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  • Gratitude is not appreciation

    Gratitude is not appreciation

    Gratitude speaks more to our soul than any gift or trinket, or whispers of endearment.

    Gratitude is impossible without respect,
    and respect is impossible without honesty,
    and honesty is impossible without sincerity,
    and sincerity is impossible without self-respect,
    and self-respect is impossible without conviction,
    and conviction is impossible without self-worth…

    And so it continues until we realise that expecting gratitude or appreciation from someone that lacks any of these fundamental traits in their character is an exercise in futility.

    We cannot give what we don’t have.

    Therefore, if we’re falling short in any of the attributes that lead to gratitude, the most we’ll be capable of is appreciation.

    And appreciation is not the same as gratitude.

    Appreciation is simply the acknowledgment of a blessing or benefit.

    Gratitude is reflected in what you do with that blessing or benefit that you claim to appreciate.

    It’s like appreciating the fact that you have a job, but putting in only as much effort as is needed to meet your boss’s expectations so that you don’t get fired.

    Or appreciating that you have a car, but not maintaining it or using it in a way that reflects gratitude for the value that it creates in your life.

    You can have the world to be grateful for, but no one can insert gratitude into your heart.

    Gratitude is therefore not what we journal about, or what we praise or acknowledge.

    Gratitude is showing up in a way that does justice to the ability we have to show up.

    Gratitude is about not living life in half measures, or compromising what we stand for from fear of exclusion or rejection.

    Gratitude, if nothing else, is at the heart of peace and contentment, because it connects us purposefully with who we are and what we are capable of, regardless of what others see or don’t see in us.

    We can therefore not be grateful of others if we lack gratitude for ourselves.

    It always starts with you.

  • Losing out on life

    How does death change your perspective?

    Death doesn’t change it. Death defines it.

    In the absence of finality, we take things for granted. The moment there is no risk of loss or of an ending, we have no need for urgency or gravity in the present moment. If there is always going to be more, we have no reason to rush to make the most of what we have.

    The only guarantee in life is that it will end. Unfortunately, because we survive more moments than we succumb to, meaning that death only happens once while life happens every day, we take life for granted and assume that death will happen at some point in the future.

    Life should not be about what we wish to accomplish before we die. That’s a transactional, fear-based approach to life that cheats us out of life itself. Instead, it should be celebrated in the moment because of what we are capable of celebrating, and not because we need to celebrate it before it is lost. That’s how moments of joy are created that make life worth living, and death a warm end to a beautiful life.

    Death-bed regrets only take hold if we didn’t live life meaningfully. And we fail to live life meaningfully if we’re fearing what the future holds, or holding on to the pain or memories of the past. Those memories were created by what happened in those moments, not by preoccupying ourselves with what was to come.

    So, if you contemplate death, or you contemplate the impact of the past on who you are now, you’re missing out on life. Because life is what is happening right now. Everything else is either a memory, a dream, or a preemptive nightmare. It’s not life.

  • Who’s responsible for your joy?

    Who’s responsible for your joy?

    Do you enjoy being held responsible for how someone else feels about themselves?

    When they feel good and attribute that to us, we feel good.

    But does it feel good when they blame us for their self-loathing, or their misery?

    People who willingly accept responsibility for how you feel about yourself prevent you from owning your self-worth.

    As long as you have reason to blame someone else about how you feel about yourself, you have no reason to grow beyond that state that you’re in.

    You’ll place your life on hold, and you’ll grow bitter waiting for them to prove to you that you’re worth it, or that your efforts towards them means something to them.

    It’s not wrong to look for that gratitude, or even reciprocation, from those you hold dear or invest your time and effort into uplifting.

    However, when they don’t return the favour, or even acknowledge your contribution and support, how you feel about yourself remains how you feel about yourself!

    It’s when our efforts towards others go unnoticed or unappreciated that our self-worth counts the most.

    Disappointment, or even betrayal, is never good reason for self-deprecation.

    Self-deprecation, or putting yourself down because of how others treat you, reflects your ingratitude for who you are.

