365 days of wisdom

The older I get, the more I realise it’s about the little things in life: drinking a cup of coffee, laughter with friends, nature, a long and hot shower, dancing to music, the sun, a good book, a delicious dinner, sleeping in a clean bed, enjoying the weather… And I can go on and on.

The picture above says it all: the most important things in life are food, water, sleep and love. Without them, there’s nothing else that can be achieved. When you’re hungry, you don’t have enough energy to do your job at work. And when you don’t have any friends or family that support you, life will probably be much more thougher and solitary.

Being thankful for these ‘basics’, as you might call them, is one of the greatest things in life that make a man happy. However, most of the time we don’t even realise it. We live our lives as if it’s self-evident that there’s some juice in the kitchen. Yet, it’s not as logic as we think.

(Source: g-r-a-f-i-c-o-s, via freefromfears)

(Source: soul-frosts, via freefromfears)

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Last week I had to make an assignment for the online course ‘What do I really want?’. It’s an online course from Psychologie Magazine (the magazine at which I’m working at the moment). In short, the goal of this course is to visualise your ideal life, and which steps you have to take to realise the ideal life.

The question of this week’s assignment was to ask three people around me, whether friends, collegues or family, which qualities I own. These people had to chose the five most suited qualities from a given list.

Somehow I was a bit surprised by the different qualities and descriptions my mother, sister and a friend gave me. Almost all of them were different. Two qualities were named twice: straightforward and responsible. Moreover, my mother and sister had more similarities than the description my friend gave to me. Probably because friends get to see me in different situations than my family does.

It’s confusing to think that we play many different roles: by day you’re a profession, after five o’clock you’re a lover and when you’re taking care of the children, you’re a father or mother. What roles do you play? What are the differences? And which role suites you the most?

We all have a certain perception about ourselves. You might think that you’re outgoing and recalicitrant, while it’s also possible that friends think of you as reserved and well thought. The gap between reputation and your own perception of who you are (the real you?) can be very big. Thus, it can be very suprising and an eye-opener to know how others describe you. It’s a reflection of your own identity.

More about identity in a previous post.

(via freefromfears)

May has started. Some might say: “Oh well, just another month”, but this time I realised that we already past one-third of the year, which means that summer is almost there and the second half of 2012 is ready to take its turn. In other words: time is slipping away!

O.K. I might be heading a bit to far ahead right now. Still, there was one question that came up in my mind when the calendar said May is here: what did I learn the first few months of this year? Not very original, but helpful indeed (I’m an advocate of selfreflection, you understand). Compared to January, I already feel so much better right now. Then I ask myself: how come?

So let’s flip through the first four months of 2012:

1. January
   It was a hectic month. Particularly a very unsure month. This made me feel insecure. Emotions were running high. I didn’t know what to do, because I couldn’t get a hold on the things I wanted to change so badly. Therefore, I just let it all be. And it was O.K.
2. February
   I was stressed out over getting an internship. Luckily I got one (the one I wanted the most!) which gave me so much energy. It felt like for once since a long while, things were getting back on track again. The rest of the month I enjoyed life. No stress, just being happy with what I achieved in my life so far.
3. March
   Finishing up exams and wrapping up our last project at school. I can’t even remember how fast March went by. The only thing I do remember is that I was busy with study, work and babysitting. It felt good to have a rhythm with which your comfortable with.
4. April
   Holidays! I went to Italy with a friend the last two weeks of April. The rest of the month I was busy preparing our trip and getting bored… Yes, I actually got bored. Mostly because my friends didn’t have holidays. I also was ‘mentally preparing’ myself for the internship starting in May.

Overall, the most important lesson I learned these few months is, that sometimes you just have to leave things as they are. No matter how hard you try, they won’t change, just because future will tell. Meanwhile, the only thing you can just do is enjoying the things that do go well.

Have a good night.

(via moderndayfairytale)

Most people define themselves by what they do and what they possess: their job, possessions, friends and family. When people ask you who you are, your everyday work, relatives, your house and other possessions will probably come first. My question is: is this really who you are? Do others and personal belongings make up your identity?

People are more than just what they possess or who they get along with, because what’s left when all of your personal belongings and relationships fall down? Some people hide themselves by paying a lot of attention to their looks, others are proud to tell people how much money they have or how much they own.

Idenity is the person who you are without being surrounded by relatives and possessions. That’s when you get to see a true person. A person is made up out of character, emotions and life experience. Being human is being a true person.

(via freefromfears)

When somebody says ‘I understand how you feel’ does he or she really know what you’re talking about? Does this person truly understand how you feel?

My personal opinion is, that nobody will ever feel exactly the same as you do. Therefore, nobody will ever understand you for a hundred percent. Simply because you’re not the same person; you have your own feelings and thoughts. Even though you know for example what it’s like to have your heart broken, you will never ever feel exactly the same as the person who’s got his or her heart broken at that moment.

Somehow it feels unfair, that we aren’t able to fully understand someone else’s feelings and thoughts, even though we want to, we try our best and tell others we understand. This thought makes us more indivual than we already are nowadays. Everybody just lives in his or her own world. Unless there’s a subject that grabs our attention and has a positive influence on our own situation, we are willing to take the time and effort to understand how the other person feels. Until then, we all just live in our own worlds…

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Words of love and comfort that brighten your day.

Albert Einstein

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Do you recognize yourself in one of these?

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