I've finally discovered something that really works for me! DIY personal mantras. Or so I like to call them.
Gretchen Ruben (the author of 'The Happiness Project') calls them resolutions and she has created her own personal resolutions chart, but I like 'personal mantras' more. You know, those simple words that mean something to you and which you can just call upon when you need them the most to bring you back to your centred, assured self. Gretchen also lists some in her 'secrets of adulthood', but it really doesn't matter how you call them - what matters is that they work.
So after recently having been called on by nasty old fears and having decided that this year I was going to find new ways of dealing with my challenges, I decided to put together a list of personal mantras (following the Gretchen Ruben example):
1. Stop judging
2. Just because it happened in the past, it doesn't mean it will happen in the future
3. It's ok not to be ok
4. It's ok to be afraid
5. Trust your instincts
6. Be indifferent to rejection
7. Whatever you do, be mindful
8. You are enough
9. Love more
10. Recognise your qualities
11. Always put friends and family first
12. Develop a thick skin
13. Stick to your standards 14. Be light! Always be light! 15. When in doubt, breathe
I highlighted the last two because I found them particularly useful in the last few days.
No. 14 'Be light!' is probably the key mantra to my 'Love project' because I realised I am and always have been really serious. I am funny and a fun person to be around but guys can feel there is a certain weight I carry around with me. I'm the kind of girl who is going to tell them off because they failed to respond according to my standards and my expectations. And that's because I have always been tough on myself so I would always treat men the same way I'd treat myself: perform or suffer!
But the good news is: NOT ANYMORE! Since I have discovered the joys of being kind to myself and accepting of myself completely, I've lightened up around guys too. And this is an energy I intend on channelling religiously from now on, therefore I need my mantra no 14. like the air that I breathe.
Which brings me to mantra no. 15 'When in doubt, breathe!'. You know what, I've rediscovered breathing and it's such a lovely thing to focus on. I think It was Johnny Depp who said his favourite activity was breathing. I think he's right. Breathing has the power to keep you in your body and focused on the present. When I feel my mind going crazy, I remember my personal mantra no. 15 and breathing brings me back to centre. Focused breathing casts a light over the clouds of judgement. When I find somebody annoying, instead of jumping to judgement, I call upon my mantra no 15 and I forget about what annoyed me in the first place. And let's not forget, breathing helps me with being light and sticking with my mantra no. 14!
The truth is there's a story behind all of these mantras. If I wasn't in a hurry to get to Devon tonight for a week-end of fun ('Be light! Always be light!') I'd be happy to share all of them. Perhaps another time. Until then, 'when in doubt, breathe!'
Today
I felt the need to write a follow-up to the post I wrote this week
about my fears. It wasn't an easy subject to write about and I probably
opened myself up to being judged one way or another, but I'm proud I did
it, because writing about my fears has achieved what I set out to
achieve: it made them seem as they really are, silly and insignificant.
And
it made people reach out to me, people feeling the same way, or people
wanting to comfort me - I feel so blessed. I had to love one of my dear
friend's response below (hope she doesn't mind I'm publishing it, as I'm
keeping it anonymous):
'In my eyes you are such a woman' - she said to me in an e-mail - 'not the always single one that will
die alone. And if it happens to be that way, we should team up go to a
sanatorium for old people and take every pill we can get hold of, lose
our minds and have sex with everyone. And do whatever we can as we are
old and no one will judge us :)'
I read somewhere
that if you ask yourself what's the worse it can happen helps with
getting rid of irrational worries. And frankly, if I do end up alone in a
sanatorium having sex with everybody, I think this would be a great
ending to a great life :)
But fear is not all doom and gloom. I've made a great decision a while ago to subscribe to The Daily Love blog
and I am loving the advice from Mastin Kipp. It just happened that the
other day he was writing about fear and why fear is good, because it's
here to protect us, it gives us warning signals and it is the precursor
of growth. Let's say being afraid is part of the growing pains package.
One
of the lessons I've learnt recently is that I must stop trying to be
perfect and to be gentle to myself when I am far from it. Because we're
not here to be perfect, we're here to learn and evolve. Fear happens
when we grow, it makes us act. And most importantly, instead of fearing
fear and ignoring it, we must accept it, love it even, it's part of us.
Accepting it is the key to ensure a seamless process. And I feel
better now for having allowed my feelings and emotions to be expressed,
rather than trying even harder to be in constant happy mood. Being happy
means feeling bad sometimes. And that's ok.
I did some
thinking and I realised my fears spring from some kind of resilient
insecurity still lurking around.
“We each appear to hold
within ourselves a range of divergent views as to our native qualities..
And amid such uncertainty, we typically turn to the wider world to
settle the question of our significance...we seem beholden to affections
of others to endure ourselves.” notes Alain de Botton and isn't he
right? How many times have we not felt that we need others to
acknowledge us, even though we have intrinsic qualities which need no
subjective point of view to exist.
But insecurity is not such a bad thing.
As Stephen Fry suggests, insecurities shape us:
“It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an
inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all
bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have
disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the
mad intensities that made and unmade me.”
'Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion. (...) Inertia comes from the Latin word, iners, meaning idle, or lazy. Isaac Newton defined inertia as his first law in his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which states:
The vis insita, or innate force of matter, is a power of resisting by which every body, as much as in it lies, endeavours to preserve its present state, whether it be of rest or of moving uniformly forward in a straight line.'
[Source: Wikipedia]
I noticed some things lately which made me think of inertia.
I used to think that I will never find love. Yes, I honestly did. There is absolutely no logic to this belief other than the fact that I didn't find someone to share my life with until now. I think there's a strange part of me that somehow finds comfort in this situation. Being single is what I know, what I'm comfortable with. The old feeling of aloneness feels familiar. When someone gets close, I believe I do everything in my power to sabotage the relationship either by finding something wrong with the other person or by acting in ways which justify why I'm still single. I'm doing a great job to prove myself unlovable. Or at least the old me did...
Over the last few years, I've put great effort into changing. Great effort which is definitely paying off. I stopped blaming the world and the people around me or my ill fate for when things don't go the way I want them to go. I see myself as a do-er, not a complainer. When I feel bad, I make myself feel better: I go for a run, I read an inspirational book, I talk to a friend, I drink a nice cup of coffee. I am a new person and that's why I was greatly surprised to find old thoughts and beliefs lurking around in my head.
