Too Good To Be True

Foreword: This is the first post every by community contributor VenomousWonder.  This is a very interesting post, which I believe all of us can relate to.  Yes, per request of author I have made some small changes, but the content of the story and the idea is his, and I take no credit for this whatsoever.  With that said, we need more participation from the community.  If you want to be recognized, please e-mail me at versatileninja [at] yahoo.com.  ~ Versatile

I think it is safe to say that in general, people are overly cautious when we come across something that is too good to be true.  You may have received snail mail at home saying you can make thousands of dollars by staying at home and sending out envelopes.  Or perhaps you can make good money visiting websites and leaving back feedback.  All of this comes at a price.  You have to waste your time for what could turn out in the end a sham or just not as much money as you had originally expected.  Yet, all the time we hear sob stories of people giving into these tactics under the belief they have found the “Holy Grail”, only to be left in shambles or their identity stolen.  Scary?  Yes.

So where am I going with this?

As the old saying goes, “If it sounds like it is something to good to be true, then it is.”  There is no such thing as a free lunch, remember?  Somebody had to pay for that lunch you are eating. 🙂

So yes, if something seems to good to be true, then it really is.  Either that or it has so many strings attached to where you don’t even want to be a part of it anymore. A great real life example is getting a free trip so some resort location, only to be stuck in a room for the majority of the trip answering surveys and being a monkey for the advertisers that paid for your airefare.  No one wants to be caught in this type of shady situation, and I am sure that this has happened to everyone at some point in their life or at least they know someone who got duped or their life turned upside down because of this.  If so, come on and share.  Your secrets will be safe with us!

My Story

The other day I had many opportunities opened up and it seemed like the perfect day to take risks so I took upon it.  At the time, I was in the zone.  Everything just seemed perfect in life, and everything I had going seemed like long term commitments.  It all seemed so divine that it got to the point to where I was scared!

The day started off when the sweet aroma of chocolate chip pancakes arosen me from sleep.  I had walked into the kitchen with a sense of passion with this feeling that it was just going to be a great day. My mom greeted me with a smile, and the table was all set for me to enjoy my breakfast.  I could not believe my eyes.  The pancakes were made perfectly with the right amount of syrup poured all over it.  Not too sweet, and not too dry.  Yum.

Afterwards, I then went for a walk and found $50 on the sidewalk!  Holy crap,  I never find money like this!  It was not crumped, or a crisp dollar bill.  Instead, it was folded in half, perhaps fell out of a runner’s wallet?  Well, there was no name on it, so I can’t return it to the rightful owner so I just smiled with excitement.  Just finding it on the ground I felt ashamed, but in a way its not stealing right?

The best part of it all was that I had just spent just a few dollars the day before, so I decided to go out and buy some video games with my new found treasure.  My brother gave me a ride, which was nice because usually he never showed this act of kindness. Along the way to the store, we hit a really bad bump, but we were sure it was nothing.  I bought my video game, and played it for a little bit. The game was really good, and using the new money it was as if I got the game for free even.  Later on I went on this date that I was expecting for quite a while. This girl was perfect, and it had felt as if I had known her for years.  We connected immediately, and it just all seemed too good to be true.  Soul mate in disguise perhaps?

The Downfall:

The next day it was as if hell arrived at my doorstep.  All the happieness from the previous day was instantly drained as my mom made me do two hours of chores.  Soon after, the girl who I thought was the “one” had called me and told me she found someone else.  Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, I find out that my mom had dropped one of my favorite games and it got scratched to the point of being unreadable.

Oh yea, the bump we hit yesterday?  Well, it did turn out to be something because it made a dent in the tire, and now I got to pitch in for half the cost to help fix it! My brother blamed me for the tire! What the heck happened to being nice?  This just shows you that in the matter of one day everything went from great to horrible. All of the past events have taught me that most things are too good to be true, and they just seem that way because life is trying to be pedantic.

When was a time that this happened to you?

Was there ever a time where something seemed too good to be true?  Was it?  Tell us your story.

What can be learned from this?

1. Never get your hopes up.

2. Usually if something seems too great to actually be happening it probably is.

3. Only time will tell what is actual and what is fake.

Sure, sometimes we all have a good thing going, and it seems to be very excellent, but then Satan and his little Nazis come and sneak up on you with the stealth and silence of a cat. It swipes you away, and you begin to get frustrated, but there is always next time.  Let’s hear what happened to you. Did you get duped someone?  Felt as if God never listened to your wishes, or he did and then just smashed you into the ground?  We want to hear it!!!

Don’t Be So Quick To Judge Others

Here we are.  The last story of the week of “Personal Experiences” week.  After seeing Denton’s article on his tatoos and his own personal experience with stereotyping, I just had to chime in with some of my own experince that I found myself in.  This is story number 7!

Trust – If You Lose It, Then Good Luck Getting It Back

As in my previous post, there are a lot of virtues in life I strongly believe in.  One of them is trust.  Have you ever been in a situation where you trusted someone to do their part of the deal, and it totally falls through?  How did that make you feel?  How did it make the other person feel?  Trust is what binds people together, and creates relationship.  The moment that trust is broken, you can consider your friend’s “ass is grass”.  This is story number 6…

Commitment – A Virtue Everyone Should Uphold

Commitment.  It is one word that can make people run away in fear.  What are you currently commited to in life?  School?  Relationship?  Family?  Career?  In today’s post, let’s dive a little bit into commitment, and what it means to be committed to things that you enjoy doing.  I am committed to this blog, and I will explain how so in todays post.  This is story number 5…

All Right, Software Piracy For the Win or Lose?

Let’s face it.  Software piracy has always been around since the days that people figured out they could copy 3.5″ floppy disks.  With the advent and proliferation of the availability of the Internet, some will argue that is made software piracy even worse.  A lot of the viewers of this blog have experienced or know about software piracy.  I myself have dabbled in parts of it too.  Let’s dive a little bit into why people pirate software, when everyone knows from a moral standpoint it is just plain wrong.  This is story number 4…

Don’t Be a Tool. Learn For Yourself, Seriously.

The Internet is an awesome place.  Due to technology, I could be instant messing with someone on the other side of the world.  It can help you send your message to the masses, and during your adventure, you will find lots of awesome information like news and tutorials to improve yourself.

Along the way, you meet all kinds of people.  Some are really smart, and some are just lazy or stupid.  During my adventure, I’ve come across something very annoying as I started to answer people’s questions whether it is from Email, blog, YouYube, or even the hamachi networks.  This is story #3.

The Results of Netbook Experiment

Last month I had done what was known as the Netbook Experiment.  It was pretty drastic, as I have never had done anything like this before. The goal was for the time period of Lent, I would give up my dual core desktop PC, in lieu of using my netbook more.  By doing so, I wanted to see what would happen to my productivity, and ultimately the effect on my power bill.  The results may surprise you.  Let story #2 unravel…

Adult Entertainment – A Shunned Industry

This will be an interesting week indeed.  If you ever watched the movie “Minority Report”, you got Tom Cruise looking at all the monitors and he has to figure out which screen to focus on to catch the bad guy?  I’m in the same position in that I have all these ideas and I had a hard time focusing on which one to pick, but with last weeks polls the choice was quite clear.  This is story #1…