I've been thinking...

...in the past week:

  1. They have asked me to stay away from their home because of the opinions I expressed on their lives. But maybe if I secretly continued to visit their home, clad in black, I could catch a glimpse of their lives through the living room window and no one would know.

  2. Dear God, I shall visit five of your temples this week and donate some money and feed the poor and wake up at 4 a.m for a month and recite some mumbo-jumbo that I don't understand. For all that, please grant me some money so that I can save it all up and continue to complain about how poor and miserable I am because that's what modest people do. I shall also completely forget to be grateful for everything you have already given me, God, because I believe I worked hard for all that by visiting temples and the like in the past.

  3. My parents are getting divorced, I'm about to lose my job, my spouse is cheating on me, and my kid is doing drugs. I should do something to make my life better. But first, let me hate on my colleague's kid who lied to her parents and went to a concert. I hear they were drinking at that concert. That's some bad parenting right there. That kid needs to be grounded.

  4. There's only one correct way to live your life. By making everyone around you happy. Sure, that can mean sacrificing your own happiness for public opinion. But you have only one life and you need to make sure that you earn a "good name" in the society. Forget about marrying a person of your choice (because we can find you someone we can proudly present to our picky society), remain stuck in an unhappy marriage (because a divorce will bring us shame in the eyes of our society), have a baby when you're not ready (so that a selfish dying grandparent can get to see a baby), continue working at a job that drains the life out of you (because yours is a respectable job in our society and you should be proud of it), pursue a career that you hate (because you'll soon land a job that is respected in our society). In the end, society will be very proud of us for the sacrifices you have made. And we, in turn, will be proud of you.

  5. Who cares about counting your blessings, living in the moment, and being grateful for all you have when it's so much easier to look at all the tiny problems with a magnifying glass? Because I'm sure some event in the future is going to fix it all for me and I can finally be happy. Completing my course and being done with college will finally make me happy. Starting work at my new job instead of sitting around at home will finally make me happy. Getting married to that nice person will finally make me happy. Moving to a new city with my spouse will finally make me happy. Having a baby will finally make me happy. Taking a break from my spouse and my baby will finally make me happy. That holiday planned for the next month will finally make me happy. If my kid would just do well in school, I'll finally be happy. If my kid settles down in life, I can finally die in peace. When I die, my soul will meet it's creator and then I'll finally be happy.