The Joneses Don’t Deserve Your Attention.⁣⁣

Success isn’t about how your life looks to others. It’s about how it feels to you. That’s what it means to be true to yourself.

I am my biggest critic. It’s me I have to please, no one else. If I am not satisfied with anything, I will continue to work towards improvement regardless of what others think or say. It is my life after all. It is me that has to live with myself till the grave, day and day out. I have to be comfortable in my own skin before I can be any use to anyone. Same with designing your own space. You are the one who is going to live there not other people. So why should you try to impress others when it’s not even their own abode. Do what you like, follow your feelings, decorate according to your taste, design according to your needs, dress up according to your personality and live the way you see fit. As long as your not harming anyone by being yourself, who cares?

Let them judge and let them talk.

It makes me think of something I’ve read somewhere. That coins make a lot of sounds while paper money is silent or something like that. And bells ring hard because they are shallow or something along those lines. What it is that Steve Jobs said:

Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice and our time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. 

Isn’t that great?

We are all born terminal. We are all going to die sooner or later. We are living on borrowed time. Don’t you think we better spend it on experience than accumulating earthy possessions? I remember what my then friend M. said to me a long time ago. She said: “With all that money you are spending on globetrotting you could have been a millionaire by now.”  I just looked at her because I didn’t understand her point of view and I didn’t bother to explain mine because she would not understand, and I mighty glad I did what I did because with my current condition and limited situation if I did not follow my heart and invested on experience, I will not have something to remember and fall back on when the going gets tough. Those cherished memories keep me sane and I’m grateful for that. I said to myself then: I don’t want to lie on my death bed wondering about ifs and what could have been. At least now I could honestly say to myself that I’ve been there done that twice over and back. No regrets.

Oh, I know, some people are hard-set to accumulate material things for the sake of legacy. To leave to their descendants, to give them a fair start in life as my aunt used to say. Granted. But I personally believe that the best foundation you can give to your own children is the gift of one thing no one can steal and they can never lose: education. Coupled it with a decent upbringing and nuggets of wisdom here and there, proper morals and values and they will be okay. Earning and finding their place in the world has to be the fruit of their own labor, not yours. They will follow their own paths anyway no matter what we told them to do. I, for one thing, don’t want my children to live up to my expectations. I rather that they live up to theirs. I will never live through my children. I don’t want them to make my dreams come true. I want them to realize their dreams no matter how disappointing it is for me because it is their lives. As long as they are happy, I’m happy. Isn’t it what love is all about, seeing someone happy?

The bottom line is:

We have just one life, why not live it the way we see fit?

Live and let live.

So forget about image and keeping up with the Joneses because:

After the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box.

Pick The Ax, Chop Off The Anger; Burn The Pieces And Bury The Ashes.

“I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I believe, too little yielding— certainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of other so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.” ― Jane Austen

What Can I Say?

Of this I am absolutely sure: Do not reach the era of child-rearing and real jobs with a guitar case full of crushing regret for all the things you wished you’d done in your youth. I know too many people who didn’t do those things. They all end up mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions of the people they intended to be. – Cheryl Strayed

I didn’t want to get married and have children. I didn’t want to be a wife or a mother. Or anything domesticated. I want to be Sinbad, Scully, Stephen King, Steve McQueen, Eric The Phantom and Indiana Jones or anything in between as long as it doesn’t spell boring. I want to be John Snow, Spirit of the Cimmaron Lara Croft and Aragorn. I want to be a gypsy child in the midst of Bohemianism.

To take the world as one finds it, the bad with the good, making the best of the present moment—to laugh at Fortune alike whether she be generous or unkind—to spend freely when one has money, and to hope gaily when one has none—to fleet the time carelessly, living for love and art— for in Bohemia one may find almost every sin save that of Hypocrisy. [source: Wikipedia]

What, then, is it that makes this mystical empire of Bohemia unique, and what is the charm of its mental fairyland? It is this: there are no roads in all Bohemia! One must choose and find one’s own path, be one’s own self, live one’s own life. — Ayloh, 1902

Look where I am now!

But then again, I have lived a thousand lives others can’t even imagine in their wildest dreams. I’ve’ walked to hell and back, visited heaven and been everywhere in between. People often say I’ve been there done that when what they really meant is they know how it feels to stand at the edge of a crater but they never really experience how it is to descend to the bottom. I can honestly say I did. Countless times.

In my dying bed, I will not lie there and regret everything I should have done but never dare or tried because I know for a fact that compared to most, I have lived a colorful life, even though none of those are the ones I truly wanted.

Wabi-Sabi

asymmetry, roughness, simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy.

quirky, understated, withered, unique.

interesting, fascinating, beautiful.

imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.

In short, we are all wabi-sabi.

Wabi-sabi nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.

How’s that for a starting point for tolerance and acceptance?

Flawed. We all are.

