Tag: gratitude

  • Reciprocation

    Reciprocation

    I’ve seen myself walking a path through a barren land. In the distance, the very farthest end of the horizon, beautiful clouds gathered, non-threatening and cool in appearance. Rolling over itself casually as if waiting patiently for my arrival. I did not rush to meet it, because my companion was lagging behind. The sun where I stood circling in the sand, was beating down mercilessly. I could walk towards the comfort that awaited me, but my companion was looking worn and disheartened. From where she stood, the horizon looked very different. It was barren, just like the area surrounding us. She was too far back to see the clouds awaiting our arrival. So she slowed even more.

    I too slowed down. I could see it for the both of us, so it didn’t matter that she couldn’t. What mattered was that we got there together. So I halted, waited, and slowly made my way back to her to help her along. Shielding her eyes with my hands in the hope that it may reveal the clouds, she continued to look back. Back at the barren land with traces of smoke still pluming into the sky from where she left. She kept looking back hoping for the smoke to stop, but it didn’t. And the smell still stuck in her nose taunting her with images of the horrors she had seen before leaving that place.

    So I pulled her closer, steadied her footing, and gently nudged her forward so that we could start our journey again. The horizon slowly fading, even the clouds dissipating as I dragged the weight of us both towards that horizon. What little food and drink I had, I kept for her. She needed it more than I did. I could see the end in sight, and it gave me hope. She couldn’t see it, so she needed hope. And the little sustenance that remained was hope enough for her. If nothing else, it delayed the inevitable, as she peered over her shoulder again staring longingly at the plumes of smoke still barely visible in the distance.

    She ate and drank and regained her strength, as I slowly wilted beside her. But I didn’t show my wilting spirit. She needed hope, and I needed to be strong. Each step drained me more, while each step infused a newfound sense of determination in her. As she picked up her pace, I started lagging behind. The clouds on the horizon now creeping into view for her, she finally saw what kept me going all that time. Almost spent, I needed a moment to gather my strength for that final push to tear us away from those plumes of smoke forever.

    As I paused to rest, she grew impatient. I looked at her with the slightest smile on my face, as if asking her if she finally sees what I was pushing for all that time. Instead of a soft word, I received a scowl. I had now become the weight that was slowing her down to get to the destination that I fought to reach for the both of us. But that didn’t matter. The plumes were now gone, or even if they weren’t, she found hope to distract her from those plumes. Nourished with the little reserves we had left, she powered on and left me there, catching my breath, taking a moment to pause, to gather my strength so that I could stand up tall enough to get a glimpse of the clouds that was enough to feed my soul and my battered limbs.

    The clouds. Even though I could no longer see them, I still knew they were there. She disappeared into the distance as I kept steadily advancing a single pace at a time, until I rediscovered my rhythm. The same rhythm that kept me going for the both of us before, was now more than sufficient to keep me going by myself. I gathered pace, and scanned the horizon. Suddenly, the clouds melted in a haze of heatwaves rising lazily from the sand. As I looked around, I realised it was a mirage, and to the right, a slight distance further, around the side of the rocky cliffs that flanked our journey for so long, it appeared majestically in lush green shades, and the whitest clouds. I wanted to call out to her to turn back, but she was gone.

    [This attempt at a creative abstract personifies the journey that many of us take in our efforts to uplift others. Sometimes we expend ourselves to the point where we become the burden that we hoped to help others rise above. And sometimes, if we’re fortunate, we catch ourselves before we reach that nadir of our existence. That point that is so low, that looking up is too daunting, so we keep our gaze firmly fixed on the ground before us hoping for a sign as to when it will welcome us home. Today is not that day.]

  • Saturation Point

    Saturation Point

    There is a price to be paid for believing in people before they give you reason to believe in them. That price extracts a toll that demands your contribution during the days when they see little reason to believe in themselves. It often results from years of betrayal or failed expectations, until eventually the way the world treated them became the definition of how they viewed themselves, and how they viewed you.

    I’ve witnessed first hand how some rise to the challenge simply because they know that there is someone that believes that they can, while others recede and don’t even try because they know that there is no one that cares about the outcome either way. This resonates with me personally as well. I dropped out of school because no one noticed that I was uninterested and barely in school for a large portion of the year in the eleventh grade. So dropping out in the twelfth grade was an easy decision that went unchallenged. I didn’t particularly find it liberating or depressing. It just was that way, and at the time, the consequences were irrelevant. All that mattered was that no one noticed, so I had no reason to care either.

    But that only lasted to a point. The complacency and lack of ambition annoyed me. It annoyed me because it felt like there was something missing. Something beyond the token of having completed school, or needing a job others would respect. That something was a need to be consequential. To make a difference.

    Going with the flow never directed the flow. It only ever gave force to something already in motion. Sometimes, like dropping out of school, it felt irrelevant. Whether I was in or out didn’t matter, because the decision I had taken wasn’t a decision that mattered. I therefore gave up on the pursuit of something that seemed inconsequential because the effort to sustain something that I did not see any value in felt burdensome rather than purposeful.

    Entering the job market in a menial role also didn’t matter. It was a means to an end. Career goals were not foremost in my mind and I had no intention of changing the world. I simply needed to sustain my basic needs and contribute to those around me within the limited expectations that they had of me. It worked, and human attachment didn’t feature at all.

