For myself, that was this morning. That was when I woke up, like any average day, walked to my bathroom and found a note from my mother, and with that note, there was a book. My thought process was no different than any other morning. Wake up, go to the bathroom, wash my face, think about what I have to do for the day, and then usually get back in bed and relax for a little while. Relaxing for me today, meant trying to read this book. It was a short read, but one that had a way with words. As I began to read the first few pages, I was already noticing quotes that are worded in such a way, that they make you think just on the wording itself, and by that point? I was already hooked.

The story itself was nothing extravagant. There was no action, or terrible tragedies or anything too “out there”. It was the simply story of a man who had lost his way through the harsh realities of life. I don’t know whether or not the feelings it brought about in me were due to the fact that I haven’t read a book in a very long time, or because the book truly had such a significant impact on my life, but that brings about the question “What does it matter?” From where I’m looking at this, it doesn’t at all. The reasoning behind why it had such a big effect on me makes no difference, because they fact of the matter is, that it did, and there is no going back.

This book made me think in so many ways. There were things I could relate to, things I couldn’t, and things I could only imagine.

I can’t describe the feelings it’s brought about in me. Maybe that’s because it’s just a mix of so many different feelings all being evoked simultaneously. Love, guilt, remorse, happiness, utter distraught. Thinking back, I can’t even say that I put myself in the character’s shoes. I was merely sympathetic to his situation. Maybe I’m just overly sympathetic, but whatever it may be, this book changed the way I look at certain things in my life.

I’m truly thankful for everything my parents have done for me. I’m thankful for the times they’ve yelled at me, for the times they’ve comforted me, and for all of the things they’ve had to sacrifice raising my sister and I.

I can’t even put into words everything that I’m feeling now. It’s almost as if I’ve become lost in myself, but I’m content with that. I’m content with being lost within my own emotions because of the fact that I’ll learn something new finding my way back out. The best way that I could put a feeling into words would be “alive”. Liveliness.

This was just another one of those stories about taking things for granted, but it brought a tear to my eyes on more occasions than I’ll care to admit. It only took me two hours to read.

I know this isn’t my usual writing style. This isn’t my logic-based, structured, and well thought out argument on something that bothers me about society. For now, I’m realizing that life isn’t about being one-sided. It isn’t about structure. Anything can change in the blink of an eye, so why should I live as if everything is consistent and stable? Thinking logically about that now, seems silly. Everything is about balance. The balance between logic and creativity. Life is about balance.

Perdonare.

People are social creatures. They love to be entertained, and they flock towards people who have ideas on things that will keep them entertained for long periods of time. The issue with this, however, is that many people seem to choose entertainment over friendship and unity. Most people are followers. Most people aren’t followers by choice, but they are followers by ignorance. The problem with this is that people have adapted to living their lives without thinking about how their actions affect the emotions of other people. It is a rare quality to find a person who can so outright demonstrate empathy and an even greater rarity to find someone who has the ability to physically manifest that empathy, in a way that shows how much they truly do care. Because of the rarity of this quality, most people have trouble acknowledging it, or are unable to grasp how much someone has to give of themselves to physically demonstrate their empathy. Thus, the concept of “taking someone for granted” is conceived. This is, by far, probably one of the worst emotional and mental conflicts that society has grown accustom to and it grows worse with each passing day.

There are very few people that would truly give the world to someone they care about, and even fewer who can appreciate the gesture.

For the better part of these last few years, I had the feeling that I was finally getting everything in order. I had a spectacular sense of my emotions with powerful connections and influences over them. The gameplan of my life was unfolding. I have a good job at an animal hospital, I go to Rutgers University with hopes of being a surgeon. I’ve also had my fair share of girlfriends and whatnot, but I cannot begin to describe how it feels to realize that certain things about your past, are only true because you believe them to be.

As  I was saying before, I have an immense influence over my own emotions. Although no one can control how they feel, people certainly can influence it. I thought I had mastered that art, but has there ever been that one person in your life that can take everything you’ve built up for yourself and just completely bypass it? Yeah, that’s the issue at hand. I am a very logical thinker, and everything in my mind has to be very structured and sensible. The issue at hand is anything but and that is what frustrates me the most. I couldn’t even tell you what makes this person so goddamn special. It makes absolutely no sense to me and there is nothing I can do about it. For as long as the past has been the past, this person could probably still bring me to my knees effortlessly.

