Now imagine this scene: You are standing at the sideline. You are watching your friends playing baseball. You see their motivation, the enthusiasm, the blink in their eyes, because these people love that game so much.
So you are thinking, you want that too. You want to do something with so much devotion, that you just forget everything around you. And there something strikes your mind: Professional kicker. You see it in front of your eyes, the time you were a child. And you and your dad you never missed a game on the TV and you watched your idols playing, that was so cool. There it is, the lost childhood dream: I want to play soccer.
Now with that childhood dream inside, off you go to the next specialized sports store. The sales clerk is very nice and he explains the most important things, and you just buy everything you really need. So with the complete uniform, from the tricot to the shoelaces, you start totally motivated. And stop…at this point exactly a lot of people do a fundamental mistake. Which one?
Well, very simple: As most of the people don’t really know anything about that new thing they are starting, and with all that motivation having their head in the clouds, don’t have the patience to get all the information they need, they just start running headless. They don’t know better, and go back to their friends on the baseball field. Do you start imagine, what comes now? So in your complete soccer uniform you come to the baseball field, as you want to show up in front of your friends.
First moment they are irritated, but then one thinks oh well, let’s give him a chance. And they throw the ball to you. You catch it and get irritated as well. Throwing the ball? Running around with the ball in my hands? I didn’t imagine it this way, it’s called soccer…well, maybe that’s normal in the beginning. Let’s give it a try.
But you want so much to run after the ball, you want to KICK it, you want to make hundreds of goals. That was the reason, you wanted to play soccer. And now you have to run around all the time, with the ball in your hand, and running away from the others. You run, you catch and throw, and run, and catch again until…you resign. You go away from the field, so frustrated. You didn’t imagine it to be this way. It doesn’t motivate you. And what are you doing now in the worst case? Right, you throw off your outfit, into the next corner and thinking by yourself: “Even for that I am too stupid.”
Oh, poor pitiable singular case. Oh, poor thing…STOOOOOPP!! Who is poor? Well, not you, it’s your spirit. Finally you got it, you got on the way to your destiny. And then it just went off to the wrong side. So please reward…until the point you finished at the store. So what is your next step?
Right, you have to get information about it. If the sales clerk can’t help, so go to the internet. Check out the regional newspapers, ask your friends and family. Until finally you find it, your soccer club. With the right coach. That one, who explains you the things important to you for the soccer, he will chase you all through the field, after the ball, he let you kicking the ball a hundred times, just until you get to kick the ball nicely into the goal. He screams, yells, he bosses you around. But you don’t care, you made it, finally. You’re there, you arrived. You are doing, what you always wanted to do. You play soccer…isn’t it beautiful, this life?
What I want to say with this? Well, if I am in a supermarket selling cheese, and someday decide, I want to sing, I shouldn’t ask the store manager for advice. And then wondering, why he is laughing at me. I have to get information, I have to search for a singing coach, and this one would train me. As long as I want to, as long as I make it. And then, smiling nicely coming back to that store as a big star and buying me the whole cheese…
So, think of it, what is your dream? Who can you turn to, seriously, who can help you with good advices?
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Our world, virtual and real
Well, actually the second post should have been another one. Oh well, that is going to be post number three then. And it is possible, that I might appear as a thief of idea. If so, please forgive me, it wasn’t my intention and this is more self reflecting.
For some ongoing reasons I would like to write about something, which is deep inside of me, and right now, cooking on the surface. That much, that I actually cannot really concentrate on the real important things in my life, and hell yeah, there is enough stuff, I really should turn my focus to, but I am kind of blocked currently. So I hope, in sharing this with you, it just disappears from the inside and I am free again to get back to the real important things. This is becoming somewhat personal on the one or other part, what I wouldn’t want to. Not sure as well, if it’s a good idea, to share it here, but I guess, I got to take the risk now.
