Spring has come to Istanbul

Some Quotes on Failure

If you're doing your best, you won't have any time to worry about failure. ~Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Failure is an event, never a person. ~William D. Brown, Welcome Stress!

Failure doesn't mean you are a failure... it just means you haven't succeeded yet. ~Robert Schuller

One fails forward toward success. ~Charles F. Kettering

In a world flagrant with the failures of civilization, what is there particularly immortal about our own? ~G.K. Chesterton

No man is a failure who is enjoying life. ~William Feather

Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. ~Henry Ford

Nothing fails like success because we don't learn from it. We learn only from failure. ~Kenneth Boudling

Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits. ~Robert Louis Stevenson

I think I will succeed more often if I stopped the "I am a failure" type negative self-talk.

Back to rumbling on scattered concepts

OK, here I am again, out of respect for my remaining two readers or so. :) I am actually going to force myself to write this time. Many things had been going on in my life and I realized that I was getting so disconnected from myself. Thus, the lack of my posts.

The aforementioned "things" include:

1. finding a job and then quitting it
2. the possibility of a new "love affair" and its consequent lack thereof
3. the stress of being "in between jobs"

Lately, I've been having those days when I don't want to face myself, get the hell out of my comfort zone and just try to figure out what kind of flawed thoughts that I have and then make an effort to correct them. With each passing day, my firm belief in how your thoughts shape your life become more and more deeply rooted. I once wrote it in my journal that my life - all of our lives in fact - was like a play-dough. I can shape it in any way that I want. And for me that is the intimidating part. Because I still don't know who I am, and what I want to do with my life.

On a slightly different note:

Over the past few months or so, I noticed how I base my feelings strictly on what's going on around me. How much I let others control how I feel. I would feel that I'm a beautiful person and a beautiful soul for one second, and then something would happen and all the intense effort that I put into building those beliefs would be shattered into pieces. Then I would say "maybe I'm just kidding myself, If I were really that ..... [beautiful / fun / interesting / whatever] ..... others would be able to see and appreciate it". Which implies that I am really kidding myself, not in the sense that I'm actually not a fun, smart, interesting person, but in the sense that I haven't really convinced myself about these qualities of mine. I used to think that I was finally over that; I used to think that being mistreated by others didn't mean that I had to mistreat myself but, as always, there are occasions in life that come to test the strength of these beliefs. And apparently I didn't pass the test this time. I'm still expecting everyone to find me interesting; I'm still expecting everyone to see that I'm intelligent. And I still depend on others to affirm my "worth".

I always used to think that if I happened to do "this and this and that", then I would love myself. But now I realize that unless I love myself, as I am now, with all the flaws, with all the good and the bad, with all my beauty and ugliness, accept myself with all my insecurities and learn to forgive myself for them, there is no way that I can accomplish "this and this and that". The change begins from within. Unfortunately, I think it's time for me to acknowledge that and let go of this intense effort to change how I act, how I look and what I accomplish and start to love and accept myself no matter what. It's definitely something that I and many other people, are not used to doing. We always try to change what's on the outside than what's in the inside. It might take a long time for me to get used to that but I think it's the best lifetime present that I can give to myself.

By the way, I want to learn how to forgive.

I will write again.. soon. I swear. I apologize that I have been such a slacker lately (or rather a slacker-blogger). I have so many new things to share, and I know that you have been looking forward to getting some more of that quasi-nerdy CHIness. So, don't give up on me. I'll be back!

