(Un)expected change

Years back, I used to wish for a quiet life in which everything was clear and planned and all that, so that no nasty surprises would come my way and so that, when I woke up, I would know up front what my day would look like (in general) and what I would be doing that night. Hahaha! I so laugh about this now, and can hardly imagine that I was actually once convinced this was the life I most desired, but I do remember.

How I have changed! At the time that I had these thoughts, I could never have imagined this change. But even now, knowing that huge changes can come over you with time - drastic changes even - I have difficulty imagining I could one day wish for this quiet, predictable life again, in which almost everything is predetermined (but it is a real possibility I someday will!). Right now, thinking about such a dull life without surprises makes bile rise up in my throat, followed by a sense of relief that I am not now living this life. As I recently discussed with a friend of mine: when you do the same thing every night after work and you look back on this period years later, you will not be able to distinguish one day from the other, as you didn't do anything worth remembering, did nothing that stood out from the repetitiveness of your existence, and your memories will be a blur. In fact, you will be like the living dead.

No, this bland, uneventful life is not for me. How could I ever have thought differently!? Going through unique new experiences and aquiring new, precious memories are what keep me going, that stoke the oven, so to speak. Because the fact is that I lived a dull life for far too long, and I have a lot of catching up to do after changing so drastically.

This drastic change feels so weird because at any point in your life you (may) feel like you know yourself (though probably not 100%) and see yourself in a certain way, like you are this or you are that, like something static almost. But the way you 'are' is an illusion! Around this very core that is you (some would call this your soul), everything is variable, everything can change. I used to regard this desire of mine to have this stable, predictable life as something that was close to this core, as something that would not, could not, change. Something that made me me. But change it did, and it wasn't the only thing that changed, or that will change. I know this now, and although I expect this change (not changing would be stranger!), there is still, I think, something deeply rooted in the human subconscious that resists change. Because change is scary. And it might not be for the better. *whistles X-Files theme* But I say: if changes find you, embrace them, because they are happening for a reason. You may not be happy with the way you are at the moment, or the way you are living your life.. and you may not even realise it yet.

I used to (want to) plan my life: I wanted a predictable career, a steady girlfriend/wife, eventually grow some children in our garden and die of old age. Now the only thing I want is to just live, and live my life to the fullest, giving in to my desires (though there are limits :)) to enjoy the things I want to enjoy at that time, and wait and see what my life will be like: which girl(s) I will share my life with (I am not yet ready to settle (again) at all - been there, done that...), what career choices I will make, what opportunities will present themselves, which friends I will keep and what friends I will make, etc.
There are things I 'know for certain' though, and this 'certainty' makes me laugh even while writing about it. Because they are not certain. I keep saying that, despite not knowing what to expect from my future, I am 'certain' I don't want any children within five years, and that I am fairly certain I won't want any within ten years. But who knows, within a few years I might just suddenly develop this overwhelming desire to have children, maybe even to have five!

Because ultimately, the only thing you can expect from the future is that it will be not(hing) like you expect.

Bureaucracy IV

Can anyone tell me why making one change and sending a new bill takes 10-12 weeks? Lord Almighty, it should take them a maximum of 10 minutes! By the time I receive this new bill I will have forgotten what the hell it was about!

Bureaucracy III

This bureaucratic society is so full of vultures it continues to sicken me. Only the difference is: vultures usually wait until you're dead to pick you clean...

It seems that companies just take any opportunity they can get to rip your heart out. Or at least empty your pockets with a grin while you stand paralysed. Because most of the time there's really nothing you can do. In 99.9% of cases, it will simply not be worth it to go to court over some random company screwing you over, thinking up bills and having some eeny meeny rule in their general conditions somewhere that says they can do so. 

Let me tell you: if anyone gives me a big mouth or insults me, I react. If anyone gets physical with me, I react. I stand up for myself. This way I can continue to respect myself, not letting anyone take advantage of me. But with these companies (the current object of my hatred is the energy company), you never see any of their employees and they just take advantage of people remotely, sending ridiculous bills to the little people while laughing their asses off in their ugly building across the country somewhere, knowing hardly anyone will stand up to them because you just can't. Oh how I wish to just grab a random dude with an energy company jacket on by the collar and throw him across the room, just to have some tangible way of letting my rage play out.

I know many people will say: "Don't get all worked up over it. You can't do anything about it anyway." But if I just bow my head and kneel to these companies, they will have won completely. I guess the "going down fighting" thing appeals to me more, despite the frustration it saturates me with. Still, it would rather be "going down shouting" because I can shout whatever I want, but I cannot fight them, not really. I can try, but it amounts to the same thing every time: it costs me time, energy and (even more) money, and in the end they will have ridiculous safeguards in place that nullify any protests so all will have been in vain. Again.

