| CARVIEW |
In front of me, I see the fork in the road.
Fork in the Road
What to do?
Where to go?
Shall I go left?
Shall I go right?
…
How come life doesn’t come with a GPS?
]]>
True, men by nature are polygamous. But, it is not only men that are polygamous. We all are. Though there are many who prefers being alone, we still need people to survive. “No man is an island” as the saying goes is true, as far as I am concerned. We start out in a family, where parents and siblings and a whole lot of levels of kinship are there to support (in their own way) us no matter what. We go to schools to gain knowledge and socialize. We go to work to earn a living, and meet up with colleagues. We have friends in between. People thrive in a support group, whatever that group maybe, or we don’t live at all. People, I believe, are polygamous in nature.Just like animals – a pack of wolves, a herd of elephants, a school of fish – the feeling that someone is there to support you is just as finding air to breathe. It is a necessity. But unlike animals, we have a choice. While their need to eat and act like savage beast are driven by instinct, ours are instinct but with choice. Yes, we do have the urge to eat like there’s no tomorrow, to hurt others like savages, but its the choice that allows us that makes us accountable for our actions. Can we really blame a lion killing a squirrel? No jury will recognize the lion’s guilt and no court will rule in favor of the squirrel.
But we are not animals, and we have the choice for everything. It is our choice if we wake up this morning and decide not to go to work, or to have milk in our coffee or not. Attraction is not a choice to me – it is instinct. We get attracted for someone who’s kind, sweet, generous or has a hot body, and I can do this every minute (provided the right people are around hehe)! Sparks fly, personalities clicked – and then what do you do? What happens from that point that the two strangers’ eyes meet is a choice for both of them. There’s a moment, too brief perhaps for the many who regrets their actions, or so they say, for them to make that decision – to be or not to be.
Dan: “I fell in love with her, Alice.”
Alice: “Oh, as if you had no choice? There’s a moment, there’s always a moment, “I can do this, I can give in to this, or I can resist it”, and I don’t know when your moment was, but I bet you there was one.”
Dan explaining to his lover Alice why he had an affair in Closer, 2004
I don’t believe that people just fall in love. Yes, they may get attracted to somebody else even though they are in a relationship with another person. But they don’t just do it because “they fell in love” with the new person, and “fell out of love” with the old one. That sorry excuse of men and women who made their conscious choice to entertain an affair doesn’t earn my two cents of time. Love, relationships and commitments – interlinked words that should never be interchanged, each word is a choice by itself. My three simple rules? If you choose to love somebody, let him or her know. If you choose to be in a relationship to somebody, make sure that the definition of the relationship is known and agreed by both parties. If you choose to be committed to somebody, then don’t break the rules. Monogamy is a choice – don’t choose it if you can’t deal with it.
]]>]]>The most important, most critical component in successful loving is commitment. Not love. It’s easy to love without commitment. People do it all the time—easy to love, to give of oneself for a while. But commitment implies bonding in such a way that one promises to keep the fires of love burning indefinitely.
It also means shutting one’s heart to the possibility of loving another who might even be more attractive, even more lovable. Not easy. This is why solid commitments are not at all as common as we are led to believe. In fact, more often than not, I think that the commitment two lovers make are not equal. What I mean is that the commitment of one might be a whole lot more or a whole lot less than the partner’s.
We see it all the time. One loves more than the other, is more committed than the other. It is false to believe that two lovers love each other to the same degree. We have often seen lopsided love relationships where one partner is giving so much more to the relationship than the other.
But writers and poets seem to always indicate that love isn’t just a two-way street, but an equal two-way street.
That hardly ever happens. It is impossible to determine exactly how much a man loves a woman or how much a woman cares for a man. Love cannot be measured and that can be a huge problem. You can love someone and tell him “I love you” and you’re telling the truth. But how much do you love him? Enough to let him court you? Enough to marry him? Enough to die for him?
The greatest test of true love is commitment. And the greatest indicator of deep love is deep commitment. There can be no doubting this.
I have heard people say all the right words, make all the right moves and pledge undying love, only to walk away weeks or months later.
Were they in love? Sure they were. But not enough to allow them to hold strong in their love. Not enough to keep a commitment regardless of the pain.
A lover gets this sinking feeling when there is a sense that one is more committed than the other. When one is giving a lot more than one is receiving, when one’s love is a lot more solid than the creaky love of the partner.
When a couple believes strongly that their commitment to each other is rock solid, there is a deep sense of security, a feeling that it’s okay to give all because the gift of yourself is safe in the hands of the beloved. If, however, there is doubt or, even worse, the conviction that one is engaged in one-way giving, in a one-way commitment that is lopsided, then there is a tendency to pull back and not give as much. And when that happens, love begins to fade.
