Tag: appreciation

  • 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.

  • A Brain Dump

    Brain dumps are therapeutic, if you do it right. It allows a release, an unstructured release of the clouds that trail you through the day. Life demands structure, and structure demands discipline. Both have their place, but did you notice how beautifully random the structure of nature appears? It has probably the most complex system of checks and balances we’ll ever encounter, yet it thrives if appreciated, especially where such appreciation simply demands that it be left to find its own way.

    People can’t function like that. If left to find our own way, most are inclined to believe that no one cares. Hardly anyone recognises the freedom in that. I find myself caught in a health cycle that is unfamiliar to me. Having had an acute focus for many years now on the physiological impact that our emotions and thought patterns have on us, I lost sight of what keeps us above ground when it comes to navigating through that space. It’s so easy to get pulled into the quicksand that we’re always warning others about.

    Recurrent failures at building relationships that are not optional can create gaps in your soul that you don’t notice until the possibility of filling those gaps erodes almost completely. The decision on which relationships are optional and which are not is a simple one that is tied to our value systems. My need for authenticity will not allow me to be selective as to when I accept and embrace my responsibilities towards others, or when I set it aside for convenience’s sake. I am perfectly capable of abandoning or morphing my value system into one that is more convenient, but I know that the moment I do that, I will lose any legitimate claim to cry foul when others do the same.

    Optional relationships are the ones that hold no yoke over us if we neglect it. If there is no tie of kinship or contract, we are not under any obligation to care for or contribute to such relationships. Communal obligation, that is. Strange though that it seems like optional relationships tend to get the most investment these days. It seems as if these they provide us with needed distractions from the relationships grounded in responsibility and compulsion. There seems to be a demand for attention or reciprocation at every turn, mostly out of obligation rather than passion or purpose.

    It seems I’ve even forgotten how to do a brain dump. My health has been less than satisfactory recently, and almost all of it has been associated with a collage of duress that has coloured my life for a long time now. Each tile in the collage stems from an investment I made in others, some in a personal setting while others in a professional setting. Watching trust replaced by loyalty to the prevailing authority is commonplace these days. I’ve had to remind myself often in recent months that more should not be expected from the ones that worship titles and pursue labels and acronyms. But it’s the contagion of human nature. The moment we see beyond the superficial gusto that people present as their armour of confidence, it’s difficult not to sympathise with the child within.

    Too many times have I witnessed people reaching an old age while still not yet having achieved the state of being a fully formed adult. The difficulty lies in the rarity of adults. Most are overgrown children waiting for some childhood need to come to pass, while grudgingly accepting the responsibility that accumulates with the years. All the while, the essence of our lives are spent in waiting for others to do right by us. It rarely happens.

    Those that have crumbling spines suffer from a deficiency of bone density because they lack the courage to build what only they can build. The more we tell our bodies that we’re not good enough, the less our bodies will respond favourably when we need it to. If it is true that the soul is the seat of intelligence and the body merely a vessel for expression, then it stands to reason that we have the power to enable our bodies for good, or to turn it on itself in order to express the weakness we harbour within.

    I’ve been waiting with warranted hope that some relationships would have finally blossomed into the beauty that it once promised, but I forgot along the way that I was not the defining influence in those relationships. What contaminated it from without, I assumed to be a deficiency within the relationship, when in fact the only deficiency was that I held others to a standard that they did not subscribe to for themselves.

    The contention built up within me, slowly sapping my clarity of thought, then my energy, then my creative expression, gnawing away at my memory, and finally imposing the weight of its imbalance on my body which eventually caved in under all the pressure. It sounds like a dramatic description of the flu, but the reality is that it takes a chorus of failed expectations to wear me down, never just a single one.

    Those that succumb to a single betrayal have invested too much in a single part of their life. Worse than just the investment, they divested from their own lives. They assumed that entrusting another with more than their affection, in fact with everything they needed to breathe seemed like the ultimate expression of commitment to an outcome desired by both, but invested in by only one.

