Are we friends yet?
When you meet someone new, how should you act? Be yourself? Thats nonsense isnt it? How can you just say, be yourself? First of all, you are yourself ALL THE TIME! Exception of course if you make a conscious effort to act totally out of your natural character. When when are you being and not being yourself? When we are around some friends, we may be the center of the crowd, cracking all the jokes and making all the comments, or be the listener, quiet and attentive, but when with your siblings, parents, teachers, eldsers or juniors, surely we all behave with different variations in our speech or attitude right?
You don't swear in front of your parents like you do with you friends. You don't tell dirty jokes to lecturers, you don't make a fool of yourself to strangers right? So are we just pretending to be different things when with different people?
Well, i certainly dont think so. A person is more complex than just a one dimensional character, im sure most will agree. Even cartoon characters have depth, all the more a real human being. But the real problem is, just how should you act, in front of someones who just got to know you, and is obviously summing you up? Of course, from the above, you will almost always be yourself, but which part?
To put things into perspective, i have in the recent past, made 2 new aquaintences. The first one, took me by surprised. On our very first meeting, he/she made it a point to be very friendly and chattable with. Too friendly in my opinion. I dont consider myself a cold or anti social person, and i dont know about the rest of the population, but i just cannot instantly laugh and joke with a person in the first 10 minutes of being introduced to them, especially when the jokes are directed at each other, and not some general "why did the chicken cross the road" joke. It takes familiarity and a level of comfort in a friends company before you can actually cross that like of poking fun at each other. Maybe this friends was also nervous, or like someone i know has said.. too eager to please and be friends. If brought a little too far, it would be at a point of just putting on a show...... you can't just instantly be best of friends right? You need time to slowly get to know that person before you start to crack jokes about them.
The other friend, quieter.. He/she didn't make any attempt to try to cover the tension of being in the company of an unfamiliar person. Just being polite and not too chatty (which i think is natural here in Malaysia) But i found myself, a few hours after getting to know this person, chatting and laughing away with this person among all friends, and already chatting like we were good friends. How come?
I think maybe when you try to bee too friendly, people get turned off. I think its better, as a stranger, to make yourself friendly and accessable, but to let things develope at a comfortable pace, and not force it. Best if you let them approach you, so they feel comfortable, and as consequence, more likely to open up, considering how it is they who initiated the conversation and its 'their turf' But then, do not take this advice blindly ar face value without first evaluating you situation. it'll be sure to backfire.
"I guess the essence of it all is that, if you seem too eager to please, people loose respect for you, because you have disrespected yourself by lowering your dignity just to please them. "
"When you try to be too friendly, people also naturally become distrustful of you. Somewhere along, everyone has learnt, the hard way or easy way, that nothing is free, and when people approach you and want to impress on you that they have something that you want, remember.. it's always the opposite."
Just walking and talking
I just had a very enjoyable time walking and talking with my dad. The kind of conversation that doesnt come that easily at times. For the past 3 or 4 years, my dad has been and still is facing very turbulent times. I can see that he is emotionally drained. And whatever emotional strength he had 10 years ago, its not there today. The only things thats keeping him going, he tells me, is the determination to see my brother and i both through college and to see us lead successful lives. I think long and hard about this, and i feel afraid, if i might let him down and effectively crushing whatever hopes and dreams that he has left. He tells me that he has no more hopes or dreams in life for himself to succeed. He puts that hope on us, and wants to live that success through us. We spoke about what makes the difference between the good and the great.
"The human spirit is indominable. The great are so because they refuse to be put down, refuse to be dominated by their circumstances. It is in anyone and everyone to succeed, what seperates the good from the great is their indominable spirit of not giving up. "I see that i have alot of my father in me. He reflected to me some of the regrets in his life. Of being a great starter but never finishing what he started.
"When you are able to go out and present a great idea, speak eloquently with confidence, people look up to you and feel inspired that great things may come of it. But when you start that idea and not see it through, people will look back at you with silent resentment and dissapointment because you gave them hope.. but only a false one."I take all his words to heart. Even in starting something great, it is finishing it that matters. In the world, it is the results that matter and not things that could have been. T
he great finisher takes the credit, rather that the starter and rewards go to those who get things done, not the starter, however brilliant a start it may have been. I have a bad habit of procrastinating. Delaying what needs to be done. I see that if i do not change this, it will bring me down.
He spoke about a person in his former company that joined in 10 years ago as an executive. Brilliant student, graduated with an MBA from the University of Singapore directly from his Bachelors in UM. 10 years later, today, he is still there, at the same job. There were 4 vacancies for the next level of management (which my father vacated when he left the company) in these 10 years, but never once was he considered for the post. People below him went up, but he stayed static. What was wrong? He obviously was a brilliant student, but he lacked integrity. Always procrastinating, trying to appear to have more important things to do. Trying to impress on everyone that he is an important person. To think that in 10 years he got nowhere is scary. Scary that it might happen to me.
