When I was Younger (and NOW)

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FORWARD: I initially posted this on Steemit.com when I was 33 years old. I am 34 years old now and I am publishing it here, on ChrisRice.xyz.

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When I was younger, the things I believed were largely influenced by the things I read, and other people (or groups of people) who I thought were wiser, and more knowledgeable than me.

But after 33 years of existing, I have now tested a lot of different ideas & beliefs. My current beliefs are now mostly influenced by the results I got from testing those ideas & beliefs.

Ideas & Beliefs:

• Until a person has seriously tested the ideas they express, implemented them to a T, and accumulated a wealth of experience, the foundation for their beliefs, and insight, remains weak.

• Testing ideas and beliefs can help people understand themselves, others, and their environment (a.k.a. their surroundings).

• Some things can only be learned through experience, and over a course of many years.

• In general, there is an age requirement for someone to truly know what they believe, and for them to know why they believe it, without it being some sort of farce.

At 33 years old, I feel like I have already accumulated a wealth of experience. I acknowledge the fact that there are millions, and millions of people (impossible to estimate) who are older, wiser, and more knowledgable or experienced than me, but I still feel like I have some unique ideas that are experience-tested, and I want to bring them to the table.

Here are two of the things I learned, and wrote about, after 33 years of living:

1. The Pursuit of Happiness | Better than Happiness
2. Top 3 Investment Mistakes to Avoid

I didn't know much about life when I was younger, but NOW, I am fairly certain about the things I wrote in those posts. I published them as rough drafts on Steemit, edited them on Steemit, and then published the final drafts on my blog - I hope you enjoy reading some of my ideas.

Source(s):

• The rough draft of this post was initially published as a comment on one of @freedompoint's Steemit posts.

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You can see the life that I live in the Philippines at Emafe.com, meet me at Steem.ph, or discuss philosophy with me at Humanist.xyz.
~ @chrisrice

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The Nature of Form (a world without form)

Everything about me in terms of my form (i.e. my characteristics, experiences, thoughts, and feelings), changes over time.

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That is the nature of form, it is constantly moving and changing over time - form is impermanent (temporary), and everchanging. 

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But I have another side (YOU do too), a side of me that lacks characteristics, experiences, thoughts, and feelings - It is permanent (eternal), it doesn't change, and I consider it to be the actual ME, the me behind my self, the truth, the source, and THE absolute reality.

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After all of existence ceases to exist, and after consciousness in the universe ends, my family, my loved ones, and everyone and everything that has ever existed (form), will return to our source, without characteristics, experiences, thoughts, or feelings, and we will remain as one forever, a world without form.

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"Know thyself." ~ Socrates

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Source(s): 

1. Photo in Header

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The Tendencies of the Self (the Mind)

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The tendencies of the Self (the Mind) are self-preservation and self-interest, and the mind (the Self) ultimately acts in it's own interests (consciously or unconsciously), including its own interest in experiencing Enjoyment (i.e. The Pursuit of Happiness or Desiring to experience Heaven) and its interest in considering ITSELF good, righteous or just better (or worse) than others in some way.

The only way to truly lose self-interest, and the suffering it causes, is through the removal of the Self (the Mind) and achieving this involves two things:

1. Self-realization:

• The complete & direct realization that one’s sense of self (sense of “I”, “I am” and “I exist”) also known as the mind (ego / self) is just a thought in consciousness (i.e. Humanist.xyz).

2. Enlightenment:

• Perceiving the insignificance & meaninglessness of every-thing (i.e. Humanist.xyz).

STEP 2 requires that a person realize enjoyment & hardship are essentially the same things - the Positive & Negative signs of imbalance.

It often takes either a lot of hardship, a lot of enjoyment or both before a person realizes that balance (Reality / Nothing) is not an experience (or Perspective), and for the enlightened, it is preferable to be outside the realm of thoughts, experiences (enjoyment & hardship) and consciousness.

This article was originally posted as a reply to one of @lordless.exile's posts and then it was posted and refined on Humanist.xyz. If you want to read more about our ideas, please visit Humanist.xyz where every human is a Humanist.

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To Prevent, Reduce & Eliminate Suffering.