Very, very weird thoughts such as 'I will never find love', 'Everybody finds somebody, but me', 'If it's not happening now, it will never happen' etc. And I almost believed these thoughts, but the closer I looked at what was going on inside my head, the more I realised I don't actually believe them! It's almost as if I took a step back and I was able to observe the bizarre dance of my thoughts without letting them take control over me. I realised that they were nothing but phantoms of the old me, shadows that didn't want to go, lingering there out of inertia.
I also noticed that I sometimes talk about other people and the things that bother me about them. It's an apparently harmless habit, which allows me to release any feelings that are bottling up inside of me about one or another person. The way I see it, if you express feelings and opinions, it's therapeutic. In reality, the following phenomenon happens: the more I talk about someone, the more I start to believe the stories I tell myself about them. So my attitude about that person changes based on the reality I start to build about them. Instead of being a loving presence in the world, I add more frustrations which frankly I can totally do without. I add up grievances, which only make my growth and ascension harder and at this point it's the last thing I need - what do I care about that friend who didn't do what they promised? Has my life suffered because of that? Absolutely NOT! My life is still great :)
Robert Holden suggests that, when dealing with grievances, we first must acknowledge them, grief and release. So I decided that first of all I was going to totally accept whatever was going on in my mind and see what happened. What happens is that the moment I start formulating opinions about someone I already start feeling uncomfortable with it, but I carry on out of habit. I am not worried because I know it's just a matter of time until I stop doing it. Also, I am starting to linger a lot less on saying negative things about myself and I carry on with my life. It's all inertia. Old habits and thoughts are resisting but it's only a while until the driving force of change starts moving everything else along.
We may be spiritual beings at our core, but we exist in human form, we are made of matter. And we are subject to the laws of the matter: we have emotions which are triggered by chemicals, we contain mostly water, we react to physical pain and pleasure and we obey the laws of physics - inertia being one of them. So accepting that forces who resist change will be hanging around for a while, it's the first step to transformation. Good things take time. I accept my inertia. I'm only human.
I bought this beautiful 'Love' ring today. I'm not really a ring person - I'm more of a chunky necklaces kind of girl - but when I saw it in the jewellery shop, I knew I had to have it. I needed it. As a reminder. That love is the answer to every question. That every time I am challenged, upset, distressed, anxious, insecure, depressed, damaged, needy, clingy, nasty, resentful, pathetic, unhelpful, negative, judgemental, stubborn, lazy, defeatist and lonely, love is always the only way to make things good again. All I need to do is take a look at this ring, breathe and let all those negative feelings dissolve, let them go away...
We all have our good days and our bad days. I like to think that I have more good days than bad days, but getting rid of old habits doesn't happen overnight. It takes a long, long time to just keeping at it before you start seeing real change. Despite years of trying, I haven't even began to change truly.
It seems easy enough to change nasty habits like smoking and binge drinking into healthy ones like exercising, but is it really enough? If doing so seems like a chore sometimes, maybe what we're trying to do is just scrapping the surface, instead of making real change. This week I've been reading 'Loveability' (by Robert Holden) and it's opened my eyes to realise that all the positive change in the world can only really be achieved by loving yourself. When you love yourself, you want the best for yourself and that's when exercising, eating healthily, drinking plenty of water and sleeping well seems like the natural thing to do. It's an expression of your love to yourself. Excess is viewed as a thing of the past, reminiscent of your self-rejection.
This may seem pretty obvious, but I can guarantee you that when you're tangled in your own fear born stories, the answer is not so evident. I'm not into tattoos so a ring suits me just fine, as a reminder to keep my focus on what's real.
I'll give you an example. Last week I've been given the radio silence treatment from a guy I've only met a few times, I liked him enough to go out with him, but still a guy I knew almost nothing about. And yet when he decided to ignore me, old fears and thoughts re-emerged. They were strong enough to put me through at least two full days of self-judgement and self-punishment. I convinced myself once again I had done something to drive him away, I found myself guilty of having been too keen and not having followed the Rules (WTF is wrong with me!?) and then I really despised myself for having texted him with what I felt. So instead of making it easier for myself to get over it asap, I made it harder. And I turned something probably really insignificant (at the end of the day, if he couldn't look into my soul and see the treasures that I know are there, he was nothing but a waste of time for me) into another drama. I declared myself unloveable again (it's a habit I've been mastering for years, probably since I was born!) and decided that I was probably going to spend the rest of my life alone.
Now, if I had been focused on the truth about myself, I would have discarded those thoughts as if they were just annoying flies. Because I do know for a fact that thoughts attract each other and my brain was just doing what it knew best: reviving similar memories and making me believe they were real. If I had been focused on the truth about myself, I would have looked deep inside myself with love and thought 'God, I'm such a wonderful creature, thank you for making me see the beauty and the treasures you put in me!'. I would have not allowed a simple rejection to turn me into a fearful and insecure person all over again. Because I am not that person anymore.
Thankfully it didn't last too long. I opened my eyes to see those annoying demons disappearing like smoke, the moment I realised they were not real. But I honestly don't want to see them back again so I'm holding on to this little word: LOVE. And until I remember it forever and ever, I'll be wearing it on my finger.
As part of my 'Love Project', I'm reading a lot of books, including Gretchen Rubin's 'The Happiness Project'.
I find her book packed with lots of practical advice and great at instigating action (for instance, today I unpacked my holiday suitcase, folded all my washing, got rid of junk lying around, tidied up my room, put all my 'research books' into a designated basket, went shopping, called my mum, washed my hair and now I'm writing a blog post!), although, as she said, we are different people and we all have our own approach to how we want to improve our lives. She mentions at some point during her 'Lighten Up' chapter that she (and reportedly many other people) doesn't find 'fun' activities fun. 'I love the idea of playing chess' she says,' going to a lecture on international markets, doing crossword puzzles, eating dinner at a hot new restaurant, or having a subscription to the opera or season tickets to the Knicks. I can see exactly why other people enjoy these activities. I wish I enjoyed them. But I don't.'
This made me think about how lucky I am. I like so many things I can hardly keep up with my likings. I like all foods (except snake - I am scared of snakes - and coriander - which I hate, sorry!), I like most drinks and beverages, I have an endless list of favourite films, books, musicians and bands, I like watching and playing sports, I love sleeping in a tent, I enjoy going to festivals, I like exercising, I like learning new languages, I like fashion and clothes, I like arts and crafts, I like architecture, mythology, history, opera and classical music, I adore travelling and there are not many things in this world I wouldn't at least try. As I am writing, a favourite quote from Walt Whitman pops up in my head. “I am large, I contain multitudes”
he says in Leaves of Grass. I think this quote really captures who I am.
