helping or hurting - the great balancing act

'Helping' in developing countries is always a balancing act. There is plenty of debate over what genuinely helps, and what, however well-intentioned it is, ultimately hurts the beneficiaries and the communities they live in. It is a controversial topic, one I've read a lot about. I won't go into all the facets of the debate here, but I can summarise a few themes. It is important to have a link into the community, to learn about the culture and the socio-economic and political environment first. What you think they need may not be what they need at all once looking at the big picture. Equally important is whether what you have to contribute matches with those needs, and how your time is structured to make sure you are building a bridge, rather than leaving a hole, when you leave.

I'm currently trying to find that balance as I decide whether to extend my time with this NGO. I am about halfway through the time I have committed to them. I have finished what the director asked me to do - review their accounting and financial management processes from front to back, and identify recommendations for how they can improve. I have produced about 10 pages of them to be honest, and many of them are very basic things.

There is a big part of me that just wants to roll my sleeves up and take charge - I am sure I could knock many of those off the list in just a few days. But I have to stop and remind myself that this would do them no good at all. The best I can do is help them develop a plan, and spend time with them every day embedding the knowledge they need to implement that plan themselves.

I had a meeting with the monk who leads the NGO on Friday. ('Meetings' take place in the courtyard, outside - still a very nice change of pace.) He got very excited about the list, saying this is what he knows they really need and that he hopes I will stay longer to help them with it. I told him it is down to them - the more time they can make available to work with me, the longer I will stay, because of course, it would not be helping if I just did it for them. So we agreed: he committed himself and his team (I use the word 'team' very loosely, as he only has one accountant) to set blocks of time each day, and I am to make a schedule for how we work through it.

So we'll see how it goes. But no matter how long it is I choose to stay here, I have to say I am satisfied that what I am doing falls on the right side of the 'helping or hurting' debate I previously described - something I continually challenge myself on. It's great to support an NGO run by locals... so many are run by Westerners, and I have to give them the benefit of the doubt. But with this one, there's not a doubt in my mind that this monk, who doesn't even take a salary, who grew up in Cambodia, speaks the language and knows its history and people inside and out... he runs this organisation from his heart and it's serving the right people in the right ways.

My role, well, I'm just here to help him tighten up his accounting and financial management system. This NGO is still in its early years, and it has been fortunate to have some very generous donors who place a lot of trust in those who run the organisation. And it is well placed, in my view - sit across the guy for half an hour and you would likely agree. He knows what he is doing and is well educated, of course, but what's more, his spirit of generosity, happiness, genuineness, compassion - it's infectious. I would trust him implicitly as well.

But as they seek to grow and improve, what I am doing will hopefully help him with one of his most important objectives: ensuring the long-term sustainability of these programs by backing up that trust with more solid transparency. Better transparency leads to better information, better decision making and better access to varied sources of donor funds if something should happen to the current funding stream. So, I may not be doing a lot here... but this guy definitely is. And supporting him in his efforts to save a lot of children from a bleak future - I've seen the beneficiaries first hand - is something that I can be satisfied is making a small difference.

these streets

happy playlist

I loathe taxes. Funny that some people in my life think that is what I do for a living. Sometimes, accountant = taxes. I'm cool with that - most of the time I don't explain anymore. But anyway I don't like them... and for this reason, even up until about 2 days before I left for this trip, even things like downloading music and making playlists seemed to rank about 10 notches above them on the priority scale.

But now I'm patting myself on the back, thinking that my priorities were just right - I really would go nuts without music, and today as I sat in a 105 degree office sweating like crazy, my 'happy playlist' made me, well, really happy. (I know, really creative title for a playlist.) I was trying not to do any unconscious dancing in my chair (look, when you're not wearing shoes, it's easy to forget you're in an office)... I am not sure if monks are cool with music in this place, so was trying to keep it on the DL.

So, I thought I would share it with you. If you ever need a pick me up.... go to YouTube and type them in.

