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Never love somebody who treats you like you’re ordinary

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Photo attributed to flickr user PAPYRARRI

Photo attributed to flickr user PAPYRARRI

I have this policy of learning from the people around me, and as I’m as imperfect as they come, I have a lot of learning to do. One of the people I learn a lot from every day is Thenix. One of the things that surprised me about him is that he is friends with every single one of his exes. He helps them fix their cars, drives them places if they need it, and other little things, that says to me, they are not just acquaintances, but friends.

I have had this policy from the first time I broke up with someone, to never be friends with my exes. Why keep that saga of your life in your life? Forget and move on. Unfortunately, that meant that all of those wonderful friendships that I had forged with some amazing men, was lost. You spend a lot of time with a person in a relationship and you are going to lose that all, because you are no longer seeing each other. I realized that whilst speaking with Thenix over his reasons for staying friends with his exes. I decided to revamp my friendships with as many exes as I could.

One of my major relationships was with this individual who embodied the title of this post. He didn’t realize that we’re neither of us ordinary and every day that we were together wasn’t ordinary either.

Whenever my friends ask me about Thenix, why I am with him, or why he’s with me, or why I would ever be with someone, I have to just point out the feeling I get when I’m around him. He makes me feel like I’m special, extraordinary, that his life wouldn’t be the same without me. And I hope I make him feel the same way. This feeling of ecstasy, the feeling you get when you first get into a relationship, is the reason I first got into the relationship, but after 8 months of togetherness, I realize that the feeling is something that is here to stay. It might not be as full-blown as the first time we kissed, but the butterflies in my stomach and the love that I feel for him is going to be a constant.

I tell my girlfriends, to find someone who sees the beauty in them, that I do as a friend of theirs. I realize every single one of them are amazing human beings that make the world a better place by being in it, and the guy who is going to be their partner has to feel that as well.

Ending off the post, on a comedic note, I go back to this every single time I think of my exes, ‘Have you ever looked at your ex and wondered if you were drunk the entire relationship?’

Makes me laugh and cry every single time.

Being Truthful with Yourself

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Photo attributed to flickr user NoiseCollusion

For the longest time when I was figuring out my place in the world, I lied to myself internally. I told myself I was happy where I was, when I wasn’t. I told myself I didn’t need to be in a relationship, because I didn’t want to get hurt. I told myself I felt fulfilled when I didn’t.

I have written about ‘Little White Lies’, and how they affect everyone around you. We speak of ethics in yoga, and being ethical towards the people and things around you is a big part of it, but the more important part in my head, is the ethics towards yourself.

Are you taking care of yourself? Are you taking care of your needs? Are you taking care of your dreams, nurturing them, letting them grow, feeding them, and fulfilling them? Are you doing all the things you need to do in order to be the person that you were meant to be? A lot of us, a majority of us, most of us, are not. We are not taking care of ourselves physically and we are definitely not taking care of us spiritually.

Coming back to me, because that’s what this post is about. It is about lies. I didn’t realize it for the longest time, but I did lie to myself. The people around me saw it, even though I covered up my lies with fake smiles, and incessant activity. They saw it, because I seemed to change my mind from day to day about the things I wish to spend my time on, the things I wish to spend my energy on, the things I wish to spend my life on.

One day, I didn’t want to get married, because I didn’t see the value in it. The next day, I spoke about how I would treat my children when I have them.

Thankfully, the people around me, saw through my lies, and they confronted me. My siblings and mother sat me down, one afternoon, in a Tim Horton’s coffee shop, and forced me to confront the hard truth. I’m still not perfect yet. I still lie to myself. I do it all the time. The most important thing though is that I am aware of it now. I see it now, and I have the people around me who will never let me forget that.

