I think there is a time for everything. A time to fight and a time to back off. A time to talk and a time to shut up. A time to pursue and a time to let go. Letting go can be the hardest thing to do in life. Especially, the things we love or like a lot. Learning to let go, is the first step to the healing process. Some food for thought before parting:
“To have found love, even for a fleeting moment, is better than to have not loved…”
Gotcha! This is not about Star Trek or Star Wars for that matter. First of all, I am gonna come up straight with my readers. My topics tend to lean towards life and relationships, if you noticed. Hope you all don’t mind the choice of subject and can contribute freely.
Have you ever heard this before, “You don’t own me! I need my own space. Why can’t you understand this?!”. The situation is played time and time again, but with different individuals. “Parent - Kids”, “Boyfriend - Girlfriend” and “Husband - Wife”. My personal view on this has been two-ways. I am pro and against it, depending very much on the delivery and also the situation. As usual, the delivery involves a certain level of tactfulness and focuses on good communication skills. Let’s take a look at the above phrase in the Boyfriend - Girlfriend scenario. For simplicity sake, the person uttering those words will be the Girlfriend, hence forth known as GF and the person listening, is the Boyfriend (BF).
What do you think usually happens in this case? I believe, the BF is usually left with an ambiguous interpretation of the word “space”. How much space does the GF need? How long should the BF back off before maintaining the “new” borders? This can all be avoided, if the GF provided some indication, but as we know, in the heat of the moment things can get out of hand and some words may accidently fly. It is imperative, that both communicate clearly to ensure this situation does not occur in the future. Perhaps it is a little too idealistic of me, let’s aim for “minimize” these occurances. Now, what I meant by delivery was, the GF should state this as calmly as possible and quit using the “blame-game”. I know he maybe driving her crazy, but there is always 2 sides to a coin. She could also elaborate on what she meant by space and how much she deems, necessary to her needs. Why should she do this? From the BF egoistic perspective, I would be deeply hurt and resent the fact that she did not understand the reason for my actions. If the subject was approached nicely, the percentage of a following conversation should be not too far off.
Now let’s take a stroll through the mind of men. Well, mine to be more accurate. It could be either over-protective and controlling BF #1 or a totally laidback dude, BF #2. Both are gonna run into troubles with the GF sooner or later. My prediction, BF #1 is gonna hear that phrase up there, sooner than BF #2. However, I am betting BF #2 will not be far-off from hearing it too! Being too laidback has it’s ups and downs. The GF may enjoy it at first, but then notice he is neglecting her. That will end up in Phrase #2 (*grins*), “You don’t love and care about me anymore?!!!”. Hoo boy, a whole can of worms, ain’t it. BF #2 won’t know how much caring and attention she craves and maybe go on a control/protective freak mode. So, BF #2 has just joined the ranks of BF #1. The solution for BF #1 is to ask GF how much space she needs and then adjust. Ease of the control and over-protectiveness. For BF #2, he needs to tighten up the slack a bit to show he cares. He is better off asking the GF how much care and attention she needs or if he is smart, then do it one bit at a time until he hits the comfortable zone.
Sounds tough, right? No one said life was easy, even moreso when it comes to relationships. The key in all things is moderation. Maintaining a fragile balance at all times. When the balance is upset, then a little work through communication is needed. Everyone has their own perception of space. It’s good to think about it and evaluate yours. 
I think it is time I brushed up on my notations. I wanted the all lowercase feel initially, but feel it is not correct and so here goes my first proper entry.
Have you ever wondered, why the older we get the more hunched over we become? Some are affected minimally whilst some end up like the Hunchback of Notre Dame (no offence meant). Well, another oddball theory of mine today. I believe each person carries a burden on their shoulders throughout their journey in life. As time wears on, some emotional baggage may increase slightly or increase dramatically. It really depends on what we deem necessary to “pack” with us.
So, what could be in this imaginary suitcase? Well, I have reason to believe that it harbours memories, thoughts, problems, aspirations and so forth. A memory of the brightly lit Eiffel Tower in Paris. A wandering thought about life. Love-related problems. Looking for a slice of happiness. All these are the contents, which fills an emotional baggage. There maybe some other things, which are not apparent and I hope someone will step up to lend me a helping hand on this.
