On dreams..

I had to live and learn for many years to come full circle. To get back to my inner child again. When I think about myself at first grade, I realize that I loved everything about me. I loved my excitement and my wacky dreams for the future. That was what I had lost over the years. My purpose.

Somehow our dissapointments over the years may cause us to lose faith in ourselves. How many people are there in this world who are actually doing their dream job? How many people can say "If I were to be born again, I would chose exactly the same path that I have chosen in my current life"? As we are growing up, some things happen that cause us to give up our dreams to become an astronaut or whatever it was that you've wanted to become. We move towards the more "mainstream" values and give up our dreams because we had become someone who thinks that we're not good enough to pursue them or that the "right conditions" are not there. We mistreat ourselves because we have been mistreated by others in the past. We choose to keep up with this tradition. I remember that in high school, people's main way of feeling good about themselves was making others feel bad about themselves. Every single thing that other people do or say about you sends a signal to you about what kind of a person you are. This might cause you to either open up to the possibilities in front of you or move away from them towards what seems to be available at the time. Most get caught up in the latter and turn out to be ignorant, indifferent human beings. For the love of God, don't base your worth on what other people say, do, think about you. The first person from whom you need encouragement is you.

I had visited some relatives over the holidays and what I can remember the most vividly from that time is the livelihood of my cousin's two year old son. The way he was so ready to suck every information like a sponge, the way he wanted to know everything and got so excited with every single bit of attention, is the way we all used to be when we were little kids. Then something happened along the way and we lost the excitement with the so called self-constructed "pain", "emotions", "stress" etc. I'm starting to to get my wacky dreams back, and I will do everything I can to pursue them. I'm slowly getting in touch the overexcited 7 year old girl inside me and it's feeling really good. I don't want to be a ballerina anymore but I have an image of the wacky dreams I want to pursue. I hope that everyone gets to have a dream they can pursue with passion. Because it's the second best thing you can possess, the first being your life.

Perception of wealth

I want to make one more remark about how people mesure their wealth with the amount of money they have. (I was reminded of this also during last saturday's lecture.) You possess things that are priceless, that no money in the world can buy. How much do your eyes cost? Would you give both of your eyes to me for a billion dollars each? How about one of your arm? That's just one thing. What if you're living in a city that's got all of the four seasons and plenty of sunlight? (I do.) By how much would they have to compensate you to make you move to another city with 3 hour long days and a severe winter? Why did materialism take over our lives so much? Why is being motivated by self interest means chasing after money? I don't want to be motivated by self-interest, I want to be motivated by my best-interest. And chasing money all the time is not for my best-interest. I aldready have two billion dollars for both of my eyes. I wouldn't sell any of the things I've learned in the past 6 months for any price. Certain things are truly pricless and we have to remind ourselves more frequently that it is something that goes deeper than a stupid mastercard commercial.

First thought of the day..

Having gone to an elitist private school, and an uber-elitist private university, I was around a lot of rich kids whose lives I have envied and gave myself hell for: "Life is not fair!", "Why can't I go to Canary Islands for spring break?", "If I had money, then I would be beautiful, because I'd be able to afford expensive clothes, beauty products, liposuction!! (sad but true, I'm blushing) and all that jazz".

Aside from the fact the fact that I am already rich compared to 90% of the world's population, money definitely does not signify wealth. Having some money in my wallet and some more in the bank already puts me in the top 10 percentage of the world's richest people. There are many people on earth who don't know where their next meal is going to come from. That being said, having money does not guarantee a rich life. Those who are rich can have very poor lives too.
Let's take this rich friend of mine as an example. Her father already had millions of dollars in the bank, and it was enough money for her and her kids so that she didn't care about school or learning or grades that much. What she did was, study and go to classes maybe 10% of her time, and spend the rest of her day shopping, hanging out in her room surfing the net, buying DVDs and watching them in her room, downloading sitcoms online and watching them in her room, watching television, shopping some more, watching some more sitcoms from her DVDs, going to expensive restaurants, reading fashion magazines, buying, buying and buying. You get the idea. Just to give her some credit, she was very social and had lots of "friends" and she also hung out with them frequently. But the thing is that most of her friends were the kind of people who respected her a little bit more when she bought a new Gucci purse. The other thing is that she more frequently chose to watch "Friends" on TV than to hang out with her real friends.

When I went to a meditation club meeting just two days ago and J., a yogi and a spiritual mentor, told us that your mind is constantly seeking love, peace, security and happiness, but does not know the difference between actions that truly give us the desired outcome and those that just create a temporary illusion of it. Your mind just runs after the things that will give you a momentary feeling of love, security etc. without noticing what's lasting and what's not. It is something other than your mind which knows the difference. That's why enough is never enough for most people. That's why your new i-pod or laptop does not give you the fulfillment that you thought it would.

