificially maintaining a state of contentedness in this essay. Another driving question for this essay would be: in what ways, if any, has the government ‘controlled’ people implicitly? Analyzing possible answers to this question could work to help draw parallels between our society and the society in Brave New World. In Brave New World, the government controls their citizens by giving them soma so that they remain fine with their lives and do not question the way that society runs. Similarly, in our society today, the government attempts to control our knowledge by shaping the way information is
When societies finally become comfortable with reality, they begin to abandon the murderous laws that impede their growth. Currently, the social stigma and legislated morality regarding the use of illicit drugs yield perhaps the most destructive effects on American society. Drug laws have led to a removal of non-violent citizens from society- either directly by incarceration or indirectly by death - that is genocidal in quantity and essence.
“The root cause is a vast, multi-layered incommensurability between the institutions of globalized, market driven society and the basic psychological, social and spiritual needs of human beings” (229). Something that is only briefly recognised in public discussion. The normal methods of intervention are enormously expensive with minimal effects. “Illegal drug business and legal pharmaceutical industries” (229) are financially benefiting from the damaging drugs people use. During a time that is almost complete “domination of Canadian thought by the logic of globalization, it is difficult” (229) to even to come up with a good way of improving dislocation. Dodging these tough realities has created a deadlock and caused us to infinitely endure feeble interventions and ridiculous “war on drugs”
...ion and enormous government expenditure, is highly arguable. The civilization is incessantly changing, and we have to relook at the goals of the anti-drug provision and either it is having the preferred outcome. Some changes in the laws and policies appear essential so as to in fact eradicate the negative effects of drugs on our culture.
Wolf, M. (2011, June 4). We should declare an end to our disastrous war on drugs. Financial Times. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.proxy.consortiumlibrary.org/docview/870200965?accountid=14473
4. Lafollette, H. "Drugs." Reprinted in H. LaFollette. Ethics in Practice: An Anthology. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997).
Anthony spoke about a drug dealer that threatened his life because he owed him money. Anthony also spoke about his need for more drugs and how his craving caused him to consider stealing something or robbing someone as a means to buy drugs. This type of crime and violence is common and puts a strain on the community because people living in areas where drugs are prevalent, are put more at risk for crimes to be committed against them. In recent years, there has been an increase of illegal drugs which causes more and more people to be effected by them directly or indirectly (Sober Recovery, 2014, para.2). The increase in the supply and demand of drugs eventually takes a toll on the community economically because with the increase of drug abuse means more money has to be spent on more law enforcement presence, medical costs, and social service programs (Sober Recovery, 2014, para.2) which not only effects the community, but the society as a