Tag: conviction

  • Where to From Here?

    Where to From Here?

    Where do you go when you’re done with the world, but the world is not done with you? The blessing of having a lot of life in your years is that you have a lot of life in your years. While others are playing it safe, treating life like the marathon that it is, I’m the one rushing from sprint to sprint knowing that the marathon could end quite unceremoniously at any moment.

    The highs are frequent and exhausting, but so fulfilling. The lows creep up when you pause for a breath between the sprints and you notice that by comparison, you appear a tad crazy to those that are happy to be carried by the trickling current of complacency. Complacency always feels like a threat to me. It threatens to subdue my spirit in favour of a meaningless composure.

    Composure is something that is obviously subjective, but also often misunderstood. For me, composure is a sense of quiet confidence and fulfilment about what I’m aware of, what I’m capable of, and what I want from a given moment. When those three things feel balanced, it becomes very difficult for anyone to disrupt that composed state. Of course this ruffles many feathers at times because sometimes people want you to look like you’re in disarray at the news of their challenges or drama.

    The more grounded I find myself in a moment that demands a reaction, the more rational I find my response to be. For this reason I defend my personal space aggressively from such external interference that threatens to contaminate it with paranoia and entitlement. I found all of this coming to the fore more than ever in recent months, which resulted in me quitting my job in a corporate to finally pursue opportunities that I am passionate about.

    What was important in my decision to quit was whether I was doing it because I felt compelled to, or because I wanted to. I’ve had previous run-ins with big egos in corporate settings that forced me to choose my sanity over my income, and each time my sanity was not for sale. Sanity in this case was not only my grasp on reality, but also my sense of dignity and authenticity. When either was threatened, it brought out a side of me that many found abrasive. The reason they found it abrasive was because they did not share my values and ideals. Before I realised this, I simply assumed them to be dishonest or insincere. Now that I’ve realised this, I simply judge them for not demanding more from themselves, but I refrain from correcting them.

    This shift in engagement principles has been a significant change for me to embrace. When I embraced it, I realised that I was starting to compromise on the core of being me, and instead, I was starting to play the political games that make or break careers in the corporate world. That’s when the decision to exit became easy for me. It was no longer in response to a threat from colleagues, or from fear of being maligned or blamed for things out of my control. Instead, it was a solemn realisation that all the fight and passion that I have in me could be better spent in endeavours that had a chance of influencing the change that I wish to see in the world around me.

    Emerging from a cocoon-like state in a protected environment and facing the world on your own terms is a daunting experience, especially when your responsibilities extend well beyond just your personal well being. I’ve seen so many feel bitterly entrapped in their jobs because of the responsibility that they have towards their families. I’ve also seen the same people grow distant and abrasive and entitled towards their families because of the self-imposed view that they are tied down to a job that they hate simply because they have responsibilities. That made their supposed sacrifices all the more meritorious, and any action or inaction that did not celebrate that sacrifice was seen as ingratitude. I couldn’t allow myself to get into that state.

    Our perception of our options, I’ve discovered, are often informed by our ego. We fill ourselves with self-importance, and then use that self-importance to convince ourselves why we should not take risks. The risk aversion is not always related to the responsibilities that we have. Instead, it is related to our fear of failing at something other than what we are familiar with. When we hate what we’re familiar with, we find reason to defend our decision not to do something decisive about it, and often that defense is based on apportioning blame to others, or to circumstances because once again, it absolves us of the responsibility to act.

    Where to from here? I don’t know. What I do know is that if I fail to recognise the value that I contributed to the corporate world over the last twenty odd years of my life, and if I fail to appreciate the re-usable skills that I acquired in that time, I’ll be looking for another hand-out job offer to keep me sane and relevant. My focus now is therefore on everything that I have proven myself to be capable of, and to find ways to apply that in a meaningful way to pursuits that are anything but conventional, while seeking to fulfil the conventional needs of those that don’t realise they have those needs yet.

