Your most important ally

Why do we act like we do? It is a question that has troubled people throughout the ages – from philosophers, writers, sociologists, and psychologists, to modern therapists of all sorts. Why do we behave in certain ways? What triggers us to give resonance to certain thoughts and thinking motives over others? Why do we allow our minds to take so much control of our emotional reactions? What leaves us powerless before our own selves?

Taking charge of oneself is not an easy task. It requires you to understand yourself first. To come to terms with who you are, what affects you and why, and what you can do about it. It necessitates a process of observation above all. To realise first what is happening, to then accept it, and to often forgive yourself for it. We need to be kinder to ourselves, to talk ourselves up instead of down, to treat ourselves like the royalty that we are and to lift ourselves higher than we very often do.

Once we offer ourselves the value we deserve, and acknowledge it too, everything will change – both inside and outside. Because once you can deal with your internal turbulence, the exterior circumstances will seem a breeze. Things will affect you less and certainly not with the same force or attracting the same demeanour on your part. You will be able to allow things to slide and just accept that some things just are as such and there is not much you can do to control them. But even that is OK.

It’s all good if you first and foremost feel good inside.

Advertisement

Mean Girls

Men don’t understand women in many things, one of them also being how they can be so mean to each other, even among friends. While the former keep things simple and don’t bother about (what to them seem as) trivial stuff, the latter do the exact opposite.

Let’s face it; it’s a truth: women are mean. To each other more often than not. Even among friends, no woman can hide her jealousy/envy for the success of another, be it work or social life.

And it all starts young. Girls at school are abysmal for lack of another word. The movie Mean Girls was not all fictional; it was based on real life. The worst bullies are females. Women think that if they bring another down, if they degrade, undermine, and make them feel inferior, they will rise up instead. But it doesn’t work that way.

Women are constantly trying to find a flaw in another. They say demeaning things to each other – even as a joke – and when it comes to male friends, they assume the role of the evil mother-in-law with no other woman ever being ‘good enough’ for them. They criticise with the ease they utter words out of fear they will lose their ranking among their clan.

It’s a general trait this, perhaps most evident among female groups: we think that if we impose our deemed superiority over others, we’ll dominate.

We judge because we’re insecure and we’re insecure because we judge.

Read that again. Because it all comes down to that simple fact.

Women have many positives too, don’t get me wrong, belonging to the gender myself, we do have our brilliant sides too. It usually depends what you awaken in one. Some of us are lucky to have found a couple of women we call sisters, who don’t give out all that negativity mentioned above. Perhaps if we were all more grateful for that and took better care of each other, we would instead, rise together. And we would all be much better off for it.

Good elf gone bad

Santa’s little helper was a cute elf, a bit shorter than average but compensating for it as a hard- and quick worker. He was the elf everyone turned to to get anything done. He was organised, punctual and disciplined. And also found it very hard to refuse anything assigned.  His elfies kept telling him that it was a mistake not to be able to set boundaries. But he thought it would be rude to turn down someone for a job he could easily do. The little helper failed to see that it was a matter of mental health to set limits to himself and others regardless of how quick and easy anything may seem to him.

Life appeared to pass seamlessly for the little elf. Until one day. That day when everyone suddenly wanted something from him, and they needed it asap, meaning yesterday. The little helper was overwhelmed, overstressed, and overagitated. Like a pressure cooker steaming, it didn’t take long before he erupted. And before the day was over, the good little elf turned bad. He was  yelling and refusing to do absolutely anything, finally expressing the feeling that he was being seen as a push-over and was expected to do anything and everything simply because he thought it rude to say no.

The situation was resolved only when Santa took his little helper on a sleigh ride with Rudolph to calm him down. A flight over a starry sky always helps. The elf finally sincerely said what he felt about the way he was treated. Santa was understanding and promised things would improve.

It is a very thin line between accepting everything and nothing, but often the reaction when we overcome the boundaries we fail to set can be eruptive.

Pause and breathe

There is always something to do in a day. If you want to, you can find tonnes of things to keep you occupied – doing your actual work being a fundamental one.

But the thing is, nowadays, we lack the will to do pretty much anything.

We may blame it on languishing, the phenomenon of our times. But it may also be due to a series of reasons.

Life’s hectic rhythms sometimes result in us being too exhausted to be productive. And we realise that if we pressure ourselves, whatever we deliver will not be up to our own high standards. Perhaps that is why we prefer to do anything else, other than our obligations. And that anything else is often nothing. (Unless binging on TV series and Netflix counts as something).

We need days off. If anything to clear our minds and actually relax. Those moments we spent as kids just lying on the bed and staring at the ceiling, daydreaming; well, they were actually priceless. Now, we seem to be lacking time for a proper meal, let alone for an instance of losing ourselves in space.

But it is necessary to breathe. To hit pause and do nothing, simply so we can get back on track of actually doing all the things that we’re used to filling our days with.

Change the perspective

A storm was brewing. Literally. The weather was turning piercingly icier and the sun was in hiding. You could feel the wind changing.

But also metaphorically. People were evidently affected – they were colder in attitude too. Agitated, nervous, and too easily irritated.

It was all wrong. For no sensible reason.

So she decided to leave.

These are the best decisions; the get-up-and-go-on-the-inspiration moments. Because if you don’t think about certain things too much, they end up being the best decisions you ever make.

She acted upon the impulse to flee. And travelled all across the world to where the climate was exactly the opposite.

She didn’t exactly encounter a heatwave, but a much warmer weather, and a much kinder folk. People who had much less – of material belongings and wealth – yet much more heart and goodness. They knew how to enjoy the utmost of what they had, and to appreciate the instances, the smallest of heart-warming gestures, the gratitude of having even the slightest of everything.

