Of a record-breaking week

Tags

breaking barriers, fears, limits, personal limits, self growth, the end of a chapter, wings

Years ago, the world felt like a very small and limiting place to me. It’s easier than you might think to become invisible in a small community when you don’t fit the mould that most everybody else does. Lucky for me, I soon found out that there are more heretics like me out there, who might have felt out of place for years but could start being themselves (or discovering themselves), all the while feeling like they are invisible no more.

As I drink my tea this evening whose label reads ‘Never try to impress others, try to impress only yourself’, I contemplate last week, its days that managed to cram in moments which felt like chapter endings, deep sadness for those endings, retracing of steps and rethinking of moves to come. Most of all, though, it meant breaking of barriers I never thought I would be able to push through.

I did say barriers are at times for keeping you from being stupid. I still believe that. All those other times though, that barrier’s meant to remind you there’s something beyond, it calls on you to turn it into something more. A rock, a piece of wood, a piece of barbed wire in a desperate whisper, begging you: Pick me up and turn me into wings, make me into what you need to fly.

Photo by psychoballerina photography on Unsplash

What I didn’t understand years back is that the world was only as small and restrictive as I allowed it to be. Trying to impress others just to fit in instead of showing yourself – quirks, qualities and all – is just a form of self-limiting I wasn’t yet aware of.

Push through those barriers, but do it because it will make you better and give you wings to soar over your fears (you know, the ones you don’t even like to admit to yourself).

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Of A Rare Moment Of Perfection

Tags

being enough, being present, cross-generational, emotional growth, expectations, imperfections, invalidate, just be, midfulness, patterns, personal attack, society, trigger

Walking down the street on a day like today, with headphones on and music playing to drag summer on for a few more hours at least, with the sun shining warmly but no longer scorching, I detected a spring in my step. I lifted my arm and passed my fingers through the leaves of a tree whose branches were hanging lower than the rest. I got the urge to smile for no reason at all, for nobody in particular. And even though I’d gone through an argument about an hour earlier which still had my mind racing in about 10 different directions, the moment felt as close to perfect as I’d experienced in a very long while. It was a state as much akin to happiness as I’m able to fathom right now, the kind of simple joy that can only reveal itself when you let go of ruminations about the past and worries for the future, and allow yourself to just be.

I think (or maybe it’s more that I hope) that everyone reaches a point in their lives when they make a conscious decision to just be and stop trying so much. I’m not perfect. None of us is. So it’s a thing of absurdity to expect perfection from the one sitting in front of us, yet we still do and end up bruised in the process. Not perfect but enough, and that’s much more important.

How many times have you swallowed your words when in reality there were waves of feelings and thoughts demanding to be given form? And how many times have you pretended to be someone you’re not just to not shatter the image that people have of you?

Photo by Ethan Hoover on Unsplash

Once you reach this watershed moment, when freedom to be true to yourself becomes more important than keeping up appearances for the sake of others, there will be disapproving frowns, stinging reproaches and particularly disappointed looks. The biggest difficulty lies in accepting the imperfection, as well as the fact that the presence of a shortcoming unseen thus far does not invalidate a person’s entire character, nor their goodness. Most of all, it is not a personal attack.

We get triggered too easily and too violently these days. From our grandparents’ generation, to our parents, to us and even down to children not old enough to go to school yet. Across all these generations, my guess is that we’re all finally fed up with trying to live up to the expectations of the generation before us and of society at large, and with pretending we don’t have our own dreams, needs, fears and anxieties. I just hope that we’re all also ready to put in the effort to work on the dysfunctional patterns we’ve so far accepted as normal, but have proven to be a hindrance to real emotional growth.

Fate is Fake

Tags

acknowledgement, being seen, decisions, empathy, fake news, fate, fleeting moments, free will, human touch, opportunity, opportunity doesn't knock twice, reaching out

There’s only so many times that you can allow certain moments to slip by before you realise they’re not turning up at your doorstep anymore.

There’s one joke that goes:

“Knock, Knock!
Who’s there?”
Opportunity.
Don’t be silly – opportunity doesn’t knock twice!”

Photo by Luis Alfonso Orellana on Unsplash

So don’t act shocked when the moment you kept postponing, avoiding or over-analysing for weeks, months or even years is now no longer something you can seize. Opportunity might in fact not knock twice, but rather three times, 10 times or even 100 times. Still, there’s just no way of knowing really how many times it’s going to be before it decides it’s tired of waiting on you or of being so rudely rejected.

