Month: November 2010

It is time for a serious talk. About this blog. Since you’re reading it, and since I’m writing it, I can ask. And if you feel like answering, please feel free to do so. Following a very enlightening discussion with a fellow blogger, I am now harbouring some interesting thoughts. And questions too. What do you, the person who reads my blog, want to read about? Do you want to read about life bits or maybe ideas that will spark your own later on?

My big question would be why do you read this blog? Do my words find their ways into your brain and sprout ideas, do they challenge you to question things and change anything? Can you relate to the things you read about in my blog? There are a lot of “why” questions that I may never find answers for. About this blog and about many other things in my life. That doesn’t mean that I will stop asking them though. I read somewhere, yes, in a blog, that everything starts with a why. And that’s one great way of looking at things. As opposed to the more morbid “curiosity killed the cat”.

Now some will think that I will shape my blog posts according to the feedback. No promises either way. Not all “why” questions have to be followed by action. Sometimes they have to be asked just to get that spectacular “a-ha” moment which becomes a spark in its own special way. Since this is my thinking/writing playground I always get to play the way I feel like playing. That’s the freedom of blogging.   If you want to stop by and play too by sharing your thoughts, do so. If you just read and move one, that’s good too. Either way, just so you know, it would be nice to know what you think since you get to read some of my thoughts too. That’s the purpose of writing after all. To create sparks of one kind or another.

The way I see it is that sometimes it may look like I am spreading out a big picnic blanket and invite whoever wants to stop by to sit and chat for a while, while other times it may look like I am all wrapped up in my thoughts and chewing on them by myself. I promise you won’t startle me if you choose to leave a note as you’re passing by.
 

Are you afraid of changes? I am. And after looking around and watching people go through life I am almost certain that everybody fears change to some degree.

If the weather was nice, my parents always had their coffee or tea outside on the bench under the old grapevine. Coffee was always making its way out on a beautiful small tray. Always the same tray. If it was cold or rainy, the coffee ritual was to take place inside, with each of them sitting in their usual seat and drinking from their usual cups. The coffee pot – yes, coffee pot, always the same, my parents never switched to coffee machines of any kind – was kept in one spot only. Misplacing it was not an option. And that made things right in a way that should not have to be explained.

And then I look at children, my own and others. They love their special rituals: going to bed a certain way, reading the bedtime books while holding mom’s hand a certain way, reading just some books and no others every Saturday morning in bed. Life moves fast in all directions and we can’t prevent or change that in any way. Having little comforting things the same way we always did, whether we’re young or old, helps keeping us grounded and provides a place where we can always go should life become a wild rumpus at times. And life does that occasionally, doesn’t it?

Yet some of those comfortable and good warm feelings can take another form and flavour over time: complacency. That’s when the rituals and the things that used to be just so become too much. And change should follow to prevent bitterness and resentment from settling in. When we’re about to change something, whether big or small, we feel challenged and quite scared too. Relying on that good old gut feeling becomes important and necessary. Of course, some might say, and rightfully so, that more often than not we need something more solid and palpable than the seemingly elusive gut feeling. Sometimes you do have the solid facts. Consider yourself lucky if you do, consider yourself lucky if you don’t. How is that for a “catch 22” type of problem? Not just a play with words. Like I mentioned before, learning to rely on the internal compass affectionately called gut feeling is both treacherous and exciting. Like walking on a rope. You can do it, since others have done it, but you need to learn or relearn balance. Knowing what you have to do because you feel it inside is the first step towards making changes of any kind. Looking for more solid facts to rely on while you are implementing the change is useful.

And since nothing is foolproof in life, failure is a possible outcome. Yet idleness out of fear is not, should not, be an option. The price of not changing anything for the purpose of improving our lives because the possibility of failure is also tucked in there somewhere is simply too high. Learning happens whether the changes we make are successful or not. And learning takes us one step forward.

So let some things be, the ones that wrap your soul up like a cozy old blanket, you need them there, but have the courage to change what should be changed. For the better. This is not a dare but an invitation. No RSVP necessary.
 

Someone once said to me that it is easy to love nice and good people but not so easy to love those who challenge you, who disappoint you, who make you angry. Intentional hurting is a matter of debate, therefore subjective enough to call for individual assessment if at all possible and solvable. The only question that comes to mind is whether the people who disappoint and anger us are worthy enough to warrant acceptance? The good ones, they love you right back without shaking, or, God forbid, destroying any images of them you have build in your mind. Because come on, it must’ve happened to you too, believing someone to be of a certain texture, personality-wise, just to be confronted, later on, with the real person stipped of any appearances. Just like I am not the only one who walked straight into a way-too-perfect mirror image of myself just to shatter it to pieces and get hurt by them. And make enough shards to hurt others.

Life is never perfect and people are even further away from perfection. What then? How deep can someone’s matter-of-factly acceptance of people can run? What does it mean to see people for what they are and then accept them for all that they are and for all that they’re not? What good is in that anyway? Do we become better people because we show our Good Samaritan side every now and then while bestowing our graces onto mere mortals? We do, most likely, whether noticeable or not, but that should not be the driving force behind it. Life is not about collecting laurels, at least that’s not what I think of it. Life is about living, knowing people, finding out what they are made of and most of all, discovering that they are human. Faults and all. And when you accept people, the real, non-fabricated version, the ones that come with all that’s good, bad, stinky, questionable yet also with that grain of worthiness which might be hard to see when egos get in the way, that’s when we accept and see life for what it is: a gift, the greatest gift of all, the gift from which everything else grows.