A Collection of accomplishments. I would have to say this book teaches you some life lessons about never giving up. Reading about Lances climb to becoming one of the elitists in the sport of cycling is very motivational his determination and drive will influence the way you look at life. Starting from his child hood, which he lived in poverty with his young mother to his Tour De France championship. This No hold back raw version of the life of an athlete is a breath of fresh air showing the struggles and realities of making it and being a professional athlete.

Lance was an underclass athlete he struggled with finances through out his youth. Lance started as a triathlete he knew he was going to be great athlete. It seemed lance already knew who he was but he wanted to show the world who he was. The failure is not option attitude help him drive through working his way to the top of professional cycling. The majority saw Lance as a cocky hick. As read this book I connected Lances drive being unique standing out separating himself from the average person this beats in my heart all the hours I put into exercise and eating healthy standing for what is important to me maybe this is why I sometimes never connected with the male youth in my community I don’t care about jacked up trucks I don’t play hockey, I don’t quad or go sledding. Lance knew this part of his being he didn’t want to play football even though that’s what most his friends played. Lance and I both found our own paths that were way off the main route.

Who are you? We all will ask ourselves this question throughout our life many unsure people may develop depression trying to find out who they are. I know who I am I’m the guy who will drive hard for what he wants you tell me I can’t do it you can stick it cause I know I can I am into fitness I value family I value work ethic I value knowledge this is who I am this is my Identity. Lance Armstrong is a man who knows who he is and what he is going to do. If you’re a couch potato and don’t really like to work hard then this isn’t the book for you.

Our self is determined what we value and how we show our values. You value nice vehicles you probably have one and if you don’t you’re saving to get one and if not what the hell are you doing start saving. Values shape so many aspects of our life. Our values are constantly challenged as I sit here I could listen to Mr.Sader teach about Basketball tournaments and how wild cards work instead I turned up the volume on my iPod and kept writing because I value getting my school work done and if I get it done it makes room for other important values that I want to reinforce in my life. Lance valued athletics and work ethic his most common quote” PAIN IS TEMPORARY. QUITTING LASTS FOREVER” expresses this clearly.

So how do we know what we value and which values shape our self? Look at the decisions you make do you choose going to see friends over family the apple or the Twinkie all these decisions shape aspects of you’re self. If Lance never chose to ride his bike instead of playing video games we wouldn’t have an American winning the tour defrance. Decisions big and small make impacts on us even the smallest decisions may result in big things. When I was at the bar early September of this year celebrating my friends 18th I ran into a old friend who I didn’t really want to talk to but he came over and said hi and I made conversation he told me I should train for the strong man in elk point well this made me ecstatic I have always wanted to compete but never knew where by me merely making conversation I found the possibility to do something I have always wanted to. Every decision makes a difference.

Are you just a human? Am I more than a human? I am more than human I am being I have self a new made clone is a human but has no self. Lance Armstrong and many other great beings such as Hitler, Gandi, Stallin and the other thousands of people who have done great things are more then human we are people with self and identity.

To conclude my post would like to show you two films that prove to you that we are more than human. These films I found were very touching.

Pain Lance Armstrongs struggle

I walk through life always looking forward.Not looking around no time to look around.I wish I was simple man no worries about my future.A simple man not burdened with his expextations not craving release.I tire of what im suppose to be thinking so much about it forgot who I am.Success is my only option now.I live to fast that I forget to breath.These burden hang above me like demons poking me saying just give up.just stop just give in.But I can’t because I don’t know anything else if I stop theres nothing left.When did I grow old when did I murder the child inside smothered him with all these expectations.Am I to late to save?What is there to save me from myself.I feel this darkness crawling up my spine numbing me to nothing more than a soceity droid living my life in a line that seems to never end until one day bang flash life is done and past and what you got left nothing.But theres is light its when we wake up and relize that we have been living this empty hole.What is left to say why take life so serious.I peer in the mirror looking into my eyes I see blue which might as well be black but theres the child still there.Tommarow a new day let me live more simple.

Innocence of a child who works and works he dose not know the pleasures of carefree life he works to live instead of living to enjoy the child is quickly stripped of his Id and straight into something else a fear for his superiorority. What drives a child that doesn’t know the pleasures of money or the freedom of life is the faith in God if he loses faith he loses purpose to go on during age of where reason for everything is science and belief in God is nothing. This is the life of a boy, a chimney sweeper.

