One step at a time

This was done in the middle of the night, when I should have been sleeping...

Fighting laziness is more than just making a decision and sticking to it. Do you know why? Because making a decision and sticking to it is more difficult than it sounds. Therefore I suggest that we try to figure out how to stick to a decision, once made. 

First we need to find out why we are lazy. Are we just born lazy, like Martin said, or is there something more to it? I think in my case there is something more to it, yes I have always been lazy, but in some areas I am more lazy than in others. Why is that? There are two causes that I have identified so far... 

• The first one is this: If I find that I can do something to a reasonably acceptable degree, I do not work at it. For some reason I am satisfied with doing well at beginner level, but never taking it further. Let's use my violin playing skills as an example - when I started out I did very well with my first examinations. Then, when it got more difficult, I simply gave up. Why? Because I was being lazy! I enjoyed sounding good (as beginner) without practice. Therefore I wanted to keep on playing without practice. Needless to say, my relationship with my violin isn't nearly where it could have been, if I had worked at it. I want to make it public now. I WILL get my violin up to standard, even if it takes me twenty years to do it. I will play Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Beethoven and all the others. Even if it is only for my grandchildren
• The second reason is that I always find excuses to do other things instead of doing what matters. I usually take something that is not difficult to master and focus all of my attention on that. The problem with this is that it is more than likely that the thing I am working at has no real value in relation to the thing I should be concentrating on. We can use playing computer games as thee prime example in my life. I have spent more hours playing online games in the last year than I have spent on any other relationship (human or inanimate) . I think it is safe to say that I spent more time playing a specific game than I did sleeping. Replacing what is important with some senseless relationship is a form of laziness and it is definitely a form of addiction. So here we deal with two problems at the same time. Everything in your life is truly entwined. 

Now that I know some of the reasons for being lazy, it is already easier to fight laziness. But just knowing is not enough! We have to do something about that knowledge. Take small steps in the beginning of your campaign against laziness, otherwise you will overwhelm yourself and just fall back into being lazy. 

How do we take those small steps? What is a small step and what is a big step? 

Small step: Pick up the violin and do scales

Big step: Pick up the violin and try playing Mendelssohn's violin concerto

If you start of by trying the concerto, you will frustrate yourself and put the violin away in disgust (believe me, I know). If you play scales, you will at least hear an improvement in the sound you produce. Playing scales once isn't enough though. We need to do it consistently, on a day to day basis. That is where the difficulties starts creeping in. How do you keep yourself motivated to keep on keeping on? This is where I struggle a lot! I'm not afraid to start something, but once I get the hang of something I usually set it aside. or when I do not get the hang of it easily, I shove it very far away!

Ugh, I get sidetracked way too easily! Keeping yourself motivated. Right. Set up a roster or a time-sheet. Put it where everyone in the house can see it. Follow it strictly, otherwise there is no point in making it. Why put it up where everyone can see it? So that the other people in the house can encourage you to do your thing, duh!! 

So that is one small pointer on how to overcome laziness, in my next post I will add a few more of those, and I will try to address the addiction factor as well. 

PS - I boarded today. It was a lot of fun! This crazy Dutch instructor helped me to correct my balance and to put rhythm in my turns. I still look a bit awkward, But I fell only once during the two and a half hours I spent riding. That's progress right there!! :D 

send/receive

Wow, I had an amazing day today! It was my off day, so I spent the entire day skiing. With two of the resorts' ski instructors giving me tips and helping me out, I am now very competent on my ski's! It was so much fun! When they weren't coaching me, I was listening to my favorite composers through my iPod - Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky... Have you listened to their violin concertos? If not, I suggest that you do so now.

(Close to three hours later, if you did as I said...)

Why did I ski today, instead of snowboarding? Because I felt like it! I am way more comfortable on ski's (mainly because I have skied before) but that is neither here nor there. The fact is that I was tired and not at all in the mood for falling down, so I made the easy choice. I think that is one of my greatest problems, I always choose the easy way out. In other words, I'm lazy. Do I have to work at not being lazy? Absolutely! But how..?