Once in a lifetime opportunity

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Photo attributed to flickr user David Masters

I have tried to explain this to my parents before. Whenever I tell them about a lifestyle change that I wish to undertake, they take it as a rejection of their lifestyle and the way they have been living their life. I try to explain to them that I’m not rejecting their lifestyle at all. I feel, and I have felt this way for a long time, that I’m privileged.

I have a really amazing life and there’s more to come. Because of the fact, that my parents rejected their caste; because they didn’t let the shackles of their caste prevent their upwardly movement; because they worked harder than anyone else I know; I’m able to sit here in a warm house, with my own bed, with food in my belly and money to go travel for months at a time.

If they hadn’t rejected the confines of their caste in India, and gotten themselves out of the thinking of scarcity into abundance, they would still be in the bowels of India, working some menial job somewhere, living hand to mouth and trying to find enough money to pay for their daughters’ dowries. But they rejected that restrictive idea, and moved on. They moved away from the people who pushed them down. They moved away from their homeland, and lived in loneliness and homesickness. They worked hard, skipping sleep and rest, so that they could get themselves to the spot they are in now. Comfortable, and in a country full of opportunity.

I have this brilliant opportunity in front of me. I am able to do what I want with my life, because I have had the privilege of living in a country with dollars, that when converted into other currencies goes much further. I can travel for a year, come back, find a job, and get back to my normal lifestyle. I have options, and I wish to exercise those options. I’m privileged and I choose to move into that privilege. I’m not rejecting anyone’s lifestyle, I’m choosing to believe there is a different way to live, that if I didn’t explore, I would be wasting an opportunity of a lifetime.

Expansion and contraction of your world

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Photo attributed to flickr user Dey

I was thinking about this the other day. When I was younger, much younger, I was always looking to expand my world. My world was very small. I thought only about myself and my family. No one else mattered in the world. We were the five musketeers. The only people who would matter in a disaster would be them. The only people who I wanted alive forever were them. They were my world.

Then I grew up a little and then a lot, and then my world expanded. I became more interested in other people, in world events, in growing myself as a human being. I began caring about other individuals, my friends, family, random people on the street who were hurt, etc. I began expanding my world, my sphere of influence, and my zone of ‘caring’.

I realize now that I have peaked or coming close to my peak of expansion. Despite efforts to grow further, I find the only way I can grow now, is if I travel. Movement to other places, meeting other people, learning how other people on this planet live, despite the Americanization of most cultures, I find I expand inwardly, which is the most important kind of expansion to me.

I also find that as you get older, your friends get married, they have children, and their lives get busy. They are interested in the well-being of their children and nothing else matters. Again, their worlds contract, and they are quite happy about it, but in parallel, if you are not interested in the same, you are unable to stay at the same level as them.

I have spoken to a few of them who are in that stage, married, with children and happy with their lives the way are, happy for their lives to stay the same, as long as their families remain safe and secure. I am happy for them, but it reminds me that I’m not ready for that yet.

We have a long journey ahead of us yet, before we enclose ourselves in the family capsule.

You are nobody’s caretaker

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Photo attributed to flickr user Piotr Zurek

Lately I have been letting myself get anxious over the fact that I have to take care of the house while my mother is in India, making sure my brothers and father eat well, and making sure that I do all the things I need to do at Thenix’s place, making sure that he eats well, and that I help him with anything he needs help with.

Yesterday, while lying in bed, after a frantic end to the day, cooking four dishes and cleaning the kitchen in one hour flat, I realized I was pushing myself to be everyone else’s caretaker. No one needs you to take care of them. They can take care of themselves, and that is the mantra that you have to push to yourself, especially if you are female, and if you are conscious.

The priority in everyone’s life should always be themselves. You are the priority for yourself. No one else is as important to yourself as yourself. Once you have taken care of all the things that matter to you, your health, and safety and happiness, then you can go on to bigger and better things. You cannot take care of someone else, unless you are at the epitome of health and happiness yourself.

Otherwise, you will feel empty inside. Giving more than all of yourself will empty you and you will be left holding the broken pieces.

