Category: Life

  • Conundrums of Care

    Conundrums of Care

    Life creeps up on us. Only teens have yet to recognise this fact because the rest of us that have, are usually distracted by the efforts to hold on to that youth that becomes so elusive the moment we exit that phase of life. Despite the fact that many don’t ever mature beyond that state, being emotionally immature does not in any way stem the tide of entropy that beckons old age.

    Coupled with age is responsibility. Sometimes it is thrust upon us, while other times it is willingly courted. Again, our obliviousness to either process does not in any way prevent the process from being established firmly in our lives. All the obliviousness does is distract us from fulfilling our responsibilities, or at the least, fulfilling those responsibilities with due consideration. As we grow, we acquire new things. With each new thing comes the requirement to maintain or improve.

    I recall moving into my first place after leaving the family home, and I was fixated on having a sparse setting. In my mind, all I envisioned was a space that had wooden floors, a mini high quality sound system in one end of the room, big airy windows letting the sun pour in as the only source of warmth, both temperature and tone, with crisp white walls and a low futon bed to sleep on. That was it. I didn’t have a need for a TV, fancy furnishings, or anything else to express who I was, or what space I wanted to occupy in this world. To me, that defined me sufficiently.

    Then I got married, and the need to make the home more comfortable for more than just me meant additional furnishings, more elaborate items, and colour coordinating embellishments. Even with that change, by most standards, we kept it minimalist, and it worked for us. With marriage comes extended families, and so the furnishings needed to be updated to allow for guests, and to create a welcoming atmosphere in the home. Suddenly, through the gradual evolution of this growth cycle, I went from my sparse setting to what was by comparison, a lot of clutter. Each piece of the clutter carried its own demands for maintenance as it fulfilled its own purpose for being there. Because it had purpose, the maintenance became a responsibility, because in the absence of such maintenance, it became an eyesore, or worse, it detracted from the welcoming atmosphere with which we wanted to greet our guests. That was the state of my life many decades ago.

    Jump ahead a few decades later, a few relationships later, kids of my own, and a growing extended family, and all that was needed then is multiplied tenfold now. With all that maintenance, responsibility, and clutter that accumulated, I found myself needing outlets for creative expression so that my space was not only about welcoming others, but so that it also offered a welcoming repose for me. My hobbies in DIY and other similar exploits welcomed its own clutter, and now I find myself having to set aside time to clear the clutter, create order, and make space for thinking so that I don’t feel overwhelmed when I consider doing anything as part of that creative expression that is needed.

    And then the pause. Sometimes erroneously referred to as a mid-life crisis, even though it doesn’t always hit you at the requisite age of a mid-life crisis. The pause that is needed to reflect on why all of this is needed, or wanted. The pause that is needed to determine what caused me to veer so far off from that original goal of keeping it simple, minimalist, and clinically practical with an abundance of space and a very small dose of maintenance and responsibility. It didn’t take long before the realisation of those self-sustaining cycles dawned on me. I moved from one reality to the next, to the next, until eventually, responding to new realities with the principles and convictions that I maintained dictated that with each opportunity to contribute towards others, I found myself acquiring stuff, trinkets, comforts, and more, all with the objective of striking a balance between purpose, practicality, indulgence, and expression.

    I know I am not unique in this way. I see it with everyone else around me as well. However, most are so caught up in that self-sustaining cycle that they forget what their point of departure was, and what semi-conscious choices they made along the way to arrive at the point they’re at. By losing sight of it all, it’s easy to slide into a state of simply improving what you have under the guise of wanting to maintain or enhance your quality of life. However, what defines that quality of life often escapes us as we respond to triggers that have grown to define our sense of accomplishment, or more accurately, our self worth. How we are perceived, and how well we navigate the self-sustaining cycle becomes our measure of success, and that is how we lose sight of the ambitions and goals of our youth.

    The pause that enables that realisation is the same pause that either welcomes old age, or prompts us to reconnect with our youthful passions. Most embrace old age, again through a semi-conscious decision that hides the realities that go with such a choice. Those realities include giving up control, giving up independence, and often most importantly, giving up a passion for life. There is a distinct difference between growing old gracefully, and aging. Most of us age, as we are expected to do so by society. We actively plan to have no purpose by seeing retirement as a final achievement that defines our fulfilment of our promises to those around us. That’s when the entitlement sets in, and the passion and purpose fades.

    But none of this was the original intent of this post. Instead, what triggered this post was a discussion with a mutually afflicted individual grappling with the conundrum of caring for a parent that was caught between desiring independence, recognising their dependence, and resisting the reality of both. In contemplating how our parents arrived at this point in life, I pondered over the above cycles and phases of life that we go through as we find our lives taking a shape of their own, and obligation or commitment, or perhaps even neediness guides us to become so entrenched in the cycle, that eventually the cycle defines our purpose in life, rather than being an enabler for a greater purpose.

