The weak passages

Source: services. flikie.com

 

 

I look at myself in the mirror and there's a clear moment when I, the watcher, am looking at somebody else's face. I know it to be mine and yet it isn't. It's a strange feeling. I'm not a completely separate entity but I am looking at myself without judgement and with a bit more love, as if it's somebody else I am looking at.

It's funny how some of us find it easy to forgive others but we have so little mercy for ourselves.

I'm very tough on myself. I hate it when I don't function according to plan. It pains me when my reactions to certain situations, sometimes, are not the most dignified. I punish myself when I do something I regret. But one day I look at myself in the mirror and realise I can maybe try and love myself the same way I'd love somebody else. Talk to myself as if I am talking to a scared child, encourage myself and give myself emotional comfort. Would I forgive this person staring back at me for all the stupid things she's ever done, for all the times she has been weak and disappointing? I guess I would.

I try it for a few days. Every time I catch a glimpse of my face in some sort of reflective surface, I tell the girl in the mirror how wonderful she is. And it works. My inner dialogue changes and I stop judging myself so hard. I start wearing red lipstick and smile to myself more often. I stop caring about not being perfect. Because maybe I am.

Maybe it's supposed to be this way: maybe it is the 'weak passages' that make the strong ones stronger.


'When I was thirteen or fourteen years old, I use to take lessons in musical composition. Not because I was a child prodigy but because of my father's quiet tact. It was during the war and a friend of his, a Jewish composer, was required to wear the yellow star; people had begun to avoid him. Not knowing how to show his solidarity, my father thought of asking him just to give me lessons. (...) 
(...) I retain my admiration for him, and three or four images. Especially this one, seeing me out after a lesson, he stopped by the door and suddenly said to me: 'There are many surprisingly weak passages in Beethoven. But it is the weak passages that bring out the strong ones. It's like a lawn - if it weren't there, we couldn't enjoy the beautiful tree growing on it.' (Milan Kundera - Testaments Betrayed)

The Help

If you haven't read it, then I can tell you there's no time to waste! Go on, get yourself a copy and start reading now. It will have you laughing and it will have you crying. And to me, that's what a good story is all about: emotions you can't contain, whether you're on the tube, waiting for the water to boil or queueing at the bank.

It's a story about courage which will inspire you!

'The sun is bright by my eyes is open. I stand at the bus stop like I been doing for forty-old years. In thirty minutes, my whole life's...done. Maybe I ought to keep writing, not just for the paper but something else. about all the people I know and the things I seen and done. Maybe I ain't too old to start over, I think I laugh and cry at the same time at this. Cause just last night  I thought I was finished with everything new.'





It will tell you a thing or two about friendship:

'I ain't appologising to no drunk. I never apologised to my daddy and I sure ain't apologising to her.'
(...)
'I tell you, that Celia must be worst one you ever had to tend to.'
'They all bad. But she the worst of all.'
'Ain't they? You remember that time Miss Walters make you pay for the crystal glass you broke? Ten dollars out of you pay? Then you find out them glasses only cost three dollars a piece down at Carter's?'
'Mm-hmm.'
'Oh, and you remember that crazy Mr Charlie, the one who always call you nigger to your face like he think it's funny. And his wife, the one who make you eat lunch outside, even in the middle of January? Even when it snowed that time?'
'Make me cold just thinking about it.'
(...)
'What about that Miss Roberta? Way she make you sit at the kitchen table while she try out her new hair dye solution on you?'
(...)
'Took me three weeks and twenty five dollars to get my hair black again.;
'Miss Celia though' she says. 'Way she treat you? How much she paying you to put up with Mister Johnny and the cooking lesson? Must be less than all of them.'
' You know she paying me double.' 
'Oh, that's right. Well, anyway, with all her friends coming over, specting you to clean up after them all the time.'
(...)
'I think you done made your point, Aibeleen.'

 It will tell you a thing or two about self-esteem:

' You is kind. You is smart. You is important.'

It will show where a Mother's love really is:

'Don't let him cheapen you.' 
I look back at her, eye her suspiciously, even though she is so frail under the wool blanket. Sorry is the fool who ever underestimates my Mother.
(...) She narrows her eyes out at the winter land.
'Frankly, I don't care much for Stuart. He doesn't know how lucky he was to have you.'