1. Sly & The Family Stone - Everyday People
2. Bill Withers - Lovely Day (one of my favorite songs. ever.)
3. Paolo Nutini - New Shoes*
4. Scissor Sisters - Don't Feel Like Dancing*
5. Jackson 5 - I Want You Back
6. If You Really Love Me - Stevie Wonder
7. Love You Madly - Cake
8. Ain't Got No / I Got Life - Nina Simone
9. Did You Give The World Some Love Today, Baby? - Doris Day
10. Bi*ches Ain't Sh*t- Ben Folds (Mom. Grandma. Please give this one a miss for me, okay... you won't like it. In fact, none of you should listen to it unless you grew up listening to American gangsta rap and thinking it was really, really cool at the time. Because only then will you appreciate this spoof. It makes me laugh out loud every time I listen to the lyrics in Ben Folds' ballad style... the piano really puts it over the top for me...)

* To my Aussie mates who are getting married this Saturday. You're in my thoughts a lot right now anyway, but these two songs are so inextricably linked to you it's ridiculous. And speaking of the songs, I would like to give you some advice for your new life as a married couple: get a new bloody CD for your dinner parties besides Paolo.... it's a wonder I can still stand to listen to him :). On a less critical note, when and if those dinner parties degenerate into dance parties on the living room floor where everyone is adorning hats from your closets - #4 is a keeper. (That song is so mistitled. Makes me the exact opposite...)

k'chai

the best part about fighting is the

category 3 women

I remember this quote as one of the most frequent to be uttered by my mother when I was growing up (this is the version I still hear in my head today, anyway): "In 5 years time, you will be the same person you are now, except for the places you go, the books you read and the people you meet."

Usually I think she used this phrase to support some sort of advice or opinion that I was choosing to ignore. But obviously it has stuck with me, and I thought of it today when I heard from one of the friends I made while I was living in Guatemala.

When I think back to that teaching program and the people I met, I group them into three categories: 1) 18 year olds on summer break; 2) teachers on summer break; and 3) 'other.' I must admit that while I met amazing people across all three of them and still keep in touch with many today - some of those category 3 people really intrigued me.

Maybe it was because I was a fellow category 3 person who was crazy enough to leave my job and 25% of my annual salary behind to travel 5,000 miles to a place I'd never been to do two things completely out of my comfort zone: teach children, in Spanish. So I presumed they must have some sort of interesting story about how they got there as well.

Maybe it was because even though we had slightly different reasons that brought us there, I gradually came to realise they were all variations of the same theme.

But most of all, I think it was because I found something in them that I don't think I was even fully aware that I was looking for... or that I needed. What did I find? Multiple people who seemed to be woven from the same fiber and who could really understand and relate to me. And on some level, were asking themselves some of the same questions I was asking myself.

And these people have changed my life, in big and small ways. Whether they know it or not (well - you do now!), just having met them and known them for a short time provided a sort of quiet inspiration that I carried with me long after we parted ways.

Little by little, I keep hearing from each of them with news of bravery they seem to have mustered up upon return - whether it be a career change or some other aspect of their personal life they tackled. And the one I got to keep in my day-to-day upon return - the one from London - what an incredible friend she was to me during one of the most difficult parts of my life... in ways I never expected or would have asked of her, in ways that I thought were reserved for really long- standing friends and family members who, in my case, were all thousands of miles away.

So, thank you, amazing category 3 ladies...

little angels, the rock-throwing kind

One of the reasons I like photographing children so much is the process of interaction and the challenge of getting them to open up to you. I love that even the shyest kids can go from 0 to 60, revealing all the ins and outs of their personalities, in only about an hour's time. (Provided I act like a complete fool around them, that is.)

I was thankful that the happy monk had a meeting at the orphanage on Friday so he took me with him and let me play with these kids all afternoon, and I was even more thankful that he stayed indoors. While I'm sure he would have cracked a smile at my ridiculous dances and funny faces - I suppose it is probably easier for him to take me seriously as a professional advisor without those images in his head of me acting like an overgrown kid.