Today's Headlines

Here are today's headlines from BBC:

Reid faces control order pressure

Israel detains 30 Hamas officials

Big Brother rapped over race row

Rubbish tax 'to boost recycling'

Canada school shooter hunted

Crisis appeal for Darfur region

Watchdog to probe BSkyB stake

A-level students 'given answers'

Uefa blames Reds fans for chaos

Greenspan fears China market fall

Methane blast rocks Russian mine

US to push for new Iran sanctions

Tamil Tigers launch naval attack

Court upholds £48m divorce award

Man jailed for raping schoolgirl

Blame row erupts over power plant

Divided Lib Dems reject coalition

Shake-up in hunt for crooked cash

Study reveals prime nuclear sites

NHS doing 'too many' cataract ops

School place appeals up and down

If you take a close look at the kind of crap we read everyday, for the sake of "knowing what's going on in the world" or "being more informed or sophisticated", you will recognize the extent of negativity we are bombarded with from our environment. Imagine pepole reading these news day after another - for years! I'm not suggesting that we should turn a blind eye to what's going on in the world, but we should be removed from the things that we are reading, refuse to let them affect us in negative ways and keep in mind that there is no news source that is 100% reliable. Most messages we get from the media are distorted in some way to make them more appealing to our senses. I believe that the first step is just to realize how much negativity there is all around us and it has the potential to bring us down when we don't consciously recognize its existence and just take it as given.

And now, here is some groundbreaking research for you as your bonus:

Viagra could aid jetlag recovery

Word of the Day

Cavort

1. To bound or prance about.
2. To have lively or boisterous fun; to behave in a high-spirited, festive manner.

Usage in haiku:

brand new day at work,
her foolish mind cavorting
in vast dimensions

at least i tried.

Wanna write your own haiku?

More Quotes

I have been feeling lazy to write something new so I'll try to get away with some quotes instead. They're from one of my heroes.

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

She was an awfully smart woman.

As soon as I find a way to tackle the novelty issues in my life, I will be back with more ideas. Until then, content yourself with quotes from awesome people.

Baby Steps

Gotta take them one by one

One thought at a time.

Little Miss Sunshine

Dwayne: I wish I could just sleep until I was eighteen and skip all this crap-high school and everything-just skip it.
Frank: You know Marcel Proust?
Dwayne: He's the guy you teach.
Frank: Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he uh... he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you're 18... Ah, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? High school-those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that.

By far the best movie I have ever seen. Million times better than bittersweet chocolate! I can't remember the last time that I've laughed so much and cried at the same time. If you haven't seen it, don't wait another minute.

My new definition of beauty...

I have been writing a lot on the topic of beauty lately. I guess it's because I had developed a very mainstream understanding of beauty starting from a very young age and let my perfectionistic ideals destroy my life in many ways. Some of you might have thought that I have finally reached the pinnacle of narcissism after reading my So I'm beautiful, now what? post but I actually began to think that way mainly because my definition of beauty has changed. I don't think I have changed much in the physical sense. Plus, I don't think that thinking that you are beautiful is something narcissistic; it is something that everyone is entitled to. My perception of beauty has changed not only in terms of what I think of myself but what I think of other people as well.

Without further ado, I would like to share with you the "before and after" of my understanding of beauty.

Until the end of my college years (and several months following graduation) the equation engraved into my brain was something like this:

BEAUTY (in this case female beauty) = tall slim body + thin long legs with lengthy muscles (no fat on the tights - absolutely a visual faux pas) + a head full of long black curly hair + big eyes with long eyelashes (preferably blue or black) + cheekbones! + a small face + small feet + smooth clear skin + and a "figure 8" shaped body (whatever that is).

And this is the new equation after much reading, thinking and feeling:

BEAUTY = Health + Cleanliness + Self esteem

Even right now, it can still be hard for me to entirely have faith in the second equation. It's probably because I still lack the self confidence to stick with my own values as opposed to those of popular culture. When somebody tells me or implies (or talks behind back back) that I'm not a very "presentable" person, I still take their word for it and instantly reject the beliefs that I base my identity on.

This gives birth to my very own obsession:

"If I could just be beautiful".

If I could just be beautiful...
I would have:
the right friends
the right parents
the right job
the right grades
and love and respect from those around me

I would have everything that I'd like to have...
I would have a life.