    When that happens, the cycle eventually discards us the moment we choose to exit from it. That is when we grow into a state of dependence while not wanting to be a burden. Not because we are a burden, but because we still desire to be at the helm of the cycle, rather than a recipient of it. But even that doesn’t adequately define the troubled state that we find ourselves in at that point in life.

    I always picture life as a baton that we carry until we have to pass it on. Each time we pass it on, we are presented with a new baton that we carry for the next part of the journey. As long as we perceive those points of exchange positively, like moving from being an unemployed youth to an employed adult, to a married adult, to a professional married adult, and so on, we embrace each exchange of the baton because we believe that it defines progress and success. What we fail to notice is that each time we do this, the focus is on how we are perceived relative to the definitions of success to which we collectively subscribe. That not only defines our perceptions of how others see us, it also defines our perceptions of ourselves. Hence the scourge of depression these days. Ingratitude is the only natural outcome of such an unhealthy perspective.

    What that means when we reach old age is that the definitions of true success would have eluded us for so long, that when we are faced with the opportunity of achieving the greater goals in life, we’ll find ourselves receding in the belief that our ability to contribute in kind and no longer in cash means that we are no longer of value to those around us. This is when we find ourselves wanting to be a part of the lives of our offspring or our extended families, but restraining ourselves from such participation because we don’t want to impose in what should be their personal space. Not wanting to impose leaves us feeling like a burden, even though such imposition may be desired by those around us. It gets even more complicated when we realise that those two extremes are the only points of reference we have any longer. That is, to be included, or to remain excluded for what we perceive to be the benefit of others. Neither is healthy.

    Our consideration should never be about whether or not we should impose or be imposed upon. It should be about value. The value we contribute with our presence, and the value we get from the presence of others. That value must never be measured monetary or materialistic goals. Instead, it is the value of wisdom and compassion that we impart in those relationships that become invaluable in guiding the next generations through the self-sustaining cycle that will drown them if they don’t have a model of wholesomeness towards which to aspire.

    And that, in essence, is the crux of our existence. When we become so fixated on material contributions to the comforts and well-being of those around us, we lose sight of the fact that our sincere guidance and good counsel is infinitely more important to inspire others to rise above the drudgery of a materialistic and consumerist way of life. Giving meaning to the self-sustaining cycle in a way that does not feed its materialistic definitions of success is the greatest gift we could ever impart to anyone, be they family or strangers. We deny others the value of such wisdom when we retract from not wanting to be a burden, or we impose from wanting to be significant, because both motivations are centred in the misconception of self-preservation rather than wholesome contribution.

    The ugly truth is that we only adopt such a view of our inclusion in the lives of those we assume we are burdening when we begin to believe that we are burdensome. We become burdensome when we stop serving a purpose greater than the fulfilment of our own needs, and instead, seek to have our needs fulfilled by others. This conundrum becomes ever more complex when we contemplate the egos that are at play, both from the aged that wish not to be a burden, and from the young ones that consider them a burden when the expression of gratitude is not forthcoming because the need to feel fulfilled in taking care of the elders in our families feeds our own need for purpose and validation in our lives.

    [This has been a very difficult and complex thought process to articulate. Perhaps that is why it has silenced my writing for so long. The bleeding of thoughts at the keyboard has been plagued by blood clots of distraction in recent months. I need to exit the toxic cycle that I find myself in. Convictions to fulfill responsibilities and rights can sometimes deny you the presence of mind to fulfill the greater purpose that contributes more value than the carrying of burdensome responsibilities ever could. And so the rabbit hole of yet another thought process beckons.]

  • The Iceberg Effect (Take II)

    My somewhat poor attempt at describing the iceberg effect in my previous post compelled me to take a second stab at it. I think I over complicated it previously, so here’s a (hopefully) shorter but clearer explanation of what I think is an important concept to grasp.

    If we view the progression of our efforts towards what is perceived as a successful state, and we compare that progression to the metaphor of an iceberg, then we need to turn that berg on its head. All the memes and the common wisdom suggests that our problems, struggles, failures, and so much more lie beneath the water line, while that which is above the water line is simply the successful outcome that is visible to others. I have two problems with this approach.

    Firstly, it assumes that we experienced our problems and failures and everything else in private, and not in front of others. We know that this is totally untrue because it is in fact our spectacular failures in a public setting that discourages so many to avoid trying again. They’re the ones that are more focused on being defined by the validation they received from others rather than defining themselves according to how well they know themselves. Unfortunately, most of us don’t know ourselves well enough to be able to accurately define ourselves. Hence our inclination to take our cues from society. Perverse logic indeed.