In the case of working with your own faults and failures, it is also a matter of sending and receiving. Or let's call it giving and receiving, shall we? Happy now, Martin? ;p
You have to give some of your time, some of your effort, some of your energy in order to improve that certain aspect of yourself that you are not happy with. The difference between self improvement and inter human relationships is fairly obvious, but for those of you who can't see it yet, let me explain: In one you give to someone else and receive from someone else, in the other you give to yourself and thus receive from yourself. Does it make sense? Dealing with yourself and your problems is as unavoidable a relationship as any of the others. Why do we need to work at certain characteristics though? If there is an easier way, why not just take it? Sometimes we need to do hard things in order for us to grow. At the time of doing it you might not like it or enjoy it, but in the long run it will definitely benefit you. That is the receiving part. You give time and energy, but when all is said and done, you will look back with no regrets, with only self satisfaction.

Still the question remains, how do I overcome being lazy? Is it as simple as telling myself not to be lazy and to make an active effort to keep working at whatever it is that I have to work at? In some cases it is easy, like with snowboarding. Just because I didn't feel like boarding today doesn't mean that I will stop altogether, it is just too much fun! But in other things it is more difficult. Like for instance my studies or reading a book that is very boring or slow. I think I just need to force myself into doing those necessary things that I do not like. Do you have tips for me?

My shadow in relation to the ski slope. The ski slope in relation to the rest of the valley. Consider; if you go down in a straight line you move very very fast, if you make turns across the face of the slope, you move at a more controlled pace. I have to place myself in relation to all the factors at play before I go down the slope, otherwise I might hurt myself. In inter human relationships we have to do the same, otherwise we can hurt ourselves, but more importantly, others...

Back to Basics

Ok, let's try to get back to the original plan. Let me try to continue my description of relationships. I got sidetracked by Martins comments and then by my own thoughts. Sorry about that.

I want to go into more detail regarding the interaction in a relationship. For now I will focus on our relationships with other humans.

In our inter human relationships (relationships between humans) there are two basic types of interaction. Giving and receiving. Both parties of the relationship does both, but one party might do it to a greater or lesser extent. The following diagram shows the basic interaction between humans X and Y:

From the diagram you can see that the two subjects of our study will receive the amount of attention equal to the amount of attention sent from one to the other. Thus we can simplify the diagram to the following:

In this relationship we can see clearly that person X has a greater interest in the relationship than person Y. He gives more to the relationship and receives less than person Y does. In time the balance may shift as the relationship evolves or the relationship may slowly erode away as person X realizes that person Y  isn't interested in the relationship anymore. Inter human relationships are dynamic and needs input from both parties if it is to grow.

In my next session I will look into our unavoidable relationships and how they grow.

Addicted to addiction

There are those who have addictive personalities.

I am one of those.

You will have to forgive me for this sudden change of topic, but I have to write what is in my heart. At the moment my heart is full of addiction, or shall we say, anti-addiction. As you would have seen by now, I am writing this blog in order to set my relationships straight. If I am addicted to something or someone, there will certainly be unbalance in my various relationships, would you agree? On the other hand, is there such a thing as a "good" addiction?

Before we can answer that, let's look at the word "addiction". Addiction usually goes hand in hand with substance abuse. According to the people that know what they are talking about, there are two types of addiction. Physical addiction and psychological addiction. Physical addiction is more often associated with drug or alcohol abuse - Once your body gets used to having that drug in its system or that amount of alcohol in the bloodstream, it becomes addicted. The body compensates for the intrusive element and thus changes some of it's functions. If you take the drug away now, the body will malfunction for a while, until it can reset itself to run without the intrusive element. So yes, in some cases people really do get physical symptoms of withdrawal. I know this is a very short and basic explanation of how the body gets addicted, but I am not here to give you an education in physiology.

Psychological addiction is a part of physical addiction, but it can be put into a category of its own - Usually addiction starts out because you are looking for some kind of stress relief (this is the case with both physical and psychological addiction). The substance is not always as important as the addiction itself. What is important to the mindset of someone with an addictive personality is that he or she is actually addicted to something, anything RIGHT NOW!! Whether it be a game, a person or a drug does not matter, as long as the addiction is there. As long as the relief mechanism is in place.