Let me know what you think of this post. Thanks for reading.

Coming out of the closet

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Photo attributed to flickr user Ethan Hein

I am a private person. I think everyone is. No one likes to be open. To be out in the open with everything they feel, think and do. Everything they want to do with their time and life. Everything that they feel, sexually, emotionally, physically. What they think about in their deepest, darkest moments. You wish to be a closed book, so that people cannot ridicule you. You are safe from the probes of others, because you only let them know what you want them to know. You pretend to be easy-going and open. I do as well, but who really is?

Being private is actually a good thing. You are protecting yourself, your vulnerabilities from the thorns of the world. The world is ready to prick you the minute it feels your weakness. It isn’t a cruelty thing, it is a survival of the fittest thing. It is an evolution thing. It is a real world thing.

Everyone has techniques in order to remain closed, only give out the information that makes them seem cool, a little bit vulnerable, and still keeps them safe. I use the technique of questions. I ask questions, lots and lots of them. I try to always put the spotlight on the other person. They are more interesting. They have more to say than me. It isn’t that I don’t care about them. I do care about what they have to say. But also, I care about not divulging much. I want to be safe.

The more I blog though, and the more I share my blog with people I know, in an attempt to be open, I find that this safety net is tearing slowly. The holes are getting bigger and more of my safety catches are slipping out. The first time someone talked to me about one of my posts, I was embarrassed. I blushed at the thought of them reading my private thoughts. But then they made a comment about something they read. I listened and I learned. It was insightful. I was getting someone else’s perspective on my issues, my life, my demons. I felt the safety net break completely, but I learnt that I didn’t need it anymore. The insights that I would receive from the people who know me, would be far more valuable than being closed off.

Thus, I look forward to more and more content being pulled to pieces by the ones that know me and love me.

Parents are good

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Photo attributed to flicker user Celine Nadeau

I realized sitting here as I blog, that sometimes in my blogs I make out my parents to be these horrible creatures who did a bad job raising me. Or whatever else I might have written about. But of course they are not. They are wonderful people who did the best they could in the circumstances that they were in. They had a hard life themselves, but instead of griping, they took the bull by the horn and decided to work as hard as they possibly could. I wouldn’t be in the situation I am in, in a wonderful country with lots of opportunities, a great education, a great future potential, the time to do yoga and think about random philosophical questions, and travel for months at a time, if I hadn’t had the support from my parents that I have had all my life.

This blog post is meant to be an ode to my parents and to parents all over the world, who give up all of their creature comforts and dreams, in order to fulfill the dreams of their loved ones. They are not perfect in the way they deal with things, but no one is. I wanted to ensure that everyone knows that I’m the person I am because of all of their efforts, not in spite of them, as some of the blog posts might have you believe.

Thank you to my parents for making me the strong, independent individual who is able to live a critical, questioning, philosophical, yogi life. A short post, but a much-needed one nevertheless.

Addition: Tony wrote from the opposite perspective, that I wished to share here.

Being vulnerable

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Photo attributed to flickr user marfis75

For the past few days, I have been doing a lot of yoga, a lot of detoxing with lots of veggies in my diet, and lean meats, very little dark meat, lots of water, lemon in my diet, and meditation. It has been a period of cleanse, as I felt the indulgences of the summer get to me. I had gained a bit of weight, I felt my digestive system stagnant, I felt energy trapped inside of me, that was unable to move, and I felt I needed a lot of rest during the day in order to feel alive.

We do a lot in the summer, because it is a time for rejoicing, and celebration. The sun is out, the days are long, everyone is cheery and life is good. You drink a lot, eat a lot, and stay up long hours, just because you can. Wintertime is a time for hibernation, self-reflection, contemplation, planning and cleansing. I find that I’m spending a lot being cleansed out physically and mentally, emotionally and chakra-wise.