    Secondly, the above approach also assumes that our struggles remain below the surface, while we celebrate our success in plain view of everyone else. Again, this mostly refers to those that still harbour a desire to be celebrated for their struggles so that the magnanimity of their success can been appreciated that much more.

    I think the truth is closer to the fact that the iceberg in its entirety is our journey towards success. The part that rises to the surface first is the steps that set us out on that journey. As we chip away at that surface, or what is visible, we remove chunks of uncertainty and doubt, and allow space for what’s next in that journey to rise to the surface. As we chisel away at these steps towards success, the success that rested at the base of that iceberg, and not the tip, slowly surfaces until eventually it is in full view. When we grow complacent, it melts away and is quickly replaced by more ice that once again suppresses the success, until it sinks to the bottom of the water line, and all we have on the surface is again the taunts of challenges and failures.

    Most people don’t notice us when we chip away at what is holding us back. They only notice us when we’re in either extreme. Failure, or success. Failure, because they don’t want to be like us, and success, because they want to be like us. Everything in between is largely a private experience that we dress up in different ways for the world to see, while a few, or at least one or two significant others are allowed close enough to witness or experience that journey with us.

    The moment we focus on dressing up our failures or challenges to make it less humiliating in the presence of others, we focus on their perceptions and validations, rather than the purpose that drive us to strive for that success in the first place. Keep a firm grasp on that purpose, and the ice will never be slippery enough to dethrone you.

  • The Iceberg Effect

    Resilience is obstinacy in the face of adversity. It relates to our ability to resist being overwhelmed even when we face the storm alone. Facing storms alone is so much more fun anyway. It tests our limits of perseverance in ways that reveal our true strength, or at least it hints at what we are truly capable of. That wouldn’t be possible if we always had someone by our side to face the storms, because then, we’ll grow to learn how much we can bear if only we have someone to bear it with.

    We go through life chipping away at icebergs but assume that we’re carving snowmen instead. Each effort is intended to yield a specific and immediate result. Those of us that have progressed beyond our formative years realise that reality has struck no such bargain with us, so we strive a little more after each setback, knowing that success often hides behind a few setbacks, or more accurately, failures. So we give it a try, and another, and another, until eventually we give up in the belief that our energies will be better expended elsewhere.

    Giving up though, is rarely that simple. If the goal we courted was important to us in ways that would define our happiness, giving up becomes a bitter pill to swallow. But in the face of inevitable failure, we assume that it’s the only option to save our dignity. That’s when we convince ourselves that we’re building snowmen, rather than chipping away at icebergs.

    The iceberg analogy has been used to describe many positive and negative aspects about life. Quite popular in the meme culture of late is the use of the iceberg to demonstrate the pinnacle of success rising above the water, while a huge amount of effort, perseverance, and some failure rests beneath the surface that no one seems to recognise. It is not an untrue analogy either, but there is a different perspective that I believe is equally important, if not more so.

    Think of the iceberg as a problem you’re facing, but not just above or below the surface. Instead, the iceberg in its entirety represents the challenges we face in life. Now consider what happens to the bottom of the iceberg as we chip away at what we can see on the surface. Each time we shave away the top, the bottom rises a little more making it seem as if the top is never-ending. So we keep ridding ourselves of the surface layer hoping that nothing more will rise in its place, only to be presented with more each time, until eventually we grow despondent and stop chipping away.

    What we fail to recognise in that process of chipping away is that each time the top was removed, even if only a little, it made way for the underlying issues to surface, and each time the underlying issues surfaced, it reduced the weight of what was beneath the surface, out of sight, until eventually so little (if any) remained, that it made the iceberg irrelevant. What once was an iceberg suddenly becomes an ice cube.

    Being able to chip away at that iceberg would also be so much easier if we just moved it to warmer oceans instead of remaining anchored in the icy waters that sustained its creation to begin with. And that, simplistically, is how life presents its challenges to us.

    The ocean is the environment we find ourselves in, each environment having its own share of toxicity or benefit depending on what we need to take from it. Remain in the surrounds that gave rise to our problems, and our problems will continue to grow larger than we ever will be, constantly overwhelming us and convincing us that trying to prevail is futile. Change environments and suddenly our perspectives are refreshed and solutions become easier. It reminds me of the prophetic analogy of the blacksmith and the perfume merchant. Spending your day with the blacksmith will never leave you perfumed.