It will make you think twice about letting a guy get away with being rude:

'Isn't that what you women from Ole Miss major in? Professional husband hunting?'
(...)
'I'm sorry but were you dropped on your head as an infant?
(...)
'Jesus, I've never met a woman with such long arms.' he says.
'Well, I've never met anybody with such a drinking problem.'

It will remind you that there are no real lines and that we are all just people.

'I watch Lou Anne slip away in the parking lot thinking. There is so much you don't know about a person. I wonder if I could've made her days a little bit easier, if I'd tried. If I'd treated her a little nicer. Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought.'

The Help - Kathryn Stockett

Should've, would've, could've...

Source: ainiemos.blogspot.com

 "I have many regrets, and I'm sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret...if you have any sense....And if you don't regret them, maybe you're stupid." Katherine Hepburn

How many times have I told myself I should have done things differently, I would have done this if I had that, I could have changed the situation if I had acted differently? If I'm honest, probably as many times as I blinked.

Regret is one of the last remaining demons I'm still fighting off, although it's creeping up less and less now. I learned about making peace with the past so I let go of a lot of the stuff I resented myself for. Yet sometimes when the stress and exhaustion take their toll on me and I find myseld emotionally unbalanced, I end up doing something stupid I then blame myself for with damamging effect to my soul. And it's worse every time because I should have known better.

Some people find refuge in drinking, others in drugs, some take comfort in eating,  others steal things, or pick up fights, we all have our way of dealing with the world when we feel weak and frustrated.

I seek men's attention. That's what I do (a psychologist would probably say it comes from the fact that I lacked my father's attention when I was a child). But I am unaware of the fact that this is what I'm doing and mask it up by thinking I've fallen in love with some guy and convince myself he must be the one. At first I blame them, when things go wrong. Then I blame myself for picking the wrong men. Then I blame myself for not knowing how to behave around men. Then I blame myself for being too emotional. Then I blame myself for lacking patience... Then... Then I start all over again.

The other day, I came across a message from the guy who dumped me without telling me, four months ago. It was an old message I hadn't read at the time. It was an appology. For being cold because he had been in a bad place emotionally. He told me I deserved better.  Turns out I am not to blame for this one after all. Because, I did blame myself for it. Plenty. For being to impatient. For making a scene and wanting to know what was going on, rather than just relax and don't care. For having been too keen, too eager, too open. For never saying the right things at the right time. For accepting to be ignored. For not accepting to be ignored. For seeking recognition from outside of myself. For everything I could think of. I was to blame.

Then I thought about this a bit more and realised I have been blaming myself for everything all my life. Because my mind needed a logical explanation to why things have gone wrong and eventually I would find it in something I did or didn't do. And the next time I tried to be better, act wiser, be different. But somehow it always went wrong and I would come up with more things to blame myself for.

But I'm tired of blaming myself. I'm tired of regret, I'm tired of covering temporary wounds up by seeking more attention from men who give me none. But I'm ready to make the most of my regrets. To accept them and make sure there's no more 'should've, would've, could've' going on in my mind...Because sometimes things just happen and we do our best with the knowledge and the skills we have at the time. We keep correcting course until one day things do go well. Because that's just how life is.
  
"Make the most of your regrets...To regret deeply is to live afresh." Henry David Thoreau

The women

Source: themightyvoyager.com

The women I'm talking about have nothing more to prove.
They are beautiful, they dress well, they wear high heels with ease, they are cultured, they are intelligent, they have a head for business and a body for sin, they exercise, they run marathons, they give money to charity, they sign petitions for Amnesty International, they like children, they are funny, they watch European cinema, they go to art galleries, they water their plants, they drink mocktails and they sky dive .
It seems like they have it all.

And yet they keep trying.
They run a bit longer, they work a bit harder, they look a bit slimmer, they eat a bit healthier, they read more books, they spend more money, they meet more people and they go to more parties.
But I'll let you all in a little secret: the women I'm talking about are secretly starving.
They're starving for affection.
And when they find it, they don't know what to do with it.
They eat it all up until they choke, they eat it all up until they throw up, they eat it all up until there's nothing left.