No wonder you think you get very little respect from your surroundings because you don't respect yourself. You have to show yourself some respect first before expecting to receive it from other people. Then, you won't have to ask for it in the first place.

Now, when I look back, I realize that the hell I gave myself for my appearance has prevented me from establishing many meaningful things in my life. When you think you're born a loser, you don't get much inspiration to try new things or even to try just a little harder without loosing your hope and encouragement. "Everyone thinks you're ugly anyway, so you're gonna have make an extra effort to make yourself liked by those around you, right?". NO! I don't want this to be so any longer.

Now to me physical beauty comes from taking care of your body, cleaning and nourishing and being nice to it and making the best effort to remain healthy.

There is also another aspect of beauty that cannot be seen but can be felt. It comes from the sense you give to other people about how you feel about yourself, being confident in your own skin, emitting positive energy and optimism, being able to count on yourself and having faith in your potential.

If you can get all these together in one package, nobody would ever call you an ugly person. (and what would matter if they did?)

Now I understand that as long as I respect my body, which is able to carry out amazing tasks for my benefit, and take care of it so that I can use it most efficiently in the journey of reaching my goals, becoming a leader and benefiting the world - making a difference, I will lead a happy life. I wouldn't need anyone to tell me that they find me attractive or beautiful or sexually appealing.

If there comes a moment in my life when I become convinced that I can no longer benefit the world, then my life would cease to exist at that moment. That is what I dread - not being ugly.

Amen.

Listen to this:

To Let Myself Go by Ane Brun.

New Beginnings

New Beginnings are very much needed when you've come to that point in your life when you feel stuck, not making much progress - just going in circles. After all, one cannot continue to do the same things and expect different results. Moving on is often scary and painful because it requires someone to move out of his "comfort zone". So most remain entangled uncomfortably in their comfort zones.

I have deleted some of my older posts because I had written them just for the sake of writing them and hadn't really enjoyed myself that much while writing them. So I cannot expect the readers to enjoy them in the first place. I would definitely like to keep a positive and optimistic attitude in my posts from now on. Maybe, this could be my blog's new beginning. As for mine, it is right around the corner.

PS: I'm really affected by the Virginia Tech shooting incident. Maybe next time I will feel like writing something about it.

With Love

Earthlings

Speaking of love, maybe it is time for a slight twist on the subject to talk about something other than self-love.

Ever since I've started to recover from anxiety and perfectionism, I have been feeling a different kind of compassion towards animals. I felt it in a particularly strong way today. I used to be scared of dogs living on the street, as there are still a few ones that I come across occasionally and feel intimidated thinking that they might bite me or attack me. As I was walking home today, I saw a bunch of street dogs walk past me and I didn't feel anything other than affection. Even though they looked a little shabby and malnourished I didn't think anything other than how adorable creatures they were. I think they sensed it as well.

There is a documentary about animal cruelty that was being shown in this year's independent movie festival that I wanted to see but didn't have the time. It is called Earthlings. As I was reading some reviews of it , I found out that the movie is already posted on the internet, on google videos. So I was really excited and glad to be able to watch the movie at home for free.

I'm absolutely appalled by things I've seen in the movie. I'm so glad I saw it on the internet because I wouldn't be able to keep watching it if I saw them on big screen in a dark movie theatre. Once again, I have witnessed how vicious us humans can become at times.

I don't think any animal would attack a human on purpose, just for fun. If they do, I believe it's because they have been mistreated by humans in the past and thus developped hostile feelings towards them or because they have become "humanized" or learned to act human-like as a result of being over-exposed to the same niche with humans. I've read somewhere that most cats usually stop eating when they feel full as long as they know they will be able to find food easily the next time. But this is not the case with most pet cats. They keep eating as long as given food, even though they must be assured that food will be provided to them. This is because they have developped human-like eating behaviours since humans are one of the rare kind of species who would like to indulge in food after the point of feeling full. I realise that this is highly unscientific and might very well be false but I feel that it is part of the explanation as to why animals can act like humans sometimes.