    It is a cryptic space, but not any more cryptic than life has been so far. The only reason we don’t recognise how cryptic life has been is because everyone was facing the same growing pains as we were. So there was collective comfort in knowing that we were not incompetent by ourselves. The cynic in me has returned, it seems. But this is a natural disposition that offers me insights into opportunities that would otherwise be hidden by the monotony of being normal. A return to myself is called for, and leaving a toxic environment on my terms was the first decisive step I needed to take to ensure that my life amounts to more than just a regular pay cheque from an unfulfilling job. There is relevance and significance to be earned outside of corporate. And that is where I’m heading with everything that I am.

    Perhaps the world that I was done with, was in fact not the world at all.

  • The Edge of Being Broken

    The Edge of Being Broken

    Life has a way of beating you down while lifting you up. It’s often a morbid combination of how we perceive the value we wish to add to the lives of others, versus how they perceive that value themselves. As much as we may strive to separate the two, it is impossible to do so. There is nothing that we do that is not influenced by how we want to fit into the world around us, even if just our perception of it.

    I’ve been told that my writing has lost its authenticity over the years because the brutal honesty of expression that once defined my thoughts that bled into my posts has been replaced by a subdued diplomacy that makes it more tolerable for others. Without realising it, that appears to have shaped my interactions in recent years as well. Being more tolerable. I’m often reminded of Plato’s words when he said, “No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.”

    Truth is most often defined by how we view the world before it is defined by how the world views us. Whether the sky is black or blue is not a matter of truth. That’s simply a matter of fact relative to a construct of reality that is shared by all of us. How we experience that blue or black sky is what defines our truth compared to the truth of another. If I avoid the cold isolation of darkness and only come out during the day, the blue sky will always be welcoming and comforting to me. But if I loathe the light and prefer the shroud of darkness that hides the brutal nature of man, the blue sky will taunt me while the black sky will provide a place of repose. In both instances, my truth is defined by what I need from the world, and not by what the world needs from me.

    What is needed from me is a guessing game that has lasted my entire life without any sign of abatement anytime soon. At times I have chosen to actively contribute towards the lives of others, while at other times I’ve withdrawn from the fatigue of not having my contribution appreciated. At such times I despise our innate nature that demands significance so that we don’t feel inconsequential to those around us. To be consequential, or to make a difference determines the difference between a good night’s rest and insomnia. When we believe our contribution is appreciated we sleep like babies. Let our contribution be ridiculed or dismissed as futile, and sleep escapes us in favour of late night contemplations of how we arrived at such an unappreciated point in our lives.

    Karl Marx got it right when he said that last words are for fools that haven’t said enough. Foolishness sets in when we persist in trying to convince others of our truth when they’ve convinced themselves that we do not have something of value to offer them. Foolishness also sets in when we convince ourselves that our truth is relevant when we give others credit for a level of competence, gratitude, or integrity that they don’t have. That’s when we find ourselves passionately trying to convince others of the merits of our perspectives when they’ve already decided that we’re fools to begin with.

    Perhaps authenticity is lost when I project my experiences of the world as being a collective experience of humanity. The assumption that I am like others is often made to avoid the arrogance of assuming that I am different. Being different is only pleasant if that difference is celebrated by others. The moment it is celebrated by others, it implies that they aspire to the same levels of definition in their contribution to this world, which means that I’m not different to begin with. I’m just more successful at achieving that which others strive to achieve themselves. More importantly, my symptom of being the same is more reflective of my need for inclusion than it is of my need to recognise any uniqueness of offering.

    Last words are only needed when we’re not willing to let go of the perception that others may have of us. For this reason, the one that withdraws from a debate first is more likely to have recognised the limitations of their skills of persuasion or the limitations of their counterpart’s ability to grasp the point that is being made. Either way, it’s an acceptance of what is, rather than a persistent desire of what should be. When we stubbornly believe in achieving value that we know will benefit others, in spite of them not being willing recipients of that value, we define the basis for our struggle in life long before those around us reject our efforts to influence the quality of their lives.

    Reaching breaking point is a combination of investing more in the alleviation of the burdens of others, than what you invested in providing for your own needs first. Living selflessly dictates that you should strive to alleviate the burdens of others before you strive to acquire comforts for yourself. Walking that thin line reminds me of moments from my childhood when I walked on the railings surrounding the park outside our school, balancing precariously as I wobbled from side to side while trying not to fall off, until losing my foothold unexpectedly and landing with my legs apart and my jewels firmly smashed onto the railing itself. For all its glory and trinkets, life is pretty much as simple as walking on that railing. The thrill of striding confidently without slip entices us to keep getting back on the railing after it smashed our jewels for the umpteenth time. Until eventually, the memory of the pain of having smashed jewels between my legs replaces any desire to experience the glory of stepping on the rail to begin with.