Do you speak up when something is bothering you? Do you reach out when you notice someone needs nothing more and nothing less than a human touch, someone to listen or just someone to sit in silence with? Do you look away when you know there’s someone searching for your gaze in the crowd (simply searching for an acknowledgement that their presence matters)?

Or are you the kind that believes Fate must know best? Well I have some bad news for you – especially if you’ve been relying on this lady called Fate for as long as you can remember – she doesn’t know shit. She isn’t real. She’s fake news. In other words, you’ve been duped. It’s just you and your decisions. And there’s nobody else to blame for letting opportunity get bored and leave, or for giving it a swift kick in the ass instead of inviting it in for a nice cup of coffee.

Of The Connections We Miss

Tags

connection, fear, intensity of the present moment, life, mindfulness, monkey mind, once in a lifetime chance, ships in the night, the present, warm moments, what if

‘No man is an island’, the saying goes. What if we’re more like ships passing each other in the night, though? Getting a glimpse of one another’s lights and glimmer from a distance; and at a certain point in time, when the air is sharp and crisp, seeing each other at HD level of detail.

But then it’s gone. Because as crisp as the night air was, the moment was hot with anticipation and the usual fear of making a fool of oneself. The potential ‘what if?’ meant inaction was the safest bet for self-preservation. Whatever that may mean. So the chance to ask for help has passed, the shoulder to cry on no longer available, the potential once in a lifetime kind of connection is lost.

If you still can’t grasp this sort of moment, picture this: it’s early morning and you are in a rush to get ready for work. But that first cup of coffee is essential, you know you can’t function properly if you haven’t had it before you leave the house. So you boil the water, you add the ground coffee. The smell of the freshly brewed miracle potion envelops you. You add a bit of warm milk because that’s how you take it. No sugar, though. Can’t wait for that first sip. But this impatience won’t do – it’s too hot, so you have to leave the cup on the kitchen table for a while to cool off. ‘That’s alright,’ you think, ‘I can just finish reading this article in the meantime.’ You’re so deeply immersed in the article that before you know it you’re running late. Oh, and the coffee? That coffee you were about to thoroughly enjoy? It’s cold now; and even if you try to re-heat it, that miraculous, deliciously unique taste can’t be brought back.

It sometimes takes really horrific events to make us stop fretting needlessly about ‘what ifs’ and realise just how many of these human connections we’re missing day by day, even minute by minute.

Photo by Evan Kirby on Unsplash

I can’t help but ask myself how we can make the effect last longer, so that these dark and painful events are farther and fewer apart. The only answer I was able to dig up so far is that we need to make the present moment something we’re actually present in. Then we can silence and eventually tame our monkey mind, allowing us to see the one in front of us and reach our hands out to them.

Thank You For Your Victory

Tags

#AusOpen, #thankyou, Australian Open, fan letter, hard work, our champion, role model, Simona Halep

My dear, strong, beautiful, blue-eyed woman,

I’m not going to beat around it. This is an open fan letter. A letter from someone who admires you and your strength throughout the difficulties you’ve hit along the way.

I want to tell you something you’ve probably heard from a lot of other people today, but will say it nonetheless, because you need to hear it again and again, and believe it’s true: you ARE the champion today! You’ve shown the world what it’s like to play a 3 hour-and-45 minute match and then go on to shine. You’ve played brilliantly through physical pain and discomfort, and did it with determination, elegance and a sense of modesty rarely seen.

My dear, amazing woman, you are a role model truly. There’s an entire nation that should praise you and push you forward. You are a role model, showing us all that hard work is what makes for success, not just a spark of talent that can get snuffed out by lethargy and complacency. Hard work and honesty is what makes someone grand.

But at the end of the day, remember this: you’re not playing for us, not your fans, not your hecklers. You’re doing it only for yourself, so you only owe it to yourself to break new barriers and take on new challenges. You don’t owe anybody any titles, you’re our champion because you’ve got this impressive internal strength and no matter the obstacles you kept on fighting.

Thank you for today. Thank you for being yourself and for allowing each one of us watching your matches to dream that we can be more, to dare to keep fighting to be more in a society that snuffs out spirits like yours.