~ @chrisrice

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About Me:

Good Evening from the Philippines

Money & Investing

1st Time - Invested in Steem

3 Mistakes to Avoid | Investing in Steem

The Bitcoin Bull Market to be continued.. AFTER THIS

Steemit / Dapps / Blockchain:

How to Make Money on Instagram (or YouTube / Twitter / Twitch / Medium)

Morality / Philosophy / Spirituality:

The Pursuit of Happiness | Better than Happiness

The Bitter-Sweet Nature of Life

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How to Make the World a Better Place (3 Steps)

I believe everyone can make the world a better place in 3 Steps:

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Discover Your Natural Tendencies

This can be done by taking a personality test but also requires some life experience.

Keep in mind that Personality Tests are most accurate for people who are 30 years old (and older).

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Use Your Natural Tendencies to Benefit Yourself, Others & All of Mankind

This is easier said than done but if your goal is to benefit yourself, others and mankind (and you completed Step 1), I believe you are on the right track.

To achieve this over a lifetime is the epitome of success.

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Prevent & Reduce Suffering (Minimize & Avoid Pleasures that Lead to Suffering)

A lot of the pleasures we seek actually create suffering. Things like eating consistent junk food, smoking cigarettes and making a living by taking advantage of others, are some of the things that give people pleasure, only to undermine their society, security and well-being over the long run.

Converting from pleasures that cause suffering to pleasures that prevent, reduce and lead to the elimination of suffering are the new good deeds of our modern world.

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ANYONE THAT REDUCES GREATER AMOUNTS OF SUFFERING THAN THE SUFFERING THEY CREATE, IS MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE.

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NOTE: All of us create suffering to an extent since all of us are consumers to an extent, and our consumption places a burden on the earth, on animals, wildlife and the rest of mankind.

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You can comment your ideas below . . .

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Source(s):

• You can find this answer on Musing.io
• Free Personality Test
• Photo of Children
• Photo of Guitarist
• Photo of Hands
• Photo of Question Mark

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The prevention, reduction, and elimination of suffering makes the happiness we experience, more enjoyable, healthy and sustainable. 

~ @chrisrice

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The Bitcoin Bull Market to be continued.. after this!

NOTE: This article was originally posted on March 3, 2019 via Steemit by @chrisrice.

Bitcoin technically entered a Bear Market in February of 2018 after dropping over 20% from it's All-Time High of around $20,000 USD (two months after the initial drop in price), but the overall trend spanning since 2010 may be bullish and might have remained bullish overall this entire time with the recent Bear Market being nothing more than an overly long correction before Bitcoin continues it's overall Bullish and upward trend toward $20,000 USD again and possibly higher.

If that is the case, the overall upward trend in Bitcoin might continue soon, and could cause the price of Steem to increase too (maybe even surge).

Furthermore, if the price of Bitcoin goes above the upper red line on that graph, it might be confirming this theory and could lead to a commencement in Bitcoin's current (or prior) uptrend. It might also lead to a surge in volume.

So the good times for Steemians may be near and right around the corner. This would be especially true for those of us with a stake (i.e. @kenmelendez @freedompoint @tarazkp @galenkp and @gadrian).

If you found this insight newsworthy, please Resteem, Upvote & Share this post. Some of my previous forecasts include predicting that Steem would fall to $0.25 cents before it did, based on a Head & Shoulders chart pattern, and predicting the possibility that Bitcoin could also crash.

In the case of this possible forecast, the chart is showing a Falling Wedge which could indicate that the prior and current overall trend is still up, with the commencement of the uptrend right around the corner and possibly at the door.

Nothing is guaranteed though. This isn't financial or profession advice of any kind. It is only an idea and a possibility, not necessarily true but time will tell.

P.S: @exyle also shared some technical analysis on his Steemit blog and this idea of Bitcoin being in an overall upward trend since 2010 could and possibly should be shared by people like  @aggroed @theycallmedan, @surpassinggoogle and @nathanmars.

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The Pursuit of Happiness | Better than Happiness

Today I want to write about something that applies to almost everyone on Earth, and that is The Pursuit of Happiness. 

People are known to find happiness in different ways - some people acquire possessions, other people focus on relationships, and still others like to focus on health. There are also those who experience happiness through the giving of themselves, or by helping those in need. 

I am familiar with each one of these sources of happiness, and I have experienced sourcing happiness from all of them. But over time, as I aged and continued to pursue happiness, I realized that the pursuit of happiness can sometimes lead toward unneeded suffering.

