Tag Archives: Understanding

Cold weather

Today’s post is inspired by a friend of mine who is visiting us at the moment. And the subject cold weather is a bit strange to me as being Dutch cold weather has nothing inspiring to me as the Dutch normally associate cold weather with temperatures below twenty degrees Celsius and with moist or rainy weather that in general quite unpleasant in countries like The Netherlands. But my friend kind of insisted that she considered cold weather quite inspirational or is even inspired by cold weather and when thinking a bit further of course I also knew why.

As my friend is from The Philippines where it is normally quite hot, hotter than most Philippine people like, opposite to the Dutch in The Netherlands. So in The Philippines cold weather is related to cool weather, cooler weather than ‘hot’, where hot means that you can’t do so much and would like to have air conditioning to make the temperature a bit more comfortable than the common ‘hot’. And yes, Philippine people often like cooler areas to relax, to have holiday, to enjoy a weekend or so and where cooler to me has no association with cold, of course Philippine people would associate cold, especially when related to weather, with cool weather, weather that is agreeable opposite to ‘hot’, something like twenty five degrees Celsius that I would also consider a nice ‘cool’ temperature.

So this whole thing made me think that ‘cold’ is really relative and that ‘cold weather’ can mean many things to people like either nice or positive or not so nice or negative. It is indeed a matter of perspective, of where you come from or what association you have with a certain word or condition.

And the message I wanted to pass in this post is that we have to be very careful in interpreting things, interpreting things other people say or mean, as we may fully misunderstand what is being said, what is being conveyed just by words that have a fully different meaning to us than to the other person.

And also that my first association with ‘cold’ in general is negative, because somehow I prefer ‘warm’ over ‘cold’. But only in certain situations, for certain things. As of course I would want my ice cream cold, ice cold and not warm. And I want my refrigerator or freezer also cold. And indeed, when it’s too hot outside I would also want it cooler or want to use air conditioning.

So again, it’s all in the mind, in the thoughts we have when hearing a certain word, a certain sound.

So be careful how to interpret things, whether it is from what others say or whether they are just thoughts in our own mind. As it is all a matter of perspective, of perception.

Everything is lined up

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Philippine taxi Lately I am thinking more and more how everything is lined up as per ideas of Abraham Hicks. And I am more and more surprised how everything is connected, how there is one flow, or actually many, many flows adding everything up, making everything happen. And the more I think about it, the more amazing it all is, how everything is connected.

Like tonight I was just looking for a taxi to go home and I was on the highway And there are many taxis here on the highway and using a taxi in this case is a very common thing to do. But if you think about it just taking this taxi is, or looking back, is quite an amazing thing and an enormous amount of things need to add up to make me and this taxi, or maybe more specific this taxi driver, to meet up.

As before I was with friends, where those friends influenced the time I was leaving the house. Then I joined one of the other guests to drop me at the highway, so their speed would partially define at what time I would arrive at the highway. Then my partner called me to buy a packet of cigarettes, so I did not wait at the drop off point but went to the gasoline station nearby. At the gasoline station I had to wait for some other customers before I could make my order and finish my transaction. So next to me, these customers had their own speed and events to end up there at that specific moment in time and of course the people behind the counter had their own process which influenced the transaction and the time.

So I finished my transaction and went outside looking for a taxi, so walked with a specific speed outside to the main road where taxis could see me and where I could see taxis. So finally one stopped, or not really ‘finally’, but quite quickly actually. And of course this taxi had had its own journey how to get there today, at this specific time and place, like the previous customer, or actually customers who brought him in this specific time and place where I was, looking for a taxi. Which of course was related to all the little things and decisions and moods of the customers, the taxi driver and all other traffic, all other vehicles directly or indirectly influencing the flow of this taxi.