You're sitting in your room and need some love, some company, maybe some adventure, some action, but instead of trying to make these things happen, instead of trying to make some friends for instance, you turn on the TV and watch "Friends". That fills the void inside you temporarily. It gives you an artificial feeling of what it's like to be amongst friends. And what do you get in return? Nothing! You get no love, no affection, no fulfillment by watching that sitcom. Instead, you fill your mind with assumptions as to what kind of a life you should have, what you're supposed to look like etc. You get what you put into things. What do you put into watching TV? Nothing. What do you put into reading fashion magazines? Absolutely nothing. What do you put into surfing aimlessly on the net?, What do you put into buying 20 pairs of shoes?, What do you put into compulsive flirting? Nothing at all.

Imagine that you suddenly stopped all the activities that don't require any input. How hard it would be to come up with new ways of finding ways to fill that time!! 4 hours spent not in front of the TV or internet, but with something else. We all do it. We all have "soft addictions". You would (or maybe not) really have to push the boundries of your creativity to come up with something really meaningful to do with your time. You would risk getting hurt or criticized but it would be worth it.

Now I realize that her life, which I've envied so much, was empty.
It was shallow.
It never gave her the things she really needed.
It was a poor life.

Now, I like my life better. Maybe I didn't go to Canary Islands or Barbados for spring break but I went to Cuba and it was quite enriching.

(PS: I'm going to make a difference in my life and not watch that sitcom that I used to watch every monday evening. I challenge you to change one thing in your life that you know is superficial but keep doing it because you are sort of addicted to it.)

First snow of the season..

Believe it or not, we had sunny weather until the end of January, and it was quite pleasant outside. It felt like a mini spring in the middle of winter. Some people call it global warming but I call it good luck; it happened because I wished for it. At a time when I most needed it. Today, it started snowing as I was having breakfast, and then it stopped for a while and the sun showed its face again. I love it when you have the snow and the sun at the same time. When the sky cleared, when it was light blue and bright again, even for just 2 minutes or so, I thought a true beauty (as opposed to enviably hot person X) was being revealed. I was really grateful to experience the feelings and the memories that came with that moment. Yet, the most important thing is to realize there is no moment like that one. That moment cannot be duplicated. Just like there will not be a sunset exactly like the one today. All these moments are unique.

It is these little moments, these snapshots that comprise your life.

And they are all free.

This divine creation does not care about what you look like, how much money or how many friends you have. It offers its beauties equally to everyone.

Why deny yourself the pleasure that is so generously being offered to you by obsessing about your "problems"? Your "problems" don't exist to tell you that you don't deserve this pleasure. Your problems shouldn't prevent you from living and having fun. You should be generous to yourself and not let what's in your mind take you away from these moments.

I'm so glad that I got a snapshot of that moment in my brain. It makes me feel alive.

How amazing it is that once you start loving yourself, even just a little bit more, you look at everything around you differently. What you see becomes unique and beautiful, once you see the beauty that is you.

I'm just grateful

All my life I had been conditioned to think a certain way that was detrimental to my well-being.

I had been making too many assumptions.

I had been taking myself and other people too seriously.

I had been looking to other people to affirm my self worth.

I had been turning myself into a victim in order not to take responsibility for what’s happening in my life.

I had been complaining a whole lot and seeing the glass half empty.

I never realized that it took very little things to feel alive and content. Very little things to make me feel privileged. All my life, I never really pondered about the things I’m truly grateful for.

I’m so grateful that I’m healthy and still young.
I’m so grateful that both my parents are alive and here to support me.
I’m so grateful that I have a home to live in and that the heating bill gets paid every month.
I’m so grateful that I’m amongst the privileged few who have a computer and internet so that I can share my feelings with so many people at the same time.
I’m so grateful that I don’t have any physical “deformities”. (Not because it changes your value, but because it restricts certain actions)
I’m so grateful that I have two legs that function well so that I can go outside whenever I want to, so that I can run for 40 minutes, so that I can take walks by the seaside at night as the cool sea breeze caresses my face, instead of obsessing about how short and fat I think my legs are and missing all these moments.
I’m so grateful for being able to feel the sun warm up my face, instead of thinking how I want bigger eyes, a smaller nose and more visible cheekbones.
I’m so grateful for people who care about me.
I’m so grateful that I’m alive so that I can see A fost sau n’a fost? at the movie theatre and laugh at the top of my lungs.

I’m so grateful that I’m still alive
to feel
whatever needs to be felt.

And I’m grateful for a million other small things. They let me know that life is beautiful.