    Ill health is a sign of imbalance in the way we live our lives. Disease stands a greater chance of invading our bodies when our immune systems are focused on fighting the disruption we’ve created within. When we live under duress, we become easy pickings for our enemies. Be they disease or spineless creatures, the net effect is the same. We succumb to circumstances that would otherwise be opportunities for growth. The answer is so simple, yet so elusive.

  • The Desire For Excellence

    Achieving a state of excellence in at least one sphere of our lives, I believe, is a universal yearning. It allows us to leave our mark or establish a legacy so that we may believe that we won’t be easily forgotten when we’re gone. It also feeds a need to constantly improve where we’re at in life. Aspiring to a new level of achievement in at least one sphere in which we believe we have a unique talent often gives us reason to face a new day.

    Some start out in search of fame and focus their efforts on doing what they believe will be admired by others. So focused are they on what their intended audience wants, that they easily forget where their passion lies. The old adage of not going out in search of your love, but instead doing what you love and letting your love find you echoes through the air. But again, we’re so lacking in self-worth that unless there is visible acknowledgement and appreciation for what we do, we often abandon important pursuits because we thought no one cared.

    The pursuit of excellence cannot be relative to the whims or dictates of others. It has to be more sincere than that. The conviction to achieve that excellence must be grounded in a heartfelt passion to improve the state of something that you personally experienced and wish to improve for others. If such a pursuit is directed at an outcome that benefits only you, you will be left wanting when you’ve achieved it, only to lament the time wasted in getting to a point that promised fulfilment but instead only fed your ego.

    The ego. We keep getting back to that thing that robs us of so much. What could be wholesome is often discarded if we don’t see a benefit in it for us. Worse than this, we sometimes discard efforts simply because it may benefit someone that we believe is undeserving of such benefit. When we do this, we need to realise that it’s not excellence that we pursuit, but gratification.

    Gratification is the outcome of a pursuit, not the purpose. Like I mentioned before about humility and happiness being an outcome of something else, so is gratification. The moment we enter a cycle looking to get something out, we lose sight of our true potential to contribute towards something that is larger than ourselves. Live with conviction, and ensure that your conviction is well-informed, and you’ll find that every outcome, no matter how insignificant it may seem, will leave a legacy of benefit for everyone that came into contact with you during your lifetime.

    We all desire excellence, and to be associated with excellence, but we’re often too distracted to notice how our chosen path detracts from that excellence that we desire. We must be willing to contribute selflessly towards the outcome of something that won’t benefit us directly before we can hope to benefit indirectly from the fruits of such an effort. The irony is that we lose both when we start out with a selfish end in mind.

    The moment we demand to be served with excellence, a moment’s reflection on the motivation of the one that serves us will reveal that they do so out of obligation or perhaps even fear. That leaves empty the need for significance as a human being. It only fulfils the desire for authority or the imposition of our will. But imposing our will on others is never fulfilling because we know that without such authority or power, we will be neglected or discarded because the value of our contribution will be insignificant. For this reason, among many others, the need for acceptance and appreciation as a human being, independent of any authority or political influence that we may yield, has driven many to do dastardly deeds in moments when they gave up hope of being appreciated simply for who they are.

    The desire for excellence has to begin with the desire to perfect our contribution to this world. If it is tied to a clearly envisioned higher purpose, it makes it that much more powerful. However, many struggle to see their contribution as relevant within a context beyond their immediate lives. If this is true for you, then start by ensuring that you do not leave anyone or anything in a state worse than what it or they were before you touched them. Excellence is the habit that prompts us towards the elusive goal of perfection. It’s the pursuit of it that inspires us to be more, while its attainment (if indeed it can be attained) makes us complacent.

    Seek to ensure that whatever you touch, or whoever’s lives you impact, you leave it in a better state than it was before you got there. And if you are unable to do so, then at least do not incur harm instead.

  • Unconditional Love

    To live life romantically is such a beautiful notion. You see the world for all that it offers and politely ignore all that it is. The lover professes unconditional love for their beloved, yet so often such undying love ends in heartache. Was it unconditional, or was it one-sided? I once heard that the one who loves less controls the relationship. I think that is mostly true.