In the countless counseling sessions I have had with troubled couples over the years, there has always been the problem of a failing commitment on the part of at least one of the partners. Unless there is the raising of the level of commitment, the relationship is doomed. It’s finished. Sooner or later the stresses will take their toll and the relationship will begin to fall apart. On the other hand, look carefully at couples who are still very much in love after 20, 25 years. Their commitment to each other cannot be shaken. Neither can their love.
To let go does not mean to stop caring, it means I can’t do it for someone else.
To let go is not to cut myself off, it’s the realization I can’t control another.
To let go is not to enable, but allow learning from natural consequences.
To let go is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.
To let go is not to try to change or blame another, it’s to make the most of myself.
To let go is not to care for, but to care about.
To let go is not to fix, but to be supportive.
To let go is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.
To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes, but to allow others to affect their destinies.
To let go is not to be protective, it’s to permit another to face reality.
To let go is not to deny, but to accept.
To let go is not to nag, scold or argue, but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires, but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.
To let go is not to criticize or regulate anybody, but to try to become what I dream I can be.
To let go is not regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.
]]>To let go is to fear less and love more.
Remember: The time to love is short.
*~*~*
I love my job, I love the pay! I love it more and more each day.
I love my boss, he is the best! I love his boss, and all the rest.
I love my office and its location, I have to gave to go on vacation.
I love my furniture, drab and grey. And piles of paper that grow each day!
I think my job is really swell, there’s nothing else I love so well.
I love to work among my peers, I love their leers, and jeers, and sneers.
I love my computer and its software; I hug it often though it won’t care.
I love each program and every file. I’d love them more if they worked a while.
I’m happy to be here. I am. I am. I’m the happiest slave of the Firm, I am.
I love this work, I love these chores. I love the meetings with deadly bores.
I love my job – i’ll say it again – I even love those friendly men.
Those friendly men who’ve come today, in clean white coats to take me away!!!
I love my job!!!
One more time: Live life. Make a difference. Touch one heart. Encourage one mind. Inspire one soul.
One more time… give another chance. Live life… despite everything that has happened, inspite of anything that may happen… make the most of what is here now. Make a Difference… despite the call to respect the status quo, inspite of society’s norm… stand up, stand out. Touch one heart… despite a cold heart, inspite of the cold words… love, without expecting anything in return. Encourage one mind… despite a close mind, inspite of closed eyes… stimulate. Inspire one soul… start with mine.
]]>What is the REAL MEANING OF LIFE?
Give more than you take. Do your best to leave every situation better than you found it. Seek beauty in all its forms. Chase dreams. Watch sunsets. Endeavor to use more than 10 percent of your breain. Don’t stifle your deep-from-the-gut, cleansing laughter. Take a moment to ponder the enormity of the universe, then admit to yourself that you can’t possibly be th center. Breathe deeply. Swim into the dark water. Let yourself cry when your body tells you to. Love more. Delight in silliness. Don’t be bitter. Forgive. Forgive. Forgive.
Sounds simple? I’ll try to do my best – that’s all I can promise.
]]>One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through.
Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters, whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.
Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?
You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that.
But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your par ents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all
feel bad seeing you at a standstill.None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or
rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back.Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away. That is why it is so important (however painful it maybe!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything
in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.
Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the ideal moment. Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person. Nothing is irreplaceable. A habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.
Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.
Closing Cycles by Paolo Coelho
I may not have found myself completely, but I do have an inkling to where I want to be. And that is definitely not here in this dump where I’ve been settling myself for the past years. I want to be that person I was years ago – confident, loving and living. And I shall be her once again. Soon 
]]>I’ve made mistakes in my life. I’ve let people take advantage of me, and I’ve accepted way less than I deserve. But I’ve learned from my bad choices and even though there are some things I can never get back and people who will never be sorry, I’ll know better next time and I won’t settle for anything less than I deserve.
Is it possible for a person to love another who is close to him or her, but not to trust anymore?
Trust for me is the ultimate measure of any relationship. While I can pretend to love casual acquaintances and to some degree, friends, I can never lie for too long. I am not that type to hang around people and pretend to care. I am generally open-minded and optimistic on people, and that’s why despite my better judgement, I always give people N-number of chances. My heart has been broken for weathering too many reasons and explanations and for simply surviving this long. But I did have some relationships that I simply wouldn’t want to pick up again. I do have my limitations to how many betrayals I can take, and when that limit is met, I know I have to pack my bags and leave. I know my heart well enough to talk my mind out of leaving, but I’ll take my heart’s bet on it. My heart can take much more than my logic would allow me to. And as long as I love a person, I know that I can continue to trust him.
To answer Joni’s question, no, I don’t think it is possible for a long time relationship to sustain love without trust. And this is just coming from me, and applies to me, and not from the general guideline of human living. I have not yet met any scenario that I can put an exemption in place – be they be loving relationships with family, lovers or friends.
]]>