Yours,

A fan

Of Creativity In The Workplace

Tags

assertiveness, business, communication, corporate environment, creativity, decision making, decisions, innovation, mental energy, microdecisions, professionalism, tech, training, work

In all the years since I’ve joined the working class and become part of the corporate environment, I’ve taken part in my fair share of trainings. One particularly stands out these days.

I remember the trainer asked us a question: “Do you think you’re a creative person?” Simple, right? I naturally answered with a very decisive yes (I run a blog, after all! I also happen to delve into painting from time to time). He asked me to explain why I thought that and gave him the blog argument. At which point I got something in the lines of “yeah…but no” (maybe not quite the same wording, but you catch my drift). My first reaction was to feel offended. Actually, I lie, my very first reaction was to feel embarrassed and probably turn bright red all the way up to my ears (something that doesn’t usually happen to me). “That’s not what I mean”, he told the group, “that’s not creativity really”. And I was stunned; and offended still.

A few years having passed, I can look at that moment in a different light. The person who was delivering the training was an entrepreneur, a businessman if you will. So he thought of creativity in terms of how things can be done in a unique, innovative manner, so that ultimately you can bring in more money for the company. Anything else lacked significance. Sadly for him, I would say.

A few years having passed, I do understand what he meant when he referred to creativity in a business environment. If you’d asked me back then how am I being creative in my work, I’d have been completely stumped for an answer. Right now, I can list so many things: pouring myself into smaller or larger impact decisions, coming up with the right investigation route for a certain technical issue raised, applying solutions used for one client to another one I’d not had contact with up until that point, dreaming up ways to fix a problem that everybody has so far said cannot be fixed.

But the best playing ground for creativity is in the communication piece – being able to reply to an email or in a call in a manner that puts across the message you want to put across, while all along remaining polite, professional and getting what you need from the person on the other side of the table. Positioning a message in just the right way. They call this assertiveness, don’t they? Ah, this elusive and mysterious state of being. So un-straightforward, so difficult to pinpoint. It sometimes feels like walking a tightrope high up above a huge canyon – if you fall to the right, you’ll be seen as passive and people will think they can just steamroll you; if you fall to the left, you’ll be perceived as coming across aggressive and unyielding, uncaring even. It’s a very fine line you have to walk and it requires impressive amounts of creativity and going through constant decision making processes (some will be microdecisions, granted, but they still eat up mental energy even if you don’t realise it).

Photo by Alice Achterhof on Unsplash

It was an unexpected conclusion I reached after pondering on the subject for the past couple of weeks or so. I realised I’ve been coming home pretty much exhausted after some very full days at work which involved lots of what I’ve already listed above. Guilt ensued, along with a slew of existential questions as I just couldn’t bring myself to do any of the things which in my mind so far were the only outlets for creativity. So I began delving into what creativity actually means. Lo and behold, I managed to surprise myself and at the same time give me peace of mind – I’m not stuck in a rut, it’s just a different way of being creative.

Of Reasons

Tags

13 Reasons Why, bullying, depression, emotional education, empathy, hate speech, hurtful, kindness, pain, reaching out, repeating mistakes, societal expectations

You don’t know; not really. It’s easier like that. I know it is, because I’m sure I’m guilty of doing the same with some of those around me.

People imagine that when someone reaches their boiling point, when they lash out and just reach a moment when patience is in immeasurably low quantity, some emotionally cataclysmic event is to blame. So it’s easier not to know about others’ problems. Why get dragged into some messy drama, right?

Let me set the record straight here. Maybe you don’t want to see it, or maybe you just never got to understand this. Or maybe yet, nobody ever taught you, so now it comes as a shock to hear it. But listen up, it’s the truth I’m preaching here – it’s all the little things adding up day by day that make someone break. Those times when you flaked last minute. Those times when you just didn’t feel like keeping your word. Those moments when you were gratuitously mean and hurtful. Words, actions, or lack thereof, all have consequences of their own that you might not be able to anticipate, but would be damned nice to at least consider.

I binge watched 13 Reasons Why on Saturday. You may think my tirade streams from watching the show and getting caught up in its deeply disturbing story line. In part; but it was more of a catalyst than the main reason. Just look at the world around and all the senseless cruelty we treat one another with on a daily basis. We seem to heave learnt nothing from history and our past mistakes as a society or simply as human kind. We’re repeating them today at dizzying speed and with irrational conviction in the irrational. Just look around: the rise to power of extremists (wouldn’t you believe it that Turkey just democratically voted away the very democracy that allowed them to make that choice? Mind blowing, I know!), the reduction of women’s rights in countries that applaud themselves for being democratic through and through and for supporting women (but I guess that’s how it starts – men with law-making power who believe they know what’s best for women), the torture and killing of LGBT individuals in Chechnya, the murder of civilians – in large part children – in war torn countries like Syria.