I recently mentioned to some friends that I would love to become a personal trainer or some sort of fitness teacher, because I really love exercising and I love helping other people getting the amazing benefits that exercising bring, whilst getting more of it myself. They all responded amused that I shouldn't forget I recently qualified as a professional stylist and that I am also planning to qualify as an English teacher for when I'm going to go travelling through Asia. Not to mention that I am in the process of writing a book.
I get their point and it is indeed a fair point only that... I wouldn't be me if I didn't try all these different things. Because you see, I am large, I contain multitudes. I see myself as made of rubber, I see myself like an elastic band circling the world, I wish I could stretch myself across the whole world. I am not naive, I know that's not possible, but I'll be damned if I am not going to die trying!
I've been spending quite a lot of time lately defining myself (either to craft my online dating profile or trying to write a credible platform about why should people believe anything I have to say about love and relationships). I was told that I'm trying to tick too many boxes and in my case the only word that's untrue is 'trying'. I don't try, I just can't help being 'large'. So I decided to come up with a manifesto, which I wrote down on the plane last night. Here it goes.
Iulia's manifesto 'I care not limit myself. I want to try it all and I want to be it all. I want to squeeze my life for every single experience it has to offer. I make no apologies for my choices, for my choices choose me as much as I choose them. I am more afraid of not trying than I am afraid of failing. I am limitless.'
Or in the words of the great Walt Whitman, “I refuse putting from me the best that I am.”
I haven’t been able to
write ‘My week in words’ in a while. Mainly because I am busy at accumulating
words from all sources for my dating book, as if in a race against clock and I’m
lacking the time and the headspace. It’s strange, but I finally feel I no
longer have all the time in the world to sit around thinking about writing
books and I’ve actually given myself deadlines. And time flies. So I’m lagging
behind on ‘regular sections’, posts etc.
But this week I feel the
need to talk about a word I’ve really been obsessing about lately. I want to
talk about empowerment.
Source: lipstickandpolitics.com
My research about love is
strangely bringing me down a path which awakens my solidarity with the women of
the world and the still very much present need for our empowerment. It’s really
interesting that, despite the fact that many of us don’t feel we should
actively engage in feminist activities, we subconsciously recognise that the
work is not yet done and there’s still need for a little action. And we’re not
talking burning bras anymore (I’m perfectly happy to wear beautiful lacy lingerie,
thank you very much!), but we’re talking women with ‘balls’ (hope you excuse my
language) who are not afraid to talk about what’s still missing in the world,
as far as women are concerned.
‘After
Caitlin Moran’s How To Be A Woman
came out here in the UK in 2011, a younger crowd started talking about feminism
and realising that our grandmothers didn’t quite manage to finish the job. But
still, calling yourself one publicly can be frightening. It can get you into
trouble. It opens you up to a world of criticism about how you are not feminist
enough, or that you don’t really understand what you are talking about so
should probably just stop.’ says Dawn Porter in her article for Stylist about the creator of Girls series, Lena Dunham.‘Personally’, she continues, ‘I like the way that Lena defines a
feminist; it’s really just about whether you are looking out for other women or
not. It’s inclusive and unthreatening. It’s how it should be. She has said [in
an interview with Metro newspaper
this month], <Do you believe that
women should be paid the same for doing the same jobs? Do you believe that
women should be allowed to leave the house? Do you think that women and men
both deserve equal rights? Great, then you’re a feminist.>’
When asked by Stylist what she thinks is the key ingredient of female empowerment, Gwyneth Paltrow responded: ‘I think knowing yourself,
but truly. As opposed to the self your parents gave you or your partner or the
school bully, or whatever. I think so many people give us ideas of what we are.
I think as women especially, because we’re sensitive by nature, we’re more
vulnerable, we absorb other people’s ideas about what we’re supposed to think
or who we're supposed to be and how we’re supposed to act. And I actually think
it ends up killing us, and that’s why we (as women) have 5-to-1 autoimmune
disorders, compared to men. I really do. We somaticize that suppression of
self, it comes out in our bodies.
I think the most
clear, direct way to empowerment is to really know yourself and to really use
your voice and to not be afraid of other people’s reactions' she continued. 'And to be really,
really true to yourself. That to me, has been key to me in understanding how I
want to live the second half of my life. It’s only recently that I’ve really
fully understood that.’
And this, my
dear readers, takes us closer to what steps we need to take towards empowerment:
the realisation that women and men are different, they are not
superior/inferior to each other in terms of abilities, they are just made
differently. And when everyone will understand and accept that, we’ll all be
living in a better world. And steps are being taken. Suzie Shaw, the female CEO of a creative ad agency in Australia, notes in an article for B&T Magazine:
‘Seriously, men
and women are equally capable. But that’s not to say they’re the same (…) In
our mutual pursuit of ‘equality’ we have all failed (women and men alike) to
recognise that women are different, so need a different management approach to
ensure they thrive.’
So who knows,
maybe this whole discussion about empowerment starts with recognising our
female structure and instead of trying to act like men and to beat them at
their own game, why not say things like ‘I need more support, so I can do my
job better’, ‘I can be a better professional with the right mentorship’, ‘I do
work better when my efforts are appreciated’, ‘Why, thank you for the
compliment!’ and ‘Men are not the enemy, but our partners in this journey
through life’. Perhaps such simple and honest statements may begin to turn
things in our favour, once and for all.
This thread of
thought actually makes me think of the iconic ‘Sex & The City’ HBO series, which,
why not admitting, has shaped a generation of women (group to which I too
belong) into thinking that women are perfectly entitled to flaunt their
sexuality and to treat men like objects, particularly through the lovable yet caricaturised character of Samantha Jones. It’s the whole ‘Eye for an Eye’ all
over again. But the new light shed on the ancient men and women at war
conversation makes me think that we’ve been looking at this all wrong: we
should not be trying to be ‘THE NEW MEN’ but instead we should be trying to be ‘THE
NEW WOMEN’, the women who find empowerment through their own intrinsic
sensitivity and delicacy, the women who care about other women and about every
living soul on this planet equally, the women who are finally awake and are
making themselves heard. The likes of Eve Ensler (the author of The Vagina
Monologues), Lena Dunham, Dawn Porter, Gwyneth Paltrow, Suzie Shaw or Caitlin
Moran are not alone. We are wide awake, we hear what you’re saying and we feel empowered.