If you step back from your own world and delve into someone else’s, perhaps you’ll just realise how lucky we are but never acknowledge it enough. Be grateful for everyday; for the goodness around you; and focus your energy on all you want to create, not on what you want to get rid of. Know who you are and what you want to achieve, but be careful who you choose to walk with in life, because in the wrong company you’ll never reach your destination.

With you

It was always so easy with you.

It felt secure though spontaneous, prudent yet crazy, idealistic but doable.

It was all quixotic, but it was wonderful.

Also part of Weekend Writing Prompt #186

The quiet ones

It’s the quiet ones you should fear. Because they have a whirlwind of thoughts howling in their minds.

They won’t always tell you what they’re thinking, but you can see their emotions reflected in their eyes.

They are the ones who will look out for you no matter what. They’ll be there whenever you ask for help, and will go out of their way to please you. They’re the ones you want to have as friends because you take for granted that they’ll do their utmost for you. But they’re also the ones you fail to appreciate. Yet, they stay. Because that is the type of person they are. They don’t measure or count what they do for you, they do things because they feel them in their heart.

The quiet ones are the ones who also need others the most, regardless how much they say otherwise.

They would ideally like to have people around who care as much as they do. People who during a crisis will show up without having been asked to simply to check in on them. We all want friends around us who every once in a while ask if we’re OK, if we need anything, or simply to be there for a walk, a chat, and a hug. People who are present and make it all seem manageable because we don’t feel like we’re fighting against the world alone.

It’s the quiet rivers that lead to the loudest streams. But when they’re calm, they offer the most refreshing waters.

Alternating circles

Birthdays, a good friend told me, are the perfect date to set new goals, to rethink your stance, to start anew, because it is on this day that your life began; that you began. It is on our birthday that we realise how many things change in a year. How different our lives are now from 12 months ago, or from simply one month ago. Time passes by rapidly and if we are not careful, life will pass us by.

It’s not to ponder on the past and forget to live, though. Strength comes from constantly moving forward, continuously evolving and wanting to improve every aspect of yourself and your quality of life.

Hope springs from standing in the dark and looking for the stars. It’s the pressure we impose on ourselves to never give up because better things are coming and the need to believe this is true.

We need to change habits every once in a while. It’s part of the circles that close and new ones that open. To find new people that will enrich our lives and make us better, who will match our level.

Unfortunately, not everyone who comes into our lives stays. And we realise that the people who we thought we couldn’t live without are no longer a necessary part of our lives. There are those who never fought for us, who could live without us first and who left on their own accord. Those who proved they were unworthy of all our love and devotion because they didn’t know how to appreciate or reciprocate it. Those who blamed us for their own inadequate behaviour and demanded things they themselves could not provide. Those who make us regret ever giving them a part of our lives, our world, our heart. Because in the end, those who matter are those who value us, who remain no matter what, who always remember you on your special day, who are there regardless everything else and who love unconditionally.

Each person is responsible for their own attitude and the way they behave – be it their reactions, their words, their actions or inaction, their decency (if any).

It takes time to realise things we were so used to overseeing. Because it takes time for the mind to change course, to alternate its circle of thinking. Time won’t heal your wounds, it will just make it easier for you to live with the scars.

Birthdays are a chance to evaluate where you stand in chasing your dreams and the life you desire. To set new goals, to get back on track with what you want. And what most people want are simple things: to be healthy, happy and loved.

A new birthday year offers 365 new opportunities to do that. To find our way again and make it a better year. Let’s do our best to make it worth it.

A social condition

They called it a condition. He called it honesty. But sometimes it made him seem rude. He couldn’t tell the difference.

He was used to speaking his mind without camouflage or fake kindness. If he didn’t like something he would say it, if he disagreed with someone he would point it out. Simply said, he couldn’t feign politeness in a world filled with people wearing masks.

He wasn’t the one to hide; from anyone or anything. But that often got him into trouble. Because not everyone appreciated the sincerity in which his words were uttered.

His belief was that if people couldn’t handle the truth, they shouldn’t be doing or saying things that were contrary to it.

In fact, he was convinced, that if people followed the norms of proper social conduct, so many fake masks would not be necessary.

But that was simply his thoughts. He lacked tact but that did not make him any less of a person than anyone pretending to be his friend.

The world through a lens

We all have a magnifying glass through which we view the world. The events, the circumstances, the people that surround us. But the thing is, we all have the illusion that we all view the world in the same way, because “our view” automatically means it is the “norm”. We each have a different lens, and thus a different view of the world, a different interpretation to life events and a different perspective on all experiences and people.

What we don’t understand or don’t agree with is usually feared. But because fear is a feeling that contradicts our egoisms, we tend to demean everything different to our own view. We treat it with contempt, spite, even anger and dislike simply because we have a different “rulebook” of how the world should work.

When it comes to people, we become hypocritical, showing a positive attitude on the exterior but inside boiling with rage against them. This is often the source of our negative behaviour towards people we dislike, disagree with, or simply cannot communicate well with. it is the reason why respect is not something that can be demanded but rather it is earned. We tend to reciprocate the attitude and behaviour we receive.

Unfortunately, though, not everyone has the same heart as us. Not even the same mind. Thus, it is unrealistic to expect that we’ll get back what we send out. Because not all people have the same lens. And if it is blurred, the world seems a little foggy and more pessimistic than we hoped.

We all get what we deserve in the end. So let’s try and be kind even to the people we dislike or who treat us badly. Karma will take care of them.