Some kids are easy to read. Others aren't. That's okay, I probably identify with them more in some ways. This girl on the left won the most complex personality award, starting the afternoon by covering her face to avoid the camera, to happily dancing around and singing 30 minutes later, to finally throwing a rock at my foot by the end of the day....

happy monks in orange

What a contrast... one day I am working with uber-serious investment bankers in London and the next I in Southeast Asia, sitting at a meeting being led by a happy monk dressed in a bright orange robe, smiling and laughing, cracking jokes and quoting Buddha.

One of the things they always tell you as a disclaimer when you go away to do these things is 'don't expect it to be like home...it will be a slower pace than you're used to... it may take longer to get things done and be unpredictable...' Look, I get it - I get why they have to say this to some people. But they don't really need to say it to me, other than as a selling point. I hope it's different from home (that's why I bothered to get on a plane!). I welcome a slower pace (again, that's ideal - I'm not getting paid, remember?). And I'm fascinated by the differences - I suppose this is the reason that in the past few years, I can't seem to get enough of going to actually work in instead of tour other countries, whether it is paid or unpaid - for me it has proven to be the best way to break in and get to know the people and how things work. When I moved to London almost 4 years ago for my job, I realised that despite having lived in that city for 4 months (seriously, 4 months!) in my early 20s, I really didn't have a clue about England or English people until I came back 7 years later to work alongside them.


I have only had limited interactions with these people so far and to be honest, when they each went around the table to introduce themselves, I didn't always understand everything they were saying, and sometimes decided it would be more polite not to ask for clarification. But you know what? You can tell a lot about a person from observing his disposition, whether he is speaking English or Khmer. This is a group of very gentle and kindhearted people. And I really valued the refreshing genuineness in this comment from the monk who leads the organisation: in the presence of his management team of perhaps 10-15 other Cambodians, he welcomed me and thanked me multiple times for coming, and asked me to please be honest in developing recommendations as he knew there was room for improvement. He said that the good thing about their organisation is that everyone around the table has a good heart. But as Buddha says, we can't improve ourselves or others if we let the egos get in the way.

I had a lot of fun with the randomness of my first day with these people and I will likely never forget many of the small and funny moments, some of which were perhaps funny only to me, but funny nonetheless. Of course I didn't accomplish much in the way of 'transforming the finance and accounting department' - but I have hardly developed relationships with these people yet. That is always the cornerstone for any sort of meaningful progress. First things first!

a few rules

There aren't many rules in the developing world. Probably one of the reasons I like it so much. But there are a few.

1. don't drink the water. I never struggle to remember the drinking part. But it does always escape me when brushing my teeth. In Guatemala I just told myself this was 'building the immunity system.' Someone recently freaked out on me about this so I decided to try to be better this time. Nope, not working... some habits die hard when there is a tap and a sink right in front of you.

2. take your shoes off before entering the building. This one is unique to Asia. I still haven't gotten used to this to be honest. Walking around at 'work' today barefoot felt ridiculous (and dusty). But, when in Rome...

3. there always seems to be one and only one rule to the road in these places.... if it's bigger than you, get out of the way. I had probably way too much fun today getting around this town on a bicycle amongst the motorbikes and cars and tuk tuks and just about anything else you can think of. It's comical to watch and even more comical to be in the middle of. I was thankful for all those years ago in Chicago when my former sidekick taught me this very crucial lesson about navigating traffic when you are on a bike (to be honest, it was more like a lecture, as I was going so slow he lost me): just like in life, if you second guess yourself or hesitate you're much more likely to get runover. The only way to ride a bike in traffic is to ride it as if you have a pair. (Sorry, but I think that is a direct quote from this person... and Mom, calm down, this is a small town - no one is going that fast, and I was wearing my seat belt I swear. It's way too hot to walk.)

hi, please step into my office

This is the courtyard of Wat Damnak where Life and Hope Association is located.

