Introduction
Hello and good day to you reader. In my attempt to write my very first Philosophical blog for our ancient Chinese philosophy class I pondered "What should I write about today?" then a thought came to me that I should just write about our past lesson so that it will be easy and I could get a move on. But as I was reading through the Analects of Confucius I saw this saying(is this the proper term?) which says 1:4 Tseng Tzu said:"Each day I examine my self in three ways: In doing things for others, Have I been loyal? In my interactions with my friends, Have I been untrustworthy? Have I not practiced what I preached?". This lines really intrigued because even though it was really short I stopped and think well was I? was I loyal to others? Have I been untrustworthy? Was I a Hypocrite in a way? That is why today I am going to discuss this certain saying in the Analects of Confucius.
"Examine my self in three ways"
It is very important to examine yourself everyday as much as you can. It is one of the way that you can achieve a much better self. But ot every day you see a person who tries to examine their self or their actions some of them goes through their day not knowing that they might have hurt or offended or done something wrong before they went to sleep. As for me, as much as possible I try to reflect or examine my actions,, what I say or what I have done.. But just like a normal person sometimes I forget to do this things.
In the three ways that Tseng Tzu mentioned on how to examine your self I am going to share my thoughts on "Have I been loyal?". everyday we do things to or for others and I know as much as possible we try to do only good things for them unless of course you want to intentionally hurt them in a way. But putting latter aside as much as possible we want to good things to others but the question really here is did you do it out of pure goodness? or did you do it for another agenda? For example: "you see an elderly poor woman who is asking you for spare change, Of course knowing that your friends will somehow appreciate or look up to you or praise you in a way. You give a twenty peso bill to the elderly woman." Although we cannot deny that there is goodness in what you did for the elderly woman we also cannot deny the fact that your intention was not for goodness but for the praise that you friends will give you when you do the good deed. In doing things we should be loyal and true to our intentions and we must not lie to our self. I do not believe in a higher deity or resurrection or such things, But I do believe that goodness for others is much more important than anything else, Why? I am going to leave that for another blog in the future.
The second one I am going to shed my thoughts on is "Have I been untrustworthy?" in dealing and almost everyday hanging out with your friend we talk about a lot of things do a lot of things. But have you ever stopped and wondered did I do something to today tick off a friend even though I know that my friend doesn't want me to do that because he/she will get hurt if I do that. Did I do it still? When we get to the point where we can call one person our friend we may have already knew things about them., deep things that may not share to another stranger. So when dealing and hanging out with our friends we should be careful on the things that we do or we may end up hurting them and we may end up being called untrustworthy.
The last way to examine yourself may be my personal favorite as I do it myself almost every time I examine or reflect on my own "Have I not practiced what I preached" I like this way of examining yourself because it just shows how strong you are and faithful in what you say and how you put those things you say to action. Some people likes to lecture other people on what to do or how to act but they themselves don't do it. In simple terms we can call them hypocrites. Every time we do something we should reflect if this action we are about to do reflects on what we say to others or preach to others. Because if not, not only are you not faithful to what you are teaching but you are also not loyal to others and is worthy of being called untrustworthy by others.
Thank you for taking time to read this blog even though it is poorly made I hope I shared a little knowledge to you so that your time is not that wasted. I hope to see you in my next blog.
It is very important to examine yourself everyday as much as you can. It is one of the way that you can achieve a much better self. But ot every day you see a person who tries to examine their self or their actions some of them goes through their day not knowing that they might have hurt or offended or done something wrong before they went to sleep. As for me, as much as possible I try to reflect or examine my actions,, what I say or what I have done.. But just like a normal person sometimes I forget to do this things.
In the three ways that Tseng Tzu mentioned on how to examine your self I am going to share my thoughts on "Have I been loyal?". everyday we do things to or for others and I know as much as possible we try to do only good things for them unless of course you want to intentionally hurt them in a way. But putting latter aside as much as possible we want to good things to others but the question really here is did you do it out of pure goodness? or did you do it for another agenda? For example: "you see an elderly poor woman who is asking you for spare change, Of course knowing that your friends will somehow appreciate or look up to you or praise you in a way. You give a twenty peso bill to the elderly woman." Although we cannot deny that there is goodness in what you did for the elderly woman we also cannot deny the fact that your intention was not for goodness but for the praise that you friends will give you when you do the good deed. In doing things we should be loyal and true to our intentions and we must not lie to our self. I do not believe in a higher deity or resurrection or such things, But I do believe that goodness for others is much more important than anything else, Why? I am going to leave that for another blog in the future.
The second one I am going to shed my thoughts on is "Have I been untrustworthy?" in dealing and almost everyday hanging out with your friend we talk about a lot of things do a lot of things. But have you ever stopped and wondered did I do something to today tick off a friend even though I know that my friend doesn't want me to do that because he/she will get hurt if I do that. Did I do it still? When we get to the point where we can call one person our friend we may have already knew things about them., deep things that may not share to another stranger. So when dealing and hanging out with our friends we should be careful on the things that we do or we may end up hurting them and we may end up being called untrustworthy.
The last way to examine yourself may be my personal favorite as I do it myself almost every time I examine or reflect on my own "Have I not practiced what I preached" I like this way of examining yourself because it just shows how strong you are and faithful in what you say and how you put those things you say to action. Some people likes to lecture other people on what to do or how to act but they themselves don't do it. In simple terms we can call them hypocrites. Every time we do something we should reflect if this action we are about to do reflects on what we say to others or preach to others. Because if not, not only are you not faithful to what you are teaching but you are also not loyal to others and is worthy of being called untrustworthy by others.
Thank you for taking time to read this blog even though it is poorly made I hope I shared a little knowledge to you so that your time is not that wasted. I hope to see you in my next blog.