I think the unneeded suffering that I am referring to, is caused when we create happiness in ways that simultaneously cause suffering (for others or ourselves), and I also think that over the long-run, this is what happens when people make happiness their ultimate objective - they create an equal, or even greater amount of suffering.

In order to ensure that our Happiness is not causing ourselves and/or others to suffer, I recommend making the prevention, reduction and long-term elimination of suffering our first priority, not happiness. 

The prevention, reduction and elimination of 
suffering makes the happiness we experience, 
more enjoyable, healthier and sustainable. 

 ~ @chrisrice

This article was originally posted on Steemit, and was written by Chris Rice.

Source(s):
- Photo of Happy Couple

- Photo of Hand Watch

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Top 3 Investment Mistakes to Avoid

​All of us on Steemit have different investment backgrounds.

I personally started investing in my late teens at 18 years old. I started by investing in the stock market first and later invested in real estate, but I made mistakes. I made mistakes when I invested in stocks (late teens), and I made mistakes when I invested in real estate (mid 20's to Present).

Here are some of the mistakes I made since 2003 that you might want to avoid:

1. GOING 'ALL-IN'.

Contrary to what many believe in the crypto-currency space, it is not advisable to go All-in, in any particular investment, or even in an investment class.

Going All-in at any moment in time will prevent you from being able to average down if prices in that particular investment fall, and it can also place a burden on you mentally and emotionally - @exyle has mentioned this in his posts and it is something I am familiar with.

When a person's entire net-worth, or even anything close to it is tied to a single investment, the price swings create stress to such an extent that it becomes difficult to think about anything else, and a 10% to 50% loss can seriously harm a person, mentally, and emotionally.

In order to prevent this, I am only investing a minimal amount in Steem. It is still a good amount based on my income and savings but it isn't enough to make me feel or go crazy over a paper loss, even if the loss reaches 75% to 95%.

2. GOING ALL-IN, ALL AT ONCE.

This is another mistake I made in my late teens and I think a lot of amateurs and inexperienced investors (or speculators) make this mistake.

When you go All-in, All at Once, or even invest everything you are willing to invest all at once, you remove the ability to average down and buy lower if prices fall. This is especially true when you are investing in a stock or cypto-crytocurrency that is possibly bottoming out (i.e. Bitcoin), but could go lower.

One of the reasons why a 50% to 95% paper loss in Steem wouldn't affect me much is that I believe in the technology and I can continue to purchase a set amount AFTER prices fall 50% to 95%. I'm not saying that will happen but no one knows what will happen. I still have the temptation to invest more, and all at once, but @emaferice actually helps me with this since she is more risk-averse than I am. Sometimes having a financial adviser, or even a spouse to run ideas through can prevent us from falling into the hype that traders call FOMO (a.k.a. Fear of Missing Out).

3. UNDER-ESTIMATING THE MAINTENANCE REQUIREMENT. 

This mistake applies to the real estate I invested in while living in the Philippines. Real estate is different than stocks, since it requires maintenance - air conditioners, roofing and in the case of houses in the Philippines, even walls can break or crack and deteriorate.

I under-estimated the maintenance required for real estate and since I am poor at maintenance, I suffered the consequences.

In order to avoid maintenance, I have now chosen to avoid investments that require maintenance, excluding their tax requirements. Tax requirements is the one thing that we cannot avoid but aside from that, investing in Steem doesn't require maintenance. I hope @emaferice will remind me to avoid real estate since I love real estate but I lack the ability to maintain houses and/or condominiums.

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Those are the Top​ 3 Investment Mistakes I made in the past, and I want to rectify those mistakes in the Present. If you have any other mistakes that you think should be listed here, comment below, and let me know if you agree with me or not!

DISCLAIMER: This is not intended as professional or financial advice of any kind. It is only my personal perspective. Do your own research and remain aware of the fact that it is easier to lose money than in is to make money when investing.

This article was posted by Chris Rice on Steemit in November of 2018.

Best of luck to you!

Source(s):
- Photo of Profit or Loss
- Photo of Clock

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8 Years of Marriage

Photo by Lito Sy.