And all of this cleansing is causing a lot of ‘stuff’ to be released. I feel more vulnerable than usual. I feel open, raw, out in this world. I feel like I’m extra sensitive, and everything and anything bothers me, upsets me, makes me want to curl up in a ball in the corner and cry.

This is normal and I realized this last night when I couldn’t sleep. I have been feeling guilty for feeling this way. I was feeling weak, and stupid, for being so emotional and needy. How could I get over the emotions of being needy and insecure, if I do not let myself feel those emotions? If I just ignore them, and pretend they will go away, they are going to come up again and again, because they just didn’t have a chance to be expressed. They are trying to help me realize my goals, of moving onward and upward in my consciousness. But until I deal with the demons of the past, the present cannot make an appearance. I realized I am not going to feel bad for feeling bad. I’m going to indulge myself in the dark emotions of my psyche, the deep, dark undercurrents where everything horrible seems to lie. I will let myself feel it all and then it will all be released and I can move forward.

Let’s see how this works out in the real world and if the people around me, my loved ones, are able to handle the stress of dealing with me.

Wasting mental energy on negative thoughts

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Photo attributed to Thenix

I was reading a post on FaceBook by a highly spiritual friend of mine – and it was a quote by Brian Tracy: You are a living magnet. What you attract into your life is in harmony with your dominant thoughts.

I have been thinking about this for the past week and I have realized that I have been harboring some extremely negative thoughts in my brain space. You have a limited amount of space in your head. You can only hold one thought in your mind at a time. Why am I consciously choosing to hold a negative thought in such limited precious cargo?

I can choose to blame hormones, or my monthly friend, or any number of things for this negativity, but the truth of the matter is that I have been festering. I have become a person who just isn’t any fun anymore. I frown more than I smile. I think more about what can go wrong than what can go right. I am on the road towards mass destruction of all the work that I have done over the past year of improving my consciousness and my place in life.

The key word in all of this is choice. You are the chooser. You are the master. You can give up the reins of your destiny and of your head to something else entirely, but why? Why would you want to do that?

It’s hard. It really is. Especially when you get into one of those funks. It is hard to pull yourself out. But it is imperative that you do it as soon as possible. The minute you are in too deep, it is harder to get out, harder to be positive, harder to see the good in anyone.

How do you stop wasting mental energy?

Sharing my blog with the people I know

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Photo attributed to ukhviid

As most of the readers on my blog know, I like to keep things anonymous on here. It started out as a way to cleanse myself, get rid of everything that is in my head and heart, help others realize that maybe they are holding onto the same issues, maybe reach a higher level of consciousness on the way, always striving to do more and reach the ultimate goal in life, figuring out why I exist.

I have been slowly sharing my blog with my friends and family. Thenix found out about my blog by chance, when he read a comment on a blog post that I sent him, which seemed to resonate very much with my thoughts. I realized once he knew about my blog and the conversations that ensued after on some of the topics of the blog that interested him, that I liked that. I like the feedback on my thoughts. I like to know what others are thinking, what they think of what I know or think, and what they think about in their spare time. It is the give and take that I love, that I have been missing on my blog.

I then shared my blog with a few of my closest friends, who I knew wouldn’t judge anything I write on there, and with my siblings, who are my best friends and with whom I like to share everything. The circle grew, more people knew about my blog, I got more feedback on my posts, and I realized I liked it a lot.

The final step in this journey would be when I share the blog with my parents. Just the thought of that freaks me out. I do not want them knowing what I think. Especially my mother. Some of the stuff I share on the blog, I feel would devastate her. She is amazing and very open-minded in her own way, but she would find out more than I think she wants to know about me.

But I have this feeling that this blog’s purpose would not be complete without her being in the know.

That is the target of the next few months of my practice and life. I want to be open. I want to be able to share. I want to feel connected to my parents, and everyone around me, without lies, deceit or deception. Let’s see how that works out.