    Accepting our state may result in us finding comfort in the cold desolation of the confined spaces of the top of the iceberg. For some, a confined space is much more comforting  than the horror of having to venture beyond their comfort zone. In their case, icebergs are great, and so is being rooted to the spot. Unfortunately they hold others back because of the company they need on that iceberg. They become masters at making snowmen, as long as that snowman is on their iceberg.

    I often wonder how many times did I stop chipping away at some of the icebergs in my life just as the final layers may have been surfacing before I gave up and moved on to new icebergs? It’s a question that could easily test our sanity, because we rarely find out in this lifetime when giving up was the wrong thing to do. The only comfort that I find in such deliberations is in knowing that my choices to leave, to abandon, or to simply stop caring about some icebergs was a conscious choice relative to what I was willing to tolerate at that point in my life. Where I realised later that I may have given up too soon, I accepted that I would have done no differently no matter how many times I could relive that moment, because the sum total of my life’s experiences, my emotional maturity, and my awareness of what was taking place would always be the same. The only thing I could do was recognise what it was that detracted from my decision being more informed, and be sure not to overlook that aspect again in future. I think that’s how icebergs melt without us having to chip as much.

    Remaining in toxic settings, or relationships, while chipping away is often an unnecessary test of our resilience. What doesn’t kill us does not make us stronger, it only makes us more brittle. Eventually, we’ll discard opportunities that promise beauty while holding on to the remnants of what may have been simply because we focused on the iceberg, instead of the ocean.

    [This is an incomplete thought process that has plagued my mind for weeks now. Hopefully this partial expression will lead to the clarity that escapes me at this time.]

  • Self-serving Subservience 

    There’s a natural assumption that suggests that those that serve others are selfless in their intentions. It’s not an unfair assumption either, because the visible actions of people lead us to judge the way we wish we would be judged under similar circumstances. It’s that age old wisdom of seeing our faults in others. But age old wisdom is not always true. Sometimes, pervasive ignorance can easily be mistaken for collective wisdom.

    Selfless, as a concept, I find to be highly problematic. The hidden motivations of what we want to feel or gain hardly ever makes a selfless endeavour a truly selfless one. However, in the absence of a more noble approach to life, I guess we should be grateful for the fact that the selfish needs we have to feel good, benevolent, or appreciated, results in good for others. Personally, that is as close to selfless as I am willing to assume anyone is capable of being.

    But there is a more sinister seeming selflessness that contaminates rather than enriches the lives of others, including the life of the one that is subservient. To live a life focused on serving others is only meritorious if that is grounded in a conviction of upliftment. It is not so commendable when we find that it is the result of a deep self-loathing. So deep is such self-rejection that we define our worth by the acceptance of our contribution to others. Those that find themselves lacking in their personal space find it easier to sacrifice their own needs in favour of acceptance or validation by those around them.

    I’ve had many relationships, or more accurately, feigned friendships dissolve into nothing the moment my demands of them to be true to their convictions surpassed their belief in themselves. Holding on to the demons of the past that so effectively defined their space in society created a comfort zone that almost cast their self-image in stone. Shattering that image threatened to shatter their being, and thus it became easier for them to surrender the friendship, rather than to surrender the weakness they had no reason to believe they were capable of overcoming.

    Success, within this context, can be paralytic. It’s like the intense fear we feel when our lives are threatened, and we find ourselves caught between helplessness and wanting to flee, but knowing that neither state is helpful, so we remain paralysed with fear wishing away the circumstance until it eventually passes. When it finally does pass, we convince ourselves that prayers made it so, because that’s the only remnant of dignity we have to hold on to in the face of our impotence in that moment. There are many whose perpetual state is reflected in this way.

    Pandering to authority because that is where we believe our next paycheck comes from erodes our dignity more than anything else. Collective subservience like this is commonplace. People that pretend that it’s perfectly acceptable to have one moral code in their personal space and different moral code in their public space will rarely amount to anything more than a placeholder in people’s lives. Pawns are the sacrificial lambs needed to achieve someone else’s goals. Strangely though, pawns used in such a fashion feel proud to have been used in a such a way, while the reality of being used completely escapes them.

    Not every servant is dedicating their life to servitude. Many of them simply do not have the courage to believe that they have more value to offer this world than to simply serve the whims and dictates of others. Demand that they own their lives and you’ll see a viciousness in them that you never thought possible from a placid servant. Fear yields the fiercest cowards in all of us. We’re selective about when we expose that rage, because it only ever makes sense to expose it to those that we despise or consider to be equal to or lower than ourselves, but rarely (if ever) will we expose such rage to the ones we worship for vaildation or acceptance.

    Self-serving subservience is destructive to the human spirit because it creates comfort for the cowards when such subservience is celebrated as humility or servitude to others. Worse still, it becomes ever more toxic when classes of superiority are defined through subscription to these ranks, resulting in society believing the victim to be oppressed, and the one with conviction to be the oppressor.