There is an odd balance, I have stumbled on. Negative contents, tend to be heavier than others. On the other hand, happy contents are light. So light, that it sometimes helps you with your current burden. Hence the term, “My heart feels light and I could fly/skip happily”. This is the cancelling effect, but there is another way to lighten the load. It takes a lot of effort and control to discard the negative emotional baggages. I really envy and respect those, who are able to do this. I wonder if I will learn to let go of my own personal emotional baggage. Sometimes, I feel so bogged down in life and this would really help me and i presume everyone out there too.
As usual, I usually end by requesting for some tips or guidance in regards to my blog. Do any of you have a method of reducing your emotional baggage? Care to share?
i remember blogging about the steaming bowl of noodles before this. sometimes, we stumble upon other things in life. today, i had a sudden urge to blog about a bowl of porridge. hope you enjoy it
as you know, a bowl of porridge comes with an assortment of ingredients. you have a choice of chicken, groundnuts, preserved eggs, dried oysters and many more. it all really depends on the person actually. some may comment, that certain ingredients don’t taste so good and so forth. the most important ingredient i feel, is the labour of love and care involved in preparing the dish. of course too much of anything, is a bad thing.
how do you value a well prepared bowl of porridge? how do you place a price on it? i guess no one has the absolute answer. some may not be interested at all. some may find it priceless. i guess it’s as the saying goes, “beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder”. if a person likes it, they may patiently wait in a long line and pay whatever is due, to have it.
having gone through some ups and downs in life, my advice would be, don’t focus so much about the ingredients, price or anything. the most important thing is enjoying it. after all, you have already been offered the bowl of porridge. it is up to you on how to value it. life can be as simple as we want it, or as complicated as we choose it. hope you understand my blog today.
my topic today, sheds another layer of “onion skin”. i hope some of you would be able to relate to it or even share your own experiences or links. on with the show…
i am sure many people have heard this term before. especially if you are of chinese descent, but speak nary a word of chinese (dialect or language). welcome to my world. i am of chinese-thai heritage and the choice of language at home is, English. being malaysian, our conversation has an occasional smattering of cantonese, bahasa melayu (BM) and an occasional thai word or two.
the “kebangsaan” education system, which i attended my whole life, did little to improve my grasp of the chinese language. i was turned away, along with 2 indians kids, from a classroom teaching primary 6 chinese syllabus. it turns out, we did not have the foundation at this point and the teacher found us a bit of a burden. they say, ignorance is bliss, but i wish someone had told me otherwise. i plodded along happily in life until i entered high school (secondary). cultural shock was the least of my concerns at this point. the majority spoke very little English and BM. now at this point of time, i was lucky to have basic conversational skills in cantonese. this i readily admit, was the sole reason i did not commit suicide in my 5 years through high school. every chinese friend i made, spoke mandarin and most understood cantonese. when they were having their conversations, i felt like i was listening to a bunch of aliens gabbling away. frankly speaking, i guess they viewed me more of an alien.
it was here, i learnt to write my name in chinese and also identify some chinese characters from friends. i have them to thank, for all their patience and efforts in teaching a banana, to not split (pun intended). i could now understand simple mandarin conversations and clumsily add an opinion once in a while. they still had many laughs from my pronounciation, or lack thereof, but respected my spunk at giving it a go. sadly, i have not been using mandarin much after i started college till now.
most bananas would agree, that pin yin (Romanized Chinese) is the bee’s knees. i learnt that pin yin taught us the proper pronunciation of chinese words and it was quite accurate. more information on pin yin at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin. just recently, i got back into the habit of listening to mandarin songs. a habit i’ve lost since leaving secondary, as it was good to know about the latest hip chinese music scene at that time. so i’m slowly picking up where i left about 7 years ago. hopefully after this, i will be able to accept those Karaoke sessions i have been constantly invited to by my chinese friends. i stumbled upon this gem of a site in my recent quest for pin yin lyrics, of chinese songs. the site is http://www.leoslyrics.com. definitely worth a visit, as it has most of the current popular songs, all ready in pin yin. i just love the internet!
anyone else share my predicament? got any links or tips to share? do voice it out.