    The edge of being broken is finding yourself in a space where you do not wish to participate in the morbidity of human engagement any longer, but are compelled by that same nature to trudge along the unwilling path because not doing so will result in the same demise that engagement threatens to offer. The edge of being broken is defined by being an unwilling participant of a system that defines your quality of life with or without your active participation in such a system. Respite is offered in the form of acceptance of your limitation to influence that system, while subduing your desire to prevail over it.

    What we define as our quality of life is often defined by the level of luxury that we’ve grown accustomed to in life. When we embrace the responsibility of providing the same level of comfort to those around us as our fulfilment of their rights over us, we find the edge of being broken in the realisation that the sacrifices that we may eventually be willing to make for our own levels of comfort will result in an imposition of hardship or discomfort on the same group that we are committed to serve. Their perception of our truth will rarely be aligned with ours, and so the strain of the system bears down when we aim to recalibrate our contribution towards the system while feeling compelled to maintain a level of contribution that appears to be unsustainable.

    We define the system by subscribing to the perspectives that we have of it. We hold on to those perspectives because they also define how we wish to be perceived by others. Ultimately we break ourselves, but in our broken state, we retract from the system that we established and choose to blame it for our demise, when in fact our demise was caused by our unwillingness to let go of the perspectives that chained us. Conviction is the bitch that nips at our heals when we’re trying to walk away from a life that appears to be serving others more than it appears to be serving us.

    [This thought process made a lot more sense in my head. Probably just another fatality of my contaminated perspectives.]

  • I Am Enough

    I noticed an affirmation posted in someone’s workspace recently. I’m not one for affirmations, so I usually don’t pay much attention to such things. Psychosomaticism (if there is such a word) works if you’re not aware of where you’re at. Affirmations serve as reminders for what we should not be doing, but seldom, if ever does it serve to confirm why we should not be doing it. Some would tell themselves that they’re at peace with the universe and the universe is full of love, and then they turn on the news and realise that it’s not true. But holding on to the affirmation is the only handhold of sanity that they have, so they repeat the mantra just like Joseph Goebbels said they should. You know, if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes accepted as truth.

    The reason this affirmation caught my attention is because it immediately prompted me with a somewhat disturbing question. The affirmation simply read, “I am enough”. The question it prompted was, “At which point did you convince yourself that you were not enough?”

    It’s this dissonance (at the risk of sounding aloof) that confuses me about human nature. We constantly look for reasons to pacify ourselves about our current state, but rarely seek  to actively change that state. It’s as if we have given up our agency (another aloof term) in favour of being nurtured. Not nurtured in a healthy and wholesome way, but rather in the way that a victim needs to be consoled even though they may have been party to the distress that they experienced.

    Each moment that we spend convincing ourselves that we’re out of control, we establish reasons to compensate for that through distractions. Yes, we cannot change what we’re presented with in life. But only to a point. This reminds me of one of my favourite analogies. If you poke a stick into a beehive, don’t complain when you get stung. Similarly, if we choose to be ignorant of these hives of consequences around us, and instead wander naively from one life experience to the next, we should not complain when what we receive is not what we wanted.

    Life becomes complicated and exceedingly overbearing when we feel subjected to the circumstances around us, while refusing to accept our accountability to act in spite of it. Stated more simply, there is no joy to be had from waiting for another to rescue us, while we willingly step into that pit of quicksand.

    Again, the failing of this accelerated pace of development that we’re experiencing as a result of the so-called fourth industrial revolution is that we are spoiled for choice in how to distract ourselves from what is important, or more importantly, from what makes us feel uncomfortable. Change, or accountability (often both) is what causes us to feel uneasy as we lazily observe the world through social media. Social media is not the problem in this case. What we believe we need from it is the important part.