However, I’ve finally come to terms with that and finally have regained my control in this sense.

Addiction is one of my biggest pet peeves. I don’t know whether it is the way my brain works or the way I was raised, but I find it so easy to analyze a situation and realize the harmful consequences that could emerge from it. I recently stopped drinking caffeine, as a personal choice, and it hasn’t been hard for me at all. People seem to blow these things out of proportion. They tend to look at things, not in steps, but more or less like a switch. Either they do something or they don’t. Most people don’t understand the concept of moderation, or that of weaning oneself off of an external stimulus.

Thus the responsibility aspect comes into play. At what point does a person begin to take responsibility for their own actions and stop blaming it on the addiction itself? Take cigarettes for example. Many people smoke without care, at least for a while, as to the negative effects it has on the body. Once a person begins to realize that smoking is bad for them, they begin to feel guilty that they do smoke. However, they are already addicted to the nicotine in the cigarettes at this point. Now, I believe the line occurs where a person realizes that they are doing themselves wrong by smoking. A person in this stage can choose whether they’d like to continue smoking or not, and if they choose to stop, they can begin the journey to quitting for good.

My view of addiction is that it occurs in people who are not willing to take responsibility for their own actions. I know this is a very controversial topic, so I would love to hear some thoughts on this. Again, this is just my point of view, but I would like to thank you for reading, and I look forward to hearing from some of you on this topic.

These are the questions that lead me t think the way I do. The capability to learn from previous mistakes seems to elude the modern day society that we all live in. The increased availability of scapegoats is definitely encouraging this behavior, but again, there has to be a point at which people begin to take responsibility for their own actions. And that my friends seems to be a skill long lost in this modern day society.

That is where I will challenge you to think back on something you regret. Me personally? I have no regrets. I’ve learned to live past them, by assessing the situations I have been part of and contemplating the things I could have done better and the things I could have done differently. You have to consider the consequences of everyone of your actions, and not only how they will affect your future and your way of life, but also the lives of the people who are affected by you.

Thank you and I would love to hear some thoughts on this.

Michael A. Valentino (Http://www.myspace.com/vthehalfling, www.facebook.com/mike.valentino)

Humans all have their flaws. We all have our strength and weaknesses, pet peeves, and occurrences that tend to brighten up our day. And each of these have the ability to influence us, to affect our outlook on life, and change the way we go about thinking and the way that we live our lives.

The human mind is a powerful entity. It is both inspirational and a force to be reckoned with. It has the power to bring a grown man to tears, or the ability to put a smile on a child’s face. The brain is capable of one of the most revered talents in history of human kind. Yes, my friends, I am talking of the capacity of thought.

The concept of thought evokes many differently feelings among all individuals. What is thought and how is it brought about? Good question. The world’s top neurologists and neuropsychologists still do not understand the underlying motives of the human mind and it’s capabilities of thought. Once again, thought can be your most powerful ally, or most destructive foe.

I guess this topic of thought for tonight was brought about by a friend of mine. She suffers from an eating disorder and does not think very highly of herself at all. Her self esteem is extremely low, and she struggles with many things that most people (in today’s world anyway) take for granted. It’s so hard to understand this from an outside perspective. She is a beautiful and intelligent girl, with a great heart and great intentions. It’s truly horrifying to know that something so devastating could occur to such a beautiful person. I try my best to help out, but again, there’s only so much you can do for a battle occurring in the thoughts of another person. Support is the key. She knows I’m there to support her, I’m there to talk, and if she ever needed anything, I’d drop everything for her. People hear about disorders such as this, and they understand its negative connotations, but most people do not understand how crippling this can be for not only her, but her family, her friends, and everyone who cares about her.

It’s funny. I had never talked to this girl a day in my life. She started talking to me out of the blue one day, and we ended up having an hour long conversation on a variety of topics such as religion, human behavior, and sciences. We talk all the time now, and I hope the things I tell her and try to help her with get through to her. Intelligent people are drawn to intelligent people and whether it be intelligence in the form of emotional awareness or just pure genius, it works in the same fashion.