Respect to unpredictable limitations of imperfect reliability, limited mortality and inevitable changes.

Wisdom in natural simplicity.

Windmills Of Your Mind

Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never-ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that’s turning running rings around the moon

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!
Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own

Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving in a half-forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face

And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!
Keys that jingle in your pocket, words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly, was it something that you said?

Lovers walking along a shore and leave their footprints in the sand
Is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway and the fragment of a song
Half remembered names and faces, but to whom do they belong?

When you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning to the color of her hair!
Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never-ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
As the images unwind, like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind!

[source: LyricFind]

One Of The Keys To Happiness Is A Bad Memory

Forgiveness doesn’t sit there like a pretty boy in a bar. Forgiveness is the old fat guy you have to haul up a hill.

Wishing for amnesia here. Perhaps I could sleep better that way.

Let’s Get (Re)acquainted

The picture above is D. I am married to him for about 16 years now. He’s my second husband and partner in crime. He’s a chocolate (and everything sweet) loving engineer who doesn’t smoke and only drink alcohol occasionally. His hobby is taking care of me and listening to my outrageous ideas. He is patient, sweet and very, very understanding. I’d like to see him as a blessing in disguise because as docile as he is, he could drive me up the wall sometimes believe you me. Oh, I almost forgot… He is 11 years younger than I am.

The one below is yours truly anno 2020. No need for description. You read my blogs. That says enough.

Being Nomadic

So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality, nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.

― Christopher McCandless

The Joker

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t want to rock the boat, the boat is f—ing rocked. ~ Joaquin Phoenix

Someone asked me if I have seen The Joker yet and I answered no. In my mind, the no is in reality never. I don’t like Joaquin Phoenix. I don’t like him because I love his brother. And compared to River Phoenix Joaquin not only pales but totally disappears. Not only in appearance but in talents. Why on earth he has to die? The brother I mean. It could have been Joaquin instead.

I know… I know… Cruel. But that is how I feel.

We all know he won the Oscar and the Bafta and the Golden Globe etc. etc. I am aware of his out of the box speeches but still, I am not convinced. I saw some of his performances (by accident if they play them on television I will watch him for a while to see what he got) but each time it reminds me of what he is lacking compared to his brother. He doesn’t have the looks of River, he doesn’t have the charisma, he doesn’t have the natural acting abilities, he doesn’t have the aura and he doesn’t have the talents. He could probably act (or otherwise he will not win all those awards) and he probably is okay as a person but still, I don’t like him. Watching him up there on the stage delivering his speech I thought: It could have been River. It could have been River accepting those awards and delivering those speeches because we all know how great an actor he was. A unique and promising talent that had been taken away so soon before it could flourish. What a waste! What a pity! Life is so unfair!

If River lives, there would probably never been a Joaquin (as an actor) He will forever be living in the shadow of his more talented brother. And I probably will not dislike him this much. But as it is, every time I see him, every time he won an award, I think of his dead brother and what could have been. Mea Culpa Joaquin, but you cannot hold a candle to River. Truly not.

My Dearest Oona

Twilight is here again the sun is sinking down

Another day had passed soon it will be dark

Tomorrow in the East the sun will rise again

But without you by my side, nothing really matters.

---

The garden is empty devoid of all flowers

I know they will be there again come next Spring

But whatever season as long as you’re not here

Believe me, in my heart it is always Winter.

---

Birds always come back to their nests before dark

Will you be home again tomorrow? Next day perhaps?

I’ll be waiting for you every day all my life

I hope you will return before I close my eyes.

---

__ Your Glam-Ma

Things They Don’t teach You In School

Happiness is an acquired taste to which you can eventually become accustomed, but despair is something surprising each time you encounter it.

Not true.

When bad things are happening for a long time, you’ve come to expect it.

It’s happiness that surprises me the most. It is seldom and far in between___

If it indeed shows up at all.

I would not even recognize it if it comes knocking on my door.

An Acquired Taste That Is Me

Maybe being oneself is always an acquired taste. 

Love Month You Say?

The day and time itself: a late afternoon in early February, was there a moment of the year better suited for despair? ― Alice McDermott

February is a suitable month for dying. Everything around is dead, the trees black and frozen so that the appearance of green shoots two months hence seems preposterous, the ground hard and cold, the snow dirty, the winter hateful, hanging on too long.

― Anna Quindlen

When God was making the months I think February was a mistake, like a burp. There it was, small, dark, and prickly. It had absolutely no redeeming qualities. ― Shannon Wiersbitzky

Terrible, creepy, dark February weather I remember, and the worst, most frightening days of my life.― Sebastian Barry

I used to try to decide which was the worst month of the year. In the winter I would choose February. I had it figured out that the reason God made February short a few days was because he knew that by the time people came to the end of it they would die if they had to stand one more blasted day. ― Katherine Paterson

Why does February feel like one big Tuesday? ― Todd Stocker

Happy Valentines Day Folks!!!