    Problem is, most don’t know what they need, they only know what makes them feel good. It’s like we’re all suddenly Pavlov’s dog waiting for that next ‘like’ or that unread badge count to go up because we’ve replaced human connection with electronic communication. Nothing replaces the energy felt between two humans connecting. It doesn’t have to be a physical connection either. It’s simply a connection of conviction and aspiration. Two people looking in the same direction and believing, with conviction, in the myriad of possibilities waiting to be realised.

    However, one of the most daunting realities these days appears to be trust. The one thing that we once gave without thinking now becomes something we withhold until proven worthy. Connecting over a digital device gives us control over the level of trust we allow, or accept. Those that venture into this domain blindly give trust blindly and are subsequently destroyed when what they said in private becomes the next viral sensation on the internet.

    It all comes back to one simple, but very elusive point. Know yourself. Be mindful. Embrace accountability. They’re all one and the same, even though academics and motivational speakers will have you believe they’re not. When you know who you are, are willing to question why you’re not where you wish you were, and are willing to take accountability for where you’re at, you will know that you are enough because that is how far you chose to push yourself. Anything beyond that point is directly related to the effort you put in towards achieving it, and almost equally, the effort you put into letting go of that which no longer serves your aspirations as a human being.

    Everything else is a distraction. The kind of distractions that leave us needing to convince ourselves that we’re enough, because at some point we didn’t realise that we convinced ourselves that we were lacking for no good reason at all.

  • The Psychosomatic Life 

    The Psychosomatic Life 

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    This piece of wood from the fireplace in my lounge reminds me of how we allow ourselves to disintegrate while feeling appreciated for the beauty that we share with the world in our falling.

    There is a consistent thread that runs through the seemingly downtrodden of society. It’s a thread that rallies the masses and enables political agendas. It creates causes that people subscribe to with aggressive conviction and sets wisdom and reason aside in favour of the ridiculousness of the herd mentality.

    The thread is a belief that the state of our lives and our health is imposed on us by an unjust society. It’s a belief that dis-ease is a result of human beings that rob us of comfort and peace, while turmoil and suffering is independent of the choices we make. In short, it is a thread that believes that the self-imposed oppression that we visit upon ourselves is in fact not our doing. It must be because we are the weak ones being taken advantage of by the stronger ones. Or the unlucky draw of genetic inheritance visited upon us at birth.

    It is a toxic mindset that sets us down the path of pain and disappointment, until we do it so often that we eventually become convinced that being anything better is just not meant for us. And then we go off and convince others that we find in a similar circumstance that perhaps it just was not meant to be.

    For those of us raised with the belief that our mistakes are not our accountability because we’re just human after all, such a reality becomes the story of our lives. We live symptomatically and assume that our whispers to the universe will yield the results that hard work and conviction was meant to deliver. Those that have access to resources in abundance whisper to the universe anyway, and then while expending such resources that reduce the amount of physical contribution needed, proclaim that the universe has answered.

    Those that lack access to such resources smother their souls at the lack of response from the universe, and then convince themselves that their diseased minds are a manifestation of the ill health that they experience, which is a genetic inheritance they have no control over, while believing that they were destined to suffer such trials because they were born to be martyrs.

    Psychosomatic is an easy way to live miserably. To feel oppressed because of conditions apparently out of your control is the best way to console yourself at your lack of action, or pathetic attempts at conviction. If only we held as much conviction in being accountable as we do for believing in our oppression, we’ll amaze ourselves at how much we can achieve with so little.

    Silver spoons and trust funds are not needed to have a holistic experience of this world. Those that believe that we were created simply to suffer in order to be rewarded later on has taken a distortion of reality and turned it into religious dogma that holds no weight. When we absolve ourselves of the outcomes of the choices that we make, we indulge the futility of a fickle mind. We convince ourselves that we need a helping hand to achieve anything meaningful in life, and that such a hand will only arrive when we are divinely deserving of it.

    The delusions are endless, but in spite of the delusions, as much as we convince ourselves that we have no choice in the matter, the irony is that we are choosing to be the victims of a circumstance that we create. Lifestyle diseases are not lifestyle diseases. They’re diseases of the mind, which is reflected in the lifestyle. The distracted ones, and the vast majority of us are distracted for 99% of our lives, observe the lifestyle choices and assume that it is a result of societal pressures that we need to contend with in order to cope with life in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. We just as soon extract ourselves from the society in which we live, as much as we distance ourselves from the choices that we make.