Loneliness in the world

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Photo attributed to Thenix

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my parents and how I am responsible in my head and theirs to fend off their loneliness. I was speaking to a friend of mine about this last weekend and I realized that it isn’t just me that is dealing with this issue. Every single one of my friends talks about how his/her parents are lonely, aren’t able to find solace in each other’s company or in their friends, are always looking to their children for help and support. I wondered about this. Why is the level of loneliness on the planet increasing exponentially? The more people that we have on this planet, it seems the more loneliness increases.

Technology definitely seems to contribute to the issue, but what else is making this happen? I really don’t understand. Is that the only reason people are having children so they can have that loneliness safety net? Or is it because people do not know how to be alone with themselves anymore? We are never alone, always surrounded by noise in some form, people, music, TV, and so on. We always looking for something outside of ourselves, when we are unable to find it in our jobs, our education, our money, our whatever, we go looking for it in our children. Who are too busy living their own lives, to be able to do much for us.

I do not have the answer in this post, nor do I really have the answers in general. But seeing all this sadness, this loneliness, really makes me sad. Why do people do this to themselves? We do not realize that we really have very few moments on this planet. Especially the older you get, the fewer the moments, the more the possibility of this moment, being your last one. We really have to savour it, learn to live on our own, and walk away from the loneliness. Choosing to be whatever we want in this moment is the key. You can make yourself feel whatever you want. Choosing contentment over loneliness is the way.

Receiving is hard for me

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Photo attributed to Thenix

I have written about receiving from the universe before here. I realized though that I really have to force myself to receive. I was sitting in a meditation class, in a cross-legged position, and I had my palms on my knees, as if to protect them from damage. The teacher said, ‘Have your palms facing up, if you wish to receive energy and facing down, if you wish to give.’

I tried to turn my palms upside down, face them outwards towards the world, but it was seriously a mental and physical effort to do that. My hands would not move. When I was in the position to receive with my palms up, I was uncomfortable. I felt uncomfortable. I looked uncomfortable to myself in the mirror. I wondered to myself, what the hell is going on? Why am I unable to receive energy? I have no trouble giving energy out, helping others, doing anything and everything for the people around me, but when it comes to receiving I have a real issue.

Why is that? I am a giver by nature, and I have been taught from the beginning of my life, by my parents that giving is good, taking is bad. Taking is selfish. My mother emulates that in her life everyday by giving everything she has, energy, time, money, even to people who do deserve it, even to people she dislikes, because it is good to give. My father does that everyday by giving all his energy, time and money to his businesses and his family, taking nothing for himself, because it is good to give.

They lament about the fact that they have a selfish daughter who doesn’t give, who doesn’t really take from them, but doesn’t really give back for all the years that she was dependent on them. I have learned slowly, but not completely, that giving is good, but there has to be a balance like everything else in life. You have to give as well as receive. You have to be comfortable doing both with equal intensities. You cannot be generous to the world and then refuse to take its presents and gifts to you. You cannot give away your energy to the world, and then refuse to take time to heal and rest yourself.

How are you with receiving and giving? What do you do more?

Sleep as soon as your head hits the pillow

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PHoto attributed to Thenix

I have to admit. I am one of those lucky few who has no trouble falling asleep ever. I put my head down on my pillow and I am fast asleep, zonked out in five minutes flat, less if I have done yoga that day. I fall asleep for a straight 8 hours and I love it. I am a sleepaholic and I need help.

I find that the older I get, the more I want to sleep. In my teens and early twenties, I was a early riser and late sleeper. I didn’t sleep much, I didn’t rest much. I was on the go 20 hours a day and I was awake comfortably for days on end. I was a machine. Now that I am going to hit 30 in a year, I am hitting my sleeping stride. I want to sleep. I want to sleep all the time. I can sleep in, in the morning, I can sleep in the afternoon and I can still fall asleep at 0830pm at night. In fact, as soon as 9pm hits, I am ready for bed, and ready for some REM cycle.

