What Would We Do if We Weren't Affraid?

The Thinkarete Manifesto

I found a cool, inspirational video with a powerful message, very motivational, it’s the Think-arete Manifesto. Check the video:



I believe in the capacity of every man to take full control of its own future, but are we willing to do it? The perspective of Humanism in Psychology proposes that we all have our own potentials and the ability to reach that potential.

The Name think “areté" comes form the classic Greek philosophers word for the process of self-actualizing and striving to reach your highest potential. They called it 'Areté.' (pronounced ar-uh-tay).

Areté was one of the most important values in classic Greek culture. Guys like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle taught that the meaning of life was happiness and that the way to achieve happiness was to live with areté (aka excellence, striving to reach your highest potential).

I found it on ThinkArete.com, the author proposes that “in order to "think- areté," you have to know who you are and what you are here to do (intention) and have the self-mastery to do what you need to do when you need to do it (impeccability).”

He also believes that by looking at the universal truths taught by philosophers, religions, and current psychological research, we can find the keys to self-actualizing and happiness.

Finally he proposes to start asking ourselves a simple question:

“Am I capable of more? More happiness, more fulfillment, more contribution, more love, more fun, more smiles, more fill-in-your-positive-emotion/experience?

Of course we are. That’s an easy question.

The harder question: Are we willing to do something about it?”

You can also find on this website famous philosophers notes, books, poems, famous quotes.

"I cannot teach anybody anything; I can only make him think." Socrates, 5th century bce Greek philosopher.

So let's start thinking-areté, I think is worth a try: ThinkArete.com - Where you go to grow.

The Beginning of Social Anxiety - Part II

As I mentioned in my last post: Can you start to imagine the roots of my social anxiety?

I believe social anxiety has a genetic component too, I mean the fact that I had a difficult temper as a baby didn't help much (this is something I don’t know for a fact, maybe there is some investigation already about this subject, but I don’t know for sure, I am supposing it. So I have considered a couple facts to have in account in order to establish the origins of it:

- Temper (behavior) as a baby
- The social environment I was brought up (the relationship with my mother)

The begining of Social Anxiety - Personal Experience

I am not a native english speaker as you will see, but I write for two reasons: As a therapy to help me dealing with Social Anxiety and to force myself to practice the language, so if you find any errors please excuse my writing.

I have been really anxious this month, specially this last week, the feeling is bad, it is something like you don't have peace, f*%& anxiety...

If I go back to my childhood to try to find the origins of it, I can recall several situations:

- Beeing born in a home with an anxious mother
- I was born as a "hiperactive", kind of smart kid

I think those are the inicial facts that got me into this. My temper and growing with a mother with emotional problems.

I was told I used to be one of those unbearable babies, very active all the time, didn't have regular hours for sleeping, a lot of crying, difficult to get into eating schedules, etc... Plus a very anxious working mother who didn't know how to take care of me, I was left alone with a depress aunt or with a babysitter.

I was the only chlid for about 5 years, before my second brother was born, so my mother had all the time to experiment raising me during these years.

For what I can recall from my infancy (5, 6, 7 years old), my mother was many times depress at night, when she was alone with me and my brothers, she would take us all to her bed and started to tell us scary stories to make us affraid and then she would start crying, we didn't know the reason why, but it certainly made us feel guilty for what was going on with her. So I guess she must of been the same way when I was a baby.

So this is the inicial story with my Social Anxiety, growing with an anxious agressive mother, as you can see, that was my inicial contact with people in the world, through my mother. Can you see the picture? I was starting lo learn that the world was full of anxious agressive people, I learned that from that inicial relationship with my mother.

My father was kind of absent, he was always working and studying at night, so he was never around to regulate such agressive relation with my mother.

Well I am kind of tired now, I will continue with the story next time...

Dealing with Social Anxiety

Personal Experience

The idea of this blog is to share some of my own experiences dealing with social anxiety, being aware of how emotionally devastated it can be sometimes but also realizing that there is options to help us improve our quality life style.

I have been trying to look for ways to cope with social anxienty, among them: Therapy, exercise, nutrition, getting information on the subject on different websites, avoiding caffeine, alcohol, etc. I have also consider the idea of participating in social anxiety forums.

Hope to continue posting and make a journal of my experiences with social anxiety.