    It’s easier to feel burdened and receive the accompanying sympathy from similarly burdened souls, and in the process believe that such sympathy is in fact a source of strength, than it is to feel the burden and have the conviction to rise above it through whatever means we have at our disposal. But we hate failing, so sticking our flimsy necks out to take that leap of courage to own our lives is asking for too much. It’s easier to fail collectively, than to fail alone. Setting out on a path of your own demands a level of courage and conviction that is erased from your life when you live according to the whims and weaknesses of the masses.

    Those that show you sympathy only ever make you feel better about where you are in life. They never prompt you towards being better than who you are. When we suspend life until our struggles and burdens are recognised, we internalise one simple fact that our bodies respond to with alarming accuracy. We tell ourselves that we are not ready to do more, to achieve more, or to live more. For this reason, our bodies that are mere vessels of expression of the will of our souls, slowly shuts down in an ungraceful manner, resulting in lifestyle diseases that are in fact lifestyle choices, because we lacked the courage to persevere without the sympathy of those around us.

    [This is an incomplete thought process]

  • To Breathe Again

    To Breathe Again

    There are few things more exhausting than the plague of insincerity from those that find a constant need to explain their drama and their dreams under the pretense of seeking sincere advice to overcome their hurdles. 

    Soliciting advice while professing not to have the answers ourselves, then discarding that advice in favour of taking the easy way out reflects the deficit of conviction in our soul. 

    A deficit of conviction leads to an empty existence, embellished with an outward show of struggles, while concealing an inward turmoil of loneliness as we go through life seeking associations with others that may define who we are. 

    Loneliness is more burdensome when we lack affection for who we are. 

    Lacking affection for who we are results from a lack of courage to live with conviction because we believe that our worth is defined by the acceptance of others before it is defined by our acceptance of ourselves. 

    Accepting ourselves demands that we take a brutally honest view of who we are and what we stand for, but our timid souls protect us from such realities and turn us into victims. 

    As victims, we require a support structure that recognises our weaknesses as battle scars, while ignoring our contribution towards growing so apparently weak. 

    Our contribution towards our weakness, or our impotent state, demands a sense of accountability for the decisions we took and the choices we made. 

    Accountability becomes unnecessary when we’re protected from the reality of it by those that seek to comfort us in moments of weakness while they seek such comfort as well. 

    Seeking commonality in weakness and then building a support structure to celebrate the triumph of existing in spite of such weakness is a fool’s profession of courage to the world. 

    Victims are emboldened in their need to hold others accountable for their (victim’s) choices when the support structure that they subscribe to is formed by equally celebrated victims. 

    Celebrating the weaknesses of others as a statement of courage denies them the motivation needed to emerge from the state of weakness. 

    When our state of weakness defines our significance to those around us, and in turn solicits the affection and care that we desire, we will fight with a blinding rage against anyone that threatens the reality that we’ve created for ourselves. 

    A sobering moment at an unexpected intersection in our lives is all that is needed to shatter the alternate reality that we clung to for so long. 

    A shattered reality forces us to reinvent ourselves in the face of adversity. 

    Forced reinvention in the face of adversity is considerably more challenging than reinvention from introspection. 

    In the absence of courage to reinvent ourselves, we will seek out new avenues to play the old script of pity that is needed for a battle weary soldier. 

    Pity begets pity, and the slide into self loathing will gain momentum. 

    Self loathing constricts our ability to prevail in the absence of a support structure that celebrates our weaknesses, leaving us with the tough decision to either prevail, or willingly fail. 

    The choice we make at this point will either see us emerge from that constricted space and embrace the reality of who we are capable of being, or see us resign ourselves to a scrap heap of souls that found it easier to blame the world for their misery than to live with conviction. 

    If we choose the former, we’ll suddenly breathe deeper and realise that we were simply gasping for air until the arrival of this new reality that we chose to embrace. 

    If we choose the latter, our chests will continue to constrict, until eventually we will suffocate on the bile of the self loathing that we nurtured for so long while waiting for sympathy to make us feel whole. 