    Unconditional. That’s a huge claim to make. Unsurprisingly I decided to test its veracity by observing those around me who often profess to uphold this claim of unconditional this and that. Love, for starters, is grossly misunderstood and overrated by most people. Obsession, infatuation, or lust (or all three) are usually at play long before love even enters the picture. Having said that, I believe that unconditional love is real. However, it probably doesn’t take the form that most assume it to be and probably shouldn’t be called love to begin with. I think commitment and sincerity are more attuned to reality than the vagueness of love.

    Too many confuse love with acceptance, and far too often that acceptance is based on the fear of rejection. We accept untoward behaviour or allow people to take us for granted under the guise of loving them unconditionally, while the truth is closer to the fact that we are usually fearful of not finding something better if we reject such treatment. Being alone is infinitely more scary to most people, more scary than dealing with an abusive or unfulfilling relationship. Having someone, to many, is better than having no one, even if that someone holds them back from being who they are capable of being. Yet they stay in such relationships believing that it’s unconditional love, more because they’re hoping to receive unconditional love in return.

    But here’s the rub. When we hope to receive unconditional love by making such sacrifices of our own peace and sanity, it implies that we have yet to unconditionally love ourselves. In the absence of that self-acceptance, we look for others to accept us first so that we can convince ourselves that we are worth the investment of love and life. We therefore fool ourselves into believing that unhealthy relationships must be endured simply because we would expect others to do the same for us if we were the unhealthy contributors to a relationship. The irony is that we are such contributors when we settle for less.

    That’s all fairly obvious for those not in denial, but it still doesn’t quite define what unconditional love really is. For me, unconditional love is not being infinitely tolerant, but instead, it is about being intolerant of anything less than what you know the person you love is capable of achieving. Apply this in a parenting scenario, or a marriage, or a romantic liaison, and you’ll see how it holds true. If you love someone, you won’t allow them to do something that you know is going to harm them, or cause an oppression against others. The moment you tolerate such behaviour from them, you prove that your love for yourself is greater than your love for them because being unpopular erodes the self-worth of the fickle.

    Stated differently, what is usually considered to be tough love is only possible from those that are confident that the acceptance or rejection of others does not define who they are, or how they see themselves. You have to be accepting of yourself as a whole person within the context of a relationship before you will be willing to push for a correction or adjustment in behaviour from the person you’re with. However, it also means that in accepting ourselves, or others, we need to recognise the weaknesses or bad habits that detract from our wholesomeness as a human being, coupled with the resolve to work at improving it. The same must be true for how we view others if we are to profess that we love them.

    It cannot be love if we enable destructive behaviour. Perhaps that needs to be rephrased. It is not love for the other that enables destructive behaviour, but a lack of love for the self that allows it to continue unchallenged. When we subject ourselves to abusive relationships, we fool ourselves into believing that if we wish to be accepted, then we need to be more accepting of others. That’s far too idealistic to be healthy. The reality is closer to having a clear conviction about what we stand for before we agree to stand for everything.

    More importantly, if our greatest fear is how we will be perceived if or when we object to something, then again, we are more concerned about ourselves than we are about making others feel judged. It feels like I’m over complicating a really simple issue. so here’s a final take on this.

    You need to know what you stand for before you can be accepting of others. If you don’t, you are not accepting, you are assimilating because of a need for inclusion. That fear of rejection or isolation is grounded in the fact that you judge yourself harshly, and have a lack of conviction in improving those traits of yours that you would rather others don’t see. To deflect attention away from such weaknesses, you embrace others without question so that you don’t give others reason to question what you’re about.

    We see this playing out in parenting all the time. Parents that won’t accept that their children are wrong or downright abusive because such acceptance confirms that they may have failed as parents. Women and even men remain in emotionally and physically abusive relationships because they’re afraid that no one else will accept the distasteful view they have of themselves, while trying to convince the world that they are only holding on because they truly believe that their partner is a good person behind all that anger, or insecurity. Or worse, they remain in the relationship because of the children that they don’t want must be raised in a broken home, not realising that they’re effectively teaching their children that it’s more important to grin and bear it than it is to stand up and do the right thing.