What allows us to go on to drive past this ever going darkness that dwells within us all part of our very human nature of us what stops us from giving into our darkest desire be they the flesh of another or jealousy. Faith in what we are taught has purpose we do not kill for it is wrong but why is it wrong? I want that why don’t I just take it? Does the conditioning of our Ego of moral and social norm. Yes but how does this child uncorrupted by these temptations carry on he lives through his faith his faith may not be christian, Muslim, Buddhist or any other common religion he may resent the main religions for his parent left him in the snow while they attend church. The child lives in the belief of something better many people of his time call him a fool but his focus shall not fail.

Who are dark we are darkened by the society conformation of us we are all expected to meet the same standard the same expectations. What begins this darkening as we see this child so innocent and pure faith in unquestionable faith in God? Is it purely he is undeveloped and does not question it or is it he so developed he that his faith is so strong that nothing will change it. A boy of weak knowledge can only hold an unwavering faith.

Corrupting our selves by tasting the addictive delights of sin we are the corrupter who have corrupted ourselves but aren’t we suppose to take part in these sins we took the option of knowledge of right and wrong when Eve bit the fruit from the forbidden tree. The fruit resembles us taking part in sin knowing that it is wrongs we have tasted it like the man who smoked and has been addicted and when he quits his knows the feeling of the nicotine flowing through his blood he wishes he never started because he knows the pleasures that come with it but he also knows the damage that come along as well. We trade our innocents our stupidity for impurity and knowledge of what can destroy and makes us impure.

Innocence we face the choice of keeping our life simplistic avoiding the knowledge of sin the taste of our destruction do experience all life has to offer or do we sit in our bubble protecting the simplistic mind avoiding things that are considered impure. This boy see life how many of us have but his faith was tested greater then any of our shall ever be. This innocent boy will see a day when his faith will not prevail and he shall have to decide whether he strives for his faith or his darkest desire.

When do we separate the innocent and the guilty is it when the actions have been done or are when the actions are done with the knowledge of their evils? We are not the judges but we can all learn something about the boy whose wants joy that sleeps in soot while his friends lay in the darkest slumber in coffins. The boy believes his friend’s dance and run amongst the clouds with God for a father and living in joy never wanting it.

(does this Child really know why he is fighting. Likely not he is innocent in my eyes)

I am a intelligent creature I have driven for right and the wrong darkness and light destruction and construction. No other species is racist, hateful kill for pleasure tortures its own kind. When was the last time you’ve seen animal’s rage war upon each other never. A gray wolf doesn’t call a red wolf a redneck or look at it any different then any other wolf. With the intelligence and knowledge I have been granted with I have seen destructive behavior and more territorial behavior then ever with this great amount of knowledge we have formed into the battle-axe of earths destruction. Person innocence is in their lack knowledge or their ability to resist temptation.

There is a good inside all of us.We choose violence and peace it is our decision that will affect us it is our faith that will lead us to happiness.

thud thud thud taste of pennies fills my mouth thud thud I cant hear anything around me the beat of my heart is to loud the bar across my back pushing into the ground like the grim reaper pulling me down to hell thud thud thud my body begs me to stop thud thud little rainbow speckles fill my  eyes but these arn’t  pleasant at all thud thud thud  I drop the bar my eyes are blurry I start to run thud thud done.I lay on the ground this fatigue make me think clear.

Wake up this morning cup of coffee in my hand and bowl of vector while Dasey my dog runs around my house like a bucking bull I look back and think I should of slept in but if that would happened this post wouldn’t have been written. How does the teenager/young adult react when he or she is left alone? Most would think this would be amazing no rules and no restrictions partys all the time. For me this was not the case. Faced with the challenges of keeping house cleaning taking care of ones self and indapendence. Living alone shows ones true chracter and ability to strive for stability. Soon my fellow students will be engaged into similar situations this is how being alone brings out our trueselves.

First week alone expecting it to be easy. Wow was I was wrong. As the week went by the dishes began to clutter in the sink,  my clothes were all over the house and I had one more pair of jeans left starting get exited for mom to get home to help with some cleaning but when she came she had to work the whole weekend I only got to see her for total of 3 hours before she left sunday when your mom works all night and sleeps during the day it becomes challenge to find time to see each other. This freedom came with responsibilities that weren’t clear to me.As Uncle Ben said to Peter Parker in the movie spiderman”with great power comes great responsibilities.” I had ethier shape up or continue to be a slob.

Stress began to build up my dailey routine became wake up go to school come home make food go to work come home at 10pm have half an hour to do something I wanted to do to add on to this my boss at work got new job and I had take over some other work responsibilities till I got new boss.Coming home to a dirty house was causing me to feel down and depressed and become resentful saying things in my head like what other grade 12 student has  to go through this kind pressure even though I chose this. a changing point happened one thursday night I came home to the dirty  house once again I diddn’t have class the next day instead of sittting there and playing on the computer what I usually would do I started cleaning and I really started cleaning and scrubbing washing clothes doing dishes I cleaned for  5 hours exhausted I crashed.

