Observation

Driving back from work, I notice this big red sign announcing “ Big Car Sale” (and an arrow pointing to the parking lot of the dealership followed). I follow the arrow and I realize that you can read that sign two ways: either the “sale of the cars is BIG”, or the “cars of the sale are BIG”: I voted for the latter: the parking lot is FULL with nothing but SUV’s, vans and trucks! No wonder the HUGE gas guzzlers are on “big sales” nowadays: the gas down here in the South is $2.59 lately… Back when I first came here, in 1998, it used to be $0.99… I guess huge inflation and crappy economy are the prices you pay for electing the wrong man for the “best job in America and the world”. Just a note!

Be Careful What You Wish For…

For about 5 years now I have been studying yoga and reading a lot about the yogic tradition of living in the ‘now’. To this day, the biggest challenge for me is to stay in the present moment, both on the mat and outside of it, and to live the ‘now’ to the fullest. Being an Aries and having Latin blood through my veins, it’s hard to keep me focused as it is; living in America where everything is so fast makes it even harder…
But what is a woman to do when she is told by her boyfriend of 3 and ½ years that my dreams of the future are not the same as his: that my desire never to have children as well as my plan to live in the city we live in now for at least 5-6 more years are not his plans – 2 very big decisions in dating someone successfully, right?!… He's also not sure whether we should move in together any time soon, or put all our pets under the same roof... Neither of us want to break up with each other, because what we have NOW is wonderful. But we both know, what we want tomorrow is different… However, we decided to stay together for the now…
We just made this decision not long ago, and my first impulse is try to “dream” about how it will all work out: but, you see, I can’t do that, for fear of disappointment: I have no idea where we’re going to be in this relationship a year from now, and yet, this insecurity needs to be put aside and I have to allow myself to be happy about what we have now: the laughs, and companionship, the travels, the family stories, curiosity and respect about life in general, the pets, the shop talk, since we both work in the same place etc… We are sure what we as individuals want for your future lives are not similar things – at least now. Can that change? We’re not sure, but we’re both very stubborn and set in our ways, too, so most likely, not… We’ll see… And thus, asking all these years that I learn, for once how to live in the now and be happy with the now, and stop searching for what’s next, I got “blessed” with the most radical life change of all: in order for me to have any kind of daily happiness, I will have to be able to enjoy every moment of every day, and not a second later… No one can tell me what the “later” will look like, should it be here at all…

Are We Ever Sure?

Are we ever sure that we are in the right place, at the right time, with the right people around us? I thought I was the only 30 year old lost in ConfusionLand, until the other day when a friend of mine, of whom I've always thought that he was established, respected and accomplished told me "we all wonder every day if we're on the right path". And that made me jump: "we"? You mean, YOU, too? He confirmed: yes, him, too, and he believes all of us are. Thinking that he's older and thus wiser than me, I trusted him. So, how do I know for sure I'm where it's meant for me to be?! I don't, and I probably won't for a long time, if ever, in this lifetime.
What is important is that I am still having fun, and at the end of the day I have no regrets. And I do know that: that at the end of the day I got no regrets... Not realy sure what tomorrow might bring, but as long as I have a roof over my head, a loving family, a couple of smooth cats to go to bed with, a book or two on the shelves, 2 arms, and 2 legs, 2 eyes and (most importantly) a mouth, a working camera, the desire to move on, a well respected (if only by me) job, as soon as I have that, I can consider myself fortunate. The rest (other people, things and actions that might be relative) is just accidental. And non-important.
As long as the sun will rise, and the moon, too, as soon as we have the notion of peace and we at least strive for it, as long as we at least try to respect ourselves and that and those around us, we'll be happy... And I am trying to live by these standards every day.
And also: as long as there are roads to take us places, there will be many of opportunities for new starts, and thus for renewed happiness... somewhere in the world, for all of us who are willing to try to find it.

An A.D.D. America!

I have discovered that we cannot get frustrated or in the least bothered by the A.D.D. in our co-workers, partners, family folks, etc… I believe we all are, to some extent, somewhat A.D.D. Think about it?! It’s the society we live in that requires us to be that way: you hardly ever see a job ad in the paper that does not require us to be “multi-tasked”. Well, you cannot be multi-tasked unless you’re paying attention at 10 things at the same time: answer the phone, while reading a new e-mail, while opening the postal mail, while talking to a co-worker – and all these have to be done efficiently and fast, so that we all can meet the deadlines! And it doesn’t stop there: we drive home and the cell rings while we have to drive, and yield, and look for a jay-walker that’s cutting us off, and grab a snack from the purse since our blood sugar is low from spreading ourselves too thin in the first place, and we need an afternoon jumpstart! Then we get home, and we have to feed the cats (or the dogs), while opening the mail, and turning the tv on to see what else has been going on in the world, while the phone rings and it’s our friend Alice who wants to go out for a drink tonight! It makes my head spin just to think about all this, although it’s pretty much an accurate description of my daily routine.
The opposite of A.D.D. is focused, but you cannot be focused on ONE thing alone anymore: you would be stampeded on by the world, run over and left behind! The only way we can keep up, we think, is by rushing onto the next thing on the list while still doing the one before. I wonder sometimes where and if this all will stop one day?!
You know, Napoleon was so unique because him doing 5 things at one time was really a rare, special talent: it’s not usually in the human nature or brain for us to function like that! By pushing our bodies in this manner, to make something so rare be part of our usual life, we’re defying nature in the first place, and something’s, somewhere, gotta snap! And therefore, we’re all diagnosed nowadays! We should all be anyways. The only thing we don’t do while doing other things that “have to” be done is relax, and breathe… We never think of that as a part of our multitasking, and it’s a shame…