Now, sometimes I see photos of people's travels and they look so magical I want to jump through the screen and transport myself there. So if you are anything like me and you are feeling like that idea sounds way better than sitting at your desk at work right now or whatever it is you are doing, do yourself a favor and picture me taking these photos drenched in sweat from head to toe (I'm not exaggerating), having to wipe it from my eyes to take a proper shot. Four years of mild summers has made me a wimp. There still isn't anywhere else I'd rather be, but... just trying to help.

last minute lady

I arrived in Siem Reap this evening and it's been an interesting past 72 hours... in my usual last-minute style I made it out of London with everything in order, despite a few hiccups, which are always to be expected. Highlights included movers who showed up 2 hours late (6 hours before I needed to be at the airport) and one last shopping trip on Oxford Street (3 hours before I left for the airport) - wow, if you really want a sure-fire way to make sure you don't get sentimental about leaving a city you love, go down there and walk in the cattle herds of tourists who are moving at a snail's pace, not allowing even a spare inch on either side of the pavement for those of us who live here and are in a hurry.... THEN - wait in a line of 20 people with only 2 people working the register. I avoid that area at all costs, so much that I ordered everything online 2 weeks ago. This idea seriously backfired on me as half the stuff never came. This added to my last minute list: 'sweet talk a colleague into sorting out returning my stuff when it finally arrives so I can get my money back'.

Yes I do tend to do everything at the last minute relative to what some people are comfortable with, but it works for me, and the beauty of travelling alone is that you get to do it your way. I was thinking about this as I was sitting at the gate before I boarded the plane. Question for you: are you one of those people who races to get in line as soon as they call you, or do you let all those eager people do their 'hurry up and wait thing', and then go after the line dies down?

You can probably tell from the tone of the question which camp I fall into. So I sat there until the end, even though I got upgraded and had some sort of priority boarding. I haven't flown Qantas Airways in a long time, or perhaps ever, so when the guy told me that he had upgraded me to 'Premium Economy' I didn't get too excited. I had visions of 6 extra inches of leg room, at best (not a huge selling point to someone who is 5'5), and maybe the chance to board the plane 5 minutes earlier.

Well, walking onto the plane dead last, as planned, feeling quite satisfied that I was travelling alone and could do whatever I wanted... I realised the joke was on me as I could have been sitting there for 20 minutes sipping champagne. Who knew Premium Economy on Qantas rivals many American carriers' Business Class... what is wrong with our airlines? It was a very welcome surprise.

So now I am here... I have tomorrow to explore and adjust and then I start working with this organisation http://www.lifeandhopeangkor.org/ on Thursday. I was placed there by an agency based in the UK called AFID http://www.afid.org.uk/. My primary objective is to see what I can do to help strengthen their financial management and accounting teams and processes... but I asked if one day a week I could go work directly with the kids and take photos, which they seemed to be fine with. As you can see, this is something that makes me very happy...

And so it begins...

role reversal

Less than two months ago I was sitting in my parents' living room with a seriously long list of unanswered questions about my future. Now, I'm not talking about a 5-year plan, I'm talking about a 5-month plan or even a 5-week plan. As someone who has worked incredibly hard to keep a pretty firm grip of control on my present and future life for as long as I can remember (I'm an accountant for God's sake!) this feeling was both incredibly refreshing as well as overwhelmingly daunting at the same time.

In that moment the only thing I really knew for certain is that my short-term lease expired on 18 April, and it was pretty clear to me that after that date there was a compelling force coming from deep within me that was not going to let me do anything but get out of London for a while. Get out of London and turn this period of change and uncertainty in my life into an opportunity to break away and go do something that makes my heart happy. You know, when life gives you lemons...