So currently I am in an extreme stage of reorientation. Well, lots of things, I thought they are good in my life, I start to think them over. They are probably not as good as I thought them to be. Everything is on a big trial right now, everything has to be checked from all sides. It’s kind of like when you build a little house of cards. And then, once you are finished with the small, personal details, you notice, it’s not what you imagined it to be. So you have to destroy it again and start the whole thing at zero. Completely.
And in moments like that you get in touch with yourself, way much more than you wish, because it’s especially with your pain and your failing. But, as comfortable as we human beings like it, our first reaction would not be:
“Wow, that pain. Where does it come from? Why is that there now? What part of my life could I heal? “
No, our reaction is: „Oh well, that hurts. No, I will not go there. And if I can’t go round it, I stay sitting here. It’s nice as well this way. Maybe I give it one more try tomorrow. But right now, no, I’m not in the mood today. “
A typical human reaction. We ignore and push it deep down inside of us, as much as we can. And at this point we do have the “fatale and dangerous” internet.
Don’t get me wrong. It is definitely nice, thanks to the internet we can share so many things with each other, we can laugh and cry together. The internet is the virtual connection of the whole wide world. But very easily we do mistake it. Because we do not want to go through the real pain, but we want to live what actually awaits us behind that pain.
Now imagine, you fall in a black hole, you get depressed, in a bad mood. And instead of telling you, how to get up again, somebody gives you some glasses, 3D-glasses. As you wear them, you start to create your life in your imagination. And it feels real, but it is virtual. You do get to know other people on that virtual basis. And you can color your world as you like to. The problem here is that you kind of get “real” reactions to your virtual acts. So you can define yourself the way you want, even as superman or wonder woman. There are people, just as you, they hide from their real life in that virtual one, some more badly, some less. But they are “applauding” you, they think you are cool. “Nice, how you are doing this, awesome, you are so successful… “
I mean, they don’t know you, so you can tell them whatever you like. And there is the one or other naïve one who believes, whatever you are telling. But as fast as they appeared, they can disappear. Suddenly nobody is clapping for you, as it never has been real, it was virtual. And one day you will have to lay down your 3D-Glasses. And guess what you will see. The black hole you are in in your real life. No more colors, no more glamour. Just your life, as it is. Simple, and in your eyes totally not shiny.
But I tell you what, those people living colorfully in their real life, they do exist. They are real, and if you ask them, they will tell you, how they went through their pain instead of ignoring it. They fell down a hundred thousand times. Just as anybody does, but they got up again. And the one hundred thousand and first time they got up, they could jump over to the other side, and live the actual real colors in the real world. And now they are here on the internet, they would like to share their stories with us, you and me, so that we can think over our lives as well. And instead of saying:
„Wow, that’s cool. I want that too. Where is my pain? What do I have to do so that mine will disappear?” we say:
”Oh yeah, I know. I was there as well…I know, what you mean…”
This thing in the internet feigns us that it is possible to make it in such a short time. That everything goes so fast. But everything grows in its time, slow. It did 500 years ago, it does now and it will remain that way in the next 500 years. Our imagination of “faster, higher, better” is just that, our imagination. The grass never started to grow faster just because we wanted it to do so.
The internet is full of people showing up with their “more hype than substance” life, instead of getting rid of the shadows, they are discovering. Well, I got caught up for a while in a kind of suction and I went down for a while. I didn’t do anything against it. This hurt, I am feeling now, it was always there. If it appears to be more painful now, it’s only because it had to make its way up to the surface.
As always, if you try to ignore something, it will do anything to get your attention again. And suddenly it appears to be a huge monster. But the second you focus your attention on it, it will become small and whining again. And then, ugh, so fast, we get through our pain and get to the other side and, wow, the life we imagined virtually, it got real somehow.