This is what it all comes down to: the thing I love the most is my freedom. To do whatever I want (within the boundaries of the law), letting no one have a say over me. And the only thing that does is these damn companies. They do have a say over me, and that may just be the most frustrating thing ever.

Materialism

It stuns me how many people hoard all kinds of stuff. I understand buying a few luxury items you really love, but the sheer quantities of "useless" things people buy astonish me. It is like they have too much money on their hands, and they are just eager to put it to use to find some kind of quick satisfaction. Or is it that they think they will feel rich, or feel happy, by having lots of random stuff?

Take coming back from holiday with bags full of souvenirs with hardly any practical applications (and all of them being relatively expensive, as tourists inevitably get ripped off), for instance. This seems the rule rather than the exception (in Western countries at least). People buy them to... do what? Remind themselves they have been there? To show others they have been there? Even though buying one or two souvenirs should be fine, isn't it better to just really enjoy yourself there and fix all the fun things you have done and the beautiful things you have seen into your mind to later revel in the wonderful memories they have produced?

No doubt some people (especially girls ;)) will not agree with what I'm about to say here, but I don't get (extensive) shopping as a goal in itself. Wanting or needing something and setting out to buy it, with that specific goal in mind, seems perfectly logical to me. I can even understand wanting to spoil yourself sometime when you feel down and going shopping for just a little while to buy something you like, or ordering something online and feeling like you're being spoiled when it is delivered and you rip off the packaging like an eager child at his birthday. But just shopping all day long looking to just spend, being eager to spend even, as a hobby, just to buy things, not with any other goal in mind other than to find all sorts of things that catch the eye (mostly clothes where girls are concerned ;)), and to eagerly grab them and haul them home as trophies, only to use them once or twice, or even every once in a while if it was actually a good purchase (yay!)? (Note that only the most disciplined of shoppers ever return home empty handed, by the way ;). They just need to buy something.) Or to have some kind of mental list (or even worse, a real one ;)) of all the things you still want to have in your house to "make it complete", and spending years to work towards this perceived perfection, as if achieving this, and thereby making the house "perfect", would make you happy. What if it burns down? Or if you somehow go bankrupt and lose everything? Or even just imagine yourself without all your material wealth, naked and vulnerable, owning nothing but your skills and memories (your treasures!). What then, are all these things you have accumulated worth?

I must grudgingly admit I have participated in this kind of behaviour (to a certain degree, as I have ever hated shopping all day long!). First when I was young and was cared for anyway, so I could just spend all the money I had on things I fancied. And later when money was abundant, me and my ex-girlfriend paying relatively little rent and having a double income to spend. I fancied DVDs so I bought at least one just about every week, starting a collection which grew and grew. As did my book collection. I thought: these are practical items, since I use them and enjoy them, and not just objects to look at (which I personally find quite a waste of money, since I don't care much for aesthetics). But I was wrong. I did use them (as a girl will wear a certain shirt once and then forget she has it) but I still haven't read most of those books (I cannot read that fast!) and even though I have watched nearly every one of those DVDs, they were also objects "to look at": I had a wall full of DVDs and books, and when I looked over to it, I was pleased to know I had all of that, and when I had visitors, they could also see I had all of that.

Great.

Did I need all this stuff? Of course not. Did it make me happy? Of course not. (Obviously I thought differently at the time.) Would I have bought all of this if I hadn't had excess money to spend? Of course not. I would probably have bought a couple of movies I really loved, and a few of my favourite books. I could have just rented DVDs on occasion, and gotten most of my books at the library, and it would be all right. Buying all of that was pure luxury, and simply unnecessary. I know this now.

I realised this when money started to get more difficult to come by, and I had to make an effort just to be able to pay my bills. I started saving on all kinds of things, mainly on luxurious items I didn't really need. I even started drinking cheap beer ;) (whereas before I was a whiner and would only drink a selection of fine (and more expensive) beers, and I found that I enjoyed these cheap beers, that they weren't as bad as I always believed. I even found that when I had a more expensive beer sometime, I would enjoy it more than I did before, since it used to be "normal" to drink expensive beer, and now it was "special", and thus more enjoyable.