Nothing at all, but more targets to achieve, more races to run, more books to read, more places to see, more money to spend...

That time of the year again

Right, so the Paralympics are now on. But strangely enough so is X Factor. There's an eerie transition from the most extraordinary summer in London (albeit one of the rainiest ever), when people have felt just a bit more alive  (there isn't actually one person I spoke to who hasn't been deeply moved and excited by the Olympics and the events of London 2012), to that time of the year when days are feeling colder and X Factor is on TV again. It almost feels like... has it really happened?

I have nostalgia for lingering. Sometimes it feels like we ought to linger a bit more on the great events of life. And yet in London, things just carry on moving like on a production line. Olympics have hardly finished and soon enough there is nothing on TV about it. It's back to talks on taxes and property prices. The Paralympics are now on and we almost want to relive the Olympics fever but it feels like it's been left to go cold for too long and we're almost back to our usual numbness. I wonder if it's because the Paralympics are such a humbling experience. It doesn't feel right to be cheering one athlete against another because every single athlete there is a real life hero that ought to be sanctified. People that make us feel small and petty. Because we still complain about the weather, work, love life, lack of it, sex, the quality of our broadband. Even though we have all our limbs and all our senses, there are things we still moan about and that realisation of our spiritual smallness almost makes us turn on the TV and watch X Factor instead.

Yes, I want to linger a bit. I want to take some time and think about the good things that happened this summer. I want to take some time and think about what I want my future to bring and how am I going to turn the experiences of the past into inspiration for the future. But I can't, because life in London is like a big tsunami which just takes you away and drowns you into the everyday. And before you know it, it's that time of the year again...

The Olympics Fever

Source: hd-wallpapers.com

I think it's safe to say that the Olympics fever has taken over the country. It was a slow burner with me though. It's been on the back of my mind of course, I knew it was going to happen, but it was still a muffled thought, kind of like the noise of the air con which you're aware of but decide not to think about it too much. But then it got big! The day I accidentally saw the Olympic Torch on Commercial Street just outside the All Saints shop where I was trying to return something, I felt the beginning of my excitement. I suddenly got really emotional about this historical event which was taking place here, in the city where I live!

And then it got bigger! I guess I thought I could just ignore it the best I could - aren't we Londoners just so good at not making a big deal out of things? -, try to get my daily routine disrupted as little as possible and hope for the best in terms of transport and the rest. Until I realised I am actually getting really excited about this whole thing, that I am looking forward for the masses of people flowing into town, bringing along noise, smiles, hope and just a little bit of something else. Oh, and I suddenly became desperate to get tickets, as I had none. But the Universe helped me and I got two tickets already in the first week of the Olympics. I went to see Beach Volleyball and the Women's Fencing Team Final and loved every minute of it.

Other than perceiving the Olympics as a worldwide celebration and an amazing event for our city, it also got me thinking about sports and what being an athlete means. I thought about my growing up in Romania and of how minimal sports facilities and opportunities were available for most people. I remember having begged my parents to let me pursue a sports and they didn't know how to break it to me that it was close to impossible for me to do that as the closest sports club was in a different city. I remember how little sport was promoted and how in school we couldn't care less about the gym class. I feel like I've been robbed of something really important. Not only that, as the old Latin saying goes, a healthy mind exists in a healthy body, but the benefits of sports and physical exercise and incommensurable when it comes to building character (you can read a bit more about what are the positive effects of team sports, in the article I wrote for the Bitch-online magazine.)

I literally only got into exercising approximately 5-6 years ago when I started running. It followed with various types of classes and gym routines. I can't imagine my life without it since. I got into team sports last year when I joined the company softball's team and I am desperate to try my hand and more sports, see myself getting better at something while enjoying the company of others. I can see myself becoming a better, stronger person and thankfully I am in the best place in the world to try all these sports I was denied when I was younger: the host city of the Olympic Games.

Talking about being inspired and inspiring others: thank you, London 2012!

The best year of my life

This is the best year of my life. Last year was the best year of my life and next year will be the best year of my life. But this year is extra special because London is hosting the Olympic Games. 