My family laments at me for this behaviour. They are disappointed as they feel I love sleep more than them. I would rather go to sleep than hang out with them at the movie theatre, for a late show. I would rather go to sleep than stay up all night watching some old Bollywood movies. I would rather sleep than do a lot of other things. I find that my excuse is the following. I have long, busy days, filled with a lot of activity, both mental and physical. I need rest at the end of the day. I don’t think that is a lot to ask for.

I am not going to jeopardize my health and my day in order to do something rather mundane and boring. I might be called callous or selfish for that, but that is how the cards are played out. Sleep wins out over a lot of other things. Unfortunately, or fortunately.

Yoga as a Cult

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Photo attributed to flickr user bhikku

Thenix and I visited a very religious family over the weekend and this bought up questions of religion and religious fanaticism. I have never been very religious myself. From the age of 5 months, until 16, I had lived in extremely religious Moslem countries. And all I saw of it, I did not like. Being an independent, freedom-loving individual, religion is opposite to every viewpoint I have. I do not condemn those who are religious, but I wouldn’t really consider them very good friends. I respect their choices for their lives, as long as they respect my choice for my life. Do not try to change me, or preach to me and I shall be content.

I was thinking about yoga as a religion or a cult over the weekend, and it could have strong inclinations towards it. People who are in yoga are so ecstatically happy about it, we are always trying to convert others to try it. We know once you try it, you are going to be hooked. People in yoga are addicted to yoga themselves, going 4-5 times a week, talking about it all the time, letting the different aspects of yoga permeate the various sides of your life. We believe the world would be a better place if everyone on the planet did yoga. We wish to bring yoga to the disadvantaged people of the world.

Of course, the reason Yoga isn’t degraded by others to be a religion, is because of the health benefits. You can see the people in yoga are strong, beautiful, healthy and happy. They do not want to cause harm to themselves or others. They wish to live their lives in the way they have chosen, without interfering with anyone else’s chosen path.

What do you think of yoga as a cult or a religion?

What does freedom mean to me?

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Photo attributed to flickr user cuellar

If someone spoke to me today and asked me where I see my life going in the next 5-10 years, I definitely do not list a promotion or leading a  team of 10-15 people as one of the major tenets.

I see a few things in my dreams. The freedom to do what I want with my time and energy. The idea of doing things because they are fun, not because I HAVE to do them. Removing all the unnecessary items from my life. Having only the stuff I absolutely need. Minimalism is key. Spending time with family and friends. Being content in the moment. Including lots of yoga, reading and writing in my life.

The question I ask myself quite often is why can I not start this life right now? What am I waiting for? What are these freedoms waiting for? Why cannot I begin today?

I have a lot of excuses in my head. My blog isn’t making money for me. My yoga teaching isn’t making enough money for me yet. I still have student loan debt. I still have a mortgage (which doesn’t count as it is rented out). The excuses go on, but the truth of the matter is, I am afraid. Fear is holding me back.

I do not know what awaits me on the other side of unemployment, of quitting the 9-5 rat race. What would I do with my time? What would I do with the removal of a steady income? What would I tell my parents? My friends? I wouldn’t be able to go out as often with them. I wouldn’t be able to own a car, as that is freaking expensive.

How will I live? The truth of the matter is, that I have no idea how I will pay for minimal expenses if I do not have a job. I do not have a way of supporting myself without a job yet. And, I haven’t looked into it very much, because I haven’t really needed to yet.

The big reason I want to go on this trip is because Thenix and I are going to look into becoming self-sufficient and digital nomads. Working on our own time and energy, doing what we like with our time and energy, making enough money to pay for travel and life.

Maybe my thoughts seem a little scrambled, that is because in reality, I haven’t figured myself out yet.

