I love you just the way you are ...... hmmm

You know the advice 'just be yourself' and then someone adds; 'but not too much'!

What does it mean to be 'yourself'? What if being yourself is to be grumpy, angry and vindictive? What if in being yourself, you are losing people’s love, attention and care? What then?

I guess the idea is not to pretend to be someone you are not. There are so many catch phrases at the moment promoted by all the self-help books and they go like this:

-        Discover the inner you

-        Release your potential

-        Live life as your true self

-        Understanding ‘you’

…and so many others that keep going on and on about rediscovering and reinventing ourselves.

So the question is, what happen after you discover this ‘inner you’ or after ‘reinventing yourself’? Are people suffering around you? Are they paying the price for your new discovery?

In our journeys to self-discovery, releasing our potentials, self- examinations etc, we forget sometimes that there are people around us who love us and care for us. Our quest to rediscover ourselves engulfs us in a selfish journey to focus on the self and forget all others.

In our new found love to live life as ‘ourselves’, we still need to be mindful of people’s feelings and not to hurt or offend just simply by claiming that:

                        Hey….I am being myself !

True Love

2011 was full of much political news across the world, from the Arab spring to capturing Bin Laden, from the recession in Europe to the demonstrations in Greece. But as the whole world struggled to come to term with so much, Italy was facing a different scenario. Italy was facing a recession like the rest of Europe, facing the risk of being downgraded from the credit agencies and its prime minster, Mr Silvio Berlusconi himself was facing so many corruption allegations and accusations of misconducts etc. So in the middle of all of this and just one week before Mr Berlusconi's  time come to an end as Italy prime minster, he made a very important decision...................................

He released his album of love songs!!!!!

Yes, you read right…..it was not a decision to save the currency, to help the country out of recession, to clear his name or to save his reputations ….no he decided in his wisdom that it was time to release his album of love songs. He is clearly passionate about these love songs and he co- wrote 11 of the songs and - I presume - wanted to reach people with his softer side. All I thought about this was to think of the reaction of his advisers as he told him what he wanted to do,

'A love album prime minster? Yes sure, of course, that what the country needs, that what people really really want!'

But on a serious note, this was, may be –in his mind- what he wanted to be remembered by, may be this was his passion, his heart was really with these love songs and he wanted to spread the joy.

In the quest to make a difference and to be remembered, we strive to do our best and to reach high grounds, to do something unique to be remembered by, to stay in touch with our emotions and reach out for true love … just one important detail…make sure that the timing is right to fit within the big picture!

Join us upstairs, down here!

This is a real photo on the London Underground station in East London. I couldn’t resist taking a photo. But thinking about it, so many things take place around us with some very contradicting messages.

Listen to the parent who tells the kids off to ‘encourage’ them, to those who hurt you because they love you. Look at the army that is supposed to protect you but aims at you and kill you for the sake of what is called ‘stability’. See the government that says ‘we are on the side of the poor’ but reduce their jobs, their education and their chance of a better life. Some who declare their hate to others under the umbrella of 'show compassion to those who are different from you'. The group of 'I want to kill you to show you what is the right way to go'.

Who are we deceiving? This photo is honest, if you go ‘downstairs’ you will get the overground trains. In life we need to call things by their own names otherwise we will never change anything. If we are running around looking for ‘excuses’ to certain actions, we will never move forward. That happens in relations, in societies and across the whole world.

The photo is confusing because the words don't follow what you expect. The same in every other situation, If I say I care about you, then I my actions needs to show that. If I want to show you how wonderful my way of life is, I need to show you lovingly and not by force. If I say that I want 'stability' then declaring war is not the right way to go about it. 

So, would you like to join me 'upstairs, down here' to correct the contradictions in our lives? 

A go on the slide anyone?

Some things could be so much fun but you need to see where
it all leads.
Could be all as innocent as going on the slide (just like this little boy) but sure it will end in tears (or shredded body parts).

Things can sometimes 'slide' out of control, we cant stop it. We say the wrong thing, we make the wrong turn or decision. We stay so determined that we are right and the other is wrong and we loose it all at the end. We let things "slide" out of control and out of our hands. Relationship deteriorate for not wanting to back down when we still can and then we suffer the consequences. We say an unkind thing, we make bad comments, we sneer at a friend, we enjoy some gossip, the list is endless.
 And yet, in every situation, there is always a window where we can go back and save the relationship, the job, the situation etc. There is always a point of "return" (comes before the point of "no return"), once we pass this, then it is too late to save the situation and we have to suffer the consequences.

So ...do you know when to stop?