    When you do that, you become part of the very way of life that left you feeling like you’re not worth it.

    Worse still, when we lose ourselves to what others think of us, we also lose sight of those who may look up to us, or who have rights over us.

    That’s how self-loathing feeds the very cycle that weighs us down.

    If you still see yourself through everyone else’s eyes, peace will forever be elusive, and life well forever feel burdened.

    How you feel about yourself is your responsibility, no matter who steps in to make you feel better about yourself.

    The question is, is your opinion of yourself more informed than the opinions that others have of you?

    It always starts with you.

  • Expect to expect more

    Expect to expect more

    There’s a fallacy out there that it’s possible to live without expectation.

    Yeah, it’s a fallacy, cos it’s impossible.

    When you try to live without expectation, you’re defending yourself against being hurt.

    When you defend yourself preemptively, it means that you believe that you’re weak enough not to be able to deal with disappointment.

    More than this, it means that you’re judging others because of their human failings, and you’re convinced that you’re incapable of failing others.

    Just because you may not be aware of it doesn’t mean that you haven’t hurt or betrayed someone by not living up to their expectations.

    We all do it.

    When we judge others for being human, we lose the right to ask for understanding or empathy when we fall short because of our humanness.

    Rather than not expecting, we should focus on whether our expectations were based on what we thought we deserved, or what the other person was capable of.

    Before you look at capability from the perspective of what they’re physically capable of, remind yourself that your expectations are based on your emotional needs, not your physical needs.

    So when you consider what someone is emotionally capable of rather than what they are physically capable of, you’ll find understanding about why them letting you down is not because of who you are, it’s because of what they’re struggling with within themselves.

    You can’t wish that away.

    You can either create space for them to grow, or exit their space because what you represent is what they’re grappling with.

    When you believe someone is capable of something but they don’t believe it themselves, change your expectations to hope that they will see what you see, rather than writing them off because they disappointed or betrayed you.

    It always starts with you.

  • The right to demand your rights…

    The right to demand your rights…

    The more we emphasise our rights, the less time we spend understanding our responsibilities.

    The rights that others have over us is the responsibilities that we have towards them, and vice versa.

    The moment we focus on only one side of that equation, we become oppressors.

    If we focus on our rights but neglect our responsibilities, we oppress others.

    When we focus on our responsibilities without calling to account those who do not fulfil our rights, we not only oppress ourselves, but we enable the oppression against us.

    The moment we remain silent to keep the peace, we destroy the peace for the next generation.

    Understanding the boundaries of supporting each other in fulfilling our rights and responsibilities is an important step in ensuring that you don’t lose yourself and your peace to your fight for justice with someone who is not invested in justice.

    How we conduct ourselves will benefit or harm our bodies, which in turn enables oppression by ourselves against ourselves.

    Therefore, the balance to be struck is not only in what we do or what we demand from others, it is most critically in how we establish balance within ourselves.

    Approaching rights and responsibilities from a social justice perspective only, or from a perspective of what you should be able to demand from your partner is not about rights at all.

    It’s about demanding significance when you feel insignificant.

    That’s how our opinion of ourselves results either in our fair and kind treatment of others, or it results in oppression and abuse while we blame them for how we feel about ourselves.

    Focus on what you need to do, and most importantly, on who you want to be.

    As long as that is your focus, establishing healthy boundaries will come naturally because you’ll be mindful about what is within your control or influence to change, versus what is beyond your ability to change.

    It always starts with you.

  • Telling yourself sweet little lies?

    Telling yourself sweet little lies?

    You lie to yourself most when you tell someone, “You make me feel…”

    No one can make you feel anything without your permission.

    You give your permission when you’re more focused on what you need from them to feel whole, rather than what you value about yourself.

    The moment you hand over the custody of your emotions to another, you deny yourself the opportunity to own your life.

    When you don’t own your life, you hold others responsible for the state in which you find yourself, which becomes your distraction from doing something to improve your own state.

