Pursuing Adventures

A Day of PMDD

I just want to be.  I don't want plans.  I don't want order. 

I want to remember my dreams.  I want to breath.   I want to figure out the next chapter.

I absolutely hate all the rules.  They are so meaningless. 

Thanksgiving

I have a lot to be thankful for today, even though I do bitch and moan in my blog but hey, it's better to do it than keep it all inside.  And I am thankful I have a place where I can put down all my thoughts.   I want to some day be able to help a lot of people.  I feel that is part of my purpose in this world.  To help people who are not as fortunate as me.  I want to do so much more since I have seen the hope in the eyes of the kids who have nothing.

I am just thankful for ...

• My sanity and gift of thoughtfulness
• Lots and lots of common sense, enhanced by tons of life experience
• The gift of friendship -- I am blessed with wonderful and amazing people in my life
• Opportunities -- I have the ability to choose
• Freedom -- as I look at how crazy the world is getting, I feel blessed by the fact that I have the freedom to be me.  World events are getting crazy enough.  York University, where I did my undergrad, is now anti-semitic.  I was appalled to hear what is happening there and will consider withdrawing my degree if it turns out to be a university that does not like people like me.  I have the freedom and a voice.  I am lucky.  I just hope our world is one that does not accept intolerance and hatred
• If I ran the world, I would get rid of all borders.  I think there are people who enjoy complaining and hard times.  I just want peace and quiet

Here is two a year of tranquility, love and understanding.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

 Albert Schweitzer

DC

On my way to the hotel. My Ethopian taxi driver is trying to navigate through traffic. It seems so long since I lived here. I am definitely a much different person. Time flies.

Taking control

We are in control when we have our health and yet we let noise disrupt us.   It always happens in our connections and relationships -- work, family, life ... every aspect of it.   It used to be that as soon as we left the front door, the big world was out there.   We would get messages inside with TV, radio and telephone calls.  But now, the whole world is in our house.  I remember in the 1990s Faith Popcorn wrote a book about cocooning (The need to find a safe space to protect oneself from the harsh, unpredictable realities of the outside world) ... it was a revolutionary concept.  If she only knew where we were headed.  And, did she?

Here is what she is predicting for 2010? 

Remember at the end of “The Wizard of Oz” when Judy Garland says “There’s no place like home?”

Well in 2010 we’ll all be Wizard of Oz-ing, as a world turned upside down drives us inward. which is why, we predict the year of living local. Rejecting a war in Afghanistan we don’t understand, and welfare for Wall Street we can’t accept, we’ll be living like our 19th and early 20th-century forbearers: Focusing on our neighborhoods and communities, supporting those who support us. We’re tightening up, pulling in, reducing our radius.

Local Cocooning is an outgrowth of the dominant Trend of Icon Toppling. Despite signs of economic recovery, unprecedented unemployment and the continuing prosperity predictions from of our biggest financial institutions in the face of such suffering drive high levels of consumer skepticism.

Tweets, blogs, memberships and searches are all about finding community, predicated on common interest. Physical distance doesn’t matter—connections to the like minded does—why do you think we refer to those groups that aggregate online as “communities”. And even though it’s the “worldwide web”, it too, is looking local, as is much of media."

It's all becoming local ... and yet, the whole movement from individualism to community has yet to happen.  We need to bring down the white picket fences.

 

So often time it happens, we all live our life in chains, and we never even know we have the key. The Eagles

Emotions have been raging the last few weeks and then I made the mistake of reading my horoscope, which probably applies to 10 million other people, who are all predicted to have a very lousy day.  So I just decided to amuse myself with it and move on.   I wonder when our society's obssession with horoscopes came about and how many people follow it religiously.

In a world where everyone is seeking answers, what role does a written blurb about our astrogolical sign that applies to millions of people do we follow?  

I know, for me, I let the noise in some times in my life and when I do, I have raging emotions.   When I feel centred and trust my gut (which is rather large these days), life is much simpler.

The past few months have been a rollercoaster of emotions that have revolved around:

• My job situation - you can change jobs but you are always there.  Working with psychotic men has finally caught up with me.   And it's quite alright that everyone sees them as psychotic and the havoc they create, but they are still in "power."  Maybe I feel guilty that I didn't do anything and now they are afflicting pain on others?   The machine keeps running ... so does it really matter?  I look around and what do I see?  The assholes of the world are still in charge and the world is silent. 
• People don't speak out about injustice.  The reason is that they look at it, see how ugly it is and simply move on.  No one wants to hear or know the truth because it is much easier to ignore it than deal with it.
• People lie all the time and no one calls them on it.
• We all seek happiness and joy and yet we are silent.  My generation lives a painful existence of shutting up and putting up.  They stay in bad relationships, they delay living their dreams for work and a stupid definition of success, they fear and they follow horoscopes because so many are simply scared of being bold and living and loving out loud.
• We believe we are free and yet we put ourselves in chains.  They are called social norms.  I remember that class is high school.  They are defined as what is right and wrong.  It's the barriers and lines that are given to us by the socialization process.
• and as we grow up, I try to rid myself of these chains.

What I am trying to get to now is if I could do anything, what would it be?

 

Stupidity

Yesterday I had an accident and sliced my finger. There was so much blood but I just wrapped it up and suffered. I went to physical therapy and she made me have her look at it.

I Am now at the walk in clinic with my finger in a tub of iodine, which ironically probably hurts more than stitches. I am freaked out

People let assholes thrive

Today is one of those days when I am questioning just about everything. Like why am I still working for the devil?

While my work situation improved so much,I feel like I am living in the past -- herding cats once again. I have to figure things out. And then I get an email of what a success the summit was for the NGO I was with and I simply feel deflated.

Are my standards just way too high?

Breaking rules

Our world is harsh and what most people don't realize is that they can break the rules.  Yesterday st a wonderful dinner with my mom she told me that she doesn't do all the things she wants to do because her friends are either living on budgets and don't go out a lot any more.

She said "I can't ago on my own.". To which I responded "why not?"

Who limits us?  We do it to ourselves.

When I stopped believing the bullshit I started living.

Lost in the Big Machine

I am in one of my moods and I wonder if it is post trip burn out or PMDD?  

I had a call with a friend today and I got it.  She said something insightful.   Asking people to work in unethical environments is exhausting.  Why?  Because the people have to deal with their own values and sense of right and wrong. 

Her advice is to find the sweet spot where you'd feel the love since this is still a great place to be in comparison to what's out there.  I guess, it's all relative.  They don't prepare us for this stuff.

There is no adult supervison for the top leaders.  They can do and behave as they wish.   There is no real way to give feedback.  It's all top down and HR advocates for the company; not the employees.

Leaders are talking about transparency and accountabilty with customers but that's not how they drive their own groups.

And why do so many people stay?  Because they can't afford to leave.  No one will pay them as much.

What was the final piece of advice to me?  "The problem is that you know way too much.   Play it dumb and show them the way."

Is it any wonder I am having deep thoughts today?