Sunday, March 1, 2015

Siddhartha's Recovery

Siddhartha became a rich merchant and started to become addicted to gambling and greed. He would think about the man he has become and before he can be fully aware of who he has transformed into he would go gamble and drink more wine to forget the issues that surrounded him. he repeated this cycle over and over and became sicker with greed of money consuming his mind and clouding his reasonable self inside. Yet, he had the power to still confront the issue and once and finally decided to finally walk away rather than repeating the cycle. The strength it must of took to come back to the man he was once before is a true symbol of strength that not everyone has. This touched me deeply because compared to our reality we always see people get caught in a cycle the makes their lives revolve around that cycle until they escape or die within the cycle. I think one thing I learned from this is that true strength doesn't come from staying away from the bad influences and addictions, but knowing when to walk away. It seems we forgot that we are all human and we are not always going to do the right things, but that doesn't mean they should be shun upon and be called weak because they fell for the temptations, but instead congratulate them when they leave the cycle and be told they are stronger in heart and mind then they ever were before. Is there anything else that could be added or shared from my view?

7 comments:

  1. I am all for congratulating people that walk away from vicious cycles. I think we can tie this into the many bills regarding the punishment of possessing marijuana trying to get passed congress. Government officials are taking drug possession very seriously and because of that they are increasing the punishments to a more severe level. Authorities are concerned for the amount of years drug possessors or consumers will spend in jail, but are they concerned about their life AFTER jail? Do they even care about helping them after they have served their time? Not really. One way that we can truly help those kind of people is not by sentencing them to countless years in jail, but by helping them recover; helping them regain that strength they once had, such as Siddhartha did.

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  2. We all have bad habits and at first we don't realize that they're an issuer until we start to catch on. When that happens, people tend to keep the habit, change it, or completely stop their bad habit. People can go and gamble and drink once in a while and it won't be an issue because they have control. But once it becomes an addiction, that control goes away. Siddarthas equanimity changed for the better. I congratulate him as well because seeing someone overcome an obstacle means that he's stronger than he once was and is strong enough to overcome any other difficulty.

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  3. Wouldnt you say that we ourselves are trapped in our own cycle. This cycle is our daily routine. We are going day to day doing the same cycle and not changing anything and staying within our comfort zone. How can we break this cycle?

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    1. Should we break the cycle? It's nice to have order and discipline in our lives. I am aware that sometimes it can get out of hand, but can the daily routine of our lives not be something helpful, useful and practical?

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  4. Wouldnt you say that we ourselves are trapped in our own cycle. This cycle is our daily routine. We are going day to day doing the same cycle and not changing anything and staying within our comfort zone. How can we break this cycle?

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  5. this is why Siddhartha is one of the novels that i love so far. He had the will to get away from all of his fortune and live a humble life. Like Alexa said not many people have that will.

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  6. I agree, we should congratulate those who rid themselves of damaging people and escape the things that make them unhappy. However, I think it's super difficult to do this. It's so hard to walk away from someone/something that meant so much to you and brought you so much happiness, but now are toxic and damaging. I also think that since Americans are so proud, that we always want to save face and therefore would rather stay in a harmful cycle than look like hypocrites, which is quite sad.

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