I celebrated eight years of marriage with my wife today. And after all this time I still believe that marrying her is one of the best decisions I ever made. I think that is one of the thoughts in my mind that will remain the same, always and forever, no matter what.

I always had the necessary strength to get through the hard times and I am lucky that like me, Emafe also had the strength to make it through the rain when things got rough. Now it's 2018 and we have been married for 8 years!

The biggest lesson I learned from being married to Emafe is that health is certainly wealth, and that all things worth having are healthy. Everything else that's unhealthy leads to suffering in the end, one way or another.

So Emafe, Love... thank you for teaching me the value of health. And thank you for learning with me side-by-side. I will do my best to focus on health and I will try to get better at being and remaining healthy. That way all of us can live a long and happy life together. You, me, baby Zac and all of our loved ones. Thank you for being nice to me and Happy Anniversary to Us!

I love you. (and baby Zac)

The food that was cooked for the celebration.

Some of the friends that visited us for the celebration.

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Happily Ever After

September 10, 2015

Movies in the United States and abroad have created ideas about marriage that involve two people "falling in love" and all of their dreams coming true. The story-line is usually a romantic love story with a couple who beats the odds and overcomes the challenges that threaten their relationship. Sometimes in the end, the inseparable couple gets married, and as we all know.. they live happily ever after. But is that what it's like in real life?

Here are some thoughts that run through my mind about life & marriage. It includes ideas that are generally not included in the entertainment industry's portrayal of a perfect marriage:

• Our story did not end after our 'happily ever after' started. We got married on March 5th, 2010 and it was a dream come true for both of us, but it wasn't the end. We had many peak experiences full of excitement & happiness after that, and it was more or less intermixed with just as many 'valleys' (hard times).

• The highlight of our marriage, at least for me, isn't the "falling in love" aspect or all of the dreamy romance filled-type images often displayed on social media or portrayed in romantic love movies. The highlight is getting to know what I misunderstood and misjudged. It's learning and growing, understanding my self more, understanding @emafe more, and understanding the mind, life and reality more. I only came to appreciate and receive these things through trial, error, seeking 'truth' and more or less, marriage.

• In a sense, there is no such thing as a happily after since that would mean that the work in one's marriage was done, but as long as we are not dead, everything we think, do, say and want requires effort and work. Everything is a work in progress and that includes our marriage, so the closest thing to a happily ever after, besides a few moments that feel like a happily ever after, is constant renewal.

• Getting married, living one's dreams, and having beautiful moments will always come with low moments too. Every positive I have experienced in marriage and in life, was eventually offset with an equally negative aspect. For a young adult or teenager, it is not always obvious that our positive experiences will more or less be balanced out with negative experiences, but now that I am 34 years old and have been married for almost 10 years, I'd say that everything gets balanced out eventually - there is no positive and no negative, reality is neutral and it's just our personal biases that are either positive or negative.

So in summary, Hollywood and International Love Movies portray a very positive experience for lovebirds that meet each other, fall in love and finally settle down. But marriage isn't all positive and neither is life. Life and marriage has a positive side, a negative side, and learning from both and evolving is just about as close to reality and a happily every after as one can get.

December 1, 2017

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Thinking of the Future

Father & Son.

While I write this I am in our room listening to music and bicycling. Zac is sleeping and Fema is browsing the net. The air is cool in our room and there is a slight breeze from the air conditioner where the wall meets the ceiling. I spend time reading and writing everyday and it's a great time to exercise on a stationary bike.

I started to exercise and improve myself after thinking about Zac. I was thinking about his future and I realized he will have a good one if I make good decisions now. So I am changing and adjusting my lifestyle to get healthier. That way I will be able to guide him in living a healthy lifestyle by example.

​To get started I downloaded an app called To-Doist to better organize ​each day. Apps like this are important in this day and age where it's hard to stay focused and distractions abound from Facebook to Instagram. I plan on teaching Zac to check his daily tasks early in life but in order to do that, I need to do it first!

In addition to keeping track of things I started to take an online course on edX to improve the thinking I do and to get advice from world-class teachers. The course I am taking is titled "Philosophy & Critical Thinking". It will help me clarify some of my ideas and should improve my ability to write articles. 

Those are some of the things I am doing to prepare for the future. I will try to remove most of the uncertainty in Zac's life to guarantee that he has a good future. Wish me luck!

A stationary bike!

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