The questions (warning - reading this list may give you a headache): Should I quit my job and ship my stuff back to America... should I take the break my London employer offered me and put my stuff in storage in the UK... what sort of risks am I taking with respect to my right to work here if I take a leave of absence and leave the country and try to come back... do I want a long term career in the UK... do I want to make partner at my firm... if I come home can I readjust to American working culture... do I want to.... will Chicago seem small now in comparison.... but do I really think my lifestyle in London in sustainable.... Chicago is so cold, remember it makes your fingers freeze even through gloves in the winter... I have no family in the UK... why can't I find somewhere to volunteer my professional skills in a Spanish speaking country... research research research... how many months should I take off work...

Trying to answer the questions over the past two months: Advice, advice, advice from friends, family and trusted colleagues... 'don't try to make too many big decisions about your future right now if you don't have to, haven't you already made enough of those for now'.... thinking, thinking, thinking.... complicated visual maze starts developing in my head with 'if this, then that' arrows all over the place.... trying to control every single variable to make sure I don't close any doors for the future... hiring legal counsel to advise me on the immigration aspects...

.... and then finally realising this is a sure recipe for madness - to carry on in this manner trying to keep every door open with 100% certainty. It's time to just trust that if fate really wants me to walk through those doors when the time comes, then it will see to it that they are opened.

Proof of this transformation - my final conversation with my seemingly risk-averse immigration lawyer last Friday went something like this:

Him: (Long winded speech about the legal rules and how they have changed recently and all the various ways they could be interpreted....)

Me: (Finally cutting him off. Not usually my style, but this rambling is costing me 200 pounds an hour. This guy is honestly worse than me.) 'So, let me summarise: worst case scenario - if I get an immigration officer at the border who is having a bad day, or doesn't take a liking to me, or decides to take an unfavourable interpretation of these rules that are less than explicit, then I may be denied entry and possibly lose my right to work here because I left the country for so long. So what does that mean - what happens next after that? Will they let me back in to get my stuff at least? :) Fine, I will give a friend access to my storage unit just in case. I'll cross that bridge when I get there. I cannot control everything in this life.'

Today: I am happily sitting in the Bangkok airport, drinking a beer, waiting for my connecting flight to Siem Reap where I am going to work for the next 3 weeks... and I can honestly say in this moment that I am pretty relaxed about all those lingering questions and just excited about being here and excited about the possibilities. Thank God... it's taken a while for my head to catch up with my heart.

What a switch. I've spent most of my life trying to force the opposite. Here's hoping that this role reversal I'm giving into will bring some interesting discoveries.

hidden gems

It's my last day of work and I am cleaning off my computer before I hand it over in a few hours... it's a strange feeling to be honest. As I scour all my files to delete anything personal as well as salvage all the things I may need in the future, I am coming across some random things. As a lover of the written word I have always collected quotes all over the place... apparently that includes dumping them in word files on my work PC. I don't even remember creating this document but here it is - a few quips of wisdom that I think are worth keeping:

Grown-ups love figures. When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, "What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?" Instead, they demand: "How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?" Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince, 1943, translated from French

Always when judging
Who people are,
Remember to footnote
The words "So far."
~Robert Brault

Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted. ~John Lennon

In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest. ~Henry Miller, The Books in My Life

Never explain. Your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe it anyway. ~Elbert Hubbard, A Thousand and One Epigrams, 1911

Giving up doesn't always mean you are weak. Sometimes it means that you are strong enough to let go. ~Author Unknown

only time

'Who can say
where the road goes
where the day flows
only time'

That Enya song has popped in my head several times as I have been winding down my life in London as I know it and looking ahead to this next chapter which has yet to be written... in more ways than one. Not only has it yet to be lived, it also has yet to be fully planned. That's okay I think - you know what they say - man plans, God laughs.

I've pondered on how these two realities can coexist: I seem to be going full speed ahead in reverse of the proverbial 'American dream,' by choice - I'm 31 years old, not in a committed relationship with a man, nor do I have any realistic prospects of children in the near future, I am leaving my well-paid corporate job for 6 months, I'm in the process of unwinding my home ownership status in America and putting all the things I own (on this side of the pond, anyway) in a 15 square foot storage unit in London... yet in many ways, I am on the road to being happier and more at peace from the inside than I've been in a long time.