Is it wrong to have a mechanism to help relieve stress? Not at all! But being addicted to that mechanism is wrong. The word addiction has a negative connotation. It means that you are enslaved to a certain habit or substance. People who are addicted tend to let the addiction take over all of their relationships. They cannot think of anything but the addiction, they cannot talk of anything but the addiction. When they are at work, they aren't focused on their jobs, but on getting through the day so that they can spend time on their addiction (except if work is their addiction, of course). Addiction creeps in wherever it can find a foothold. It can ruin marriages, friendships, careers and much more. Addiction can ruin your chance of doing something with your talents (ask me, I know...)
People also get symptoms of withdrawal when they do not have a psychological addiction. But this is all in the mind, as my eldest brother would say: "Psychosomatic." ;p

How do you break your addiction to being addicted? To be honest, I do not know. Mostly people who have a problem with addiction will identify and fight one addiction just to replace it with another. But let's see if we can get a permanent solution. I have a few ideas. First off, identify the addiction. Be honest and open with yourself and admit that you have a tendency to become enslaved by substances, people or activities quite easily. Now, if you have identified the addiction, cut it out. If it is a game, throw it away. If it is alcohol, stay away from bars, bottle stores, parties, all that stuff. If it's people or certain kinds of relationships, stop looking for that type of person. DO NOT TEMPT YOURSELF! YOU WILL FAIL!!
When the withdrawal comes, and it will come, harden up. Don't give in to your mind playing tricks on you!

Maybe there is another answer? What if there was such a thing as positive addiction? The problem here is, you are still addicted. You are still enslaved. But that doesn't have to be a problem. If you do it for the right reasons, and do right by it, isn't it worth the enslavement? Now you will ask me, what on this earthly ball can be classified as "positive addiction"? Once again I do not know. There is something not from here that might be worth your while. Supernatural addiction. God. Have you thought about that, about Him?


PS - Thanks for those who took part in my experiment. From the comments I see that we all have the same idea regarding Japan, but from there our points of view differ quite a bit. What you saw there, is the wrapping paper of a red velvet cupcake. A square piece of white paper with eight smears of baked red dough on it. The red circle in the middle is obviously the bottom part of the cupcake.

Something on Imagery

I just want to mention, all of the photographs displayed in this blog was taken by myself. Paying attention to them will show you how I see the world. It might help you to understand my writing.

Where was I..?

I'm ok, I'm ok! It was only the geyser the blew up in the loft, nothing spectacular (apart from the sound of the explosion).

So, where was I? Oh yeah, getting hurt in relationships. My viewpoint is that, no matter what you do or how you do it, you will get hurt in any relationship you are in. Does this mean we have to stop working at relationships? Does it mean we have to steer clear of relationships? Absolutely not! We cannot stay away from them, they are what makes us human. If we isolated ourselves to the point of having no relationships whatsoever, we would be nothing more than the specs of dust floating around in the air. Not to mention we would be dead very soon after we achieved being relationship-less.

If getting hurt is inevitable, what do we do then? This is where Martins comment comes in (it almost looks like he wants to take over my blog! ;p) He said two important things; communication and the cultivation of an "open" relationship. Naturally the two goes hand in hand, we cannot have an open relationship if we do not communicate properly. I'd go so far as to say that communication is the most important aspect of human interaction. We communicate in various ways, but that is for a later discussion.

Why is communication so important? Because if we do not communicate what we expect of the second party in the relationship, they will act on their own impulses and do things that might hurt you without even knowing they are hurting you. Each one of us sees things differently, so we cannot expect to be treated in the way we want without voicing it first. It can be the simplest of things that we see in a different light, but a lot of small things can mount up to become a huge issue!
Let's do a test to see how each one of us differs from one person to the next, shall we? I'm going to post a picture without any description. I want you guys to describe it for me. Can you do that? Just look at the picture and leave a comment with your description in 100 words or less. Please do not look at the other peoples comments before you post your description, ok?

If we all see things from another perspective, isn't it obvious that we will hurt one another?