These are the extreme events, the large scale ones. But they start in the small, don’t they? The fake news in the media, the rumours and the gossip in the schools; the racist, homophobic views you can read in the comments section of any news article, blog post or Instagram photo. Accepting hate speech and mindless, aggressive reactions under the guise of a statement like “this is my opinion, so as long as there’s freedom of speech I’m going to voice it” is nothing short of insanity.

If someone believes the Earth is flat, that doesn’t make it true. When a public figure says things like: “He was presenting alternative facts” and they’re not penalised for that sort of bullshit, we’re teaching our kids – and not only – that lies are relative and they can get away with lying by simply stating they were giving alternative facts. We’re telling them that they can be absolved of the consequences of their words and actions, so long as they’re in line with what they believe. Just remember the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Watching 13 Reasons Why was hard. Let me rephrase that – watching each episode was painful, the gut wrenching kind of painful. I had a lump in my throat the entire time; I cried and not just once. How could you not, when the story moves back and forth between a bleak present where the main character is no longer alive, victim to her own depression, that could or could not have been treated, as well as to the cruelty of the ones around her, and flashbacks to when happiness was almost within her reach, but not quite? That almost, but not quite was the point from where tears gushed out inevitably.

We’re cruel. As a society, as individuals. Whether by choice or without even realising it until the damage is done and irreversible, we’re cruel beings, with the same potentiality to commit harmful and hurtful acts as the one to practice kindness and understanding for what the other might be going through.

Beyond that, one aspect should be acknowledged and fully understood: the potentiality may be there for either direction, but which direction one chooses is mostly influenced by what one sees around, what one grows up in. It’s the kind of societal expectations we are shaped by that matters for how most of us will act and react.

Efficiency and productivity are sought and taught, as if they will ever give anyone a sense of purpose or fulfilment, as if they will save us from mental and emotional distress. It’s kindness we should be teaching, it’s empathy we should be educating children in – how to recognise it and how to develop it within themselves and others. This is the only way we’ll be able to save ourselves from darkness and nothingness.

So maybe you don’t know; not really, because it’s easier. But you should start. Right now.

Of Civil Resistance

Tags

#resist, #unitisalvamtot, civil resistance, fairness, involved youth, principles, protests, romania, we can change the world

For almost 7 years now, I’ve been able to keep this space a purely personal one. Politics have not been a topic of choice and I’ve kept myself at a safe distance from what I  always considered to be a moral grey area (to say the least), something I didn’t wish to be part of or associated with.

That was my greatest mistake, believing what the politicians decide and enact is something separate from my day to day existence. It’s not. It is not!

We’ve been called lazy. It’s been decreed that we do not contribute with anything to society. We’ve been called stupid, misinformed, easily manipulated, paid off by Soros (the big bad wolf for anything they cannot offer rational counterarguments for), we’ve been pointed out as traitors and instigators, wanting to split the country down the middle and to create political and economic instability.

Is that really why we’re out in the streets, night after night, straight after our working hours and then in the morning back to work, paying our dues to the state and expecting to receive at least respect from the people elected to represent us? Is it really? Short answer is ‘no’. The long answer is ‘hell, no!’.

Most people out there in the streets are part of my generation, people my age or younger. We’ve been underrated, seen  as passive and uninvolved, these self-absorbed millennials with shot attention spans. I despise these evaluations, because they couldn’t be farther from the truth. What drives us is a moral compass that’s started to point the true north for an entire country.

For all those who still don’t understand why we’re out there in the cold and the rain, marching night after night, for those who still think we’re against democracy by protesting against an unfair governmental emergency decree and so many other acts of abuse: we march FOR democracy, not against it – we understand the left won the elections, it’s not something we’re denying, but that does not give them the righ or legitimacy to legalise acts of abuse and straigh out theft; we march for fairness and morality, not against the government or the leftist party (although, in our current rage against corruption, it might feel like PSD is our enemy); we march for a better future for ourselves and the ones who will come after us, not just for the spare change they’ve been throwing in our direction.

We march because we yearn for a purpose that goes beyond the power plays we’re witnessing. We march for principles.