How often I fell already, I don’t know, I stopped counting. Probably I should restart counting. As with each new fall I will be happy to get closer and closer to my personal one hundred thousand and first time…
For some ongoing reasons I would like to write about something, which is deep inside of me, and right now, cooking on the surface. That much, that I actually cannot really concentrate on the real important things in my life, and hell yeah, there is enough stuff, I really should turn my focus to, but I am kind of blocked currently. So I hope, in sharing this with you, it just disappears from the inside and I am free again to get back to the real important things. This is becoming somewhat personal on the one or other part, what I wouldn’t want to. Not sure as well, if it’s a good idea, to share it here, but I guess, I got to take the risk now.
So currently I am in an extreme stage of reorientation. Well, lots of things, I thought they are good in my life, I start to think them over. They are probably not as good as I thought them to be. Everything is on a big trial right now, everything has to be checked from all sides. It’s kind of like when you build a little house of cards. And then, once you are finished with the small, personal details, you notice, it’s not what you imagined it to be. So you have to destroy it again and start the whole thing at zero. Completely.
And in moments like that you get in touch with yourself, way much more than you wish, because it’s especially with your pain and your failing. But, as comfortable as we human beings like it, our first reaction would not be:
“Wow, that pain. Where does it come from? Why is that there now? What part of my life could I heal? “
No, our reaction is: „Oh well, that hurts. No, I will not go there. And if I can’t go round it, I stay sitting here. It’s nice as well this way. Maybe I give it one more try tomorrow. But right now, no, I’m not in the mood today. “
A typical human reaction. We ignore and push it deep down inside of us, as much as we can. And at this point we do have the “fatale and dangerous” internet.
Don’t get me wrong. It is definitely nice, thanks to the internet we can share so many things with each other, we can laugh and cry together. The internet is the virtual connection of the whole wide world. But very easily we do mistake it. Because we do not want to go through the real pain, but we want to live what actually awaits us behind that pain.
Now imagine, you fall in a black hole, you get depressed, in a bad mood. And instead of telling you, how to get up again, somebody gives you some glasses, 3D-glasses. As you wear them, you start to create your life in your imagination. And it feels real, but it is virtual. You do get to know other people on that virtual basis. And you can color your world as you like to. The problem here is that you kind of get “real” reactions to your virtual acts. So you can define yourself the way you want, even as superman or wonder woman. There are people, just as you, they hide from their real life in that virtual one, some more badly, some less. But they are “applauding” you, they think you are cool. “Nice, how you are doing this, awesome, you are so successful… “
I mean, they don’t know you, so you can tell them whatever you like. And there is the one or other naïve one who believes, whatever you are telling. But as fast as they appeared, they can disappear. Suddenly nobody is clapping for you, as it never has been real, it was virtual. And one day you will have to lay down your 3D-Glasses. And guess what you will see. The black hole you are in in your real life. No more colors, no more glamour. Just your life, as it is. Simple, and in your eyes totally not shiny.
But I tell you what, those people living colorfully in their real life, they do exist. They are real, and if you ask them, they will tell you, how they went through their pain instead of ignoring it. They fell down a hundred thousand times. Just as anybody does, but they got up again. And the one hundred thousand and first time they got up, they could jump over to the other side, and live the actual real colors in the real world. And now they are here on the internet, they would like to share their stories with us, you and me, so that we can think over our lives as well. And instead of saying:
„Wow, that’s cool. I want that too. Where is my pain? What do I have to do so that mine will disappear?” we say:
”Oh yeah, I know. I was there as well…I know, what you mean…”
This thing in the internet feigns us that it is possible to make it in such a short time. That everything goes so fast. But everything grows in its time, slow. It did 500 years ago, it does now and it will remain that way in the next 500 years. Our imagination of “faster, higher, better” is just that, our imagination. The grass never started to grow faster just because we wanted it to do so.
The internet is full of people showing up with their “more hype than substance” life, instead of getting rid of the shadows, they are discovering. Well, I got caught up for a while in a kind of suction and I went down for a while. I didn’t do anything against it. This hurt, I am feeling now, it was always there. If it appears to be more painful now, it’s only because it had to make its way up to the surface.