Waking up the next morning it was a new day a day of change. I liked having a clean orgainized house which suprized me I never thought that it would bother me having a unorgainized home but it did. I built up a schdule i would wash all my dishes after meals I would prepare meals monday wensdays fridays laundry was washed on wensdays also. The house was cleaner then ever even when my mom was home its definatly easiercleaning up after your self then cleaning up after yourself and children which my mom always did even tho I respected my mom my level of appreciation and respect towards was at all new level taking care three boys which all went to post secondary and hopefully the third does she always made sure we could do all the samethings other kids got to do like sports e.t.c. I strived through and came out stronger and relized that I crave stability but am willing to put myself in uncomfortable situations if it helped or was for something I believed strongly in.

I know that I was a teenager by definition but felt more like a man then ever inside. Living alone has been a challenge of the mind then physical dealing with being alone more often.I believe that these challenges we are faced with at this age develop who we will be as adults so we need to make our decisions wisely.

The pressures we are faced with every day and how we react to these situations mold the putty we call life. Living alone is not nearly as exiting as I thought it would.If you asked me if I would change anything It has develop who I am which I am very happy with.

THE HAUDENOSAUNEE CONFEDERACY

The Haudenosaunee confederacy is made up of the Mohawks the Oneida,the Onodaga,the Cayuga,the Seneca and the Tuscrora.The Haudenosunee Confederacy has also has been referred to as the first and longest lasting participatory democracy.Each of the chiefs are elected individuals by the nation they are to repersent.All chiefs are considered equal in rank and authority.The Haudenosaunee believed in values like respect for all and to live off of the land and to respect it. According to the Haudenosaunee confederacy web site.The Haudenosunee has a very unique culture and art it is expressed in this video.Art and culture just press on the link to view video.

The Great Law Of Peace

Is the founding constitution for the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.It has been passed down oraly from generation to generation the orginal outline of it was a path to harmony and unity among warring nations.It promised certain rights and freedoms such as freedom of speach,religion and the rights of the individual this law is common to what some individuals call natural rights.

How did the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Influence on Liberalism In North America

The writers of the American Constition were influenced by The Great Law Of Peace this is clearly shown by the similarities such as equality and Individual rights. These similarities between the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the American confederation are a direct example of how the Haudensaunee Confederacy influinced liberalism in North America.

In the beginning God created male and female in his image. God said to them “Be fruitful and Multiply, and have domain over the fish of the sea and over the birds and all other living things just don’t eat from the tree of knowledge. From this reading it sounds we have it pretty good we had plenty of food and lived in a paradise with no knowledge of good and evil. Being human we had to mess up sooner or later and we ate the food from the tree of knowledge. We learned how to exploit and abuse things to benefit personaly. When we read in the Genesis that God gave us domain over the world and everything on it we automatically think everything on the earth is ours and we can do what we want to it. Wrong when God gave us domain over the world he gave us domain like a good dog owner takes care of his dog.

So we see nature and the world be abused all the time with factories and pollution and animal abuse e.g. Humans have domain were allowed to ruin our planet if we choose to domain does not mean we can abuse our planet if we look at the definition of domain-a realm or range of personal knowledge, responsibility The key word I want you to focus on here is responsibility we have resposnsibilties to our planet we must take care of our planet God loves us and dosent want us to kill or harm ourselves yet we are doing exactly that when we cut down forests to put up malls.If we use up the world we use up life.

Why is it humans find the need to use more than we need and abuse things for our epicurean wants? Knowledge is the answer before Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge we did no know we could do evil. It isn’t the fact people need to be educated that littering is bad the average person already knows that we need to emphasize that people should want to do good because they want to be better people. We are not instinctive animals our mind separate animals and us and this mind was gifted from the tree of knowledge. People who do not care about the environment are not going to help take care of the environment. We respect things we understand and are passionate about.

We have responsibility to care of our world.I know that we the human race are destroying our planet at a rapid rate and we must be frustrating god.He gives us the world and we show no respect to it.God gave us domain to take care of our planet and use its goods to meet our needs not our wants.

This isn’t just a conflict of the past it happens to this day.The rich see the poor as lazy and this leads to conflict.The rich believe they are right and others who bring there opinions to light to the so called unworthy people. If money isn’t considered a status symbol the rich become equal with the poor.The reason why this wont change is because people don’t want equality if there on the better half.There will never be complete equality because we reward achievements which set us apart from others.It is in human nature to more respect to other people I will use my self as an example I have more respect for people who take care of the bodies then somebody who dosent.We will never have equality but we can take gods words and use the wisely don’t bash eachother accept eachotheres strengths and weaknesses.

