Do You Wanna To Be Normal?

 "See that nine to five

She's alive but she'll never see
She's lost in what she does
Just because of what she has to be
Time just passes by
She don't try
She just carries on
Her dreams are only dreams in the night
Come the light, they're gone

Trapped into spaces where we no longer breathe
Pushed into places that we really don't wanna be
We only got a short time to grab a little glory
I wanna have a good life, not a sad story
To stay within the boundaries, seems so formal
If that's what life is, I don't wanna be normal
No...

Chances that we take become mistakes that I could rather flee
I don't see how I could live my life any other way
The best and the worst of us often times stumble and fall
We're trapped by the choices that we make
We just can't know it all

We only got a short time to grab a little glory
I wanna have a good life, not a sad story
To stay within the boundaries, seems so formal
If that's what life is, I don't wanna be normal
I don't wanna be...I don't wanna be normal"

- Randy Crawford, 1986, Don't Wanna Be Normal

On Not Resisting Temptations
By Mike Garofalo

Test, try, experiment - within reason.
Manage your pleasures and desires.
Be open to thinking and feeling in new ways.
Sometimes ignore what other people tell you to do or not to do.
Old values are not necessarily better values.
What is "bad" in one generation may be "good" in later times.
Enjoy the pleasure of eating apples.
When someone tells you not to ask, sometimes ask and ask again.
With only one life to live - be bolder.
Don't resist the temptation to improve, to change, to grow.
Like water, enjoy going downhill in new directions.
Embrace intellectual pleasures.
Be suspicious of people who talk too much about guilt and punishment.
Some failures are inevitable, just get up and move on.
Thinking and doing are often more advantageous than believing.
Many people associate sexual pleasure with 'sinfulness': nonsense.
Succumb to temptations to laugh more often.
If you can't take advantage of temptations then you are not free.
Remember what works for you.
When your tempted to be compassionate, act on the impulse.
- Mike Garofalo, Pulling Onions


"Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to."
- Oscar Wilde

"The trouble with resisting temptation is it may never come your way again."
- Korman's Law

"For every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

"If we resist our passions, it is more because of their weakness than because of our strength."
- François, duc de La Rochefoucauld

"Most people want to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch."
- Robert Orben

"What makes resisting temptation difficult for many people is they don't want to discourage it completely."
- Franklin P. Jones

"The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones."
- John Maynard Keynes

"If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down."
- Mary Pickford

"The most useless are those who never change through the years."
- James Barrie




Willpower, Resolve, Determination, Progress

Senses

Epicureans and Hedonists

One Old Philosopher's Notebooks

Pleasures