    We project our insecurities on those around us, and then over compensate for theirs in order to ensure that ours are not discovered. Then we wrap it up as unconditional love because that is more palatable as a concept for us, and is found to be more endearing for those from whom we seek acceptance. We do this while forgetting that unconditional love is being willing to point out what’s wrong so that we can work on making things right, rather than suffering the wrong because we don’t want to offend or be seen as unpopular. Unconditional love is what drives us to demand nothing less than what we believe is possible from those we care about, because the only time we can claim to truly love them is when we want for them what we want for ourselves. If we desire less for ourselves, then we seek to live vicariously through them instead, which once again confirms that our love, as unhealthy as it may be, is in fact for ourselves more than it is for others.

     

  • In Gratitude

    Apparently one of the most profound and base needs of a human being is to be appreciated. Express appreciation, meaningful appreciation for what someone does, and there’s almost no limit to what they’ll be willing to do for you. Take people for granted, and you end up with the world we live in.

    It seems we continue to incline towards the fulfilment of our rights before we consider what we need to contribute instead. It’s a contaminated space that is hard to escape. At some point someone started a trend that suggested that if we don’t take care of ourselves, then no one will take care of us. We have a beautiful tradition that says, “If we don’t take care of our neighbours, then who will take care of us?” I’m not sure of the source, but the wisdom it holds is far reaching.

    It’s a particularly vicious cycle because when we wait to be taken care of before we are willing to contribute, we assume that those who deserve to be taken care of by us do not have a similar yearning. That is, to be taken care of first before they feel inclined to take care of others. So we inadvertently become a key part of the very same cycle that distresses us.

    This begs the question about what gratitude really means. Is gratitude our expression of appreciation to others for what we received from them, or is true gratitude our exercise of the capabilities we have at our disposal for the benefit of others, regardless of their appreciation for what we do? Maybe it’s not a choice between either, but rather a combination of the two. Given the binary world we live in these days with everything either broken or fixed, and nothing is repairable because everything is replaceable, it’s easy to see why most behave as if it can only be one or the other.

    I think it starts with how we appreciate what we have. No. It can’t be that simple because that implies that we view what we have through our own eyes and not through the actions of others. We don’t. We look at what we have, then look at who admires what we have, and if that admiration comes from a source that we admire, then we appreciate what we have. If it doesn’t, we consider ourselves to be pathetic or despicable or unworthy because what we have is so lacking compared to what everyone else has. That seems about right, doesn’t it?

    We all want to be unique, just like everyone else. I think the world is lacking in conviction. Everyone knows what everyone else likes, what’s trending, and how to get on the trend-wagon, but only a handful knows why. It’s gotten so bad that even those setting the trends do so because of the attention it will receive and not because they have a conviction in the value that the trend may offer. Acceptance has been confused with appreciation, and so the moment we’re part of the trending crowd, we assume that what we have or what we offer to that crowd is appreciated by that crowd. It’s not. It’s a convenient collection of empty souls that look for meaning in others because they’re too afraid to find meaning within themselves.

    Yes, that’s a horrible generalisation, but generalisations seem to be in vogue. We taint an entire group for the actions of a few outliers, and then insist that it’s the group’s responsibility to deal with them before we absolve the group of culpability. Let’s think about that for a second. We accuse others of guilt because of their association with a rogue entity, and instead of recognising the rogue-ness of that entity and restraining ourselves from judging unfairly, we abdicate responsibility of such bigoted views and then blame our victims for not doing enough to avoid being judged by us. Did I get that right?

    So back to gratitude. If we don’t take accountability for how we see the world, we won’t feel accountable for how we treat others, and in turn, will not see any reason to treat anyone else better until they do right by us first. That means that everything that we’ve been blessed with, be it our health, wealth, resources, opportunities and more, is irrelevant the moment we feel unappreciated. And if anyone wants to judge us for it, they must first appreciate us or else their judgement will amount to naught. Sounds like quite a mess.

    Gratitude for me has always been my ability to improve the state or condition of anyone or anything that I come into contact with. If it is not in a better condition than it was before I touched it, then at the least, it must not be in a worse state either. Anything less would mean that I take for granted what I have. While too many focus on the religious ramifications of such an attitude, I think there is a greater practical impact that we need to consider first.