What  Mia said is also correct. Part of being human is dying. Doesn't it make sense then, that some of our relationships will die? That some relationships, no matter how how important to us, will fail? This is also why we need to put ourselves into perspective. This is why we need to sort out what is important, and what is trivial. We need to cut out the wrong kinds of relationships and work hard at the ones that have meaning and value.

Sidetracked by the masses!

By this time all of you are probably on the edges of your seats and chewing your nails in anticipation for my next post?! Never fear, the waiting is over. Sorry for only writing again now, but we've had some problems with our internet (nothing new to those of you who are living in Africa or have lived in Africa at one stage or another)

I just want to thank everyone for their comments, at this stage of the project I really appreciate any kind of feedback. It shows me that my writing doesn't fall on def ears, so to speak. If you guys haven't read the comments, please do so now.

(pause for the reading of comments)

Ok! I trust that everyone has read Martins remark about his skateboard hurting him, although he gave it a lot of attention? If not, go read it now.
No more pauses.
Good.
Most probably Martin just made an offhand remark without really thinking about the implications of what he wrote. If you have thought about the implications Martin, I'm sorry for selling you short. Anyway, I was going to discuss the "hurt factor" in relationships at a later stage, but seeing as Martin already mentioned it, we might as well have a look at it now.

Before we continue, I'd like to make a statement:

"No matter how much effort you put into a relationship, you WILL GET HURT at some stage."

Demotivating? I hope not! It is just a fact of life. People will hurt you, objects will cause pain on an emotional or physical level. You will be let down in your relationships. The question is, how do you deal with it? How do you react to that venomous remark your wife made about the food you prepared for her out of pure love? What do you do when your skateboard slides out from underneath you and you end up with a bruised and bloody elbow? This is where the real test of character comes in. This is where we go back to my first post and realize that we need to work on finishing what we started.

Again, there are exceptions. If we are in a bad relationship and second part of that interaction hurt you, walk away. By all means, if you feel that you need to get away from something or someone because it is taking too big a toll on you, do it! There is no reason to stay in a relationship just for the sake of being in a relationship. If you feel that you need to get out, and you can motivate it, get out! Let's use an example.

(The following characters are fictitious. If they resemble any person or situation you are acquainted with, it is pure happenstance.)

Let's use the names John and Sally for the following scenario. John fell in love with Sally and courted her. Sally fell in love with the attention John gave her, and not with John himself. When John asks Sally to be his girlfriend, she says yes because she likes the flowers he brings her and the way he spends all of his money on her.
As the relationship progresses, John can see that Sally has a roving eye as she is constantly flirting with other guys. When he tries to confront Sally about it, she sidesteps his accusation by telling him that, in order for their relationship to work, he needs to spend more time end effort on her, and less on his other activities. John, being the love-struck man that he is, sees this as a reasonable request. To outsiders not paying close attention, it also seems reasonable.
The longer the relationship lasts, the harder John tries to keep Sally's attention and affection focused on him. He becomes obsessed with keeping Sally happy, no matter what. All the while Sally is laughing at him behind his back, flirting with other guys, maybe even doing more than just flirting with some of those guys.
When John finally realizes what is happening, he has already pushed away most of the people around him, he has lost his ability to function on his own. He is basically a shadow of the man he used to be. It  is very difficult for him to get out of this situation, would you agree? Although it is difficult, would you also agree that it is the right thing to do (getting out of the relationship)?

That was a very long scenario, but what I was trying to illustrate is this: When you are in an addictive relationship, you very seldom realize that you are addicted before it is too late. Even if you get hurt all along, you still hang in there because things might get better. Tip, they usually don't.

Wheo, I sidetracked myself after being sidetracked by Martin. All I really wanted to say tonight was that seeing as our entire existence is based on relationships, we need to be able to handle getting hurt.
I don't know about you guys, but I can't think of a single relationship in which I've ever been that I've not been hurt or let down at some point or another. And I know that I have let people down, I've hurt all of the people I love. I've hurt my cat, I've neglected my violin and so the list goes on.

Aaaaah, sometihng just exploded in the background, I'm going to check what happened! Talk later!