As I was packing yesterday, trying to discard as much as possible, I came across one of the most influential paperbacks I have ever read. It's by Ayn Rand - The Fountainhead, and I don't care if it's 'just a paperback' and only would cost £6.99 to replace. It still made the cut. It was a treasured gift, is marked up by me from front to back and I'll never forget reading it for the first time and how relevant so much of it was to my life at that point.

There are a couple passages from that book that I read almost two years ago that pained me to read because they hit a nerve, and ever since I have been trying to figure out why. I even taped part of it to my closet wall for a while. As time goes on I'm learning that they bear a distinct relevance to the inverse relationship I just described between this unwinding process and my level of personal happiness.

"Look at everyone around us. You've wondered why they suffer, why they seek happiness and never find it. If any man stopped and asked himself whether he's ever held a truly personal desire, he'd find an answer. He'd see that all his wishes, his efforts, his dreams, his ambitions are motivated by other men. He's not even struggling for material wealth, but for the second-hander's delusion... a stamp of approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded. He can't say about a single thing: 'This is what I wanted because I wanted it, not because it made my neighbors gape at me.' Then he wonders why he's unhappy. Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched. I think the only cardinal evil on earth is that of placing your prime concern within other men."

“That’s the sort of thing I want you to understand. To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That’s what everybody does every hour of his life. If I ask you to keep your soul, would you understand why that is much harder?”

that damn elephant

relationship (n):
1) the quality or state of being related; connection
2) connection by blood, marriage, etc.; kinship
3) a particular instance of being related
4) a continuing attachment or association between persons, firms, etc., specif., one between lovers

relation (n):
1) a logical or natural association between two or more things; relevance of one to another; connection
2) the way in which one person or thing is connected with another
3) the act of telling or recounting : account
4) an aspect or quality (as resemblance) that connects two or more things or parts as being or belonging or working together or as being of the same kind ; specifically : a property (as one expressed by is equal to, is less than, or is the brother of) that holds between an ordered pair of objects
5) a person connected by consanguinity or affinity : relative
6) a person legally entitled to a share of the property of an intestate
7) relationship by consanguinity or affinity : kinship
8) reference, respect
9) the attitude or stance which two or more persons or groups assume toward one another
10) the state of being mutually or reciprocally interested (as in social or commercial matters)
11) dealings, intercourse ; sexual intercourse


If you haven't gotten my point by now, you never will...

Even Webster, through his 15 various definitions, has alluded to the fact that they can be pretty bloody complicated from time to time.

So all I will say is that all the men of my past are all pretty damn amazing or they never would have been in my life to begin with. And any man I've ever loved... I will love for the duration, in some way. That's the way love works. So any reflection on relationships that I write about at this point has little to do with them or their flaws and everything to do with little things I've learned about... well, myself... relationships in general... and perhaps life as a whole. So, sigh, hopefully that elephant is feeling less neglected, I will write freely now....

shedding

'I've been born again and again and each time, I have found something to love.' - Gordon Parks

Is the heart a muscle that gets stronger every time it breaks, more capable of love the next time around? Or one that becomes hardened over time, resisting everything, in an effort to avoid future transformation, in an effort to avoid both the good and the bad.

Science's take: 'How a muscle responds to a repeated stimulus depends, to a large extent, on the inherent characteristics of the muscle itself.'

My take: Well, of course 'my take' is going to be more drawn out. No one has ever accused me of being succinct. But I have concluded that my heart's inherent characteristics must be strong.