    Reality is a twisted view of a wholesome life. Somewhere in there lies the secret to sanity.

  • When Understanding Goes Too Far

    I sometimes watch the wayward behaviour of some while observing the contempt of others that are watching it play out, and wonder who between the two are less aware of their actions or motivations to behave that way. The ones among us that are of a softer nature will look on and seek to understand why someone may be acting out, afraid that judging them for acting out may be too harsh. The world is harsh enough as it is, and only getting harsher each day, so I guess there is merit in such an approach.

    At times, when we’ve had enough to deal with in our own lives, we look on with intolerance, demanding that the wayward behaviour be checked, because if no one is willing to accept such behaviour from us, why should we accept it from others? Right? But demanding change without offering a solution helps no one. It only exacerbates the already toxic state of the relationship or the environment around us. It provokes the wayward ones to escalate their protest against whatever it is that they refuse to accept, and it frustrates those that seek to understand.

    Moderation in all things is always called for. Demand without understanding, and you lose credibility when the solution becomes obvious later on. Understand without demanding, and you lose credibility when the demands foster the change that was needed to break the cycle. Do either without the other, and you resign yourself to an end of insignificance. Unfortunately, doing both requires purposeful conviction. Not blind conviction. Not the kind of conviction that is driven by a self-belief of what we stand for but for which we are rarely capable of defending when challenged. That belief that we insist on being respected despite not knowing why, but only knowing that through receiving such respect for our beliefs, we feel significant and less threatened.

    Purposeful conviction. You’d think it was easy given that it’s a simple matter of cause and effect, but of a different kind. You recognise the cause that you wish to champion, and you put your efforts into effecting the change needed to support that cause. Problem is, most don’t recognise the cause, they only recognise the affiliation. The need to be associated with something meaningful or relevant, rather than establishing meaning and relevance through their own actions and contributions.

    It’s all well and good to understand. But the failing of many is that we stop at understanding. We spend much time and energy in achieving that state, but then avoid taking steps to remedy the causes that we now understand leads to that unacceptable behaviour. Being perceived as understanding in nature makes us popular with those that don’t want to change, those that prefer acting out, being rebellious, and refusing to accept accountability for their state because they find it much more convenient and less taxing to blame others, or circumstances.

    The ones that act out, and are left to act out, become masters at presenting their tantrums as legitimate gripes or demands. They often end up being the bullies, the type A personalities, and the abusers. They become the oppressors that they grew up whining about. And those that sought only to understand but chose not to curtail such behaviour, or offer healthier forms of expression, they feed that cycle. They enable such outcomes, and they become the liberals. The ones that stand for nothing, understand everything, and fall for every whimper regardless of how incredulous the whimper is.

    Understanding is only ever the first step, and never the last. There is no point in seeking to understand if you intend to do nothing more than reflect on that knowledge that you have gained. Understanding must inform our decisions to act. Not acting is a decision in itself, but it’s usually the easy way out. It’s often under the pretense that we don’t want to get involved because we have enough problems of our own, or it’s none of our business. And that’s how the cycles of violence, intolerance, and abuse in society spiral out of control. It’s because those that understand do nothing, while those that do not understand act without guidance.

    Prompting someone towards having the courage to take control of their lives, regardless of what came before, is more selfless than it is selfish. Too often we’re distracted by the assumption that by demanding more, we’re behaving selfishly because we don’t understand how difficult it is for that person to be who they are if only we knew what they’ve been through. That is a horrid distortion of the truth. The truth is closer to the fact that leaving them to succumb to their past is in fact selfish, because prompting them to rise above it is often met with resistance and contempt, both of which erode your sense of significance or likeability in that relationship. So when you withhold advice or decide not to take action because you don’t want to be ‘the bad one’, you’re behaving selfishly. Standing up and being counted in a time when guidance and good advice is needed, not necessarily wanted, takes more courage and is much more selfless than shutting up and minding your own business.

    We have far too many that shut up and mind their own business, except when they enjoy the anonymity of social media and similar platforms, because once again, there is limited (if any) risk of them becoming unpopular in the relationships that they covet. I suspect that the point of this post has been made somewhere between all the venting, but at the risk of being redundant. It’s simply this. Seeking to understand is a noble first step. But it’s only a first step. Don’t stop there. Take the knowledge that you gained through that process and apply it with conviction in a meaningful way. Don’t be a passive observer of life, or the lives of others. Have the courage to change it for the better.