Did we think it was going to be so special? Probably not. In true British spirit, we all feared it was going to be awful, disorganised, busy, messy. In reality, I don't think I've ever seen London so eerily quiet and yet so buzzing. I'm having the best commutes to work as half of London's left the city for the Olympics and the other is watching the games. The way London feels these days reminds of the summers when I was a child when we used to have lots of friends and relatives visiting and it felt like a continuous celebration, family dinners and events. I feel like the whole world is on holidays.

I've been an active person for a long time now and I have a regular fitness regime, but even so, I now feel even more inspired. I feel inspired by sports I wasn't inspired before, I'm excited about learning the rules of games I wasn't familiar with, I feel like a child, happy and free.

There's more communication between people, everyone's tweeting and facebooking about their countries' latest medals, we congratulate each other for our countries' performances and we all suddenly feel just a little bit closer.

We didn't know it was going to be so special but it is. All the way!

I'm sure next year will be the best year of my life too, but 2012, well, it's something else!

A world without labels

'Identification with your mind creates an opaque screen of concepts, labels, images, words, judgments, and definitions that blocks all true relationship. It comes between you and yourself, between you and your fellow man and woman, between you and nature, between you and God.'
(Eckhart Tolle - 'The Power of Now')

Prejudices are useful things. They are generalisations, concepts we extrapolate from our own experiences or things we read and hear, concepts which help us somehow make sense of the world. Our brain is conceived to fill in the blanks, the brain is abhorrent of chaos, hence we feel better if we understand something, if we reach a conclusion, if we put a label on things. But relying only on prejudices is a dangerous thing. It reduces us to mere reactors, we don't try to understand a situation, we just react to it, the way we always had. And sometimes, we can be wrong...

I recently lost my inner balance a little bit. Again! Oh well, isn't that what life's all about, losing balance and getting it back?... Anyway, I was going through a minor crisis and tired of annoying my friends with the exhausts of my mind, I decided to go back to the Power of Now, a book which I've read last year and which impacted me positively at the time . It's fascinating how this time, because I needed it from a different perspective, I noticed different things than the first time I read it. This time I got to thinking about labelling.

I am guilty of labelling things, people, situations, countries, nations, meteorological phenomenons, you name it. Don't know, I guess it makes me feel better if I file something away and use it next time to make decisions. But does it really make me feel better? It got me thinking about all the times I assumed things which may not have been true, how I am devoiding my life of discovering new things, of that feeling of wonder, I am not allowing people to surprise me. I realised I am not courageous, but coward for using labels for everything around me. So I took a big decision: I will try to live in a world without labels and let it surprise me.

'Why does everything has to be black or white?' I complained to a friend the other day.

'It seems to me you're the one seeing life in black and white.' he answered and that's all he had to say.

Hello grey!

A jacket for life

I've got many jackets. I've got more clothes than I need, to be honest. Suppose most females do these days. All the result of impulse purchases, sales, obsessive compulsive behaviour. All to make me feel better about myself.

Last year, on my way to India, I bought this black leather jacket from All Saints. Just perfect. Practically lived in it since I bought it, come rain or shine. Makes all my other jackets and coats completely useless, as I've not been wearing any of them since IT came into my life.They're just taking up space in my tiny room. I'm thinking about getting rid of them all. In fact I'm thinking I should be getting rid of all the useless pairs of shoes and bags I've accumulated over the years, all gathering dust in boxes under my bed, on top of my wardrobe, inside drawers, in storage. Things I don't need!

But this leather jacket, I tell you, is so special.  It makes me feel like myself. It makes me think: this is me today, as I intend everyone else to see me, it makes me feel strong, resolute, flexible, natural. It makes me look good! Like it's been there layered over my own skin all my life.

It got me thinking about how there comes a time in one's life when you stop being so wasteful. With one's money, energy, thoughts, relationships etc. The more we live the more we realise the time is precious and we maybe only need one fitted little black leather jacket to survive. But this leather jacket, man, it needs to be so special. It needs to feel like an extension of one's self. A jacket for life.