As some of you know, I've been spending a lot of time lately researching on love and dating for my book. And whether I'm reading the laughable 'The Rules', a spiritual guide to happiness or a scientific paper, I start noticing common themes to all of these various resources. And probably the most common one is the importance of 'self-esteem'.
Everyone talks about it these days but what is self-esteem?
Just think about it for a second. We are willing and happy to project esteem onto someone else, usually a person who has done something magnificent, unique, courageous, fantastic. To hold someone in high esteem is heavy, it means to respect and to honour. There is no doubt that in our minds that person is almost a saint. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But what really bothers me (and God is my witness how little self-esteem I've had for myself) is why do we find it so difficult to hold ourselves in high esteem?...
Is it because we know how flawed we are? Because we know ourselves inside out and tend to be more critical than loving? But maybe the people we have high regard for are as flawed as we are. Maybe we're not even supposed to be perfect to be worthy of esteem. Maybe by starting with feeling esteem for ourselves, we will become perfect. I don't know...
But what I do know is this: having a high level of self-esteem is the main engine for attracting the right kind of love into one's life without any effort (I'll speak about this more some other time, but my view is that a true loving relationship is supposed to take little or no effort at all) and that self-esteem needs to be constant and consistent.
Imagine you've read all the self-help books in the world about how to get over a guy, how not to call a guy after you break-up, how to play the rules of dating etc, you've finally broken your destructive patterns and started to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but you're still allowing your boss not to treat you with the proper respect you deserve and feeling like a bit of a failure in the work place. And if that wasn't enough, you're still allowing your friends to only make last minute arrangements with you or use you as a listener to brag about their career achievements. Surely this is a sign of depleted self-esteem and in order to make your life (in every possible aspect) work is to make sure you're honouring yourself and the others every day, in every interaction.
Sure, sometimes we can't change people. Sure, we can rationalise into it as much as we want, we can tell ourselves it's just temporary and it doesn't matter anyway, but I tell you one thing: it does matter. Every day you are not defending your true self against esteem erosion, your core dies a little bit. Every day you carry on allowing people to 'mistreat' you, you're losing difficult to recover self-esteem and it impacts on every other aspect of your life. Sooner or later your new-found confidence in love will recede and you'll find yourself back in the attention begging seat.
So sometimes we can't change people. But we sure can change ourselves. Have a look at your life, is there something or someone not honouring you? What CAN and what WILL you do about it?
So it looks like on my 33rd year on this planet I may have finally learnt a thing or two. Things which may seem pretty obvious to others but who weren't so obvious for me and, who knows, probably for lots of other confused individuals out there.
Today I want to talk about the inner 'attention seeker'. In some people it's not so inner, it's pretty much out in the open. It usually manifests itself through self-taken Instagram pictures (guilty!), pictures taken with the phone in the mirror - usually semi-naked (not guilty!), extreme cleavage - both men and women, we know who they are - (guilty, but only in my early 20's), responding to anyone who pays attention to them (guilty!), pouting in every photo (oh, so guilty!), posting pictures of themselves in a bikini on FB (guility!), heavy make-up and self tan (not guilty!), bragging about all sorts of performances (guilty!), texting/messaging people just to get a reply from them (guilty!), laughing loudly (guilty, but only when it's intentional, I am usually a loud person!), doing favours just to receive attention (guilty!). And many other symptoms.
The truth is that with the rise of Facebook, Twitter, fashion blogging etc more cases of 'attention seeking' have been reported in the world. So what, you might say! It's not like looking for attention ever killed anyone. Well, there are two important side-effects of attention seeking disease:
1) It keeps on giving.
The sufferer has no rest day and night without attention, it wants more, it does more to get it, eventually it leaves him/her empty and exhausted.
2) It serves no purpose.
Attention seeking is nothing but the result of a low self esteem (you should trust me on this one because I know everything there is to know about low self esteem). And it serves no purpose. Attracting attention needs to have a purpose, some sort of intent in mind.
Writing on a blog is a form of attention seeking, some of you might argue. It certainly is. In my case it's kind of how it started. I needed a place to vent, a place where I could talk about myself for the sole purpose of talking about myself and have others reading it. But in time, my intentions changed. Now I just want to share what I discover about myself in the hope that my own experiences could influence positively on those who read it. That's all. And that's why I am writing on this blog. Day in and day out.
So if anything, give your attention seeking a higher purpose. Otherwise, it's plain lame!
Since I took the time to judge myself and found myself guilty as hell for seeking ego-driven attention, I decided to do something about it. A little bit every day. Post less on Facebook, do more soul searching, increase my self esteem, give myself more love, add higher meaning to my actions. Until I am able to say I am 'attention-seeking' free!
Because I'm kicking the inner 'attention seeker' out! Be gone, you fool!
You may have noticed I've been a bit more quiet lately (or just less vocal than usually, some might say). The reason being I'm doing lots and lots and lots of research for the 'Love book' (that's how I like to call it now :). And the more I dig deep into the whole love and dating universe I discover so much more about myself. I suppose that in the end this is its purpose: I'm going on a journey and taking everyone else along with me.
One of the things I've come across during my readings, is the notion of 'high value' woman. Nothing special so far because don't we all, modern women of today, really value ourselves?
I don't know. Looking back at my own life, I wouldn't be so sure...
In order to be perceived as someone of high value you have to be someone of high value. Every day, in every relationship. You don't take a break from being 'high value'.
I remember there was a time in my life (not too long ago, I'm reluctantly admitting) when I had mainly casual relationships. When asked, I replied saying that the people I got involved with weren't what I was looking for anyway, so in the meantime, I might as well just have fun. In time, it became a lifestyle, a way of being. Soon I forgot how to act differently...
So I had to change. In every aspect, in every relationship, past any history I may had had with anyone, I had to start acting like a woman of high value. Because it wasn't about how 'they' perceived me but about how I perceived myself!
Starting with friendships. The moment you can stand up to a 'friend' who only contacts you for last minute social requests, then you can stand up to a man you're dating and do the same thing. Your friend doesn't value you and neither does the man you're dating.