In fact, it doesn't really matter how much money you have, as you will spend the bulk of it regardless of how much you have (except when you're an obsessive and very disciplined saver). When you're all but broke (or living in a Third World country for that matter..), you will (obviously) spend it on the necessities, just to survive. If you have some more money, you will spend some on luxuries, as simple survival isn't all that much fun. If you have even more money, you will buy even more luxuries - things you really don't need - and this process continues practically until you're Bill Gates and cannot think of anything else to buy. Why else would a happy poor man become millionare suddenly feel the urge to buy a fast car and a big house? He used to be happy when he had food and a roof over his head, and suddenly only the best food is good enough, and he "needs" a villa with a swimming pool.

At any given time, people have their eye on something they want to buy as soon as they have the money, regardless of how rich or poor they are, but how you spend this money is what makes the difference. Will you buy loads of random things that catch your fancy and stash your house full of them, or will you spend most of your surplus funds on trips and such to experience as many different things as you can, see as many places as you can to enrich your mind and experience the world as completely as your income allows? Me, I have recognised that most of the things I used to buy didn't actually do anything to make me happy. I now buy only the luxury items I really, really want (and how much more you will appreciate them when you don't have tons!) and spend the money I have left on doing things I enjoy, seeing as many places as I can, experiencing as many things as possible, and preferably sharing these experiences with the people I like and respect the most, as these experiences are all the more valuable when shared with a dear friend, partner or family member.

And in the end, when you are old and shrivelled and looking back on your life, you will know that you have lived your life to the full.

Trust

There are few more elusive concepts than trust, I feel. I have spent many hours of thought on this concept, especially when I was younger (but it just continues to be so very important, if not vital!). I remember a younger Hak hardly being able to comprehend the tremendous importance of something so utterly intangible yet the thing that defines friendships and (romantic) relationships. It is so difficult to earn, and often so hard to give. It is a crucial factor within any relationship, one that generally elevates close family above friends in terms of 'durability', meaning that friendships will often end within a few years, or even after a few decades, but end they will, almost without a doubt (what percentage of friendships do you think lasts for over 10 years? 10%? 5% Even less? Feel free to comment ;)), whereas the bond of trust between parents or siblings is often so great that opposing parties will reconcile their differences time and again, knowing the other(s) will have their back no matter what. Of course it is in part the blood relation that accounts for this close bond, but if this is the foundation, then trust is built right on top of it.

I think there inescapably comes a time for many people that they feel abandoned by many people who are close to them, be it by friends or colleagues or both, or even by some family members, but then you will generally find that your parents and siblings continue to be the people you can count on, no matter how many times you have professed to choose friends over family (and I am no exception).
On a side note: I think this is one of the big sadnesses of orphans or only children. Orphans will hardly ever have people they can really fall back on, no matter what has happened, no matter what mistakes they have made.

So difficult to earn, and often so hard to give. Extending your trust to someone too easily seems equal to naivete and is often disastrous, as this trust will often be betrayed. At least, my trust has been betrayed (about matters big and small) so many times that I have come to believe it is an inescapable fact of human nature (but don't ever tell me you can't help breaking people's trust "because this is simply human nature"!!). And I have broken people's trust as well, as I am human, but I definitely try my best to do so as little as possible, as there are few things I find more hateful than abusing the trust of people who care about you. Or even abusing the trust of strangers. (Of course, small matters such as agreeing to meet someone but not showing up is also breaking someone's trust. Just to illustrate how easy it is to do so...)

Despite having misplaced trust so many times, I have always (as far as I can remember) tried to give people the benefit of the doubt when meeting them, giving them a reasonable portion of trust to start with. I guess I do this to try and see the good in people, to stay positive, and not become so guarded a person that it becomes very difficult to start friendships and romantic relationships. Because what happens when two people meet who are both so guarded with their trust that they do not dare extend it to the other? Indeed, they would never be able to become friends (unless they change), as friendship is built almost entirely on trust, supported by things you have in common.

So I try to give people the benefit of the doubt when I meet them, and although they will have to earn the greater part of the trust between us, I give some of it freely. (Naturally I don't do this when I 'meet' people who look very untrustworthy to me! This would just make me an utter moron ;).) It is like laying a shallow foundation upon which something beautiful can be built, but one that wouldn't have cost much if even this tiny bit of trust is betrayed (say, accepting a couple of beers from me but intending to never see me again). I feel this is a tiny, intangible investment you need to make to try and build friendships, something that mostly just occurs on a subconscious level (but I wanted to write about it ;)).
I know people who find it difficult to make friends. Maybe the above is something worth considering for those who struggle with this.

That said, I think the best part of any kind of relationship (friendly or romantic) is even the initial phase in which you build up mutual trust, that first period during which you 'lay the foundation', so to speak (so don't be afraid to extend some trust to people you find interesting!). Depending on how much you meet or speak to each other, this may take a month, or a few of them, but this month is often one of the best you will have with that person, in my opinion. I also like it because this person is new to you and since people are curious by nature, it is great to 'figure out' a person, to discover what makes them tick, and to enjoy the things you find out you have in common. But mainly it feels good to earn someone's trust. It makes you feel good about yourself, like you are someone worth trusting, a good person.