I've been on many dates. I've met lots of people. I've kissed a lot of frogs. Suppose most females do these days. All the result of alcohol, impulses, desperation, fear of being lonely, obsessive compulsive behaviour. All to make me feel better about myself.

Now I feel like I want to get rid of all of that. All that ballast, drop it  in on a hole in the ground somewhere and pour a ton of dirt on top of it.

And find myself somebody for life. Somebody who's going to make me feel good about myself and it's going to feel like it's been there layered on top of my own soul all my life...

Alcoholics united

Source: www.liveitwell.org.uk

I've never been one to shy away from drinking. My father used to drink a lot (guess he had a drinking problem!) and I suppose it's fair to assume I've inherited his genes. I can hold my drink and after almost 14 years of experience in 'social' drinking I became something of a savy in what drinks to avoid and how to get a pint of  water in between drinks so I don't get drunk too quickly or wake up with a horrible hangover the next day. And yet, once in a while, I go overboard... Sometimes I have a really big night when I can't even recall how many drinks I had or what did I have. It's all a fuzz and I'm sure I had fun, if only I can remember it...

I know, we all do it, we all have those nights sometimes. The problem is I don't want to have these nights anymore. I've already resolved it with myself that NOW I am a responsible adult who knows perfectly well the damaging effects of alcohol on health. But I also know that if I'm really honest with myself, I don't think I can live without alcohol...

Which makes me wonder: are we perhaps a generation of alcoholics?...

When I was going through my recent depression, I experienced a disgust towards drinking and instead of going out I prefered staying in most days and isolating myself from people. Mainly because I didn't enjoy anything anymore and even if I did go out,  I prefered not to drink.  Not drinking turned me into a spectator of other people who were merrily getting drunk like I used to. Being sober surrounded by drunken people is not fun. It is actually worse. Sometimes I think I drink only to avoid seeing that.

It's a well known fact that people in the UK drink above average. 'The United Kingdom has been experiencing an epidemic of alcohol-related health and social problems that is remarkable by international standards' - is quoted in an Alcohol Concern report - and, despite the fact that we all know that, most of the times we chose to ignore the alcohol consumption limit on a weekly basis.

There are a lot of stupid things I did in my life and I have been beating myself up about. But if I stop and think about it, I realise I probably wouldn't have got myself into any of those situations if it wasn't for alcohol. If there's one thing I SHOULD be beating myself about is DRINKING! Sure, I'm not really going home and drinking wine all by myself until I pass out every day, I exercise, I drink sensibly (most of the times!) but if there are still times when I feel like 'I just want to have fun' and pour drink after drink down my throat as if I'm trying to win a contest, maybe I am one of these people: 'many problem drinkers are not dependent on alcohol. They could stop drinking without withdrawal symptoms if they wanted to. But, for one reason or another, they continue to drink heavily' (www.patient. co.uk).

Should we be worried?...

Just love

Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.
Kahlil Gibran

Source: stylefrizz.com via Iulia on Pinterest

Yesterday I spent a few hours at the Design Museum. I've wanted to see the Christian Laboutin's exhibition for a long time and yesterday, after my run which always takes my by the Design Museum, I was drawn inside. I've enjoyed it a lot. Looking at shoes that are more than just things you put on your feet but statements of cultural, sexual or emotional identity was a highly rewarding experience. Especially when I got close to the 'Love' shoes of the Pigalle Collection. They had me mesmerised. There I was looking at these shoes for minutes (or maybe hours?) and thinking about this tiny little word stitched across two shoes. One shoe. Another shoe. Love... I felt they were trying to tell me something. That it takes two 'shoes' to make one 'love'.

It's funny how love's been poking its head into my life lately. Phrases and quotes I come across, plays I see, exhibitions I visit, they're all screaming love at me! 'The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death' cried Salome in the opera I went to see last Saturday, 'If love was a disease would you take the cure?' was the book I just finished reading (Delirium by Lauren Oliver) asking me. 'The hunger for love is greater than the hunger for bread' was Mother Theresa's opinion which I used in one of my older posts when I was talking about the boy with the bread. And now the Love shoes. But what's even more interesting is that today I saw a swan, a single, lost swan on the Thames in an area which was muddy a few days before. Now the waters looked like they were starting to rise and that swan was just there floating on the muddy waters, randomly and almost surreal. I've never seen swans on Thames before, it seems like she somehow got lost and ended up on that bit of the river. It suddenly occurred to me that swans mate for life and this was a lonely swan. Was she me?... Have I somehow ended up alone in muddy waters?