So yesterday i came up to edmonton with my school for the spirit trip. At the end of the day I went to my brothers house then to the gym with my monster of a cousin Issac we arrive at this gym club fit I downed my preworkout shake and was jacked to hit the weights in a fully equipped gym.So I  get in and I go to pay for a day pass and the cashier lady would not leave me alone all she wanted me to do was buy a year membership I told i diddnt live there but she was determined.Finaly she gives up and she take me around Club Fit.Now she starts talking about safety I told her that I worked in a gym for three years and have lifted for 3.5 years and I know how a gym works so I asked her where I could find there hack squat and she diddnt know what it was for working at a gym this girl did not know anything about gym equipment and working out and she was out of shape.So I finaly start my workout and i can’t do skull crushers cause all the benches are in use which sucked there was way to many people in this building and to much equipment it made me feel like an add of caffiene just everywhere.I finaly zoned in put my head phones in and crancke some come on by bone crusher and assualted my arms well i was in this gym i relized what was missing from my workouts was the bigger people then me to give me  motivation to workout.But in the end wha I came to use and see became something I hated.After that I went home to sleep I was exhausted.DAY 2 I wake up and go to school with Joel its intresting having a brother for a teacher it makes you relize teachers are just like us but wise and older they partyed and macked on girls but they have matured now and have families.So Im walking through this High school St.Josephs there is three times as many student in this school then there are in our school from kindergarten to grade 12 Im in the social studies corner of the building right now they have there own cafteria all the department have there own eating place it’s crazy.Me and Joel decide to go to the gym they have in the school it is decent but only dumbells to 55lbs so only dumbell movement I could do was wrist curls the gym had its basic equipment lots of mirrors andnot alot of people in it.Im in the middle of cable cross overs I was feeling strong so I decided to do all the weight and im straing as hard as I can well I nail out reps and then she came in she was wearing boots with silver buttons that gleamed that came to her calves her skin was bronzed perfectly and she was wearing a short jean skirt with black tank top it was a fancy tank top tho her hair was blond she had two lip rings one each side but they were tiny and gleamed in the light she was gorgeouse and I was sweating with a red face  looking like a idiot later we were introduced and we have me before on facebook but photos could not justifie her looks we started talking and we became  friends.I went and changed checked my hair made sure I had nothing in my teeth ( i wanted make sure i looked good I already made a bad first impression)Her name was shastina I know sounds like a ghetto name but what ever so she had to go to class so I went back to Joels office and I started Writeing this journal entry. But ya till tommarow or sunday this cya

Since I can’t comprehend what god thinks of us I will write about what I think about us. We do wrong and right everyday because we are human and that’s what we do. So how do we know what we are doing is right or wrong in god’s eyes.

 I know I do right in god’s eyes when I feel proud of what I have done. I know I have done when I used my strength and abilities to help others. The purpose of our strengths and interests is to help others. Our strengths may very amongst everyone and if we share our abilities to help each other we can improve our society. When we consider our actions to help others and reduce the negative affect we have on others is when we are doing right.

Weakness what is weakness many think weakness is something they will never be good at this is wrong weakness is something we are not good at yet. God gives us weakness so we go through tough times to develop our character and mental strength to enhance our being. Next time you say I am weak at math or some other subject remember that you aren’t always going to be bad at it if you put time and effort into it. Weakness is undeveloped skill. God sees you as a large rock that needs sculpting it is up to us to sculpt it.

I know my weakness and I will improve on them. I am not strong in my writing abilities and at math but I will put my effort in. I know my strengths such as a motivator and understanding the human body I will use these skills to help others that is why I will become a personal trainer helping people who don’t under there bodies and want to improve health and physique. Using the strengths god gave you to help others is the best thing you can do with the skills god gave you.

So use you’re abilities to the best of you’re abilities to improve the people around you. When we stop looking at ourselves and concerning ourselves with others we feel fulfilled. We are doing god wants when helping others becomes more important then you. If God saw me today I believe he would say that imp doing well but need improvement.

Now lets take God out of the question right now cause I know some of my readers may not believe in god. Doing the right thing leaves you feeling good so for the better of society we should want to do what is right. If god were out of the question would you still do what is right? I hope you would because if we didn’t the world would have allot more problems. Individual actions affect everyone racism is often because of only individuals.

So if wondering what god thinks about you doesn’t worry about it you will never understand. Do what is right and live a proper life. Don’t do what is right because you’re worried what god thinks do it because you want to do right. Whether it’s strength or a weakness if you can look at life and say that I did my best I know God will be happy.