Every One has a Purpose

You and I, through our blogs, my friends, your friends, my colleagues, we each are a beacon, a lighthouse for each other. I can see a way clear for you as you can see a way for me. Some are intentional and some are accidental in directing us. We need others, they need us - be they family or strangers or friends.

As the saying holds true, we cannot see the forest for the trees, when we are lost deep in our jungle, despite our own rational sense, we cannot see our way out except with the help of a guide - be it in the form of a higher power or more often than not, other individual persons. We need others.

Strangely when someone else is in the same position as ourselves, we can offer some consolation, advise. But we cannot see it for our own selves. It's easier to give advise then to follow.  We need others.
When lighting another's way, some of that light is shed on my own path and I learn too.

No one is perfect. Not just love, but anger too is a natural part and parcel of our emotions, it lies dormant in us mostly, but the little aggravations that we face each time with minor conflicts and arguments with persons around us, lets us diffuse it gradually or in outbursts.  If our life was too calm and smooth, how would we release that, like all forms of pressure it must soon find  release and restlessness sets in. So non-congruent persons have a purpose too.

And so it goes on, the chain within the cycle of life, we move forward by affecting each other, we change, we think and move each other - in thoughts or actions. Every living being has a place and purpose. Each is a link that joins with another or forever breaks it. And then too, that break serves a purpose, to re-direct our course or to strengthen our path. A death we lament with memories and new life brings fresh thoughts, all touching us to lead us onto different paths.

We need others to lead fulfilling lives.

Who will I affect today ?

Reading 'Emma'

I've been reading Emma and taking a long time too. Jane Austen certainly knows her characters. While Emma is sensible and very conscious of others' thoughts and feelings, she seems to have totally overlooked her own self awareness, her own feelings.  And thank goodness she did not give away her desired partner out of her own goodness before she came to the realization.
But Emma is not perfect either, she tends to get caught up in her own web and strays from objectivity until it is too late.

Women today have not changed overly much in our innate characters, have we?

Sunday Solitude - Advice on how to Live life.

I finally found some time to sit and read this night.  Once more,  some of the peace and calm I had lost,  returns.

A good piece of advice for me, I found in the passages(St Paul's) I have just read, I who am not able to let go of the past; and a reminder to live without worry.
Tomorrow is a new day, the beginning of a new week, there will be new opportunities for new graces.

" I can only say that forgetting all that lies behind me and straining forward to what lies in front, I am racing towards the finishing-point to win the prize of God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus.. So this is the way in which all of us who are mature should be thinking, and if you are still thinking differently in any way, then God has yet to make this matter clear to you. Meanwhile, let us go forward from the point we have each attained"  Phil 3: 13-16.

Among the last words in these letters Paul says
" Always be joyful, then , in the Lord:.. Let your good sense be obvious to everybody. .. Never worry about anything; but tell God all your desires of every kind in prayer and petition shot through with gratitude, and the peace of God which is beyond our understanding will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus."
Phil 4: 4-7

A Day in the Life .....Busy busy ..done and to do...

This past week has been a hectic one at work. My PC kept restarting on me right in the middle of typing and the office decided they would switch it to one of the newer ones since it was obviously TIME. So in between waiting for restarts, loosing bits of data and conversion I still had deadlines to keep and tasks to get done.

Fortunately the damage was minimal because my data was already backed up or I would be crying over that. Amazing that we can't live without the computer in the office.
I have so missed my bible reading some too because of the late tired nights

This is the weekend.

I keep thinking that I need to start on it but I haven't done my assignment yet.

There was a PT meeting in the youngest boy's school. I took care of that and then ran some minor errands. Just after lunch I got to it, no not the assignment. 

The thought had been nagging me for a while about cleaning out the children's room. It was way overdue. Everyday I would come back from work to see the state of their room (piles of school books and papers old and new)  and I tell myself I have to do it myself. Their tidying efforts weren't cutting it. 

And today I did it.  It felt great to throw out a lot of unwanted stuff..old books and tonnes of old used papers, broken toys, old stationery... and clear out the drawers and organise them between non-school and school stuff. 
It felt good to see space.  Cleaning is Therapeutic.

I had to fight with my girl to clean out her place, she refused to let me touch them. I knew why of course. So many posters!  I managed to do one of the smaller cabinets with her art and craft stuff but not quite the writing desk. Have you ever tried cleaning off wax jell from the base of a drawer?  She said she would clean the desk. Well I checked, it was a little tidier but not fully to my satisfaction.  I will probably have to take a look at her wardrobe soon. She is not the most organised person.

