There are so many things that we as human beings crave, there are that many wishes we want to be fulfilled but there is one above all else that we desire. To have someone who is our very own. Someone who will reflect our thoughts be there through thick and thin. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to meet someone who reflected your own thoughts, hopes, wishes, dreams and desires?
All our lives on this planet is like crazy patch work quilts which comprised of many different shapes, sizes, colors and hues of experiences. Some are a bit threadbare than the others. Some have a bit more variety and some have a bit more color. But all the same all our lives are based on the same thing. Out innate desire to fulfill the needs of our loved ones and the desire to have ours fulfilled by them. In fact, more often than not, our lives were lived primarily fulfilling the wants and needs of others. While important life lessons were learned from this, by the same token some emotional damage is done and we never truly understand the beauty of finding happiness for ourselves. Sometimes its important to give to the world and others, but sometimes its just as important to give to ourselves too..
Our patchwork quilt
You get what you give
Sometimes it’s a bit difficult to believe, but here is how the story goes, what you give to the world is what you get from it. That’s how it had been for centuries and that’s how it’s going to be forever more and this following Japanese folktale author had got it just right..
"Long ago in a small, far away village, there was place known as the House of 1000 Mirrors. A small, happy little dog learned of this place and decided to visit. When he arrived, he bounced happily up the stairs to the doorway of the house. He looked through the doorway with his ears lifted high and his tail wagging as fast as it could. To his great surprise, he found himself staring at 1000 other happy little dogs with their tails wagging just as fast as his. He smiled a great smile, and was answered with 1000 great smiles just as warm and friendly. As he left the House, he thought to himself, "This is a wonderful place. I will come back and visit it often."
In this same village, another little dog, who was not quite as happy as the first one, decided to visit the house. He slowly climbed the stairs and hung his head low as he looked into the door. When he saw the 1000 unfriendly looking dogs staring back at him, he growled at them and was horrified to see 1000 little dogs growling back at him. As he left, he thought to himself, "That is a horrible place, and I will never go back there again."
All the faces in the world are mirrors. What kind of reflections do you see in the faces of the people you meet is the what they see reflected in our faces, our body language and our attitudes. If they see kindness they would most probably return the kindness. If however, all they see is contempt, than the same will be returned back to us two fold. (ofcos there are exceptions to this rule but generally this is the pattern that is followed)
(Story taken from : House of 1000 Mirrors, The by: Author Unknown, Japanese folktale)
Expectations
As we all get “older” most of us realize that we spend way too much time trying to “be a certain something” or reach a “certain goal, post, destination” only to get there and find out it is not all it was cracked up to be. Too late we realize that sometimes it’s more important to just enjoy the journey than concentrate on the destination, the end point.
We put far more expectations on the goals that we had set for our selves, or in most cases the goals that society had dictated for us, that we break ourselves in the effort to fulfill those expectations. Expectations which are build up over a lifetime of experiences operate in the present. Having great expectations and ambitions always sound good, however when these expectations are unfulfilled, we groan, we moan, we become disillusioned and more often than not, we go out hunting for victims on who’s shoulders we can place the blame for our unfulfilled expectations.
Each person carries a broken dream or a shattered expectation. Some had their eyes on a certain career and for one reason or other the door to that career was closed, where as some got their hearts broken by the very people they had loved beyond another, or trusted greatest.
However as Guy Finley says, ‘Blaming others for the pain we feel each time someone fails to live up to our expectations is no different than burning our tongue on coffee that's too hot to swallow, and then calling our cup an idiot!’
So perhaps it time for us to relax on those expectations. expectations that we has placed on our own selves and on others ....... may be it will simplify things and allow us to lead a life where we face fewer dissapointments (lets face it, we will have many other things to frustrate us even if we take this out of the equation)..... who knws... perhaps it will lighten the burden that we carry each day!
"As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man, upon easier terms than I was formerly" Samuel Johnson
What if we want more than just friendship?
I believe every one of us had gone through the stage where we had fallen in love with one of the friends that we have in our circle, or (horrors!) the closest friend that we have (from the opposite sex!). And we all know how AGONIZING it is when this actually happens.
While there are always things we can do to try to move this friendship to the next level (the most profound of all advices will be given by ur best mates) - the scariest thing for all of us is that there is a very high chance of us ending up with nothing more than a wounded ego as a reward for this effort. To make matters worse, we can also loose the friendship as well….
Perhaps this is the reason why many of us remain “friends” with the people we love, constantly afraid that we may do or say something which may jeopardize even this relationship that we have with the person.
unfortunately, we are left with the painful choice, do we tell that person of our feelings and risk loosing that comfortable relationship that we are in, and keep getting hurt for the effort? Just hang in there and wait for this friend of ours to wake up one fine day and realize that he/she had been in love with us all along? (This when we think of it realistically may not happen… well, may not happen for such a number of cases. The lucky few who had been successful are an exception here. ). To chase them around and get more and more bogged down in our own head and emotions?
Or do we Cut our losses now, and end the friendship ourselves? Because the question here is, can we continue such a friendship? Can we bear to continue with a person who we no longer consider as a friend??? For who our perspective and feelings had totally changed? Can we continue lying???
TREADING ON DREAMS
HAD I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
- yeats