Perpetuating the cycle

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Photo attributed to Thenix

I’m sitting on a couch, eating a yummy Kale salad, and thinking of a conversation I had with a few of Thenix’s friends a couple of days ago. They have two adorable blonde children who looked at me like I was something weird that they didn’t understand, but eventually warming up to me, sat down with us and watched Cars. It was a fun evening, but something stuck with me throughout.

My parents had beaten me as a child, that was the accepted norm, I do not have any rage or anger against them for it. It was the way things were, and everyone beat their children into compliance. Even our teachers in school were allowed to beat us, and we didn’t think anything of it. Being an especially rambunctious child, I got beaten the most out of the three children in our house. I was the oldest, so I should always have known better, which I didn’t.

I said much to the consternation of the parents that I would have no problem with beating my children. I said it really casually because I do not even intend on having children, so the whole point is moot. But they were surprised and kind of disgusted. They did not believe in using fear as a motivator, they would yell, but never hit.

Thenix then said, that remember when you told me that sexual abuse victims are usually sexual abuse victims themselves. They just perpetuate the cycle because they do not know any other way of dealing with the situation, they do not know any other way of showing love. You are going to be perpetuating that cycle by beating your children, just because your parents beat you and you don’t know any better. Maybe finding a new way of dealing with children is the key to this situation.

Bingo! A light went on in my head. Of course, why didn’t I think of that? I am glad now that I brought this situation up because I would never have been able to see it in the different light otherwise. Now as I see it, beating my children isn’t an option at all. Alternative ways will be found, to make them understand and do my bidding! Just joking of course.

What do you think of spanking or beating children? Should parents be allowed?

What is long-term really?

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Photo attributed to flickr user Ed Yourdon

On reading my post about the iPhone 5 and its adapter, Thenix said something that kind of surprised me, as I had never thought about it. He said, that he realized that I have a different definition of long-term than a lot of people around us. The iPhone has had the same adapter for 10 years or more now, which to him, or in general, would definitely be very long term. But, when I was writing the iPhone blog post, I was thinking more in terms of tens of years, or even hundreds of years. The amount of time it would take the adapters to dissolve into nothingness. The amount of time they will stay in our environment polluting our rivers and lands, and ruining our environment.

He told me about this organization that deals with long-term thinking, Long Now. I started reading about it and I realized there are others who think the same as me, and I was fascinated by their 10,000 clock.

The thing that Thenix explained to me that they were finding a challenge was the fact that culture, and the concept of time could/would be very different in 10,000 years. They needed to ensure the clock would last and would be interpreted as such in the future.

You can read more about them and their mission on their website, but one part of their mission struck me as highly important. The mission to ‘help make long-term thinking more common.’

We live in an age of instant gratification, and I find this emphasis on long-term thinking, really long-term, refreshing. Long-term isn’t just a hundred or two hundred years. It is definitely not until next election, or next year, or the next vacation. It isn’t until you are done school or your children are done school. It is far, far longer than that. It is until the end of civilization as we know it and the beginning of a new one, or more. It is until human beings are extinct, or Homo Sapiens as we know it, turn into something different.

It never ends. It might even be until the Earth is consumed by the Sun in its sad demise, a billion years from now, when the Sun gets so hot, all the water vapor on the Earth dries out.

What is long-term to you?

My world is getting smaller

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Photo attributed to flickr user MarilynJane

A quote to begin the post:

From Kathleen Kelly, You’ve Got Mail : Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life – well, valuable, but small – and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven’t been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn’t it be the other way around? I don’t really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void.

I had a dream a few nights ago – I am observing an events ceremony, all the prefects of our high school are sitting there, in their new married selves, and clapping and laughing at the spectacle before them. I am not one of them. I had wanted to apply to be a prefect, but that would have meant speaking in public, in a crowd, that I feared greatly when I was a teenager. I regretted later that I didn’t apply, and in the dream, that regret came up. And then came another thought. What happened to all of those brave girls who were our leaders in our high school? All they talk about now are their families and husbands. What happened to them? The dream ends.