As for the aforeyoutubed song, I read a review of it in a website (I’m not a feminist) and it had been sucking my head ever since. I think to a certain extent, it was my theme song for the last decade or so, with some (major) exceptions.

God knows
I’ve been taking a lot without giving back...

You gotta give to get
You gotta give to get back
You gotta give to get
You gotta give to get back
To the love...

My worth comes from what I can give, not from what you see when you look at me.

Wha?

Sometimes the random things I see on the street amaze me. A lot.


It reads:
Free Your Mind: Sunshine Solarium

I wonder what they had in mind when coming up with this motto.

Confused..

It's one of those nights again.. I cannot bring myself to sleep. I had started reading this book called "Buddhism For Busy People" which is apparently supposed to be a crash course into Buddhism. After reading a few pages, I got overwhelmed again by the 100th realization of the fact that the things we think will make us happy are of no avail. There are very few people in this world who are truly happy. Those who are rich, those who are poor, those who are beautiful, those who are ugly, those who are well educated, those who are illiterate, those who've had plastic surgery, those who haven't -yet- (haha), those with lovers, those without, those that are sexually promiscuous, those who are not, those with loving parents and those without, religious people, atheists, those who cheat and those who don't.. all kinds of people.. They share one thing in common: They are never truly happy.. There is always a need to have more. People embark on one quest after another, without even getting a chance to cherish what they have in their hands. Nothing, at least nothing "temporary" satifies people. But what is there to life that is not temporary? Isn't the life itself temporary ? Then what's the point of all this rush? What's the point of being an economist/a web designer/an anthropologist etc.? What's the point of becoming?

I know that I'm here for a reason. There must be a purpose to my existence. However I cannot seem to have a clue about what it is. What is my mission? What am I here for? Maybe life is all about the search and not the answer. But does that mean happiness is never attainable?

I just want to be. Get to know myself. Feel the immensity of my soul.

Right now, I want to take myself to a pleasantly hot summer night, when I'm lying on the divan at the balcony of our summer house. Where the sea is entirely still and you can hear nothing but the sound of the fireflies. When the full moon is hypnotizing and the azure of the night encompasses every living soul. I see myself truly existing. My thoughts are still like the sea. I complement the universe yet I'm so complete within myself. Love manifests it omnipresence and I feel grateful for being a part of this divine creation. I close my eyes with a subtle smile on my face, looking gracious with the bliss of having fullfilled the purpose of my existence. Can this ever come true?

"Screw this! I wanna go home and eat some chocolate!!"

...is what I've thought when I was working out today. Why I still continued the work out remains an enigma. I'm not going to post stupid chocolate photos here though.

Behold the new me..

Geez. I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since the last time I posted here. It doesn't mean I've been slacking off though. I had been doing an equal amount of thinking and slightly less feeling.

I had gone to the movies, alone, yesterday and the feeling of lonliness suddenly struck me. I found myself thinking how pathetic I am walking alone like this, having no one to go to the movies with. (I actually prefer going to the movies alone by the way). There was this condescending voice in my head telling me how things are supposted to be like. I know to whom the voice belongs. It belongs to the all the wrong signals and conditioning that I'm getting from the media, ignorant people around me etc. From all the subtext implying that the more people around me, the happier I will be. Everybody believes this religiously. Being alone is on par with being miserable and destitute. Of course it's fun to go out with friends but why can't I let myself have fun when I go out to do things alone? I think that it's more difficult to learn how to have fun by yourself than with other people. You obviously don't spend your entire time with others but you're obligated to spend your entire life with yourself. That's why you have to make an effort to like yourself, enjoy your own company and have the guts to face yourself with all your strengths and weaknesses. Many times I've heard people say that they're scared to travel or do things alone because it makes them start thinking!! They want to avoid thinking because when they do, they will think that they are lonely, thus pathetic losers, that nobody loves them and they should be pitied. They will think about what they're doing wrong. Isn't this what the consumerist culture tells you to do? "Don't think. We will do the thinking for you. We know what's best for you and we'll tell you what to do. Do as we say, but don't think, don't scrutinize."

Everyone is responsible for his own life. Those who claim that loneliness is pathetic can be the cowardest, the weakest of all because they're nothing when left to themselves. Their sense of self depends on other people which I find very sad.

At least, I'm learning to cope with difficult things. That way I will know how to appreciate a genuine company and to hold on to it not because of desperation but because of love and respect. I may have to be alone sometimes but so does everyone, so I'm not alone.

Time Tested Beauty Tips

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day.

For poise, walk with the knowledge you'll never walk alone.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; Never throw out anybody.

Remember, If you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.

The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.

The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows, and the beauty of a woman with passing years only grows!

-Sam Levenson

How much do I want to beleive that!!