And moving onto the 'mixed' friendships. Let's admit it, we all have them. That guy who is really just your friend, but is always there to have a drink with you, massage your ego when you get dumped and somehow ends up between your bedsheets with your lipstick all over his face. Or the friend who really is just a friend and he sees nothing but a big fat 'FRIEND' in you, but who you really fancy the pants out of him and secretly hope he'll see one day how amazing you are and fancy the pants out of you back. Yes, all those 'mixed' friendships are bad for you. Finish them or sort them out. Friends or lovers! Or nothing! Being an 'in betweener' doesn't bring you anything of value.
And finishing with the men you are dating. Or would like to. Or you need to stop dating. All those men who don't see in you the same 'high value' as you do are a no brainer. They'll cancel themselves out. All the others who do see, will make an effort and they're really the only ones who deserve to get to know you.
It's not so easy to spot and stop the relatioships in your life which are undermining your 'high value', but don't let yourself be put off. Sometimes they feel so natural, they're so imbedded in your life that it will take a bit of searching. But it's like starting training for a marathon. It always ever starts with that first mile...
I've been training for this kind of 'marathon' for a while and happy to see the results in my everyday life. I'm not ready to run the whole race yet, but I'm definitely in the right training programme. And I can highly recommend it ;)
When somebody close to you dies, you feel you have the right to cry out your feelings, feel miserable, feel turned inside up and outside down, feel angry or suppress emotions - however you chose to deal with it, you have the right! When somebody you didn't know that well dies, then... the decent thing to do is to shut up, present your condolences and try not to let the tragic event affect you that much. But not knowing someone that intimately doesn't mean that sometimes, when someone you know dies, you're not utterly shaken to the core.
A dear friend's wife died a bit over a month ago... A tragic, shocking and unreasonable death, which I knew was going to really affect me, but I was travelling when it happened, so I somehow managed to postpone its impact, like a tsunami frozen in time.
I usually find some sort of comfort in knowing that sometimes deaths can be explained. Ok, so it was an accident, nothing anyone could have done about it. Ok, so he contracted malaria in Malawi while on gap year because he forgot to take his tablets and died. Action and consequence. What are the chances this would happen to me?
But this was no accident. This was a battle with cancer which was fought bravely and for a while it seemed like life was winning. But despite all the great progress, a wonderful mother and wife was taken away in a flash. A person who was so positive that I had no doubt will fight this and win it! Someone my age. Someone who's lived a healthy life, a good life, a generous life. Someone who's given nothing but love and positive thoughts to the world. Someone... like me?...
So I was left with a bunch question in my head... 'How did this happen? She was recovering so well...' 'Why her?' 'Why not me?' 'How can I be sure this won't happen to me?' I let myself spiral down a dangerous path onto which I've been before, after my uncle died of cancer two years ago. I felt like I had a duty to do something about it. Like I can't just be relieved it didn't happen to me, present my condolences and carry on with my life. Because suddenly I was looking at the idea of death in the face. It wasn't anymore an abstract notion which I could just fend off hopefully for many many years. It wasn't just something that happens to other people. It was something that can happen to me, to you, to her, to the guy across from me on the tube, the one reading 'Train Spotting' who I quite think is cute, to the girl who's serving me coffee at Pret in the morning, the really pretty and smiley one, to anyone and everyone I know.
I suddenly felt guilty for all the times I was bored, I felt my life was uninteresting, I was upset for stupid reasons, for believing life wasn't worth living alone, for feeling no passion for my job, for complaining about the weather, for all the crazy thoughts only someone ignorant of death can possibly have. I felt particularly humbled after I read her blog. Thoughts she trusted into the digital space, not knowing how much life to live she still had left...
'Sometimes I think something must be wrong with me... I have metastatic cancer, my doctor said he doesn't know how much time I've got left, but despite it all, I'm probably living some of the happiest days of my life... Am I crazy?' she wrote a couple of months before she passed away. 'My diagnosis does not make me any different than the healthy people. They don't know either how many days they've got to live. Nobody knows. Now I'm alive and I'm living it beautifully.'
I also found out from her blog about the possible connection between parabens (common preservatives found in almost every cosmetic product and toiletry) and breast cancer. And in a desperate attempt to claim the longevity of my life, I started raiding all my possessions. I threw away half of the bottles filled with lotions and gels and quarantined a bag of expensive face creams with no ingredients listed as guilty until proven otherwise ( by the way, expensive creams like Elizabeth Arden 8 Hour Cream and Clarins Flash Beauty Balm do have parabens - binned!). I binned two full bottles of L'Oreal True Match Foundation (a best-selling product I've been using for years) containing three types of parabens and replaced it with an expensive Benefit one the very next day. I've even stopped using the hand soap at work for the same reason (I still wash my hands but use my own paraben-free sanitiser). What's happening to me? Am I getting crazy?... IS THIS HOW I'M GOING TO STAY ALIVE??
No, this is not how I am going to stay alive. I can't protect myself from every single potentially harmful and deadly element from my environment and I can't live in fear. But what I can do is live, breathe, smile, love, cry, do all the stupid things and all the great things I want to do, never once look back and say; 'I wish I had lived my life differently.'
This post is dedicated to the memory of Ina Coretchi, a wonderful woman and someone who taught me life's so worth living and full of endless possibilities. Rest in peace.
Hong Kong born Eurasian, DJ Janette Slack has been making
music in London since 2003, jamming up the nights on the London club scene. She
has now launched her own label Slack Trax and some really cool tunes she’s been
crafting lately. I interviewed her last year for Bitch-online magazine and I
was totally charmed by this lady who's got so much energy, drive, coolness factor and hunger
for life.
She’s the perfect example that when you love something bad enough,
there’s nothing to stop you from doing it. I couldn’t miss the opportunity to
publish her interview for my Inspire campaign.
When did you arrive
in London?
I went to University in the UK when I was 17 and returned in
2001 to do a Sound Engineering diploma and I haven’t looked back since. I love
London because it has so many opportunities, there’s so much room for growth
here, and I feel I can evolve as an artist.
So when did it all
start? When did you start your DJ career?
I started DJ-ing when I was in Hong Kong and when I moved to
London I started spending a lot of time in the record stores like Plastic
Fantastic, Carbon in Urban Outfitters, Vinyl Addiction, all the shops in Soho.
