When fire does not burn

From time to time you can find your own low enthusiasm reflected almost everywhere you look. This might underlie the fact that one tends to see everything the way he actually feels. Moreover, you see the things the way you like them to be. If you feel devastated, you'll find everywhere exactly the things that bring you down even more. On the other side, when you're happy, you'll get happier at every appearing reflection. One with the first condition, who meets people with the second, has got two options now. Either the happiness affects him, he gets happier and the good side won, or he just wants to rip the others head off.
The head in this metaphor stands for the luck one envies and wants to possess by his own, of course. Well, it might also only stand for his angriness about everything.

Never mind, if you have to make business with some low-enthusiasm guy, he probably hasn't got the verve to get some parts of your body either. Nevertheless, a thing you should pay attention to is that such people, although they might not attack you directly, may affect your own spirit negatively. So, if you don't have to play Shakespeare's Juliet, don't take the medicine with the skull on the label.
Evil ghosts might not even tell you that they're ghosts!

When it's not about knowledge

Some say it's all about wisdom and experience. You are what you learn to be. I know that I know little, but what does it matter? Someone who knows 50 percent more is not necessary 50 percent better. Well, it may apply to a language translation Computer. On the other hand, if you know more does it mean that you decide slower because you have to think about more aspects, or does it give you the option to think about more possibilities?
In the case of the language translation system it would reduce the evaluation speed. So what about the complex human mind? Are we really able to think harder or is thinking what we do even when we're trying to think about nothing?

Does it make us happier to know more? Do we want to be happier? I think it has nothing to do with knowledge at all. It is about specific personal demands. When the only thing you request is a glass of water, you'll be fine in most places you stray. Just try to remember that some weirdo filled 97 percent of earth surface with water that's a bit salty. However, if you make yourself a highly sophisticated 25-year career and social plan for your future, the only thing you'll probably get is a headache, gastric problems or the issue of making your last exit before reaching upper management.
Happiness must be some kind of marketing gag!

When to dive into cold waters

Sometimes, a single decision can be quite a tough task to handle. Even if it's just the question to jump into the water or to let it be. Just think of adding one, two degrees of temperature, a bit snow and an already wet diving suit. One problem is, you'll get cold feet either way you decide. Anyway, in the water not only the fish will wonder why you're doing this.
Is it better to stay out of trouble? Maybe when it comes to an issue of life and death, but on the other hand you'll miss an adventure not many can tell of. Still, making decisions based on future maybe-stories is probably a silly idea. Silly, because you could save yourself the trouble and still tell everybody about it later, like it really happened. Nevertheless, almost every time it's best to decide, even if you might realise it was a bad decision afterwards. Because, hey, no decision in front of a hungry lion and you might lose your head twice. Speaking of, it's easy said, but screaming might help at least of all. Particularly underwater. But also everywhere else, I think. It might just help to get attention of the wrong type of animal.

After all, decisions help us to evolve in life. Except you decide to move backwards eventually. Nevertheless, even moving backwards can make us better - at backwards-walking, or may help us to turn in the right direction. Whatever you do, don't try to meet your maker, cause that's a pretty huge step in any direction.
Don't yell at fish.

When we see the blood prior to the cut

It's remarkable how excellent our estimation skills are. We are able to predict precisely how somebody will react to a special action we take. Most of the time we'll be right. We just might not realise it because we're stupid. But we're right. I might also relieve you, you're not stupid - not for planning ahead, we just do it so often we don't even realise that we're doing it at all. We look, contemplate, guess and act in order to see our future the way we planned it seconds ago.
We run on neat little pattern matching algorithms with forward prediction. Based on experience we act to build up a better future - for ourselves. The better you get, the more challenging it can be.

So it might happen that we're wrong. This can be really hard to realise when you're totally sure about yourself and your decisions. It's possible to fool yourself completely with such things. For example you saw a dish on the menu but you read it wrong. You make up your own picture of what to expect. After some time, when you finally get your disappointment you think you're misunderstood. This works with food, online shopping, weapons of mass destruction - almost everything.

To question everything you do might not be a good solution. You'll only appear slow and maybe a bit retarded. I'd go for hoping the best but expecting the worst, but let me know when you're completely able to do that.
Don't ask obvious questions if you don't like the answer!

When the fish stops smelling

You might think it's bad when fish starts to smell. But it's usually worse when it stops to. The reason is that we're used to the odour of ourselves. If something starts to smell, something is wrong ..or you forgot about the biological kitchen waste. When it stops without a reason, like you getting rid of the waste, it means that something happened and you might not realise it because you're used to the not-smelling of nothing-wrong.
This is where it gets a bit complicated.
The Problem is, when something seems right, its most of the time just pretending to be right. Master in this discipline is the modern human. Some even get away by only pretending to be someone else. Actors for example. Some live good by simulating knowledge in time, functions and people. Take some managers. The whole stock market is based on theoretical values.

Whom can you really trust? Maybe shrinks, pretending to know what we're thinking? This issue goes even deeper. In the end everybody only does what he thinks is best for him. Seems nice if you support freedom of opinion and so on. The troubles start as soon as you want something different as your plumber. So, you pay people to want the same as you do?
Sometimes it's not the fish that smells!

Things that start worse end well

Compare yourself to something worse et voilà you're the lucky one. If you're not feeling better already, you've probably done something wrong. Maybe there is no-one in a worse situation than you are.
In that case you can be proud that you are the unluckiest guy - number one or at least number 4, cause what's even unluckier than being not even on the stairhead - challenged person from life, god, or whatever you belief in.
So, you got it. It's the context that makes things good or bad, humans into heroes or - whatever the opposite profession is.

The interesting thing is, your mouth tastes funny if you drink tea the whole day. Besides, also actions that didn't have an influence on other people, don't count for their general view either. For example when you played drums the first fifteen years of your lifetime, it may count for your mother as 'his wild years'. However, other people you just met would maybe say: nice he plays an instrument.
What lies on the hand is that it needs a personal session of extraterrestrial performance to change their minds into: he plays like the devil fighting against human rights. Nothing can beat frontal first person experience. Anyhow, it's a bad example, what I mean is that people don't see what the are not shown.
Never show that both aces you're hiding are hearts!

Things you would know if you had listened

Lesson number 5: no need to feel bad when you actually are sick. 3D-effects of street traffic as if you were the drums in this sweet piece of heavy metal art, getting to know every muscle of your body like during a first class Japanese special-massage and sweating like in the hottest sauna ever.
Alright, we might ignore that this kind of new age music makes us want to kill ourselves, that it is an all-I-want-to-do-is-die massage and the shivering throughout the sweating-phase, cause it takes away a lot of the romantic of the moment. In fact, it isn't romantic at all. Who said being sick is romantic? Maybe some pitiful fool finds his luck by dying with a woman in one arm, a bottle of whisky in the other. Should have listened to the do-not-draw-your-weapon voices..

Whatever, being sick is not the worst thing that can happen. Being dead is. Well, I'll drink to that. Now, normally someone would say, the worst thing is to be sarcastic and no-one able to notice. I'd like to think for myself: it doesn't matter at all. Sometimes you just have to be able to be pleased by your own inner smile.
It's easy to fool others, but hard to trick yourself!