I wasn't sure about this for a while. At one point I gave my father my toughest ice queen speech about how I was swearing off love and relationships. I think that during this fit of rage - channelled in a very controlled, articulate and straight-faced manner, but still rage nonetheless - I somehow summoned up every ounce of bitterness and disappointment that had been building up in me for quite some time and just projected it right on him. Perhaps I thought if I convinced him - the man who has witnessed and supported me unconditionally throughout all my heartbreaks, big and small for the last 31 years, and who knows how truly soft I am in my inner core - perhaps if I convinced him that I was strong enough to wall off my heart then I could also convince myself. Because there were moments when I really wanted to.

But I have finally accepted that not only would that be impossible for me, I also don't want that. The upside is just too good not to risk the downside. I'd do it all again, really, if given the chance. Maybe even twice, for the sake of the lessons learned.

It's taken me a while to get to this point... but somehow all the forms of good thereapy, whether that be books people gave me, pouring my heart out to friends or family over the phone, venting with good friends over several glasses of wine (umm... several times?), good advice I didn't want to hear because it was too painful to execute and therefore ignored the first, second, or tenth time, or, quite literally, my real-life therapist (some days I still can't believe I once thought therapists were only for truly crazy people, I swear that every penny I've paid that lady to put a mirror in front of my face and help me learn how not to be my own worst enemy has been some of the best money I've ever spent)... all those culminated into an epiphany one day that has changed the way choose to live my day every morning.

It was really just a simple agreement I made with myself to wake up every morning and follow three basic rules:

1) be authentic. be yourself. even when it pains you not to turn on the charm and be exactly what you know other people would want to hear or make them love you. because that is actually false and exhausting to maintain. we don't have time or energy for this.
2) you get one free pass to bring out the boxing gloves and use them on yourself, per mistake. get over yourself, God did not make you any less human than the next guy. again, we really don't have energy or time for multiple rounds in the ring.
3) no matter what we've been through, we refuse to play ridiculous games designed out of self-protection. if you feel something, say it. does that make you vulnerable, yes. but it makes you authentic. and ultimately being authentic is the best form of self-protection out there. had to learn that the hard way. see rule #1.

I guess it's true what they say... self-love is the best form of love out there and the best basis for all other forms of love... no matter how many years it takes us to get it right.

shine on

There is this SKY advert being aired a lot right now that always sucks me in emotionally. (Sorry, SKY advert is brit speak for a TV advertisement for the main satellite television provider in the UK - 'SKY'). Dustin Hoffman has this little 15 second speech and it goes like this:

'Stories. We spend our life telling them.
About this, about that, about people.
But some... some stories are so good,
You wish they'd never end.
They are so good, that we'll go without sleep
Just to see a little bit more
Sometimes stories bring us laughter
and sometimes they bring us tears.
But isn't that what a great story does?
It makes you feel.
Stories that are so powerful,
they really are with us forever.'

Depending on the day, it moves me in different ways, but always strikes a nerve... maybe because a lot of my stories and chapters have been closing over the past year or two and wow they were powerful but I wouldn't trade them for anything. And they will be with me forever, in a good way.

Music moves me like that as well. On some days over the past couple of years I have actually left my iPod at home, banning myself from music in an effort to tune out my feelings as well. But many days have passed since then - and many baby steps have gradually been taken in rejection of that mentality - not feeling is just not for me, I've always been someone who feels deeply, I just can't live any other way. It took me a long time to realise that it's okay to surround myself with people in my life who can celebrate and embrace that part of me instead of continuing to try to mold myself into something I'm not. I'll take the ups, I'll take the downs, bring it on.

How does one really experience life without all of the above?

In response to an email I sent to one of my dear friends a while back when I was in a pretty sad place, breaking some bittersweet news and how I was feeling about waving the white flag - expressed in a 'signature odd me' sort of way - think Mastercard commercial script, the end culminating in a big lesson (which was, of course... you guessed it, 'priceless') accompanied by a series of songs along the way for the things I just couldn't find the words for... well, this person responded in kind with a list of their own songs for me, and I've decided this one is one to live by... Eric Bibb, Shine On: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZvd_OZ_Lvs