That’s where I’ve made lots of connection and it’s how it all started. Half way
through my hospitality management course at University, I became curious about
how music is made. Then Napster came out and I was obsessed with collecting
sound effects and I started to edit them on something called Cool Edit Pro,
making ‘mixed tapes’ using music, jokes from South Park, Beavis and Butthead,
Steve Martin, Eddie Izzard, and then slot them in between music and songs. I
made them as Xmas presents. Then I realised that’s what I liked doing, I love
sound effects. I wanted to learn how to write music because sometimes I found
myself criticising the tune and thought, ‘who am I to criticise it if I don’t
know how to write it myself?’ I had DJ and producer friends who I kept asking ‘how
does that work?’, ‘what does that button do?’. I kept asking lots of questions
and even though they were nice to me, I really thought I should do a course
where you can ask all the stupid questions you want so I did a Sound
Engineering course in 2001.
Tell us about your
music, what makes it unique, what makes it different?
I’m not musically trained so it takes me a long time to
write tracks. The only musical instrument I learnt how to play was drums for about
a year. So I don’t know how to play any instrument at an amazing level but only
enough so I can lay down ideas which make sound engineering and programming
come in handy as you can programme it all and as long as it sounds clear and
crisp then you don’t really need a band to rely on. I really enjoy programming
drums and because I come from a more of a rock music background (my dad’s
influence) I enjoy recording real bass guitars and real guitars. My music is a
hybrid between rock and electronic music. I’m really inspired by bands like Hybrid,
Nine Inch Nails, Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters, Underworld, Orbital, The Prodigy,
Chemical Brothers, Basement Jaxx, all these amazing artists which are their own
thing. You can hear they’ve got inspiration from something else and they’ve
turned it into their own thing using electronica. So I collaborate sometimes
with vocalists, it can be funk vocalists, a rapper, a singer, male or female,
and it’s really nice to see what interesting layers they bring on top of my
music.
What kind of clubs
have you normally performed at, is there a particular scene you tend to stick
to?
I’ve been kind of drifting, between all the scenes. When I
first moved to London, because my passion was in break beat, I’ve played at various
clubs and bars ranging from gay, straight and fetish. About 6 years ago I got
my first warm up set at Torture Garden. I’ve now been a resident there for 6
years and it’s definitely not boring.
Have you got a
signature look when you’re performing?
It took me a long time to find the image that was right for
me. You just got to believe in whatever it is what you you’re wearing. But as
long as you don’t get lazy and stay on top of your craft it doesn’t really
matter what you wear. I generally tend to wear what I feel like. As a woman
there are days when you want to wear trousers and days when you want to wear
tights. It’s trying to keep a balance, dressing with a bit of attitude. And if
there’s a theme like Halloween, hen dos etc... it helps you do your thinking
about what clothes you’re going to wear. You end up wearing something you never
thought of wearing before and the night gives you the option to. I am also
becoming more open to things such as wearing body paint etc.Sometimes I want to stand out and sometimes I
don’t.
You’ve launched you
own label. Tell us all about it.
I’ve launched my own label Slack Trax last year and it’s got
its first release on 29th Oct with a track called ‘Girl in Black’. It’s the
most ‘pop’ish, commercial track I’ve ever done. All my tracks have always been
moody. I’ve been renovating my own warehouse with no contractors, my studio was
in storage for a year and after I’ve been surrounded by cables and insulation,
concrete and plaster for a long time, I just wanted to write something happy
and fun. It’s also got a handful of remixes as well. There’s a version for
everyone. The next single ‘You Can’t Stop This’ was released on the 4th
of Dec. I’ve collaborated with Kickflip on that one and it’s more honest to what
I play at Torture Garden and what I’m writing right now. It’s got guitars in
it, real drums, vocals from Javone Prince (from Channel 4’s Phoneshop) and some
really cool noises that make sense.
My album ‘Torture Garden Session’ got released in late
January/ Early February.I have limited
edition CDs that you can order on www.janetteslack.com
. The album will be available on all the digital shops such as iTunes,
Trackitdown, Beatport, Juno, Amazon etc.... So far the label it’s been getting
really good response. DJMag have shown lots of support, Mixmag have given Slack
Trax 2 ‘Tune of the Month’ titles, and I just got interviewed by Time Magazine
because of setting up the label. Things look promising.
What’s next?
I just want to keep writing and I just want to get better at
everything I’m doing. One of the styles I play is progressive and electro and
break beat and there’s a slower tempo called nu funk and glitch hop which is
faster than hip hop but slower than electro and it’s a really sexy pace,
there’s cool vocals, it really hits the spot for me. And that’s something I really
want to explore more.
What advice would you
give someone who’d like to become a DJ?
Make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons. Don’t
expect instant rewards, you’ve got to be in it for the long run, there are no
such things as shortcuts. Don’t be afraid to ask. It’s ok not to know
everything. Be careful who you trust. Be aware that it’s a very expensive thing
to get into. But as long as you’re happy with doing what you’re doing and
you’re doing it for yourself, you’re on the right path... I knew what I wanted
to do this since I was teen so it’s obvious it’s not a phase. I’m still loving
it, I want this to last forever.
Janette's video 'Girl in Black' is out now. Check it out!
2012 has been an incredible year for me... If I were to use one word to define this year then that word would be CHANGE.
I have changed in so many ways. I guess a lot of the change has happened naturally as part of the growing up process (I am beyond doubt now a fully grown-up person and ain't nothing I can do about it! - sigh!) but there has been another kind of change which I willed upon myself. Never before I have been so determined to transform myself. In fact TRANSFORM and BECOME are also good words to illustrate the CHANGE I am talking about. I have diligently worked on myself to BECOME the person I wanted to be. And that's what this year has been all about. About the person I am now.
I am a person who makes choices. I am a person who makes things happen. I am a person who understands. I am a person who forgives. I am a person who has something to say. I am a person who won't blame. I am a person who will keep on walking. I am a person who doesn't complain. I am a person who IS and DOES. I am a person who seeks and finds. I am a person who is inspired and inspires.
But above all, I am a person who chooses to be happy. Because happiness is not something that comes in a nice wrapping. Happiness is something you earn because you want it bad enough and you work on it every single day. I am that person who won't give up even when the day looks cloudy and grey. There's always sun beneath the clouds. I am the person who sees the sun.
I had a list of plans for 2012 back in January. Some came to fruition (such as keeping up with my exercising regime and completing my first half-marathon, being a better professional, exposing myself to culture more often, taking a language course, finalising my styling course and website, giving more love to the world, taking a tango taster, taking writing more seriously etc.) while others haven't (I did not complete one single piece of writing, I did not go to Argentina and the USA this year, albeit I am going to Vietnam, so not a bad trade off, I did not just give love and expecting none in return, I kind of wanted to get some too, I did not go surfing and did not do any climbing, but I tried flying trapeze, guess that counts too!), but with so many plans I'd be surprised if I had achieved everything on my list in a meek year's time.