I would definitely become a vegetarian if I still lived in the States. Right now, I decided to become a vegetarian in theory but I cannot really say that to my parents because if I told them that, they would do everything they possibly can to make me eat meat again. They would cook meat almost everyday and give me hell for not eating it. This is because I'm anemic and my parents don't think I can survive without meat. We are a family of omnivores and we generally eat vegetable dishes almost every day. So I don't intend changing that by disclosing the fact that I decided to become vegetarian. This will be our little secret! So from now on, I will try to eat as little meat as possible because I don't think that my conscience can allow me to do otherwise.

You can watch the documentary on Google Video. It has really graphic images, but I encourage you to see the movie and share your feelings about it with me.

The question

Is this caterpillar spending time in her cocoon in order to transform into a butterfly or is she fucking wasting her time?

That is the question.

More on love..

Imagine that you’re roommates with someone who hates you, who hurts you on purpose, who promises to do certain things but never does it. What would your relationship be like? Wouldn’t it be like hell?

Now, imagine that this person is you!! Have you ever abused yourself? Have you ever promised yourself that you would do a certain thing but never did it? Have you ever thought of ending your existence?

Just as you have relationships with other people you also have a relationship with yourself. You do have an inner voice that makes positive or negative judgments about everything around you. There is a voice which tells you that “you are doing your best” or “you are not doing your best; you need to try harder”. There is a voice that tells you that “you need to improve your actions”. There is a voice that gives you hell for the circumstances or events that are beyond your control.

Self love is not something that emanates from the result of certain actions or certain events. It is unconditional love you feel for yourself just because you know you deserve it. Most people base their self love on the result of certain actions. If you really screwed up a task that you were supposed to accomplish, then you don’t love yourself as much. If, on the other hand, somebody says something you’d like to hear to you, then you love yourself a little bit more. This is not the way to go thinking about yourself. Your self-love should be prominent no matter what the circumstances are.

Loving yourself is not equivalent to spoiling yourself because unconditional self acceptance does not indicate having an unrealistic image of yourself. On the contrary, it is very realistic because it brings out your worth to which you had been turning a blind eye for the rest of your life. It sheds light onto that reality that had been neglected for a long time.

When you love yourself, everything you do is motivated by your best interest. This is what makes you accomplish things. This is what makes you love the universe. This is what prevents self abuse. It’s not the obligations, it’s the self-love and acceptance that moves you and inspires you to do or change things.

If you do not love yourself then how can you expect to receive love from your environment?

You cannot do your best if you don’t love yourself and accept yourself as you are now. How can you do your best with the derogatory voices in your head? How can you do your best if there is a perfectionist voice that doesn’t like anything and keeps telling you that you need to do better and better and better and better. You cannot make anything better in the future if you reject yourself now. Because you never get to the future. Now is as close as you can get to the future. So you might as well try to make your present the way you’d like your future to be.

Woman marries herself

This is something that occured in 2003 but I happened to hear about it just now. Here is the story:

A Dutch artist is to marry herself to show people how much she loves the different sides of her character. Jennifer Hoes, 29, has ordered a complete wedding party, wedding dress and marriage certificate. She told Haarlem's Dagblad newspaper: "I want to celebrate with others how much I'm in love with myself." She says she regards the wedding as a reward for her years of struggle between the emotional and business sides of her character. Ms Hoes said: "Finally I managed to unite these conflicting parts of my character, and I find it most logical that it results in a wedding."

When asked if marrying yourself is a self-centered act, she said: "I believe if a person is loyal to him- or herself, he or she he has more to offer to others — to be active, straight and involved in relationships. Therefore, by no means, is marrying yourself a self-centered act."

When I first heard of this, I laughed my ass off but coming to think about it, isn't it something that everyone is supposed to do? We could do without a ceremony, thanks, but isn't loving yourself so much that you'd want to marry yourself the first thing to do before getting married with another person?