Tomorrow is church day and marketing day, the fridge is almost bare, I will have to stock up extra too, since the double holidays are up soon. The Chinese New Year means the shops would be closed longer that usual.

 

The assignment will have to wait til then.

Happy endings & Roses

Below is one of my favourite poems by George Eliot, her dream in the 19th century still works for me today.

If I went by writer's names, I would have totally bypassed this piece all together because the first book I read by George Eliot during my school days was 'The Mill on The Floss'.  It was such a sad story (depressing too, the story of a young girl) it left quite an impression, I never picked up another book by her.  

I don't like sad endings I confess - be it book or movie..probably life too.   I try to avoid them (can't do that in life though !). Strangely, now that I think back on it,  I did quite a few of those tragedies in school like King Lear, Coriolanus, Wuthering Heights, Things Fall Apart (except for Midsummer Night's Dream) few more...were they trying to depress us (late teens) out of Literature !!  ......that's enough of that.. let's move on to peaceful images..

You love the roses - so do I. I wish

The sky would rain down roses, as they rain

From off the shaken bush. Why will it not?

Then all the valley would be pink and white

And soft to tread on. They would fall as light

As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be

Like sleeping and like waking, all at once!

(Roses by G Eliot)

Lighter

A superb idea to let the memories spill,
what was so present and frequently intrusive
now seems inconsequential and quite dismissive.

Endeavour more to free me now
to strengthen mind and spirit,
as baggage unloads to exit.

I shall pursue this freeing exercise,
a difference I feel, it does liberate.
My heart shall be lighter, I anticipate. 
(- HA)

My Childhood memories

Self -awareness/ self-counseling.

All who have had a bad childhood, please raise your hands.

I would not say I had a bad childhood,  I think I had an 'ok' childhood, quite normal for those times. My main source of anxiety in my growing up years stemmed from my mother's differential treatment of my sister and myself. I have not attached importance to it (I try to downplay them) but as Freud and Erikson have endorsed,  bad things that happened in childhood does affect your life and thoughts in the future. In this now, it is mostly what NOT to do with my own children.

I am the middle child, neither the 'youngest' child nor the 'oldest' child, not the only girl but the 'older girl'. These are labels that my mother seemed to attach different values to according to her old-fashioned upbringing. My sister was the pet and favourite and forever  'too young'  even when she was in her twenties, my brother well he was 'a boy', the oldest and so for those 'valid' reasons I had to carry the weight of more chores and be more responsible.
So perhaps that was why I felt that I needed to study harder (buried myself in school and study where I could)  to gain approval, to prove myself and kept quiet without rebelling. My sister was allowed to keep short hair from an early age while I was not allowed to cut it until I was 16 (I'll keep that hair story for another time). As a consequence, my sister was bolder, asked for anything she wanted, I was timid and did not ask for things, I was concerned with budgeting, which somehow my mother always impressed upon me. Mixed into all that of course there were feelings of inferiority that did colour my early years of interaction..[self-conscious]). 
The one thing that worked in my favour, was that I was the only one to get to the University, ... that got approval.

Lately I have been reminded of these memories because of my words/actions with my kids. I have said to my girl a few times she is lucky that her mother (me) is not like my mother. My girl like most teens does not seem to appreciate that she has so much more and seems to take some things for granted.  I get irritated when the kids seem self-absorbed and are unable to see beyond their own needs,  that you cannot have everything you want.   But then, the kids themselves have their share of horrid memories to carry with them, so therefore I have to find a balance but not over-compensate.

I am not distressed by these early memories, I have overcome them is many ways,  I am a different person from what I used to be, I have grown into my own so to speak. I am less bothered by the things my mother says these days than the fact that she still thinks along the old-fashioned vein. Old habits die hard. I have come to terms with her as she is. [My mother].

In the past few months I realise too that I have been subtly raising these issues through reminders with my mom in incidental situations but she merely brushes it aside 'so long ago ....really.. ..don't remember'.  What am I trying to do, I have no idea - hoping for a realization,  purple heart, compensation, to blame her for my present situation.?  No, I don't want to cause her any grief.

Why am I telling my story, perhaps it is to effect a catharsis for myself or perhaps I wish to raise the awareness that stereotyping, favoritism is not right. Such thinking still exists today. 

I can leave well enough alone, but I think I still have to let it out somehow to let it go, bring those nagging thoughts to the forefront.  (..dissolve them or expel them ?).

What I do know, is that a child is capable of seeing, hearing and feeling that some things are not right but may not understand or express them.  Unless they verbalize it, they will never know but keep it within.