    When I take something for granted, like my car perhaps, I don’t give it due attention, maintenance, or proper handling. This results in it degrading at a rate faster than it needs to, which in turn means I would have to repair (oh, wait, we don’t do that any more) or replace it sooner than anticipated, which means the strain on my resources is greater, resulting in other areas of my life being impacted, which in turn increases the burden of life that I experience, resulting in me feeling burdened because of external influences, when in fact my burden is entirely self-imposed.

    If we live with gratitude, we’ll appreciate every crumb left on our plate. We won’t horde things waiting for better days, but instead we’ll recognise that someone else has a dire need for what we think will look cool on us when the fashion trend returns, assuming we’ll still fit in it. Gratitude means that if I have the ability to contribute positively towards someone else’s challenge, I will. Not because I know them, or because they will pay me, but because I can. And because I can, I am morally obliged to bring that ability to bear on the betterment of the world I live in, because it is that same world that makes me feel blessed or cursed, depending on how I experience it, and through whom.

    To realise the value of what I have to offer, I must first stop seeing myself through the eyes of others. If I discount my blessings because of my fixation on the blessings of others, I lose the right to receive from others before I contribute towards them first. How empty an existence must that be?

  • Escape From Your Escape

    There’s a story in me that needs to be shared. That need is mine, not anyone else’s. In the years leading up to this point in my life I’ve spent many moments contemplating whether or not it was a story worth sharing. What I failed to notice is that such contemplation reflected a concern for how it was to be received, rather than what needed to be told. I was distracted, and my cycles of distraction were often, and still are, nurtured by legitimate demands for my time elsewhere.

    Avoiding the write has been easy. I still have a morbid chuckle internally when I recall one of the reasons for which my proposal for marriage was declined. I was told that I’m apparently too responsible. Be that as it may, it seems that those with less responsibility are supposedly more inclined to be more responsible towards others. They walk among us. Back to the point at hand, such levels of responsibility provide me with an infinite source of reasons, not excuses, not to pursue the more daunting goals of my life. Prioritising where to expend my limited energy resources has become a fine art. My next area of focus is how to execute on those beautifully informed decisions of prioritisation. I hope to get to it as soon as I’m done doing this other thing that is so important.

    The cycle gets quite entertaining at times. Along with entertainment comes the need to snack. So the binge snacking to accompany such entertaining cycles causes my mid-drift to drift more than it should. And so a new cycle of restraint is spawned, often with little success. The upside is that it creates the perfect opportunity to get a cardio workout simply by kneeling down to cut some wood. I’ve never broken into such a profuse sweat in such a short time before. I’m not sure if that means I’m getting better or worse at it because perspiration is supposed to be a healthy thing, along with a good cardio workout, not so?

    Cynicism aside (as if that’s even possible) the cycle of responsibility is not always a healthy one. In my case, it has proven to shore up my procrastination in important things (like writing that book) because there are always urgent things that justifiably distract me from what I should be doing instead. Worse than this, I’ve found myself having to consciously re-focus on what needs to be done when faced with trying circumstances, or frustrating relationships. This is a new experience for me because it was second nature until recently. I think it suggests that my de-personalization disorder must be fading. Disorder my ass.

    I’ve started choosing differently from before. What used to drive me is not as persuasive for my investment of energy these days. I’m more inclined to recede from ridiculousness than to dive in to salvage what little sanity might exist. There was a time when I defended sanity without question regardless of the potential fulfilment from the outcome. Is this what it feels like to get old? I wouldn’t know, because I’m not old, I’m just well-worn.

    The joy of having much life in your years is that you get to laugh at yourself more while others are still following a predefined schedule on how to live their lives, all the while thinking that they own it. Distractions can be fun, and immensely rewarding if a prominent mid-drift is anything to go by. However, along with such indulgence comes a need to reconsider what is or is not negotiable in my life. One thing I still refuse to do is act my age relative to the stereotypes propped up by society. I also refuse to buy a bigger pants size just because my current one is getting too tight from all the fulfilling entertainment I need alongside my responsibilities. And I also refuse to outsource everything that can be outsourced because even though mending things around the house, or building stuff is a distraction from what I should be doing instead, it is also an important part of my self-reflection, my self-worth, and my contribution in kind, not just in cash, to those around me.