Supporting and standing by yourself for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health.. You may love yourself when you are doing well but is it just as easy when you're not doing so well? You may love yourself when you are young and beautiful but will you still continue to do so if, say, a terrible accident occurs and you lose your beautiful figure?

I believe that it's harder to be your own valentine than somebody else's. How come we can fall in love instantly with people whom we barely even know but spend our lifetimes in self criticism, pity, dislike or even hatred?

You can "get a life" with unconditional love. First towards yourself and then towards other people. It's easier said than done most certainly.

So I'm beautiful.. Now what?

I think I first became aware of the concept of beauty when I was in kindergarten. I don’t remember much from that period except for how they managed to make awful tasting chocolate puddings and what a difficult time I had trying to take afternoon naps (I don’t seem to have an issue with it now) but I remember that I thought “maybe it was because I wasn’t beautiful enough” when other girls ostracized me every now and then. I know I was an adorable little girl when I was six, but somehow I thought that if other girls didn’t want to play with me, then it must have been because of how I look, either my face or the way I dress. So the paradigm moved into my brain and made itself feel at home as I spent the rest of my life –until now that is– feeding and reinforcing the thought that made me lose faith in myself, sometimes even loathe myself to the point that I caused myself strong physical and psychological damage. Until it got too much… Then I realized that there is nothing wrong with me – it’s just that I’m doing something wrong. I had to take responsibility for “everything that’s happened to me” and learn different coping methods as painful as it may be.

Not being able to see beyond labels… this is what most of us get stuck spending our entire lives with. Your appearance, your lover, your car, your house, your clothing, your body, your job, your bank account, your family, your lover’s family, your lover’s car… the list never ends.

Loving yourself is not an easy task. So many people have issues with it because they get stuck on labels. I mean, if Audrey Hepburn thought that she was not beautiful enough back in the days, what does this say about a girl like me? This used to be a rhetorical question. Now it has an answer, which is, not much because what other people think of themselves should not be my criteria for what I should think of myself. If you keep disliking yourself, if you keep thinking that you’re ugly / worthless / uninteresting or whatever it is you are thinking, then eventually you will become that ugly person you think you are. You show the way you think you look. If you think that you’re ugly then people will be able to tell that from the way you act it out.

This week, for the first time since I was six, I looked at the mirror in the morning and I just told myself “damn, you’re hot”. What I saw was beautiful. I thought that the feeling would go away the next day, or the next second as it frequently does, but this time it didn’t. When I looked at the mirror the next day I felt the same, and day after as well. It just keeps on going. I would never imagine the day that I would tell myself something like that. It feels so much better when you hear it from yourself instead of from other people. That is what you really need, to hear it from yourself instead of from other people.

Now, I realize that I may not be six but I still embody that adorable little girl. I still have those ugly and sometimes even FUGLYYY mmpfghhh!#? moments. The difference is that they are much weaker now; I don’t let those thoughts become my identity because I managed to put my belief in myself before my environment’s (a.k.a. society) fabricated perfectionist standards.

The life goes on... I’ve always wanted to be beautiful. Now that I am beautiful, it keeps getting harder to figure out what I really want from my life.

I wanted to poke my eyes out

I came across this in another website and I wasn't going to post it first, but I just can't seem to get my mind off of it. Here is an excerpt:


Society has taught us to not publicly acknowledge the obvious - no longer dear friends. Women want money in a man, men want beauty in a woman – this is a factual force of nature. Women don’t ask “So, what does he do for a living?” because they’re interested in his personality and guys don’t ask “is she hot?” because they’re concerned with character... THIS GENETIC CLEANSING IS HOW THE WEALTHY STAY BEAUTIFUL.


IS THIS FOR REAL?

Yes, as my friend has previously suggested, people's quest for meaning has never been challenged this way before. "The world" (aka. USA) is becoming a very sad place.

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.