Maybe I'm done with loving just myself. I suddenly have this urge to share my love with somebody else, take the word love and stretch it over another shoe, who is just like me only slightly bit different, and start walking together. Because 'love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction'  (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)  and doesn't 'love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other' (Rainer Maria Rilke)?

I'm done with being afraid too. I'm done with being cynical, with expecting the worst, with being distrustful of men, with sabotaging myself over and over again. I am ready to just love. And do nothing but. 'I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love' said Mother Teresa and I believe her. The only cure for fear is love and I am not going to be afraid anymore. I've been too deep down in the swamps, swimming in muddy waters, tortured by fear, feeling lonely and lost. 'A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave' (Mahatma Gandhi) and I am no coward.

It's shocking how loveless modern life can be. It's almost as if we are afraid to say the word, like it's going to kill us if we admit we are searching for love. In the past, I would never speak of love when I spoke of a man. I would call it dating, having a casual relationship with a like minded adult, being friends or whatever else. I never said I loved a man before but that wouldn't be right because in reality I do love every man that has been, is and will be in my life for having loved me or hurt me equally. Because they've made me who I am today.

'And think not you can Direct the course of love, For love, If it finds you worthy, Directs your course' 
Kahlil Gibran

'The darkest hour of the night...'

'...is the one just before the sunrise.' ('The Alchemist' - Paulo Coelho)

This is a quote that's stuck with me since I first read The Alchemist, more than 10 years ago, and never left me. And everytime I find myself in the dark, not knowing which way to go and who to turn to, feeling my way around with trembling hands and a painful ball of fear in my stomach, I remind myself about this quote: that it's only the darkest hour before sunrise.
 
And then I remind myself that I've been in the dark before, many times in fact. And the sunrise always came. Stronger and brigther than before. There's necessity in darkness, it makes the light stronger.

I think my gremlin, my depression, has now faded away, it has finally left me and I am picking myself up again: doing the things I love, surrounding myself with people, feeling charged with energy. But I'm trying to take it slowly because I've learnt my lesson: sometimes things just take time, the night still has to come and last for a while, before the sunrise can take place.

I don't hate my depression, I think it had its purpose, it needed to happen, it was the night before my sunrise. It allowed me to think deeper about things and in the end to make the choice to be strong and continue searching for my dreams. But apart from teaching me to give it time, it also taught me that I don't have to do everything myself, that things are meant to come my way too, all I really need to do is to be alert and recognise them for being part of my life.

I remember a story I read when I was little. It was a collection of Chinese tales and I'm rather sorry I don't have that book anymore because the tales were probably quite magical, though as I child I must have missed most of the meaning. I do remember this one in particular though, mainly because I thought it was ridiculous. Without recalling a lot of details, the story went something like that: a young poor farmer found a straw stuck to his shirt. He tried to get rid of it but he couldn't, it obstinately stuck to his shirt. Then he decided he might as well make use of it and caught a fly and tied it by a string to his straw (this is why I thought it was silly, like who does this and why??), which was now stuck to his shirt. He met a merchant who offered him 3 oranges in return for the fly he had tied to his straw. They exchanged items and then the young man encountered the carriage of a princess who was dying of thirst. The poor young farmer offered her the three oranges and, grateful, the princess decided to marry him.

Ok, I know it's not a tale that makes much sense, after all, why would you catch a fly and tie it to your shirt, why would anyone want to buy the fly off you and since when oranges rehydrate that well? Anyway, suppose that's besides the point. The moral of this story is that nothing is simply random. Things and people come into our lives with a purpose, we just have to follow their lead and eventually the road will take us somewhere good. I already knew that but we people do get distracted and sometimes need a reminder. I think my depression was my reminder and, boy, how many things did I remember?... Like for example that...

'Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him.'
(The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho)

Stay inspired!

