Purposes of Life (Part 1) - Respect

It's been awhile since I've last updated, but I've been reading a lot about current events and also been having interesting conversations with people I meet at work (coworkers and customers) and I figure I could finally use this journal again. I'll tie this into my major and my life a little bit. But anywho, if you see my title, I figure because as humans, we need a reason to live whether it be for our friends, family, job, etc., I might as well write down my purposes in life. I have several reasons and I'll stretch them out in a series in the next couple of months, probably one for the next.. three to four months. But today's entry of my purpose in life is respect for ALL living things.

While I had a conversation with Harriet, who recently got employed as well, we discussed our frustrations of being new and feeling incompetent. I was constantly apologetic my first couple days of work because I felt like I was messing up, inconveniencing everyone, and well to sum it up, I felt pretty useless. Which is absolutely one of the worst feelings in the world. I hate feeling useless and stupid. If there is something I am proud of, it is that I am relatively smart. But I was also worried of what my coworkers' opinions of me were. "Oh, the new girl isn't doing her job." "Oh, the new girl sucks at this." etc etc. If you're one of those people who don't care what people think about you, BRAVO/A to you, but for me, for certain people, like my coworkers, I do care about. I get paid to do something, I want to make sure I do it well and correctly so I feel like I am actually earning what I do. So what I do is I push myself to be the best I can be, and BOOM, I have the respect of all my coworkers and managers (who I thought only 3 liked me, but the 4th turned today and warmed up to me as well) :-) If there is one thing I could ask everyone to give me, it is their respect. It's cheap, easy, and so simple. If you are able to respect me then in no way will I have any beef with you. That is all I ask.

As a kid, I despised people who were rude and disrespectful. To this day it still irks me. When someone acts like that it just makes you look like an idiot and honestly, it reflects the lack of mannerisms you have. And note, it also reflects back to how your parents taught you, and the one thing I do is make sure I'm the ideal child (although I'm not) to others, so they can compliment my father as to how good of a daughter I am. (which leads to a huge discussion of how I'm truly horrible and the other person who compliments me is bewildered as to how my father gets this idea). But when my friends (who I'm sure one or two will be reading this) does something that I believe to be rude or disrespectful whether it's just for fun and games, I feel extremely uncomfortable. I am totally against it, and they ask me why, and I don't really know how to explain it. It's one of those things about me that I just stick to. If I want to be respected, I have to in return respect others. I suppose I sound old-fashioned about this, but respect goes a long way.

Respect for me doesn't only apply to people. It also applies to everything htat is living. I know I sound like a tree-hugger right now, but if that's what I have to be called, than by all means. In fact, I don't take it as an insult because I am in fact a tree hugger. I am an enviromentalist and an aspiring oceanographer. I constantly read up on the ongoings of animals and how our environment is doing. The reason why our environment is doing horribly, is due to the lack of respect people have for our earth. People take advantage of our precious land. People FAIL to notice that the earth is less than 30% land. 70% of it is water. If we destroy the 30% of land, where exactly are we going to live, considering the fact that we don't have gills. Or the resources to give the 6 billion people (and growing numbers) the ability to live underwater. Because of our destruction of land, we are now stretching out to other planets and the solar system. It's absolutely pathetic because our land here is still usable as long as we conserve and try to save what is left.

This land is not only ours, but also the animals. It is as much theirs as it is ours. The dwindling numbers of animals is due to our destruction of their habtitats, our hunting and overfishing of THEIR food, and our pollution. In my philosophy class, we had a discussion of whether animals had rights or not. If they should be treated like humans, where they had the right to live and their right to property. Now, I'm not saying we should draw up deeds for every living animal out there, but to allow them to keep their rainforests, to live in their waters CLEANLY, then what is the harm in that. You may not believe that your piece of trash on the floor is nothing, but so do the others, and because of this way of thinking, the trash accumulates and in the end it does affect our environment.

Did you know: that there is a rare freshwater dolphin that lives in China? It has been around for 20 million years, and for the past 3-4 weeks, scientists have been going up and down the Yangtze River and have not found ONE dolphin yet. Scientists will continue to search, but if they don't find any, that rare freshwater dolphin will be declared extinct. That's right, extinct. Are you aware that no animal has been extinct since the 1950's? And that was a seal, and the reason why they went extinct was because humans hunted them. No one hunted for these rare freshwater dolphins, but what did happen was that we polluted their waters, we overfished and left them little food to eat, and to make matters worse, we make them share their home with our boats to go up and down that river. Now take a step back and realize just how smart a dolphin is, their brains are a lot more larger than ours, and yet, we have killed off such a smart and harmless animal. A dolphin people... a very rare and precious animal will be declared extinct due to us.

So you may be asking, dude linda, wtf are you talking about. How are dolphins and respect the purpose of your life? Well, it's really spreading respect for all living things that is one of my purpose. That's why I plan on being an oceanographer/environmentalist. To save what is left of this earth and save animals. I want to make a difference. But I also want to make other people aware so that they understand that they can make a difference. Don't have this mindset that because you are one person you can't do shit. It's bull. Because you are one person, you add on to a number of people who want to help, which makes you this one large group. And this large group will become more effective because you have been added into it. So I mean, honestly, hold back from littering and just respect. That's all. And besides, if you're Buddhist, you're more than likely getting good karma out of this alright? :-)