The Viable Alternative

Let’s face it, as negative sounding as the title sounds, most people walking around the planet are extremely unhappy and will most likely stay that way. If you have any question about my claim that most people are unhappy, just look at the high divorce rate, the high rate of crime, the drug abuse, the wars that go on due to people’s egos, the amount of people on depression meds, etc, etc. Here are ten reasons why you’re unhappy and likely to remain that way. I’ll even go as far as to say that I’m not innocent of some of the things on this list either, and have to consistently remain vigilant so as not to fall into some of these patterns. Read more…

In the past, I would get involved with a woman, and everything would be going fine until one day I’d think that I did or said something wrong to get her disinterested in me, and I’d then start to think she was going to end it with me. I’d go from being witty, funny, fun, confident, laid back and interesting to needy, self conscious, stiff, stifled, moody and defensive. As a result, my fear would then become a self-fulfilling prophecy and whatever me and the woman had would fizzle out. Read more…

One of the cornerstones of The Viable Alternative is inspiration. It is to inspire people to find a way out of The Illusion that most people are stuck in and carve their own unique way to achieve and express their own unique potential. I’ve always loved to read stories of people who’ve defied the odds by stepping out of the common path taken by the majority of people and achieving or overcoming what few people expect them to and most people in their situation don’t. Read more…

Kevin O’Leary caught a lot of flack in this video from Amanda Lang, during an episode of the Canadian Broadcast Company’s “The Lang and O’Leary Exchange” and also from the people who watched the video. Words like “douchebag” and “insensitive” were thrown around.

You know what though? I don’t think the man said anything wrong. Read more…

Oh that damn anxiety!

I’m no expert, but anxiety is a condition that plagues a vast number of people and is something that most people, present company included, would rather do without. In fact, many people are so intent on avoiding it that they’re willing to self medicate via alcohol, sex, drug abuse, co-dependent relationships, violence, workaholicism, over eating, sleeping, etc, etc just to escape that dreadful feeling. Read more…

When I started my journey of self improvement, one of my goals was to get rid of the persistent, negative voice that I heard in my head that would constantly bring up my past mistakes and tell me that I was a loser, I was going to fail, I was worthless, to give up, etc, etc. This constant chatter took away my confidence, made me thoroughly insecure, and made me reluctant to try anything. Read more…

If you were to hit your leg against something and get a gash on it, you’d of course be in pain. The pain would cause you to walk funny, and it’d make you be guarded as to how you sit down, how you put on your clothes and how you move, because you wouldn’t want to aggravate it to trigger more pain. Read more…

I was challenged by a friend of mine, the creator/author of the blog, Conduit of Healing, to write a blog about the men and emotions, and the proper way for us to deal with them, so, since I’m not a man to turn down a challenge, here goes The Viable Alternative view on how a real man deals with his emotions. Read more…

I rarely if ever watch the news, so really, up until a week ago, about three months after he killed all those people and then himself, I didn’t know much about Elliot Rodger beyond the fact that he was a 22 year old virgin who allegedly had Asperger’s Syndrome and was angry because he couldn’t get any girls. Read more…

Some time ago, I read a book called “Slave Testimonies,” which is a compilation of: letters of slaves written to family members and their masters, interviews of fugitive and slaves freed both before and after the Civil War, transcriptions of testimonies of slaves during abolition meetings, and newspaper articles that covered stories told by runway slaves.

What was particularly interesting to me was that those journalists, abolitionists and historians that wrote the stories recanted by the fugitive slaves before the Civil War perceived that though these runaways that they had the privilege of interviewing were giving them a firsthand account of what slavery was like for them and millions of others, they were still left “wanting” for more because they knew they weren’t talking to the “average” slave. Read more…