    Outsourcing is the ultimate distraction. It’s also a very effective vicious cycle. For me, it goes something like this. I do my own stuff and get my hands dirty because I enjoy what I do. That enjoyment attracts the passion of others that have a similar interest, and in the workplace, this means more opportunities and in turn (sometimes) improved remuneration. That improved remuneration improves my quality of life and the quality of life of those around me. This is a bonus because suddenly the perceived value of my contribution is greater than it was before. However, an improved quality of life requires an improved level of maintenance, and so what I did before to get to this point may have been driven out of passion, but what I need to do to maintain this circumstance is now driven out of necessity. Necessity and passion rarely go together, especially when necessity becomes a matter of obligation rather than choice. Passion is driven by choice, not compulsion.

    So the necessities cram up, resulting in less time to do the passionate stuff, resulting in some of that newly earned remuneration to be expended on the necessities that were spawned from the passion that was driven by nothing more than a desire to contribute. Suddenly I miss the simplicity of being able to do without compulsion, and to contribute without expectation. But back to that escape. There appears to be an innate sense that when we’ve struggled against the odds to achieve a moment of gratitude, we deserve an indulgence to make it worthwhile. I’m starting to wonder if that subsequent indulgence is in fact ingratitude for the moment of gratitude that we just achieved. Should that moment of gratitude not be sufficient reward itself?

    I know there’s a point in here somewhere. It seems elusive but I think it has to do with recognising when our deliberate efforts and conscious decisions spawn a cycle of their own, which is grounded in a beginning that was based on conscious choice and therefore suggests to us that anything that we do as a result of that cycle must by definition be a conscious choice and not a distraction. It’s like doing something for so long that eventually you stop questioning why it needs to be done and just accept it as a necessity. That’s when mindfulness gives way for habits or rituals that get respected for their cultural value rather than for the value that they offer.

    Quality of life is a difficult concept to quantify. Is my life of a greater quality because I live with purpose, or is there quality in the moments of indulgence that were spawned without specific purpose? Is it a combination of the two? Probably, but here’s the rub. The moment I start contemplating it, it loses its spontaneity which erodes the passion, and subsequently takes on a burdensome aura which inherently detracts from what could be argued to be a good quality of life. This is tiring.

    To escape from the escape we thought we deserved, requires a recognition of the fact that what we’re escaping from was in fact ensnaring us in the first place. A spontaneous celebration of life must remain a spontaneous celebration of life. The moment we hold an expectation that each major milestone warrants an indulgence, the indulgence becomes an entitled reward which taints our commitment to the greater goals because suddenly the absence of a substantial reward dulls the appeal of the goal itself. And along with it, the passion with which we once lived our lives.

    [I’m still convinced that there is a point in there somewhere…as soon as I find it, I shall celebrate it…]

  • The Best In Me

    I’ve found, and recent experiences have confirmed this to be true as well, that in order to see the true nature of someone, you should demand the best from them. Demand that they be all that you know they have the capacity to be, and you’ll see the conviction or betrayal rise to the surface, often viciously so.

    I’ve been quite distracted recently. That distraction has in many ways confirmed why I sway between wanting to share my thoughts, or write that book, and not wanting to have any part in interacting with people at all. I quietly observe the hypocrisy of so many that polarise towards those that pacify them about their shortcomings, their bad decisions, or their half-hearted efforts to live life while waiting for someone else to come along and contribute the other half. They do this under the guise of compassion and understanding. Both, the pacifier and the pacified. The dishonesty of it all leaves a distinctly bitter after-taste almost literally in my mouth.

    I’ve always found it to be insincere on my part if I agreed with someone that was looking for affirmation about doing something that was either denying them or someone else of a right or benefit that they were capable of providing. It’s as if we live life assuming everything to be optional first, and then only define what is compulsory or obligatory on our part relative to what we believe is a reasonable expectation that others are allowed to have of us. This also implies that we view ourselves through the same tainted lenses. In other words, rights are not rights until we agree that it is so, and then also, only if there is a reciprocal arrangement in place. What’s in it for me has become the mantra of the selfish and the weak.