    When we demand such priority from others, we need to be absolutely certain that we’re offering them as much priority in return, but not the way that we want to prioritise them, but the way that they need it.

    If we need them to create space for us the way we need, we must be willing to do the same in return.

    Unfortunately, when you don’t own your life, you only focus on what you need from others, and rarely is there any focus on what others need from you.

    That’s how the score-keeping starts, or the tit-for-tat, or the guilt tripping when you don’t get what you need or want.

    Self-worth is literally the worth that we place on ourselves, and has nothing to do with the value that others see in us.

    The more you need others to make you feel good about yourself, the more likely you are to drive them away.

    The ones who are drawn to you because you need them to feel good are lacking in self-worth themselves, creating a co-dependence that suppresses your growth potential, rather than enhancing it.

    That’s how ‘toxic’ relationships are formed.

    When one person grows from feeling supported and the other doesn’t, it creates reason for the one who stagnated to feel as if they’re being betrayed because their needs are no longer such a priority for their partner.

    And so the vicious cycle spirals out of control.

    Own Your Life.

    It always starts with you.

  • Conveniently judgemental

    Conveniently judgemental

    Judgement is only ever supposed to be the first step in correcting what’s wrong.

    Sadly, it’s most often the only step that we take when faced with unbecoming behaviour from others.

    Worse still, judgement is easy to dish out about issues and incidents that are none of our business because having an opinion on something topical is the easiest way to feel relevant.

    Judgement is easy.

    All it requires is the ability to compare what we see to a rule or a law that we believe is revered by others.

    Such comparison requires zero understanding behind the behaviour, nor does it demand any action on our part to improve the situation.

    All it requires is an opinion without empathy or compassion.

    When passing judgement establishes our relevance in social circles, we grow emboldened by the attention we receive from those who agree with us, eventually assuming ourselves to be a moral authority that can speak on behalf of the Almighty.

    That’s when we find justification to pass judgement about the faith and beliefs of others, and we become argumentative about religion and philosophy, and the personal matters of those we have no intention of assisting.

    Passing judgement without understanding or accountability for the impact of such judgement is an indulgence of the ego and serves no good whatsoever.

    Unless you are duly appointed to judge between two parties, restrain yourself from having an opinion on every person or issue that crosses your timeline.

    Peace is found in leaving alone that which does not concern us.

    And harm is caused by involving ourselves insincerely in that which does not concern us.

    Check yourself before you feel a need to share your opinion on someone else’s life.

    Or else you may be tested with that which you judge others about.

  • Are you abused, or an abuser?

    Are you abused, or an abuser?

    While abuse is never to be taken lightly, if we’re not careful, we can easily become a tool of the abuser.

    A betrayal of trust, especially if repeated often, changes the lenses through which we view the behaviour of others.

    If we’re not careful, the bitterness of such betrayal wears down our tolerance or patience to deal with any disagreement or challenge resulting in an intensified response to innocent mistakes.

    It’s like the irritability that sets in when we experience chronic or sustained pain or discomfort.

    Eventually, we snap at anyone asking us questions about petty issues, or demanding responses to things we have no interest in.

    All we want at that point is relief from our discomfort or pain, leaving us with little tolerance to deal with anything else.

    When that source of pain is because of how we’re treated by someone we love, or someone that we have rights over, we feel abused each time we fulfil their rights while they dismiss ours.

    That’s when, despite having good reason to feel that way, we falsely accuse them of being deliberately abusive, while they were simply behaving selfishly for reasons that have nothing to do with us.

    The moment you have to demand your rights to be fulfilled in a relationship, understand that you are in the wrong relationship.

    And if it’s with blood ties, accept that you cannot change them, but don’t let it taint how you live up to your values and principles.

    When you return the favour by abusing the rights of others because your rights have been abused, you lose yourself to the very bitterness that drove them to deny you the rights that you have over them.

    That’s how you lose yourself, and that’s how you cause pain for others, because of the pain you receive from another.

    Reclaim your dignity.

    It always starts with you.