It just goes to show you how powerful the brains and its coherent thoughts can be. This is not to say that the brain’s ability to bring about positive thoughts is any less of it’s ability to bring about the negative ones. Positivity is a key to my life personally. I live in the philosophy of optimism and through all of the things I’ve witnessed and experienced personally, nothings has ever broken my spirit. I remain unscathed by the harsh reality of life, in hopes that there will be better days ahead. Hope gets me through. My own strength and willpower pushes me along, and that is the type of energy I try to convey to the people surrounding me. It is because of this that I write and attempt to help the people that I do. For all of the people that are out there looking for help because their minds are keeping them in dark places, people such as myself are the light at the end of the tunnel.

I do have to get to sleep though, however, I would love to hear more thoughts on this, and am even considering writing a more in depth version of this article at a time when I personally have more time.

Michael A. Valentino (http://www.myspace.com/vthehalfling)

or Facebook Michael Anthony Valentino (Rutgers 09)

The main point of his statement, in layman’s terms, is that the individual should be the leader and not the follower. The individual should be the one to make changes to themselves and they should let the environment affect them only as much as they need to.

It is my belief that everyone has some hidden potential. Not realizing that potential is what makes a person stupid. Another event that I view as stupidity is when an individual allows their surroundings to have an extreme effect of their outlook or response to a situation.

This is just a thought flowing through my head. Please respond as I would love to hear more opinions on this

Love was meant to be a word that describes the utmost feeling of affection towards a person. The power of true love had the potential to overcome any obstacle. It was as if one person could not live without the other. Now, it is a mere word tossed around as curse words are. With no regard to what the words used to represent.

Such was the issue with my most recent ex-girlfriend. We had been having some issues, and she had just come back from a three week trip in California. I planned to take her out to dinner and then we’d go sit on the beach and just talk things out. She had been having such a great time that she tried to tell me that she loved me. In a way, I pretty much told her that it couldn’t be. We had been together for about two months and she was gone for three weeks out of those two months. I told her not to say it until she truly meant it. We broke up six days later. There was no way that she actually meant it, and I’m honestly happy that I kept her from saying it.

Love is not the only commodity that is thrown around like it is no big deal in this day and age. Sex and the physical form of our bodies are as well. Sex used to be something that accomplished one thing and one thing only. It was meant to fulfill the human need to reproduce. As time wore on, human kind developed the libido, which was not necessarily the need to reproduce, however, it was the innate human drive to partake in sex. The sex would only occur with a married person, or in the rarest occasion, between two people who truly loved each other. In this day and age, people have sex with other people that they have just met. I hear stories of people having sex with people whom they do not even know the names of. And that, my friends, sickens me. It disgusts me. Teenagers have sex at a very young age. I cannot say I have not made mistakes, but the most important part about those mistakes is that I have learned from them. I have grown wiser from them and I will not make the same mistakes again. That, my readers, is another issue in the world today. People seem to struggle and have the most difficult time learning from their mistakes. Believe me, it is human nature to make mistakes, however, it should also be human nature to learn from them and not repeat them.

Back to the topic of sex, it is hard to say what has brought about this drastic change in the sexual behavior of humans. Whether it be the severe weakening in the morality of the human race, an evolution leading towards the increased libido in humans, or some combination of the two eludes me. I can merely ponder and observe the strange phenomenon as it progresses even further into the dark abscesses of the human psyche.

All that aside, I still believe in the potential of humans. I also believe in their redemption. I am quite aware that this may be a foolhardy endeavor, however I still have faith in the human race, no matter how much of their humanity and morality has seemed to disappear. That may just be my optimism speaking but nonetheless, I believe that even one person at a time can make a difference, and as those people spread their new-found knowledge, they too can make a difference. It just takes a little bit of thought and willpower. It takes some courage, but believe me when I tell you. The feeling evoked from making a difference in even one persons life is unmatched by any other feeling, except of course, that of true love.

With that I must leave you. I hope what I have said here will make you reconsider the way you act in life, or at least provoke some thought. I would love to hear any thoughts you may have on this topic. Please leave some comments on this page, or if you are unable to, leave some comments for thought on my myspace.

Michael A. Valentino (http://www.myspace.com/vthehalfling)