    Yet the world apparently thrives on it. Far too often I listen to people repeating leadership advice that says that to be influential you must be sure to emphasise what is in it for your target audience otherwise your chances of soliciting their buy-in is significantly reduced. While that may be the reality of it, it also suggests that you become complicit in the cycle of selfishness. I’m obstinate enough to believe that shared convictions are more important than what’s in it for me as a collective perspective. I guess you could also argue that the fact that something is achieved implies that there was conviction behind it to begin with. While that may be true, it doesn’t necessarily imply that such conviction was well-placed.

    If my conviction is focused on self-preservation or self-promotion, then I would act with a conviction that inadvertently erodes the wholesomeness of the society that I belong to. When that selfishness comes full circle and I become a means to an end for someone else from that same societal structure, I complain bitterly about the decay of humanity, forgetting too easily how it is that the same impact I imposed on others left them feeling equally defeated. It seems that such bitter pills are what prompts many to consider the impact that they have on others, because it’s only in moments of defeat or humiliation that we are forced to recognise our weaknesses. Unless you’re so bitter about life that your fixation on the betrayals of others prevents you from seeing your contribution to your current state. Such bitterness always ends in a diseased body and mind, which leads to an untimely and often very unpleasant demise.

    Obstinacy with conviction is what is lacking in this world. I would much rather be surrounded by those that disagree with me because of a genuine sense of conviction in what they hold to be true, rather than to be surrounded by people that agree with me because their affiliation with me benefits their own selfish purposes. I can barely recall anyone demanding me to be more than I am because they saw potential or capability in me that I did not recognise in myself. Fortunately I’ve had little reason to wait for such encouragement although I did find myself wasting a lot of life waiting for others to  catch up. In a way, that has been the most wasteful approach of my life.

    Waiting for others to believe in you implies that you lack conviction in what you see in yourself. While there is merit in testing the veracity of your assumptions and perspectives by sounding it against others, if we’re not careful about what we’re testing for, there’s a good chance that we’ll abandon something valuable because we were looking for the wrong response. Too many test for acceptance rather than soundness of purpose or conviction. We present ideas that have merit to small minds and then abandon those ideas because the value of it was not grasped. We shouldn’t be testing for acceptance or popularity. That is exactly what got this world into the state it is in. As clichéd as it sounds, being part of the crowd only ever maintained the status quo. It’s the individual, the maverick, the relentless pain-in-the-butt that spurs growth, and by implication, growth implies discomfort.

    We need to learn to be comfortable in growth. The only hindrance I can think of that prevents such comfort is the fear of failure. The fear of appearing incompetent in a new setting. That fear is grounded in our belief that others are always competent in what they appear to be doing, but often discover that they were not as competent as we assumed when we engage and apply our minds to the new reality that we were avoiding. It also implies that we assume we’re incompetent by default and therefore incapable of learning, until we find reason to believe that we have sufficient skill or knowledge to start exploring with a fair amount of confidence. Unfortunately we rarely start exploring because we’re waiting for that minimum amount of skill or knowledge to magically appear first, or for someone to believe in us before we try.

    The best of me always manifested in times of trial and intense betrayal when my crutches were snapped away, or my comforts were destroyed. Familiarity often appeared as healthy surrounds, but I only realized how unhealthy it was when I was forced to step outside of those familiar boundaries and became a spectator of my own life. It’s only when we achieve such perspective that we are faced with the daunting choice of whether to prevail, or to succumb. Beyond all this the greatest challenge I continue to face in my life is finding the balance between forging ahead in spite of the lack of conviction from others in what I am passionate about, while simultaneously avoiding the severing of ties. Forging ahead demands conviction and purposeful introspection to guide me, while maintaining ties prevents me from being reckless or ungrateful about the benefit and rights I share with those around me.