The only thing you have to do next is make sure you are indeed worthy of this trust, and not betray it like so many people do way too often...

Starting over

There is a peculiar allure to starting anew. People often think they cannot do so, that they need to remain in their current job, with their current partner or in their current place of residence, that they have bound themself to a place, job or person and that they should stay true to the choice they made long ago. These people will sometimes think about starting over, but decide against it.

Fortunately there are also people with the willpower to start over once they recognise that they desire, or even really need it to be happy. I admire these people. I'm not saying that I only admire people who start over, however: people who somehow remain actually, really happy working in the same place, living in the same place and being with the same partner also earn my respect. They must have somehow found an inner peace to remain happy in this kind of 'static' environment. And this inner peace is what it is all about. It is the reason people seek new beginnings: because these people are not at peace.

So I admire people who take the step to begin anew if they come to recognise that they are not at peace, and that small changes do not really change anything. Whether they quit their job and find a new one better suited for them, regardless if it pays better, as long as they are happy doing that job, or if they move to a different place or even abroad when their 'home' doesn't feel like home any longer, or when they dare to end a relationship that they recognise is no longer good for them.

I myself recognised at some point that I wasn't doing myself any favours staying with my girlfriend at the time (whom I had been together with for nearly 7 years). Even though the relationship provided some kind of stability, I felt I was somehow inhibited by this relationship, that I couldn't do what I wanted, and even that I could never achieve all I desired to in life, that I could not fulfil my dreams while I was with her.

I needed to start over.

It was tremendously difficult at first, and after we broke up, I starting having huge doubts. I wondered if I had thrown away the only thing that was good and solid about my life. But after a time I recognised that this is just because my life was suddenly so very different from what I was used to, I needed some time to adjust and find out what it was what I wanted without the restrictions thrust upon me by this relationship. I am now convinced that most everybody changing their lives, starting over, will go through such a period, albeit briefly. It is what it takes to make this huge change, and it gives you the opportunity to ponder what it is you want now that you are 'free'.

In order to make the change 'complete', I decided to move to a place halfway around the country (though the Netherlands isn't that big :)). Fortunately, as a freelance translator, I could work from home and thus keep my job while moving so far away. (Many people won't have that luxury.) I had recognised that I was sick and tired of the very same environment every day. Nothing seemed to hold any surprises anymore, and I felt there was nothing left to explore, convenient though it may be to know where everything is in your neighbourhood. I needed 'adventure' and, at first, even exploring my new place of residence felt like some kind of quest ;).
(The 'newness' about a place (or job or new love for that matter) fades after a while, though, which could cause some kind of continuous search for new things, to try and keep it all fresh, to prevent life getting dull, but I think I'll write a different blog entry about that sometime.) 

As a gamer, I cannot help but make a comparison to games. When playing an RPG (Role Playing Game for non-gamers) I am essentially taking on a role I will never be able to in real life, for instance being some kind of wizard in a fantasy world. But with every such game I start over many, many times, and I often find the beginning the best part. Your character is then 'fresh', not limited by a previous choice of skills, abilities, gear and affiliations with guilds, for instance (which could be compared to a job in real life, I guess). It can absolutely be fun to play an advanced character, but during my years of gaming it has happened hundreds, if not thousands, of times that I started over, that I somehow needed this fresh start, to do everything exactly as I wanted to. Or because it 'just' feels good to start over, as you then seem to still have endless possibilities before you.

My point is that fresh starts give you the opportunity to forget about your current troubles, whatever they may be, and recant past decisions to do it all over again, and do it better this time, knowing what you know now. I can easily do this in computer games, and this always feels good, but in games you can have a thousand different 'lives' and a thousand different characters. And in real life, there is just you. That's it. I cannot tell you how many times I have wished I could just 'save my life' (as opposed to 'saving my game' ;)), experiment doing things (which could be just about anything) and if it doesn't work out, just 'load my life' again and try something different. Or just 'start a new life' altogether, retaining my experiences and having the ability to start over afresh, being able to make better decisions.
But as you get but one chance to make something of your life, just one chance to reach your goals and fulfil your dreams, it will sometimes, or even occassionally, be necessary to 'start over' in some way, to make sure your life is as you want it to be. And find your inner peace.

And if you feel you are really missing something, really want a change but are scared of the consequences, you should not be afraid, and just do it.

It will open your eyes.