  • Inherited Complacency

    As parents, we always want what is best for our children, don’t we? The well-meaning and responsible ones, that is. The trials of our lives teach us lessons that we often wouldn’t wish on our enemies, and so we do our best to guide our children in a way that protects them from having to learn the same lessons themselves. Given how scarce mindfulness is, it is almost inevitable that such an endeavour will prompt a level of over-protection that ends up sheltering more than it protects them from those unpleasant experiences that caused us to snarl at the world.

    We always start out with good intent, but because we spend so much time avoiding the perceived cruelty of our childhood or even our young adult lives…hold on…it doesn’t stop there, does it? I mean, the vast majority among us continue protecting ourselves from an ill conceived reality up to our last breaths. We immerse ourselves into a reality largely concocted from a cocktail of our own ill-informed perceptions, and then vow never to test that perception of reality from fear of having gotten it wrong twice over. So it is probably more accurate to say that we shield our children from the fears and trauma that we spend our lives avoiding.

    In so doing, we make assumptions about our children. We assume their level of resilience, their natural inclinations towards how they perceive the world, and so much more including what their passions are. At no point do we stop to consider that perhaps our tainted view of life has robbed us of an innocence that they still have, and rather than guiding them in the best application of that innocence, we force them to subdue it. You know, those moments when we believe that their sincerity is in fact naivety, so we preempt a negative outcome and send them off with a defensive disposition rather than advising them on how to effectively deal with betrayal of trust, or disappointment should it occur. The list of over-compensation on our part is endless.

    And in this way, we raise fearful kids that appear healthy relative to our norms, but struggle to find their niche in this world, except through their unique permutation of the escapism with which we raised them. Apart from the inherent sadness of such an outcome, there is something that really gnaws at my peace when I consider the damage it does. It is the realisation that there are millions of oblivious innocents who don’t even know what they’re passionate about in life. They grew up so focused on the passions of their parents, that they readily adopted it as their own. They followed such adoption with a deliberate passion aimed at mastering what they do while rarely realising that such effort was focused on impressing their accomplishments to their parents, and not to passionately raise the bar in the discipline or skill for which they expended the best years of their lives.

    Such a pursuit leaves us unfulfilled in such deep recesses of our souls, that we spend the latter years of our lives seeking it out, while never really knowing what it is that we seek. Moments of brutally honest reflection will prompt us to consider the reality that we are not the same as the people that shaped our views of the world. Yet the moment we protect our children from a threat that existed once a long time ago in our lives, we impose on them the bitterness of our perceptions of reality, while forgetting that such imposition makes us no better than those that raised us with bitter recollections as well.

    And so the cycle feeds itself until at some point we stop and choose to question before we act. Apply our minds before we decide. Live with conscious action and not subconscious reaction. When that happens, we begin to afford ourselves a view of the world that is less tainted than the one we inherited. We see opportunities where threats once prevailed, and we see growth where subjugation appeared to be the only safe option.

    The harsh reality is this. If we fail to live curiously, our children will either be exactly like us, or would not want to be anything like us. Parents often have a bad habit of expecting their children to live the lives that they (their parents) failed to live under the guise that such a failure was a result of the parent’s sacrifices to give their children a better life. It discards all the beauty and appreciation that results from the lessons learnt and instead focuses on the emotional distress that lingered when they saw themselves as victims rather than students of the world.

    That’s one very powerful way of projecting your impotence and insecurity on subjects over whom you wield a great deal of emotional guilt. But of course, parents are benevolent by nature, and therefore are only capable of wanting the best for their children, so it can’t be possible that they would do such a dastardly deed like live vicariously through their offspring. Right? For some strange reason we tend to live as if our personal exploits are our personal exploits, and that parenting is something that is a formal endeavour in parallel with such exploits.

    Stated more simply, we reserve a space in our lives for our exclusive indulgence, which is often the space where we express our passion most purely, without allowing our children to be a part of that expression or growth. We deny them the opportunity to witness our growth and in so doing, we shelter them from anything more than a life of compliance and complacency.

    I think the emphasis we place on responsibility in the upbringing of our children is often exaggerated. Responsibility is definitely important, but so is exploration, personal expression, and living romantically. Not the sloppy mushy fairy tale romance that everyone gurgles at, but the romance that sees the world with less judgement and more understanding, Less fear and more embrace. Less safe and more conviction.

    There will always be an easier path for them to take. But that’s not the path of excellence. We can’t lament the stagnation or decline of humanity if we constantly focus on doing what is safe. When being safe becomes the yardstick of success, and we know that not everyone achieves success, it means that anyone that falls short of that yardstick drags us down. It means that we set our targets low, and then celebrate any incremental achievement towards that low target, while never realising that we were capable of so much more.