    That set the tone for things to come. At least it did until I realised that I always found a way to improve what I was doing even if improvement was not required. It wasn’t about reinvention, or fixing something that wasn’t broken. It was the excitement of realising that the little I had could do more than was originally intended. Whether it was a subconscious scream for purpose, or merely a frustration at seeing opportunities being wasted when someone could benefit instead, it drove me to constantly improve things without there being reward or recognition attached to it.

    Without realising it, that became my overwhelming passion and ultimately defined what I saw as purpose in life. At the time, I did not see it as passion or purpose. It was simply who I was, and still am. But that’s how I perceive it (and me) to be. Anyone not party to that journey of mine simply sees a restless soul that is never satisfied or content with what he has before him. I guess such a view has merit, but it’s the same type of merit that suggests that planting a tree whose shade you will not live to enjoy is a fruitless exercise. Such thinking causes the child to be oblivious to the comforting shade of a tree. When that child discovers the comfort of the shade later in life, they then find themselves compelled to plant a tree whose shade they will never live to enjoy, so that another lifetime is not wasted in acquiring such comfort.

    The energy to sustain such a drive for purpose in life is only acquired when the belief in the value it creates is held with conviction. That conviction fades when there is a constant barrage of critiques questioning the motives behind the contribution, rather than appreciating its outcomes or sharing its convictions. Eventually the conviction dulls and is replaced by the weightiness of ingratitude. That is the point at which caring becomes optional and servitude becomes obligatory.

    We all have physical constraints and self imposed tolerances. We reach the saturation point of tolerance long before our capacity to contribute has been depleted. It’s easy to lose the essence of who you are in your service to others. A life invested in the upliftment of others often results in an under investment of the self. Like it has been so eloquently stated before, you cannot pour from an empty cup. What’s worse is that the cups that were filled by your investment are rarely willing to look back to see how empty yours had become in filling them.

    Reaching saturation point means that the investment in what you saw as purpose starts to weigh you down more than the fulfilment of seeing its fruition lifts you up. It sets in when the contribution is constantly paid forward, but seldom is anything paid back.

    [This is an incomplete and rather cryptic thought process, the value of which will escape most, and add yet another weight to the burden of investing in others. Perhaps it is an investment that was never intended to yield returns in this lifetime. Perhaps not.]

  • 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.

  • 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 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] 

  • Taken for Granted

    It’s not always a bad thing to be taken for granted. It really all depends on who is taking you for granted, doesn’t it? When we incline towards selflessness, being taken for granted is comforting. It means that those around us find us to be dependable for what it is that they need from us. If we’re not inclined towards selflessness, that same feeling of dependability turns into a feeling of being used. I guess that means being taken for granted is more dependent on who we are, rather than how others treat us, not so?

    What I need from a given relationship is what I use as a benchmark to determine how I am appreciated. The less I need, the more likely I am to contribute without any expectation of either gratitude or reciprocation. The moment I need something, and I don’t get it in the portion sizes that I want, I hold back and withdraw. That’s when I start feeling used. Problem is, that is based on the assumption that the other person knows exactly what it is that I need from them, and they also know why it’s important for me to get it from them specifically.

    Almost everything we get in life can be obtained from multiple sources. Feeling loved can be achieved through affection and acceptance of strangers, but the value of such love is significantly less than the value from significant others. Again, it points to the worth we place on others, rather than the worth they place on us. I think this is important. It is important because we usually fail to consider our investment or contribution towards the circumstances that lead to us being taken for granted.

    It is very easy to feel oppressed or persecuted when our needs are not considered. However, if we constantly strive to put up a front of independence and aloofness so that we don’t seem needy or desperate, then isn’t it reasonable for others to assume that we need that much less? Think about it. The amount of neediness I express is proportional to the amount of neediness that others witness. How we judge that need is a separate matter. Our judgement thereof is based on the biases we hold on to relative to the objective truth of the matter at hand. In other words, our prejudices and hurts determine whether or not we see something as positive, negative, or neutral.

    So back to the point at hand. The pervasiveness of political correctness in the world is a result of the majority needing to feel appreciated or respected for their struggles because they generally lack the courage to take accountability for their contribution towards the state in which they find themselves. Political correctness is a polite but insincere way of demonstrating appreciation while disagreeing with what is happening to begin with. We’re insincere like that. We don’t want to be taken for granted the way we take others for granted. Awkward truth.

    The point is, we’re only taken for granted in a bad way when we need more than we are willing to give. If our true purpose and conviction in life is to uplift and serve humanity for the greater good, we will contribute and invest in others regardless of reciprocation or reward. We will find comfort in knowing that someone else’s life is slightly easier, or their struggles are somewhat eased because of something we did, anonymously or not. Whether or not they reciprocate should not be the defining motivation for us to act, because in living among a social structure that enjoys such selfless contribution, we automatically gain from the harmony that results.

    We rarely consider what we take from society, or from the selfless contribution of others, but are quick to assume that we’re taken for granted the moment we have an expectation that is not fulfilled. Being taken for granted is a compliment. It’s tacit acknowledgement that we can be relied upon to produce something of value. Value that is so pervasive, that we grow accustomed to it being there, while only realising its worth when it is removed from our lives. Being taken for granted is only a reality when we expect something in return, but don’t get it. If we manage our expectations, we’ll find that feelings of abuse from being taken for granted will be fleeting, while our focus on contributing towards others in ways that fulfil our lives will increase.

    The logic is simple. If we truly love doing something, we’ll do it regardless of who notices or acknowledges. However, if we truly love getting attention for what we do, we’ll only do it as long as someone is noticing. Perhaps this is why in a society of attention whores, there is so little fulfilment in life.