    To breathe, rather than gasp, we must live with conviction, and have the courage to see ourselves for who we are and not how others perceive us to be. 

    We always show our best side to society, and hide the worst for the quiet moments of torment that is rarely shared with others. In those quiet moments, we either learn to love ourselves, or loathe ourselves, and the choices of others has no bearing on those moments whatsoever. 

  • The Other Side Of Arrogance

    The Other Side Of Arrogance

    This is the story of assumptions. Assumptions that we make about prickly characters and their tender counterparts. Assumptions we make about the motivation of people to act the way that they do, without realising that those assumptions are projections of how we believe we would act if faced with their circumstances, and then we judge them for it while cursing those that judge us under similar circumstances. 

    Facebook is a social experiment for many, including its investors. More importantly, I experiment with it by occasionally mixing in populist sentiment with principled viewpoints that I know will make many people awkward or even infuriated. And every single time, it proves true that people only polarise towards those that make them feel good about themselves, and rarely towards those that force them to think critically. Everyone wants to have their struggle recognised, but no one wants to emerge independently from their struggles because most often, their struggles grow to define their significance. The arrogance that is reflected in this approach is not one that most would relate to because we assume by default that arrogance is only an attribute of those that live selfishly, abruptly, or obnoxiously. Most are incapable of separating arrogance from passion or conviction, much to their own detriment. 
    Those that appear meek or subdued are often considered humble or downtrodden because of their apparently pitiful state, but there is an arrogance that runs deep in them as well. That arrogance is based on the belief that their state is so grave or overwhelming, that they should be celebrated for persevering, and they deserve all the compassion and assistance that their circumstance calls for. However, we’re too often so focused on the circumstance that we fail to consider their contribution towards enabling or causing their circumstance to arise. 

    The arrogance sets in when we assume that we simply cannot be responsible for our woes. The unpleasant experiences of life must have been imposed on our soft and kind nature by other arrogant or selfish ones, and therefore we are the victims of their oppression long after they departed from our lives and left us with enough opportunity to choose differently. That arrogance is the belief that life owes us more, as if life is independent of our choices and our efforts to improve our state. 

    The other side of arrogance emerges when we feel entitled to compassion, or we demand indulgence because we need an age old account to be settled before we let go of what’s holding us back. The other side of arrogance shows its ugly face when we define ourselves as damaged because we think someone else damaged us, while not realising that we subscribe willingly to being damaged and then abdicate responsibility for such a heinous choice. 

    Arrogance is not the absence of humility. Instead, arrogance is the assumption of humility, and similarly, it is the assumption of feeling entitled to a kindness that is not yours to demand or expect. The moment you impose your expectations on others, regardless of how justified it may be, before you are willing to let go of a sour experience, you become arrogant, because what should be an act of conviction now becomes a transaction of emotional blackmail. 

    Sadly, too many don’t realise this, and continue to live in self-constructed prisons while blaming the world for being cruel. 

  • Slip Sliding Away

    There are far too many mornings when I wake up and find myself searching for a specific inspiration before looking forward to the events or non-events of the day. My inclination to write is dwindling at a pace that is concerning, because it was part of a bigger picture ideal that I held on to for a very long time. ‘Held on to‘ is probably not an accurate way to describe it. It was part of a broader purpose that I willingly subscribed to. Still do, but just not with as much gusto as I did before.

    The time when I expressed without restraint has been replaced by a time when I am measured in favour of the absence of drama. That’s not how I envisaged living my life. I still push the boundaries in my own ways, but not nearly as aggressively as I used to. Perhaps this is why I write less often, and my book has stagnated to the point of gathering digital cobwebs. Resurrecting it has its benefits in that I will once again read an old manuscript with fresh eyes. The downside is that I will feel the burden of revising something that has been endlessly revised already. It’s like solving the same problem over and over and over again. That detracts from the sincerity of the text, the rawness of the expression of emotion, and the clarity of thought that inspired the writing in the first place.