"There will come a time when in your relationship, you ask yourself if you should go on. If you should hang on in this relationship and for what reason if you do. The depth of a relationship will be determined by the amount of sacrifice and tolerence that both parties are willing give into the relationship and to what purpose the relationship serves both parties in the long run. Love is an act, not a merely a feeling."
Im sure many have been at this crossroad in their relationship. To go on or to stop. When problems arise, do you see the donut or the hole in between? How do you determine if this person is right for you? Is the sole factor to determine if this relationship is going in the right direction is to ask " Are you happy?"..... Human emotion is volatile. Should being happy, sad or angy have anything to do with loving somebody? In your greatest moment of anger or sadness, can you genuinely say you love that person? How do you trust your emotion when its always changing? Do you need a reason to love someone? If yes, isnt that selfish? If no, does it mean you dont need a reason not to love them in the future also? i know that you can decide to love, in feeling and action. But are you being given the same in return...
Lots of questions... so little time. Love is a complicated issue sometimes.. i mean all the time. Does sex and love have to be related to each other? There is love.. with the absence of sex....can there be a reverse? of sex without love? Should there be? Some have said sex without love makes the person hollow.. Just how true is it? Do you hold your point of view because you genuinely feel so or have you just been taught to think that way? Are you sure?
Think about it a bit ok. And dont be judgemental or so sure of your convictions. You'd be surprise how wrong you can be to other people.. and so can I.
But that was my day with my father. Not all the words quoted are his alone... but the meaning is there. I hope its insighful to you
If by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
--Rudyard Kipling
I doubt there if there are many that do not know this poem. But its a real special poem.. one of the few that i know and really like. Whenever i feel overwhelmed by troubles, i think of this poem and its advice!
All about nothing
Ive been reading through some of the blogs that have been getting lots of publicity lately, and i must say, " Man, this is tough!" I mean, i read some of these blogs and i go "Wow! i wish i could write like that." But if i did, then i would have an steady readership and a group of fans, as opposed to now.. when i think just about the only person reading my blogs is me. but no worry, i soldier on none the les.. I guess the most difficult thing to do is to decide what exactly to blog about. Most of the good blogs i read are very sanguine or melancholic and very in your face...
Unlike some, i cant easily bear my heart and soul out in the great world wide web so easily. For a person as phlegmatic as me, i find it hard to be candid and interesting and coherent all at the same time. In fact, its hard for me to bear my heart and soul.. full stop. it often takes something that stirs my emotions strongly to make me sit down and write pages of anything. I sometimes wonder if i theres something wrong with me. I feel that at times, i seem to be cold, or that i do not react as strongly to the things around me. Maybe its a defence mechanism that i unknowingly developed, growing up with a messed up family and the things that i had to go through. If i hadn't developed a way of controlling my emotions or shutting them out, i think i would have gone crazy. I see that this mechanism is deeply rooted in me, to protect me from emotional harm and acting as a damp for what traunma that may come. But it is also thing that i feel is preventing me from feeling to the fullest and being really joyous or sad to the maximum.
But reading some of the blogs, gives me a few ideas. Of course, i dont want to be imitating anyone. I think ill just continue, try to blog as much as i can and practice expressing myself. i find it hard to belive, but the people closets to me tell me that most of the time, they dont know how i feel about things. I keep my feelings to myself. Friends whom i know for years dont know many things about me, not because i hide it from them, but because i have never told them. I unknowingly steer conversations away from my personal details. Stupidly enough, i sometimes wish someone shown genuine interest in me instead and wished they'd ask me more so that i can share. But i get turned off, because i can see that they aren't interesed. The most interesting subject in the world is Me, Myself, and I. Just look at thing article, and count how many i's are there.... see what "I" mean?
But you cant blame anyone from being self centered. Its just the way things are. I think about my friends, and i wonder why they dont call. But the answer is is simple.
They dont call you because theres nothing they want from you. Whether its material, or emotional or anything for the matter. Friendship sometimes only last when there is mutual benefit on both ends. Depressing huh? I heard somewhere, people change their friends every 5 years on average.
How true it is sometimes. You start to wonder is there a friendship that can last? Or is it all just a marriage of convenience? How do you measure the depth of your friendship and how long it will last and what it means to both parties when it is all so intangible? How do you decide when all our human emotions are so volatile? We change with every whim and fancy that we come across.... so what in the world do we do?
Anyway,signing off
