Tag Archives: Challenge

Can’t Be Bothered

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Once again my intuition proved me right. I have certain people in my life that I can’t rely on really. In the past it used to bother me big time, I would even let it upset me to a point where I was angry at myself for having high expectations once again. Point is, it has nothing to do with me. These people are who they are; they only need someone when they can use and take advantage of the person. They are calculated and ambiguous. You won’t hear from them (until they need you again) once they got what they want from you.

That’s all.

People that I thought were my friends, proved otherwise. These days I can’t really be bothered anymore, they say one thing and do another, they’re phony, they’re not genuine and they’re transparent to me. My intuition tells me to be aware and so I am. I play their game along and tell them what they need to hear from me but always keep a thought in the back of my mind. I’d say to myself: ‘Common, I challenge you to play your cards, show me what you’re made of, coz whatever it is I’m always a step ahead of you…’

In the past I’d do anything to please ‘friends’ whenever they needed me. I’d be willing to make them happy, I would be extremely flexible and forgiving. Back then I was not willing to distance myself so it would not get to me. Instead I’d let them upset me, whilst looking for their approval and wanting to be part of their interesting *not* lives. It would take me time to find out the truth about their superficial traits, thus their superficial ‘friendship’. And in the process I would get hurt or upset over and over again.

These days, I do take my distance and whenever they try to get in touch or meet up, there’s always this voice in the back of my head telling me ‘seeing is believing, you’d better prove to me first that you are worth my time…’. It’s fine, I let them be who they are, I approach them the way they approach me. Funny thing is that most of the time, they don’t like that at all, I guess it’s because I put a mirror in front of them and show them their true colours. If you want to play games with me, you’ll get to play, so play wisely…

Friendship is not based on games though but on affection, trust, and a mutual sense of concern and respect. Friends are there for you when you need them. They would leave you alone when you need solitude. A truly great friend can tell the difference between these two. Aristotle speaks of three kinds of friendship; ‘friendship of utility’ based on usefulness of the association with another, ‘friendship of pleasure’ based on pleasures and enjoyment produced by the association of another. Both self-centered and egocentric.

And a third: ‘friendship in virtue’ which incites each other to higher purposes. I’m afraid that those ‘certain people in my life’ which I’ve referred to in the first sentence are the kind that would be part of the aforementioned friendships. The self-centered and egocentric kind. The kind of friendships that are subject to dissolution with time and circumstances. Lucky me I recognise it a lot faster nowadays, so I take distance and lower my expectations. And instead I spend more time with friends of the last category ;)

Redefined Quest

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Gee, there is so much going on in my life that I have no idea where to start and what to write. Lately I’ve been thinking about the purpose of this blog which has changed several times over the last years. It should’ve since it’s been almost ten years when I wrote the first post. I have been reluctant to write though because I feel that ever since I moved back this blog has lost its purpose. This is not true. What happened is that I have changed focus over time and I’m in the midst of a self-improvement process forcing me to have a good look at all angles of my life, not just one.

So what I’m saying is, that the quest is still there, it just changed. I have changed, I still am changing. And I guess that in order for me to keep this journal updated I should redefine its purpose and start from there. I’ve noticed that I feel like reading lots of the same neuro-linguistic programming stuff, mostly ebooks about self-help and self-improvement. I have been listening to ebooks/mp3’s as well and not just once but over and over again. Each and every aspect is covered several times and I keep coming to the same conclusions. Stuff that I’ve already written about in older posts.

It’s good though but I think I’ll have to start rearranging these thoughts and ideas to create order because it seems utterly chaotic lately. Perhaps it will help clear my mind as well. Don’t get me wrong this is not about relaxation, this is about creating clarity for me so I can get rid of the clutter in my head thus avoid over-thinking of things. Thinking too much or worrying is a way of procrastinating and so I figured that if I’d use this journal to keep track of goals -thus give it a new purpose- I could benefit in more than one way. I would have a solid reason to keep writing updates.

I would be motivated to write plus it would be a great way to keep track of any progress, to analyse myself and learn from behaviour and/or mistakes. So what is keeping me? Well mostly the things I wrote about in my previous email. I am seriously taking into consideration the fact that what happened to my business blog/website could easily happen with this website as well. I’m still dealing with these dark subjects after almost two months, it’s under control but it doesn’t take away a serious problem. One I luckily managed to avoid so far on here but that is lurking around the corner.

Plus if I was to change the subject I would also like to move this website to the main url instead of hiding it in a subdirectory and keeping it visible only to a few people. I could move it to the root of my domain and install WordPress instead of the current CMS that I’m using which is an accident waiting to happen. So why am I reluctant to do so? First of all it is going to be a lot -and I mean A lot!- of work to set up a completely new website. It means I would have to redesign the look and feel and time is the only thing that I don’t have right now because I need to focus on more important stuff…

The positive side would be the fact that I could easily protect certain posts from being read, or keep the whole website protected from lurkers if I wanted to. That is a major plus! To be honest, I think I’m having a hard time letting go of this so familiar CMS that I have been using for such a long long time. Perhaps it’s time to move away and move on, perhaps I’m not ready to see or face this. What is best for me? To move on… It seems to be the topic of everything that is currently going on in my life, the need for change, the need for progress and the need for knowledge and improvement.

I am working on a lot of things at the moment and I know I would make it a lot easier for myself if I had a checklist (read posts) so I could keep an eye on progress and lessons that I’ve learned so far. It would still be a place to vent at times but also a place where I could keep track of how I reinvent myself, letting go of the past and things that I no longer need and focus on the ‘now’ instead of a future or a past. This is why I had to write this post today, it felt like the right time. Now all I’d like to do is make a decision whether to keep this CMS or move on to another option along with the consequences.

I’m in recess to think this over and make a decision…

(perhaps when you check back you will noticed a/the change ;) )

Note to oneself: if you focus on one thing at a time you get it done much easier and faster than you’d imagine. I have been postponing writing a post for a long time and I wrote this in less than 15 minutes because I was determined to get it done. Lesson learnt: don’t waste time making things look more difficult than they really are. You can easily do it when you set your mind to it! :)