    If we hope for greatness for our children, we must be willing to accept that they will be able to achieve more in their lives than we did in ours, without seeing such achievement as an indictment against ourselves. It stands to reason that the student will always have the potential to exceed the accomplishments of their teacher. Providing a child with insight and developing their life skills rather than indoctrinating them with habits and rituals allows them to take what you’ve built and improve on it. It allows them to contribute positively towards this world instead of consuming only. It allows them to take us forward instead of maintain the status quo.

    But most important in all of this, as I’ve said before, don’t set them aside in your avenues of expression and passion. Demonstrate your conviction in a way that they can enjoy and observe so that it builds a yearning in them to live with conviction, rather than to be complacent. Any complacency you see in them is a reflection of what they witnessed in you, while the conviction that they demonstrate in their lives is a reflection of the passion that you lived with while they traveled your journey with you.

    I think that’s important. I think it’s important to understand that our children are not there to only live a subset of our lives with us and then move on to create their own version of the same. I think they are supposed to colour every experience of ours as they grow while witnessing our growth. In so doing, they learn through first hand experience that it’s perfectly fine not to have all the answers, to fail, and to stumble along the way. They’ll learn what it’s like to share their lives with those around them, rather than to live their lives expecting from those around them.

    Let them inherit more than just the ability to cope with life or a cruel world. Instead, give them an inheritance of courage and skill to leave this world in a better state than it was before they arrived so that their presence was felt and appreciated, rather than existing and departing almost entirely unnoticed.

  • The one who loves less…

    I once heard that the one who loves less is the one that controls the relationship. It sounds pretty obvious at face value, but it assumes that the expression of love is as obvious as well. It also assumes that the interpretation of control is in fact control and not influence. It assumes a lot. But with most satisfied to think in the shallow end of the emotional pool only, it’s no wonder that such proclamations gain unchallenged veracity.

    Love is never monolithic in its expression. A bunch of flowers for one may be an endearing gesture, while for another it could be superficial or fake. Some prefer to see conviction in a personal gesture or investment of time and effort, while others need the flowers to believe that they were remembered at a time when they weren’t present. Whether one form of expression is better than the other is not the point. The fact that it translates into a gesture that reflects intent, and in turn, is appreciated for what it was intended to convey is significantly more important.

    Intent, therefore, is what counts. Intent, therefore, also demands sincerity. A gesture is only a gesture towards acquiring a specific desired outcome if that gesture proves to be an embrace of another, rather than the acquisition of benefits for personal gain. That seems a bit wordy, so here’s a slightly lighter take on this. If you give with the intention of receiving, you’re giving for your own benefit and not to sincerely express appreciation or endearment of another.

    We all seek to control and/or influence. That is what determines our level of significance with our significant others. Whether such control or influence is driven maliciously or not remains a question of intent, and given the above, it’s near impossible to be absolutely certain about the intent of another. At best, we are able to measure the reciprocation with which our efforts are met. The greater the reciprocation, the more likely we are to believe that there is an equal conviction on their part in responding to our efforts. The less the reciprocation, the more likely we’ll recede from the belief that we’re being taken for granted, or are simply not being appreciated at all.

    The one that controls the relationship is not always the one that loves less. Quite often, conviction in the potential outcome drives some to be controlling when they find that they are unable to subtly influence the behaviour of those they love in the direction that they truly believe will benefit them. Benefit to both the one influencing, and personal benefit to the one being influenced. Perhaps, by the same logic, I could argue that the one who controls less may love less, because in doing so, it could easily reflect a lack of conviction on their part. It could suggest a lack of belief in the innate goodness or the beautiful potential that has yet to be realised from the relationship.

    It’s all about what’s in it for us. If I aim to extract more benefit for myself than I hope to contribute for others, then definitely my efforts at controlling or influencing the outcome will be self-serving. In that case, my love for myself will be greater than my love for any wholesomeness to be achieved with another. However, if my aim is to extract a benefit for the other, without sacrificing myself in the process, then perhaps it could be argued that I am the one that loves more. If I sacrifice myself in the process, it simply means that I see myself as lacking in value to those around me, and therefore need to expend myself in their service if I ever hope to achieve any level of significance in their lives. A truly unhealthy state to be.

  • Finding Balance

    When I was a kid, I remember my only concern when I got sick was how soon could I go out to play again. Recently though, each time I feel a severe illness setting in, my mind wanders towards considerations of this being my final moments. To date, the panic has not yet set in. Inevitability, although I may resist it initially at times, I find myself more inclined to embrace it and consider the options for my response instead.

    Often, I try to trace my steps back to where I lost the balance in my life that led up to this moment of disruption. Illness, for me, has always been a sign that something is out of proportion in my life rather than being the victim of some external force in the universe. Yes, there are times when something deliberate external to my being afflicts me, but at those times I find that if I maintain my focus on balance, the impact with which it affects me is significantly less than most others that are exposed to similar circumstances.