I spoke to a friend of mine about this dream – she’s pregnant and in that phase where her baby, her dog and her husband are all that matter in the universe. She doesn’t care about work, or about anything else really. She lamented about the fact, that she feels like she’s getting boring and her world is getting smaller. Then she said, that she feels that she is alright with it. What else matters on this planet besides the living beings in your life?

I loved her thought so much I thought I would share.

The fear of missing out

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Photo attributed to flickr user -RejiK

I had read a blog post on FOMO (fear of missing out) a while ago on Get Rich Slowly, but something she said in the post left an imprint on my brain. I wanted to share it with you and what my thoughts are on the subject.

There was a quote I read (on Facebook) that said “…we always envy others, comparing our shadows to their sunlit sides.” (The source is The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers by Margaret George.) When I think that someone is “always” traveling or “always” knows what’s going on, while I’m sitting on the couch or wondering why I’m not savvy enough to get free movie passes, I think about that quote and remember that each of us have our shadows and our sunlit sides. As J.D. recently said, we often form perceptions based on exceptions, not the rule.

I was dealing with a serious case of FOMO, when I got the travel bug, but didn’t have enough money saved up to go travelling. Being a person who loves to travel, it is obvious that almost all of my friends love to travel for an extended period of time. There are always at least 4-5 people on my FaceBook talking about their travels, past or future. It makes me wonder, how do these people travel all the time, and why am I still working, paying off my loans, and not travelling?!

It makes me miserable for the day, until I calm myself down, with the thought, that everything is happening as it should happen. I am doing things at a pace that is suitable for me, and other people are living their lives at a pace that is suitable to them. I cannot hurry things along in my life. I can’t make things happen right now, and I can’t stop things from happening, which are already set in motion.

It is a constant struggle, of course, because the more social networks, I pay attention to, the more I succumb to FOMO. Pinterest is a major culprit for this, as is FaceBook. I have found the days that I am browsing through the aisles of FB and Pinterest more, are the days I am most dissatisfied with my life and my place in the world. Just stopping the browsing, and going to do something physical or spending time with friends or family, releases the pressure that these social networks release upon me.

How do you deal with FOMO?

Drowning in stuff

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Photo attributed to flickr user Temari 09

I was speaking to an ex of mine a few months ago, and his lament about his girlfriend came floating back to me, while I was packing up clothes from my closet to donate. He was complaining that because his girlfriend has so much stuff, they literally didn’t have enough space in all the closets to fit it in. She took over all the closet space in all of their apartment, resulting in him having to squeeze his few paltry items into one drawer, that she graciously bestowed upon him.

He was upset about it to say the least. He felt like a guest in his own home, because his girlfriend could not control her spending and refused to get rid of any of her stuff, in order to fit a loving boyfriend into her life. This made me wonder.

Why do we pay more attention to the stuff in our life, than to the relationships? Why do we take care of our cars and phones better than our health? Of course, these questions don’t really matter in the scheme of things. The more important thing is to make sure that your priorities are aligned with your values. If you value stuff, then go ahead and buy more things, ignore your relationships, because you are too busy working to make the money that you need to buy the stuff. If you value people, then realize that the less you have, the more time you have to spend time with the friends and family that you care about. The pets that you love. The children that you adore.

I had decided 3 months ago, to pack up a bunch of clothing that I felt I never wore in a box. I thought to myself, if I don’t miss this clothing for 3 months, there is a high chance, I am never going to miss them. Last weekend, I opened up the box, and without really looking through the clothing, put it into a garbage bag, which is headed straight to the Salvation Army clothing donation box. There are at least 30 pieces of clothing in there, which I have worn barely in the past year and a half. I am not going to miss it, but I’m sure someone out there will love it and use it even if it’s just one time more than me.

How do you get rid of the stuff that you are drowning in?