And the weird thing is and stays like no matter whether you believe in ‘things happen based on how you flow your energy’ in a more spiritual way, of course my mood, my emotional state, my spiritual state at least directly influences whether I would take this specific taxi or another one or couldn’t find one at all. As the simple thing of waiving my hand and how I waived it when I saw a taxi coming to me on the other side of the road would directly influence the behavior of the taxi driver, like whether he would turn around and take me or not. And the simple mood or emotional state of the taxi driver would define whether he would see me or not, as even if I would not have waived my hand he might have decided to turn around anyhow and see if he could make me into a customer. As my emotional state would define how the sales people in the gasoline station would define how they would react to me, like how fast they would serve me. Or not serve me at all, although the last thing would be unlikely.

And so my mood and the mood of all the other people, participants in this game, this play we call life definitely defines how things are going, what would happen and what would not happen and when and how it would happen.

Amazing isn’t it?

And so yes, somehow we fully define our life, define what is happening and what is going to happen, as each moment we decide what to do or not to do, how to behave or not to behave, what to show or not to show. And somehow we do not, as all the other players also play their own role and make their own decisions.

Amazing, this game of life.

You’re doing it wrong

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I’m not sure what’s going wrong, what I do or don’t do or whatever.

Just five minutes ago someone said to me I did it wrong. And I know he was worried. But it hurt a lot and it still hurts a lot.

And fifteen minutes earlier someone else also told me I did something wrong. And that I ‘should’ do it differently.

And is seems this has been going on all my life, that I did things ‘wrong’ and ‘should’ do things.

So what is this. Am I doing the same to others? Am I somehow evoking these things for others?

And yes, it seems this all goes back to something like self confidence, which apparently I don’t have or at least don’t show.

And I guess it’s all meant well.

But it hurts. So let’s be careful what we say to each other and how we say it. Nobody has the right to judge that what we are doing is wrong. Or tell us that we ‘should’ do something.

Am very interested if you have similar experiences or have a different opinion about this.

I always feel forced…

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“I always feel forced to meet other people’s expectations”, that’s the sentence that came up to me after listening to the audio recording “Who are you really” from Morty Lefkoe. I can’t find a link to the audio recording right now, but I guess a related article is You are both consciousness and creation.

And Morty Lefkoe is specialized in helping people eliminating false beliefs. And with what I now know basically, literally every belief is false. And that also goes back to the teachings of Abraham Hicks, as he states that everything started somehow with a thought, with a belief. And that everything in this world are just implemented and executed beliefs.

So somehow I have the belief that I always need to meet the expectations of other people, always need to make them happy, fulfill their needs.

And this post is not yet finished, and I’m not sure if I’m ever going to finish it, but I guess so. And here I bump into some other belief, something I read, something my team members try to tell me: that I need to produce quality content, finished articles and such. And yes, I believe that would be better. But it’s not ‘me’ and I’m starting to believe that I indeed need to follow my own way, find my own followers, no matter what I write about or how I write.

As indeed, I cannot please everybody, should not want to please everybody. As everybody is different with different needs and different ‘gives’. So I guess the gift of my posts, of my writings, of the effort I did to build most of this, might appeal to some people. At least I hope.

And yes, of course this post has a message, a message for you. And the message is to not follow ‘the world’, not follow other peoples thinking and beliefs, but just be yourself. Because you are unique and whether we are here for a reason or not, I still believe we deserve to be happy and enjoy life.

Poverty and richess

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I got this today or yesterday in my e-mail from one of the other inspirational type sites I signed up for:

Ten reasons you are rich:

You didn’t go to sleep hungry last night.
You awoke this morning with a roof over your head.
You had a choice of what clothes to wear.
You haven’t feared for your life today.
You often worry about what you’re going to do with your life – your career, your family, the next step, etc. – which means you have ambition, passion, drive, and the freedom to make your own decisions.
You have a friend or relative who misses you and looks forward to your next visit.
You are reasonably strong and healthy – if you got sick today, you could recover.
You have access to food and clean drinking water.
You have access to the Internet.
You can read.

And at least eight or nine apply to me, so based on this and what I know of similar lists is that I am richer than most people.

