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December 23, 2004

Why I celebrate Christmas

For most who know me, it's understood that I don't celebrate occasions. I stand by my belief that each day should be a celebration of life. I have made it a rule that no one should give me presents for occasions, birthdays, mother's day, or whatever day it may be......For me, the gift of life, is more than enough to sustain me. There is nothing in this world that I have a dire need for, except for the expectations that I have set out for myself. So, why am I 'celebrating' Christmas? For one, to remind us that Christ was born in a manger, not in some posh hospital (not that they had any then). It's to bring together all friends, on that day, to share food, laughter and love.....it's almost like an ordinary weekend, families getting together, with a difference - that another trying year has passed, and we are still here together again. When I look at the tree in the living room, I remember the first christmas years and years ago, when we didn't even have our own home, it was a rental flat. We didn't have money to buy ornaments, so I made little green and red bows out of ribbons. Today, I still have them on the tree. It's my living family history book which I will leave for my son, for his family. It's all that I have that I care most about, and That is why I celebrate Christmas.

December 17, 2004

honesty versus trying

I managed to dig up my journal in 1988. Then, we didn't have blogs so this spiral notebook was my blog of sorts. I read through the entries, and I see that after more than 10 years, the basic principles in my life hasn't moved an inch, yet the little glitches seemed to have weaved it's way into the present day.Which brings me to my favourite line....that PEOPLE NEVER REALLY CHANGE. If we were born to be lacking in social skills, going for classes or taking a 10 year course on it, isn't going to equip us with it, and that is most apparent during a crisis. When in a crisis and under pressure, we don't have the luxury of time, to think about the correct response. There is no time to quickly recap history and try to take an alternative route, lest we hit ourselves against the wall again.........we have to react almost instinctively.Perhaps it boils down to whether we care enough, or we don't. AND for those who don't, yet know that they need to 'conform' to a certain behaviour, most times, it will be a weak reaction, which could backfire or worse still, choke up the entire relationship.In my book, Honesty is always appreciated. In my life, Trying always meant, they are getting nowhere....I am not a GURU in relationships, nor am I a perfect person, but I believe that when we set out to do our best, we should please do just that. Half measures are likely to result in half a relationship, and with enough time and stressors, it will eventually halve itself to zero.
No one should go about their life being misled into believing that they can change behaviour. They can try, but honestly, they never really do.

December 15, 2004

getting away

The freedom of being able to get away is such an adrenalin push that I started to pack a week ahead. Year 2004 is a milestone in my life which I will always remember, because it is this year that I managed to UNCHAIN myself from the chores of my life. FOR 17 years, I have toiled, made sacrifices and paid for a great mistake I made when I was young. Finally, I had the opportunity to let go of a burden, and I did just that - without which, freedom is in my distant past.To obtain this freedom, I had to argue, fight with people who were closest to me - People who could not see beyond them, people who could stick to routine, people who would trade their code of ethics for an ego boost.......people who didn't believe that I would choose Getting Away from IT all.Today, I believe that these people are still frazzled that I could go on enriching my life and dedicating my time to better use without qualms. Perhaps it's what's important to us that matters at the end of the day. I am happy, and that should count.We should get away from it all sometimes, not to run away, but to find ourselves again. There were opportunities, but as people, we find change discomforting. The saying, that there will be one drop that makes the cup runneth over....well, that last drop came by this year and I let it go. My life has started flowing again, like the water in the cup....

December 10, 2004

truth

How does one begin to be honest, when the truth is always too difficult for anyone to swallow? In our lifetime, there will be moments, when we conceal the truth, lest we hurt another person. We try to be politically correct. In friendships, we expect some honesty from friends, yet most times, when they fall short of our expectations, we wonder, why? On the one hand, it's right to be polite and have no real opinions, on the other, we set a different expectation for people closest to us. The disappointment comes when we feel that our friends have 'withheld' the truth for reasons they try to validate, but never a REASON enough for us. Is the truth really important that a friendship gets 'put on the line'? Truth forms the basis of a relationship, friendship. Ironically, it provides us with an emotional safe haven. It's a rare time when being honest is the key to bridging bridges between people. Truth helps us grow, grow to change, change to grow. With truth, we have trust and with trust, we have Care and Love. Truth is not about the competition of knowledge, it's caring enough for another to have this need to share.

December 09, 2004

The Bottom Line

When it comes to any given troublesome situation, I figured that what counts would be the end-result. But how far away is the end? Sometimes, it seems like it's a moving end. Always a new injection of information which should help us identify the solution, but never does. When we think we understand a situation, suddenly we realise that understanding is just not enough. It's tough to really be able to be free to forgive and free to move on, yet there is this part that forces us to remember how the situation came to be, the emotional trauma of the situation and then we forget that we needed to move towards resolution. So we end up moving back and forth between the start and the end points, when we should be really accelerating towards the bottom line, that is, do some patchwork and get on with life, after all, with the bottom line, we should have help from gravity, right?
So we plod through our lives, trying to make this day better than the one went past, quietly smiling as if we were not affected by it all, and with the hope that everyone else believes we've got past it. And when we finally do, it's not like we've achieved anything because there will be no celebration, no mark in our diaries, nothing.....the bottom line was conferred without a pomp, yet it took us many a great effort to get ourselves there.