    Not long after waking up with such a vapid mindset I find myself anxious and restless, with the need to achieve something meaningful with the limited time and resources I have at my disposal once again prompting me to drag my butt out of bed and into a course of action that will satisfy the yearning within me to make a difference. To contribute towards a world that I desired for myself, but was unable to achieve it, so I apply myself in the pursuit of creating it for my children, and for the generations to come. The sowing of my seed in the hope that the shade of its tree will shelter and offer a comforting repose to ones that I will never know or meet, and neither will they ever know or meet me.

    I think it is in this anonymous benefit that we feel both part of a greater social cohesiveness, and simultaneously take for granted the social fabric that offers us the comfort and security to be who we are. In other words, if we don’t realise what it is that we get from society, we won’t see reason to pay it forward for others to enjoy the same benefit. In so doing, we end up in the state that too many find themselves in, including me, where we persevere in the establishment of those structures was once available to others, but were eroded to the point of disuse leaving us to establish it once again in the hope that it will one day be available to the ones that come after us.

    The cryptic nature of my thoughts appear to be returning, which in essence is a good thing. It implies that I am once again looking questioningly at the world around me rather than enjoying or despising it at face value. Moments between such phases of inquiry in my life feel lifeless and vacuous. Life becomes an empty shell that demands fulfilment in the form of instant gratification and reckless indulgence when such purpose is lacking. That too often seems to explain a lot of what I see around me. Missed opportunities and broken commitments, not promises. Commitments transcend the fickleness of overt promises. Commitments set the expectation of loyalty, trust, honesty, sincerity, and so much more. A promise is merely a contract made either with conviction, or with a sense of responsibility, but not always made with a sense of true commitment to the agreed outcome.

    Life slips away when we falter on the path that leads to fulfilment of purpose. That faltering arrives in the form of a distracted emphasis on agreements, and obligations, rather than mutual commitment to the spirit of the outcome of such shared aspirations. That slope is slippery. It starts with a need to take care of numero uno when we have good reason to believe that if we don’t, no one will take care of what we need, and quickly descends into a selfish embrace of life when we discover the joy of finally getting what we want before having to worry about what others need. It starts out as doing something for ourselves for a change and quickly becomes the norm when we realise how many others do exactly the same. This collective irresponsibility somehow justifies the abandonment of responsibility to those around us, and soon thereafter we become part of the burdening masses that burden our souls through their self-indulgent destruction of the lives of those that they once committed to protect and uplift.

    Some may interpret this as divorce, some as betrayals of trust, and others as a betrayal of a shared dream. Either way, the betrayal is what lingers, and the selfishness that ensues appears to be the most sane response to an insane world. Our slip into the fabric of that tainted world escapes us when we lose sight of our own purpose that we abandoned in favour of the response to a tainted crowd.

    Life slips away when we stop serving something greater than our selfish needs. Once we find ourselves sliding into that abyss that offers gratification without fulfilment, we grow increasingly closer to embracing the animal within, and abandoning the human without. Courage takes on a new form when we find ourselves clawing our way up that slope to break the slide that many others so willingly embrace. Courage is a rare attribute these days. Populism has killed it.

  • Resilience is not cheap 

    I’ve watched some emerge stronger from harrowing ordeals, while others crumble from comparatively minor setbacks. This made me wonder what it is that makes some resilient while others remain fragile? Sometimes it’s the final straw that makes us appear weak when we crumble from a seemingly petty incident, while others have no insight into how many straws we carried on our backs up to that point. Yet at other times it is something that surprises even us when we find ourselves bewildered by the ferocity of a trial that strikes from a quarter from which we least expected. 
    Seeing something coming a mile off, or not expecting much from someone that eventually disappoints us has little impact to our composure. It takes a lot more of those anticipated occurrences to wear us down, as opposed to a single blow from someone we trust deeply. Our apparent resilience is therefore not something that is fixed or easily predictable, but rather it is relative to what we hold dear, or what we’re willing to do without. That suggests that what we tolerate is a deeply personal choice, some of which we’re aware of consciously, but most of which is shaped quite unconsciously throughout our lives. 

    Importantly though, we can’t assume that everyone is, or should be equally resilient, or that our tolerance to bear burdens or trials is equal. It’s not. We define our tolerance levels long before we reach it, and it is that tolerance level that often defines our resilience. On the other hand, our capacity to deal with troubling life events is largely the same. What we allow to consume that capacity versus what we let go of is what determines our resilience. Those choices are not so easy to make. Most often, that elusive state of mindfulness ensures that in the absence of mindfulness, we barely realise that we’re making such huge choices to begin with. 