As always, if you try to ignore something, it will do anything to get your attention again. And suddenly it appears to be a huge monster. But the second you focus your attention on it, it will become small and whining again. And then, ugh, so fast, we get through our pain and get to the other side and, wow, the life we imagined virtually, it got real somehow.
How often I fell already, I don’t know, I stopped counting. Probably I should restart counting. As with each new fall I will be happy to get closer and closer to my personal one hundred thousand and first time…
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
What is luxury?
This is a question, I ask myself from time to time. And there is a spontaneous answer I can think of: to buy a house, to have a car, a nice yacht and taking 5 vacations a year to the other side of the world. Just like that.
But these are answers so automatically given. And we really should doubt it, if nowadays it is reasonable to want to achieve these goals. If this is really fulfilling. At least it’s reachable, there are people who achieved these goals. And on their cases we noticed, that this kind of luxury is not a guarantee for true happiness. There were times this was an eligible ambition. But it’s saturated. We seek for something else now.
If you observe our society, you can literally smell the stress, rush and headless errantry. But if you question it, it doesn’t make any sense anymore. We are looking out for those ideals, luxury goods etc., because we were told to do so, we grew up with this life style and simply because everybody does so.
Another topic is „perfectionism“. You have to do it 120% right. And you have to bring a benefit of 120%. But we like to deny the fact, that one human has to work for three nowadays, and that means that this person would have to bring an effort of 360%. You might be my opinion that this is simply not possible. The term “human resources burnout” unfortunately is not so unknown these days.
And the person, who seriously starts to think about, might wake up one day and think: „What am I doing here? Who or what am I?” So there we start the questions about the meaning. And a spate of esoterism might bring an answer, which implicates two or three more questions.
So if we keep track of the status of our society now, we get some very interesting and so favorable answers to the actual question: What is luxury?
Luxury today can be:
To not possess a TV at home
To live a self-determined life
To be able to switch off your mobile/blackberry/notebook during 24hrs
To be able to say: “No, I am not perfect in that!”
To be able to concentrate on one thing at a time, and not to get distracted by other 253 things on the way
To come to the conviction: “Maybe multitasking is not as good as its reputation tries to tell us.”
To be able to give a very simple answer to the question what your profession is: “ I live.”
So with these thoughts I’d love to accompany you into your new luxurious life.
But these are answers so automatically given. And we really should doubt it, if nowadays it is reasonable to want to achieve these goals. If this is really fulfilling. At least it’s reachable, there are people who achieved these goals. And on their cases we noticed, that this kind of luxury is not a guarantee for true happiness. There were times this was an eligible ambition. But it’s saturated. We seek for something else now.
If you observe our society, you can literally smell the stress, rush and headless errantry. But if you question it, it doesn’t make any sense anymore. We are looking out for those ideals, luxury goods etc., because we were told to do so, we grew up with this life style and simply because everybody does so.
Another topic is „perfectionism“. You have to do it 120% right. And you have to bring a benefit of 120%. But we like to deny the fact, that one human has to work for three nowadays, and that means that this person would have to bring an effort of 360%. You might be my opinion that this is simply not possible. The term “human resources burnout” unfortunately is not so unknown these days.
And the person, who seriously starts to think about, might wake up one day and think: „What am I doing here? Who or what am I?” So there we start the questions about the meaning. And a spate of esoterism might bring an answer, which implicates two or three more questions.
So if we keep track of the status of our society now, we get some very interesting and so favorable answers to the actual question: What is luxury?
Luxury today can be:
To not possess a TV at home
To live a self-determined life
To be able to switch off your mobile/blackberry/notebook during 24hrs
To be able to say: “No, I am not perfect in that!”
To be able to concentrate on one thing at a time, and not to get distracted by other 253 things on the way
To come to the conviction: “Maybe multitasking is not as good as its reputation tries to tell us.”
To be able to give a very simple answer to the question what your profession is: “ I live.”
So with these thoughts I’d love to accompany you into your new luxurious life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)