But there should always be a level of flexibility when it comes to specific tasks. After all, CHANGE is a matter of attitude.
Life keeps serving me lessons these days. They sort of come by hand fulls lately, which is pretty amazing. I'm like: 'Wow, another week, another lesson? I can hardly keep up with it anymore.' It feels like I've been stuck in an evolutionary-less pit all these past years and I've suddenly been rescued out of it, so all the lessons I was supposed to learn until now started to come at me at once. Like I've won the jackpot and the coins are all cascading noisily from life's fruit machine, like I've just been to the Life Vegas and finally landed a winning hand.
Honestly, I don't know what was about 2012, but it's opened a new portal in my life, things are happening to me with the speed of light. They say every cell in our body gets renewed every 7 years, I think I've just about renewed every atom of my soul in the last 7 days. And I can't wait to see what happens next, I'm taking myself on a new adventure every day and I'm loving every minute.
I notice how I'm letting go of patterns of behaviour and compare the results with the past and I must say I'm pretty pleased. It's quite nice to challenge yourself and see a different outcome, it's like playing, it's fun!
The lesson I've learnt last week is very simple. It's about just getting on with things! Without complaining. I used to be one of those people who got annoyed when things got a bit messy, mainly out of habit. I hate mess, it really messes with my head. And when things are messy, I sulk, I get annoyed with the mess maker (whether is a project at work or a sock lying around in the kitchen) and place a mental blame on the person who upset the status quo. I almost felt the same when I was handed a project at work without much a do and with very tight deadlines and full responsibility. But rather than allowing my traditional reaction to the situation to take its course, I decided l could either get annoyed and not resolve anything or just get on with it. And I did just get on with it. And it felt good! It opened up a whole new world of possibilities and made me realise that placing blame doesn't really do anything but feed your ego who always wants to be right. However, doing instead of sulking and complaining is liberating and shuts the ego up! So I learnt the lesson of just getting on with things. And stop wanting to be right. Being right means somebody else has to be wrong. And that doesn't help anyone. Especially myself.
So I'm really amazed by how things unfold in front of my eyes, because these days I challenge almost everything about myself. Every reaction gets scrutinised and, whenever possible and not too late (hey, I never said I was perfect!), I try a different attitude. And it's amazing. Just getting on with it, you know. It's good for you!
‘Sometimes a small event can change the
course of our lives’ Jean-Jacques Cousteau
My INSPIRE campaign is growing and I am happy to see so many inspirational people have responded to my appeal and are giving me amazing stories to share with you! My guest today is Alina, my friend from university, who recently left her job in marketing in favour of making a difference in the community.
I’ve known Alina since my first
day at Uni. We both got admitted to the newly formed section of ‘Communication
Sciences’, part of the Journalism School of the University of Bucharest, and
thought that a career in PR or advertising was promising enough glamour not to question whether it was the right choice or not (at
least I didn't!). A few years and even a common employer later (Alina and I both worked for the same company at some point in different locations), we both seem to be looking for
something else.
Alina is now part of a community
foundation which she had a vision of whilst on holiday and whose projects are aimed
at restoring the community spirit in Bucharest and helping to implement projects benefitting the local communities. Alina’s inspirational story gave me the goose
bumps and I am going to say that although it is relevant in so many ways (which I
am not going to list or will spoil you the pleasure of reading her interview), I would like to highlight one in particular: it's awakened
in me the longing for the community spirit, something anyone who’s
chosen to live in a big city has silently agreed to give up on… But Alina is
the living proof this is something we can all change…
We all grow up thinking we'll become famous
or amazing people. When you were a little girl, what was your dream? 'When I was soul-searching for my future profession, a
couple of years ago, I kept on going back to my childhood. There must be some
truth to my childhood dreams, I was thinking. If I look deep down enough, I
will find my true meaning, it must me something from when I was a little girl…
Either there was nothing in there, or I didn’t search deep down enough: the
truth is I cannot remember “wanting to become something when I grow up”. I
think I was just there, having fun, organising block parties, negotiating our
way with the neighbours… I was too immersed into the present to be really
looking forward for the future. There is one thing I remember and that lasted –
my mercifulness. I used to love animals, and I still do – I used to rescue a
lot of them, and I still am. Other than that – blank. '
What is your dream today? 'Now, my dream “when I grow up” is to be able to blend
doing good* with having fun, both at a large scale. I have accomplished the
former part, with me opening a community foundation. I am still struggling for
the latter…' Tell us your story. How did you decide
to turn your career around, when did it happen?
'I was reading this book, the memoirs of Jean-Jacques Cousteau. And
there is one paragraph at the beginning of the book, just when he does his
first sea dive and meets what will later become his mission in life – the
discovery and protection of the oceans. As he puts it: “sometimes, a small
event can change the course of our lives, if we are lucky enough to notice it
and brave enough to give up our previous preoccupations and run into something
new. It is exactly what happened to me that summer day, at Mourillon, when I
started to see into the sea”. And as I was reading it, I realised I was running
into something new of the same sort, as well.Good ideas come when you are
vacationing, you know. You leave the mind wander a bit, off the to-do and
projects list, and the mind does the rest of the work. It was the summer of
2008, I was lying on a beach in Costa Rica and I had this vision of what I wanted
to do with my life. What attracted me was to build a hub where I could put into
contact people that want to do good in the community and projects that need
their help. This would satisfy two of my great needs – to do good and to work
intensively with people. It was a very fragile idea and I didn’t know how to
further develop it. What made things more complicated – I was badly indebted
with some consumer credits and I was successfully working for a multinational.
Not easy to leave a safe life to go into the unknown of community development. So then I decided that this is a
project I should run in my free time, as a hobby, and I should be “mature”
enough to keep my corporate job. My job at the time offered me quite some
satisfaction – civilised environment, nice people, lots of money, lots of travels,
diverse projects… But from one point onwards, questions kept on coming to me:
what is the purpose of my work, who does this serve, what will I leave behind
if I die tomorrow? So I kept this dream alive – of creating a community hub. Two years later, time came for me
to have a baby. Just as I was in my first day of pre-maternity leave, a couple
of weeks before I gave birth, I noticed an online announcement. An Association
was looking for groups of people interested in developing community foundations
in their cities. The Association would provide consultancy and a start-up grant
for chosen groups. So I applied, because suddenly I saw how my idea could be
turned into reality. They accepted the application and, just as I was in the
maternity, with my son two days old, I started working for the development of
the Bucharest Community Foundation. It would take me another one year and a
half to legally launch it – but that was the starting point. I call them twins – my son, Toma,
and the Foundation.'