    More than anything else, I’ve found that acceptance of my contribution, or lack thereof, towards a given situation dissipates the unhealthy internal stressors that threaten my health or emotional wellbeing. The unnatural but common response is to defend ourselves against possible guilt in a negative outcome. So when we find ourselves faced with trying circumstances in our lives, we are most often inclined towards asking that repugnant question of ‘Why me?’. I could never figure out the logic that warrants such a question.

    When we ask ‘Why me?’ we automatically imply that we’re underserving of what we’re experiencing, which suggests that we have an assumption of innocence. Worse than this, we also imply that it is perfectly acceptable for it to happen to someone else, because again the assumption is that they must be more deserving of it than we are. It assumes that we’re angelic in our ways, eternally sincere in our commitment to every relationship we participate in, and fully informed of the choices we’ve made, all of which have been made with utmost benevolence and wisdom. Yeah right.

    We’re self-indulgent and selfish by nature. We look to the world and demand that it creates for us what we need, without first considering what we need to contribute to the world so that it has the capacity to offer what we all need. Wow, that’s up in the clouds even by my standard, so let me try to make it more practical than that. Choice is that horrible thing we have when it doesn’t work out in our favour, but it’s something we jealously defend when it does. Right there is the crux of balance.

    Acceptance of the outcomes of the choices that we make, regardless of how good or bad those outcomes are, determines how healthy our response will be to the impact it has on our lives. Balance doesn’t just come from being a good person while not considering where you’re investing all that goodness. Nor does it come from living passively and waiting for others to uplift you. It comes from appreciating what we have, and then consciously utilising those resources and opportunities towards achieving a better state than the one we’re in. Towards achieving a better state than the one we’re in. That is what is important.

    Far too often we focus on utilising what we have to simply protect or defend what we have. Then we bemoan the fact that others keep getting the good breaks in life while we continue to struggle just to keep our heads above water. We embrace fear before we embrace our strength because the repercussions of negativity are always more tangible and memorable than success. When we succeed at something, unless it is of a particularly notable achievement, we assume that it was merely deserved or expected.

    It’s as if we have a desired circle of influence that we define for ourselves. The healthier our self-esteem, the larger that desired circle until our self-esteem outgrows our abilities and that circle then reflects our arrogance instead of our influence. This is similar to what we see with misguided political leaders that destroy countries in their insistence to wield the power that they have been flirting with for so long, while refusing to acknowledge that they lack the competence to do so effectively. The same principles apply in our own lives.

    Theory aside, balance escapes us when we try to escape reality. The fear of accountability drives our behaviour more than we realise. That fear is not always an aversion to accountability. In fact, I’ve often witnessed it being an inclination to assume accountability for the choices of others. This is a double-edged dagger for many reasons the most important of which is that it results from either a self-loathing, or an inflated ego. The self-loathing drives us to assume accountability for the negative outcomes that result from the poor choices of those around us, leaving us to question our significance in their lives because we couldn’t influence them differently. The inflated ego tells us that we are accountable for the success that others enjoy simply because we played some miniscule role in setting them on the path that they eventually pursued.

    Finding balance starts with being self-aware. That self-awareness must be accompanied by a sense of accountability for the current state we find ourselves in relative to the choices we made that caused us to arrive at this point. Once we get that right, our choices become more informed, and more effective because suddenly we’ll be focused on choosing to act in ways that we have good reason to believe will be effective towards achieving a consciously chosen outcome, rather than simply choosing to respond to avoid a negative outcome.

    Our bodies are vessels of expression before anything else. Whether you consider the soul to be independent of the body, or you consider your seat of intelligence to be in the brain, either way, that source of intelligence and intelligent choice directs the body to express in due proportion. When we turn that intelligence into a harsh self-criticism, we effectively instruct our bodies to act against ourselves, which results in ailments that are a result of our own thought processes rather than external interference.

    What we often miss is the fact that when we live under duress of our own minds, we weaken our ability to resist the harmful effects of the environments in which we exist. This completely undermines all our efforts to want to improve the state of our lives, while we sabotage ourselves before even setting out, eventually believing that fate dealt us a bad hand. Fate is what we make of it. If we didn’t have the power to choose, or for rational thought, we could justifiably blame fate for every woe in our lives. However, I believe that coincidence is not a chance occurrence. It is the fortuitous alignment of events that result from the collective choices of us, which presents opportunities that we would otherwise not have access to. How we perceive those opportunities, relative to our belief in our ability to influence its outcomes, determines whether they are wasted experiences, or moments that add value to our lives.