Philosophy of Philosophers

Well now that I shared a piece of my philosophy with you I should also share a little about myself. I can't give it all away because I am writing a memoir and would like to force you all to read it :)

The life of a philosopher is often just as important, if not more important, than the philosophy itself. This is because their philosophy obviously comes from their life! If you didn't already know, society is GREATLY influenced by philosophy. Now, when most people look for advice they look to the people who appear to have their shit together. Ironically, most philosophers have really shitty lives and most people don't even know that about them. And even more ironically we make them out to be really great people, when many of them really were not. Philosopher's take their life's bullshit and turn it into gold, and we thank them for it by only paying attention to the good (the philosophy, not their individual life stories).  But I don't think that is what they actually intended, because I think people would like them a whole lot more if they did know how shitty their lives were (ironic I know, I LOVE IRONY).

Now, I am quite young, I am only 22. And it might seem dramatic but up until a a few years ago I had a really shitty life, or so I thought. This qualifies me to be a philosopher now….

I was born in Switzerland, moved to ohio then moved to Minnesota where I did most of my growing up. I never really fit in at school, I was always very intelligent and good at everything I did. Quite simply put: people didn't like me for it. I went through a lot of friends. I, like anyone, wanted to be cool. I didn't understand why the cool kids didn't like me. Was I not pretty enough? Was I not funny enough? What was my problem? Well anyways, when I got into middle school my sister tried committing suicide. In my opinion, I had a shitty life, yet I would never try to kill myself so why the fuck would she? I was still young though. When you are young your negative feelings can still be easily overcome by all of the positive ones. After my sister did that, a lot of blame was put on me and my oldest sister. I gained a lot of resentment towards both my sister and my parents. My oldest sister moved out the first chance she got so in my really "intense high school growing up phase" I had no one. This was my own unfortunate choice (it all happens for a reason) but I hated my parents, hated my sister, didn't have the sister I sorta liked, and had no stable friends. So I was like WTF am I doing here???!?

So my first year of college I moved to Panama. The country, not the city in Florida. So I was in a foreign country, I couldn't even call my parents if I wanted to, I didn't speak the language, I only knew one person in which happened to be one of the only people who actually knew who I sort of was, and I was on a mission. I was on a mission to make my life better. And I did just that.

BUT, and this is a big but, I realized a big thing. I was trying to take credit for making my life better alone. People always tell you "no one can make you do anything, no one can change you but you…etc" and they are right, but people can GREATLY influence you into changing. I had friends there that COMPLETELY let me be who I was, and they loved me for it, they didn't dislike me for the things that they disliked about me…. Let me explain this.

I went through a lot of friends in my childhood because as I changed, they didn't allow me to change, or change with me. I left them behind because I have always known, or felt, life is about change. Then I got to Panama and I changed more in that one year than I did in 18 years combined and every one of my friends there still stuck by my side through it. I had non-stop huge epiphanies that year and do almost every day since. They taught me so much. They didn't even know it. They opened their lives to me, brought me into their families, introduced me to their friends. I finally belonged!!!

Anyways, come to find, they were like that because they have a totally different culture there. You don't get to choose between 800 people of who you like. Many of them were in school with the same 30 people in their class for like 10 years. THEY HAD to learn to find the good in everyone, making them much more acceptable of the bad. They knew everyone was good and bad. I felt like here it is hide your bad, pretend to be all good. They watched each other change, they were a part of each others change, and they LOVE to help you change. If you didn't know Panama is rated as the happiest country in the world… I think I have the answers why.

I want to bring all of these answers to you, and I have to do that by opening up and sharing my good bad and ugly. You can change peoples lives by sharing your philosophy as well! Let me just end with this…

YOU are a philosopher because part of your life has probably been really shitty!! Turn that shit into gold. Think of it like this… What if before you were born you got to choose everything that happened to you? What if you chose to encounter some bad so that someone could learn from your mistake and not have to encounter it themselves? That is my reality, my mistakes are for your lessons. Please share your philosophy, with me, with your friends, with anyone. And most importantly allow people to change, and change yourself. Reach out to people and tell them you have changed, and that you are sorry you didn't do it with them, but now you have the tools to help them. Remember, everything happens for a reason but not all of those reasons are yours.



(I didn't have time to edit this let me know if you find any mistakes)