    Life is easier if lived in isolation, but it’s less fulfilling. It becomes an incomplete cycle because I believe that our innate nature drives us towards improving the lot of others. The more inclined we are to believe that we are capable of achieving that innate need, the healthier our self-worth, while the opposing belief drives us towards complacency, and self-defeat. The awkward truth is that more often than not people don’t know what they need to improve their current state, but they usually have a very good idea as to what someone else may need. Hence the benefit of perspective when our familiar surrounds are taken away. The point is, if we’re going to wait for others to agree to the change that is needed before we provoke it, we’ll spend a lot of time waiting, and very little time living.

    [My distracted state is evident in the randomness of this train of thought, if it can even qualify as a train!]

  • Dying is Easy

    During my morbid years, you know, the years that are accompanied by knowing everything, followed by the years of futility before we realise that adults are weighed down with responsibility rather than just being deliberately boring, I found it attractive to look forward to death. Living beyond the age of 23 was not a life goal of mine, not because I was suicidal, but because it just didn’t seem like a probable outcome at the time. This improbability allowed me to live with a sense of freedom in my heart, feeling unrestrained by the burdens of deep contemplations of a future that I saw no reason to look forward to.

    This is not morbidity, and I’m not saying that to convince myself either. I’ve always viewed the advent of death to be one of liberation and ease. Life is a struggle, and the struggle is real for all of us. We find different ways to cope, to distract ourselves, and to push forward beyond the current state, but it doesn’t come easily. It requires effort. If that effort is not met with relief or joy at the perceived success of it, it intensifies that struggle. Those perceptions of success therefore become the trappings of morbidity or ease. If poorly informed, it convinces us that success may be in the shape and form of something that is detrimental to us. If well-informed, it may reveal that we’re not as celebrated as we thought we were, which has its own ball and chain to bear.

    Perceptions are therefore at the heart of the matter. How we perceive life or death draws us closer to either, or rarely to both. But we find ourselves facing life with a binary disposition. The debates and the philosophising are far too often focused on how to cheat death or live a fuller life, but is rarely focused on true balance. That true balance, for me, is how to appreciate life while embracing death. The one is meaningless without the other.

    People die a million deaths in a single lifetime, but very few live a single wholesome life before death. This is not surprising since many focus on understanding the definition of wholesome relative to someone else’s views without reflecting on their own needs, and then are convinced that they have a wholesome life, while never truly experiencing it for themselves. Life becomes a tick-box exercise when we are so externally focused and so internally ignorant. This is probably what I find most fascinating about the self-help book culture. We spend so much time looking for insights from others, that we spend only a fraction of that time seeking insights into ourselves. I know many would disagree by suggesting that their poring through those self-help books is their efforts to find what resonates with them, but that’s still like a child going to their mother, looking at the sun shining through the window, and asking if it’s morning yet.

    That seems to be at the core of it all. We’re often so insecure about our own capability that we need someone else to affirm it for us before we believe it for ourselves. I’ve never understood why the opinions of others are so important to our own lives, because I’ve always seen how two people acting independently but sincerely, regardless of race, religion, or culture, align with the same human ideals, and goals. But we’ve distracted ourselves with labels and compartments that go as fickle as defining our perceptions of others based on the compartments to which they belong, before we even see them as independently minded human beings.

    That’s where the chicken and egg situation arises. Do we behave the way we do because we’re conditioned to align with the traits and attributes of the labels that we subscribe to, or do we subscribe to those labels because we find familiarity in their traits and attributes? For this reason I despise labels, token events, and the like. It preconditions us to a conformed response to life rather than encouraging us to live and think independently. I think the insecurity that drives us as a point of departure is what informs our inclination to first be surrounded by nurturers before we believe that we are capable of exploring and overcoming on our own.

    I’m not suggesting that we only learn from our own mistakes, and that we ignore the experiences of others. I’m saying that we set out with the belief that it is achievable, and then draw wisdom from sources that talk to our goals. However, defining that goal first before seeking such guidance is the difference between leading and following.

    Dying is easy. We kill our spirits regularly, often several times a day, because the threat of failure and its perceived humiliation is so daunting, that we’d rather slay our souls than believe in ourselves. Humiliation is relative. A failure only becomes humiliating if the opinions of those around us defines who we are, and what we think of ourselves. But that’s the problem right there. Most of us know no other way of living, and then die a thousand deaths in the face of rejection.