The great depression

I have vivid memories of the summer of 2007. It was the rainiest summer I'd ever known. It rained every day and my memories of that summer are soaked in total and palpable misery. I also remember I was looking for a job in marketing/PR and nobody would give me a chance because I didn't have the relevant experience in the UK. I was so sad, I cried tears of desperation every day and didn't think the sun would ever come up again. But it did. An opportunity presented itself and I got a job through a recommendation.

The summer of 2012 reminds me a lot of the summer of 2007. I don't remember having been so sad for so long in a very long time. I think it's safe to say I suffer from controlled depression. Controlled because I know its symptoms, I see it happening to me and I watch it from an observation point inside of me. Sometimes it looks like a gremlin which walks by my side. Sometimes he's holding on to my hand and the more I struggle to free myself, the more he thrusts his claws in my skin and doesn't want to let go. Sometimes he's not there and I can almost feel myself returning to normal, thinking it was all just a bad dream and that the sun is out and everything is all good again. Until he comes back, but every time feebler and thinner than the previous time. I'm not afraid of him anymore, I just don't like how he makes me feel about things. Nothing has flavour anymore, I am struggling to enjoy the things I used to love, I go out and surround myself with people despite that all I really want to do is isolate myself from everyone and hide under the duvet, I feel lonely and apathetic to almost everything around me. I miss having a zest for life. I miss being enthusiastic and excited about things. And that's what he's been doing to me.

But as always, writing is the only thing that keeps me grounded. I write, no matter what, knowing one day the sun will have to come up. I believe my mind and my body are trying to tell me something. That something's wrong, that I've changed, that I want other things, that I have to keep moving, keep exploring, keep living, keep being curious and different and defiant. And also that sometimes to be strong means standing still and waiting for the sun to come out all by itself. Hold hands with my gremlin and allow him to become thinner and feebler until there's nothing left of him but a memory... A reminiscence of the summer of 2012. When it rained a lot and I cried a lot...

Follow your dreams - part two

Remember my post about how it is important to follow your dreams no matter what? 

I was able to get in touch with Khaled, the lucky winner of the competition which allowed him to fulfill a lifelong dream: to trek the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. He was very happy to answer a few questions and share with us a few thoughts, following his wonderful adventure. And seeing pictures of him during the trek made feel nostalgic about my own adventure last year in Ethiopia...

 

Welcome back, Khaled. I trust you fully enjoyed your trek. Was it as amazing as you hoped?  I'll be honest, it was much more hard work than I anticipated and I probably should have trained properly! I enjoyed it very much but it was very tiring!

We know you chose the Inca Trail because your mum is originally from Peru, but what prompted you participate in this competition?

The Inca Trail is somewhere I have always wanted to visit, so when I heard about the competition I thought I'd enter. There are still a lot of places left for me to explore: 7+1 world summits, Sain Jacques de Compostella, driving in USA from the East to West coast, Trans Siberian and the Orient-Express! 
 

We know photography is your passion. Did you get to take lots of amazing photos?

The surroundings were beautiful do I did take a few pictures, however at times I was more concerned about taking care and putting one foot in front of the other without slipping! 

Tell us how you felt when you reached the Machu Picchu. What feelings did your trek in Peru inspire in you?

Getting to Machu Picchu was the best part of the trek and made all the effort worthwhile! It's mind over matter, it made me realise everything you do is just a battle with yourself and you just have to keep on going as the reward at the end is worth it and made me feel like the last few days hadn't happened. 

What advice would you give people who are dreaming about their adventure of a lifetime but haven't won a competition?

Look for opportunities around you, the adventure is just there. And if people tell you there is nothing there for you, just believe in yourself, and go for it! 


What are you planning next?

Next? Well I'm hoping Reckitt Benckiser will launch another competition.

Thank you, Khaled, for sharing your inspiring thoughts with us and wish you the best of luck to find the opportunities around you which will allow you to turn all your other dreams into sweet reality.


Stay inspired! 
 
 

The next Reckitt Benckiser Experience of a Lifetime winner will be cycling from London to Paris in June.

The butterfly effect

‘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…

Interview with Alina Kasprovschi

Founder of Bucharest Community Foundation

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’