    I always picture it as a wheel barrow that we push through life. As we go along, we pack in our troubles. As those troubles pass, we offload them from that wheel barrow and make space for new growth events. Sometimes we even allocate specific areas in the wheel barrow for different types of life events. When that specific area starts filling up, we grow anxious because it threatens to take up spaces that we set aside for other important life events. And in that way, challenges in one part of our life ends up threatening experiences in other parts of our lives. In such circumstances, we may find we lose patience in one area, like work, while we’re completely composed in another area, like a relationship with a significant other. When we don’t create those unique spaces, we find that one area of our life will more easily contaminate the quality of a totally and often unrelated other area of our life. Add to this the fact that many of us don’t ever offload those events because the events themselves have grown to define the state of our being, and you quickly see how easily it is that we sabotage our ability to carry our burdens through life in that little wheel barrow we were each given. That’s when that wheel barrow fills up until it either gives in under all that weight, or we lack the strength to push it any further. That is what determines our capacity to deal with new experiences. The more we hold on to the past, the less capacity we have to embrace the present. The less capacity we have, the lower our resilience to deal with what comes our way. 

    Before we can choose what we hold on to versus what we let go of, we need to know what we want. Sometimes we know what we want, but we don’t articulate it well enough to ourselves, so we go chasing after something we don’t really want, and then find ourselves devastated when we acquire it only to find that it is not what we were looking for to begin with. It sounds cryptic, but no more cryptic than how many of us live our lives. 

    Our ability to face adversity, smile, maintain our composure and move on is determined long before that adversity strikes. It is determined in those moments when we hold on to a bad memory and promise ourselves never to forgive or forget, or it is determined by those moments when we shrug, smile, accept what we could not change, and move on with the knowledge we gained from the experience. 

    Very simplistically, I see resilience as a sense of conviction driven from a deeply held desire to serve a greater purpose, which outweighs our need to exact retribution for a past event. But that begs the question at to what is purpose? Purpose must be greater than a selfish benefit. It has to benefit others as well. If it only benefits us, it’s not true purpose, it is more likely convenience or indulgence. Purpose becomes important for resilience because it is all that stands between us and the distractions that prevent us from reaching our goals. In fact, if your goal is not aligned with a specific purpose, it is more likely to have a fleeting effect on your happiness, rather than a lasting one. Goals without purpose tend to be instant gratification. Instant gratification doesn’t require conviction. It merely requires a short term satisfaction of a fleeting need. Such needs are usually instinctive and spontaneous, and feed an emotional state, not necessarily a spiritual one. 

    The expense associated with resilience is therefore the resolve we need to establish to let go of that which no longer serves our greater purpose. We choose those greater purposes that we wish to serve based on what we believe we are most capable of influencing as a beneficial outcome to those around us. The lower our self esteem, the less likely we are to be convinced of our ability to contribute in this regard. But before you feel pity for the one with the self esteem deficit, consider what it is that they are choosing to keep in their wheel barrows, as opposed to showing gratitude for the opportunities they have, and the growth they experienced? 

    Resilience is not cheap because it demands a level of conviction in who we are before anyone else is willing to invest in us. It demands that we recognise our abilities and take accountability for our contributions towards our lives, rather than pretending to be victims of circumstance or fate. Resilience dictates that we take charge, that we lead, that we own our space before it gets owned by others. When we give in and assume that life happens regardless of our input, or that we need saving before we feel significant, it confirms that we’re ungrateful for what we have. It also confirms that we choose not to learn from our mistakes nor accept accountability for our contributions to what weighs us down. When we get into that state, that victim mentality, we become a burden to others, a major deficit to society, and we test the resilience of those that have to pick up the slack because they see the value beyond the trials we placed in their paths instead of stopping and questioning why it is that they need to deal with what the fickle and ungrateful refuse to own. 

    Resilience is not cheap because anything in short supply is expensive to attain. The demand for resilience on those that live with conviction increases disproportionately with every wimp that cowers in the face of adversity. 

    [An incomplete thought process]