And I got an e-mail to me that made me think about rich and poor and way of thinking about rich and poor. As this e-mail related to someone who has a very good position in the government and probably never lost his job and always earned or had enough money to eat, to live.

So I saw myself sitting together with him, feeling very much lower than him. And my story fully not arriving, as this is probably a person that has just grown up, went to school, went to university, found a job and probably always just worked or had a husband or wife that also worked. And I have been there, so I know how it feels, I know how it is, even though most of the time in that situation I felt scared, scared of losing my job and indeed the money and security going with that in The Netherlands and I guess many other countries.

And I’m not trying to underestimate the problems this person probably also has. But me, especially the last one and a half years or so, feeling like having lost everything, not knowing what to do, at certain times no access to money that I could call my own, and yes, still in a privileged position, in practice probably still having a lot of capital as my part in our house.

But, looking back at my life and especially where I stand now, or at least until a few days ago, I’m confused. As I grew up very privileged. And was able to obtain a Masters degree in University in The Netherlands, which I guess is quite something. And indeed, something not many people have.

And I grew up as the son of a tax inspector, someone very serious about law and such. And very honest. So I was very serious about law and such. And very honest. Looking back even too honest.

And now, looking at myself I’m confused. Because somehow I don’t care anymore. Somehow I can steal or will avoid the law and such and do my own thing, take care of myself first, in a very bad way, at least compared to how I grew up, to what I was taught, to what I believed.

And it’s probably my character, my personality, my communication skills or whatever that brought me into situations that finally fully brought me down. Even though, while writing this, I don’t like what I see, I don’t like what I did, don’t like how I feel about some things now. And somehow I want to get out, I want to do better, want to go back to those old beliefs where life was so simple, where right and wrong were so simple, where budgeting and living within your means were so simple. Just right and wrong.

And yes, I want this post to be inspiring, I want this post to give hope to people in a similar situation like me. But somehow I don’t know anymore and many of those self help sites and tips and teachings and instructions and guidelines I’m not sure if they apply to everybody in all situations in all locations in the world.

As I never understood why those people in need, those people dying from hunger in areas where there was no food, stayed in those areas. Same as I didn’t understand people living in earthquake zones and such.

And now I find myself in a house that’s way above my budget, with debts that are far beyond my imagination (to how I thought let’s say fifteen years ago) in an area where there are probably no suitable jobs for me and in an earthquake zone.

And yes, it’s my own ‘choice’. And I could choose to move, towards a place with ‘jobs’. And I could choose to sell the house.

And don’t get me wrong, I want this post to be inspiring. And yes, I want to solve all those ‘bad’ things, those things that are bad like ‘living above your means’. Or ‘not working hard enough’.

But here my age, my life experience and the time I still have to live starts to become an issue. As a reasonable period to pay off my debts would be something like ten years. Provided I have enough income. But this ‘reasonable’ would mean I wouldn’t ‘live’, I would just live to pay my debts and have nothing left to have some fun. And that’s weird if you’re fifty, having had a quite good life when having a good job, having had quite a good life still having money from a previous life and still trying to have a good life when everything was gone.

So basically my ‘reasonable choice’ would be to cut my expenses, try to find a job or something to earn a little or a lot more than my debt service and interest payments and live my life like that for ten or twenty years. And then I would be somewhere between sixty and seventy.

Doesn’t sound appealing, although you could still live a good life when being sixty or seventy and enjoy life for another ten or twenty years after having paid your debts. And yes, it would morally probably feel good.

And I didn’t make any decision yet, but somehow the above scenario doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t sound like ‘fun’, it doesn’t sound like ‘living’. And I still believe also life should be ‘lived’, not ‘survived’.

And this whole story reminds me of the lost son,the story in the bible. And the good son didn’t understand why the father was so happy that the bad son was back. But i’m starting to understand. And I’m starting to believe that people should have a new chance, start clean, whether financially or criminal.

So how would we do that?

Or is there still something else?