Alina's 'other baby'
You are also a 'full time' mother and wife.
Are you a better mother and a wife because of it, because you are doing
something you love and strongly believe in? 'Any
mother has multi-tasking in her “job description”. This is something I learnt
the hard way, by working part time from home until very recently. It required
me waking up really early in the morning to work and practically focusing all
my attention only on motherhood and the foundation for a long period of time. I
believe it is well worth it. First, for myself, because I am doing what I want
and get pleasure out of it. Secondly, by working for the foundation, I am
passing on values to my son, such as learning to be part of a community, in a
respectful and active manner. I am sure that, even if the money is by far not
so good as in the corporate world, these values are a better heritage to pass
on.'
As it is the case with many start-ups, the
financial aspect is always the most difficult to deal with. Do you feel you
needed and benefitted from the support of your family to plunge into your
project full speed? 'Fortunately, the Romanian law
allows the mother to have a two-year maternity leave, paid with a percentage of
the previous year’s salary. This allowed me to have a certain financial
stability and also got me slowly accustomed to having less money than in the
past. Of course, the support (including financial) of my family was very
helpful. Gone are the days when I lived off my way-above-average salary, with
all the accompanying advantages. But I learnt to live with less material
satisfactions… '
Tell us how working in the charity sector
makes you feel? 'A community foundation is not exactly a charity. We are a
hub, a consultant, between people or organizations who want to get involved
into the community and projects that need them. What a community foundation
does is raise resources from the community and finance projects that the
community determines are relevant. We do not do our own projects, just the
frameworks for involvement and monitoring – but we do support others to have
their projects grown and finalized. First of all, working for a
foundation requires entrepreneurial skills, which have been dormant in my corporate
life. So it took a lot of struggle (and it still does) to come to understand
how it works. From things as mundane as building your own PowerPoint template –
when I had worked with pre-determined templates all my life – to things as
complicated as working with the Board of Directors or managing the cash flow.
It is a difficult feeling – not being always skilled enough or experienced
enough, and having to learn at a fast pace. But secondly, I have this
extraordinary feeling. When we manage to finalize a project or convince someone
to donate for a cause – that indeed my dream I had on the Playa Conchal in
Costa Rica is coming true. And this is an amazing feeling!'
Do you consider yourself happy? What are the
key things in your life which make you happy? 'I am a strong believer in the idea of community. During
the past two years, I started growing this holistic approach, that we cannot
thrive as individuals if the community around us is not working. And I was
lucky enough to meet and help at the development of two great communities,
which reinforced my ideas. Therefore, I am happy as long as I am part of a
community that shares my values, interests and lifestyle. Fortunately, with my
maternity and change of career, this is now entirely possible. So, yes, I am
happy. This happens, however, when I
remind myself to stop and look for a while – because in the rest of the time I
am busy busy busy! (note to self – if all else fail, remember to add in the
to-do list: stop and appreciate your life as it is :)'
Do you think that our happiness can be influenced in any way by external
factors or is it all 'an inside job'? Can we blame the world for our failures? 'I believe that happiness is mostly in inside job. Maybe except for some really
dramatic circumstances that we cannot control – a war, an accident – it is
entirely our job to become and stay happy. My journey in searching my
meaning and future profession started a little earlier that mentioned above. It
was in 2007 and I was running in a state of major unhappiness and frustration
in my life. Nothing seemed to work and it looked to me like things could only
get worse. And I was lucky enough to go to this personal development workshop
that opened my eyes on my life. I discovered there how much WE are responsible
for our lives, not some outside entity. And to what extent we can change the
state of being at all times, with some proper training. At the course, we had this
extraordinary teacher – he is called Johnny Tenn and is a British coach. Once,
as we were in the middle of serious breakthroughs and very excited, he told us,
“Extraordinary accomplishment! Now you need to do one more little thing: work
on this every day of your life. Train this like a muscle. The day you stop
training is the day you go back to your old ways.” So now I have increasingly learnt
how to observe and change my state of wellbeing. I have made huge progress –
from not being aware at all to being aware some 5% of my time (not much, but I
have a long life ahead to learn!)'
What advice would you give people who
are thinking about getting into the charity sector? 'In order to be
successful, charity people should be a blend of big souls and fine
entrepreneurs. It definitely cannot work without having a huge heart. But you
would go bankrupt so fast, it will make your head spin, if you do not manage it
on business principles.
And there is this advice I would
give to anybody who cares about my two cents: work on yourself. Do whatever
kind of soul-searching, personal development activity that suits you. Try more
to find those who suit you. There is so much inside us that we don’t know
about, that affects the way we live! And if we don’t know about it, then we
cannot change it, and end up wrongly blaming the government, our parents,
spouses or the global warming for our failures.'
Who/what inspired you? 'They say that when you are inspired by somebody, there
are some of his qualities that you carry inside, as well. Of course, in order
not to flatter ourselves unnecessarily, I should all – to a smaller extent. So
here are the list of people who inspire me today. I can only hope I have at
least 10% of their qualities…
Bono – for his unique blend of
being an artist, a humanitarian and an entrepreneur. Steve Jobs, for his focus
and perfectionism. Richard Branson, for his adventure-seeking. And one of our
Board members, Stanislav Georgiev, who is a bank CFO, a marathon runner, a
great family man and a strong supporter of the community. '
What is your next ‘dream’?
'I dream about building the foundation so that it brings a big impact on the
inhabitants of Bucharest – they become naturally involved in their community. I
dream about being a good foundation leader and mother in the same time. I dream
about increasing my time management skills so well, that it allows me to get
involved in everything that interests me. And yes, I must admit – I dream about
my next vacation, due in June! '
All I can add is: Stay
inspired!
*In
Romanian, to be ‘selfless’, ‘to help
others’ is translated by ‘to do good’, which doesn’t mean ‘to thrive’, to be ‘good
at something’ as it may be interpreted, but it has a more overarching sense of
spreading ‘goodness’ by helping others. I thought it was appropriate to keep it
as is: ’ to do good’
