I can’t help smiling whenever I hear that phrase. It makes me think of some motivational speaker or life coach in some movie, I forget which, screaming ‘feeeeel your feelings!’ A few weeks ago I thought all those were hoaxes. It seemed strange to me that anyone would pay some stranger oodles of money to tell them what is basically common sense.
But then again, common sense isn’t always common … and I’d willingly spend millions on a shrink with a good leather couch.
Lately, I’m into New Age, which means a lot of things that I previously considered silly are now making a lot of sense. K6 will click at this, because, as he says, ‘It is not logical to perform the exact same tasks or receive the exact same stimulus in the exact same conditions and get a different result.’
Yeah, he’s nerdy like that. I like nerdy. Feticiously so.
No, it’s not a real word.
Anyway, one of the New Age thingimies is giving me trouble, and I was reminded of it here. It’s common sense that we should not compare ourselves with others, but it’s really, really, really hard not to.
One particular area that baffles me is the dream job. For example, my dream job would be hosting a rock show on Capital or X-FM. So it is difficult for me to understand Zain giving that up for a stint at CNN. Yes, I know CNN pays oodles more money, and it’s so cool seeing her up there on that screen, but for me, that’s like a step backwards.
I suppose it’s that her path is different. For her, radio was just a step on the ladder to CNN, same with many recording artistes who end up on film. For politicians, writing a book is a step to the white house, while for me, writing a book is the white house.
I sometimes toy with the idea of releasing a one-hit-wonder-type rock track so I can get a radio job, so it amuses me that some people do it the other way around – using their radio jobs to launch a TV/movie/music career.
I’m a full-time editor – part-time-writer, but I am moving more towards writing. It pays less, but it’s so much more fun! So, again, I am utterly confused by successful writers who just want to edit. How now? And why?
Walschism [again, not a real world, just a label for my favourite New Age guru, Neale Donald Walsch] advises that we should never envy another person’s success. He also says we should not pity them or celebrate them, because we don’t know what their path is.
I may be drooling over so-and-so’s V8 thinking he has it made, when perhaps his desire is to own three V28s, and so for him, that’s like a mkokoteni or a tuktuk.
Or like the video for All American Rejects ‘Gives you hell’. One guy has the perfect suburban life – blonde spouse, pretty house, fish tank; the other guy has the perfect rock star gig – mansion, Megan Foxish girlfriend, groupies and afterparties. Yet all each guy wants is the other guy’s wife life.
Imagine a person who is javving or biking. He whistles at a passing BMW, and the BMW driver responds by saying the BM is like a … Vitz in his eyes. Wouldn’t you want to pluck the guy’s eyes out? Wouldn’t you think he was totally dissing you? Or being unforgivably arrogant?
Yet he is simply being honest.
We all have different goals in life, different measures of success. So it’s safer not to focus on someone else’s success. For one thing, it’s terribly frustrating, leads to murderous thoughts, and can’t be defended as a crime of passion. And for another, you may be busy envying their queen sized mansion when all they want is a one-dollar salary and mud-thatched hut with wi-fi.
I mean, think about it: Obama, Bill Gates, the Dalai Lama and Oprah walk into a bar…
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In a kind of related thing, New Age and The Secret suggest I should always be aware of my thoughts and feelings.
That’s not always easy for me.
I have a PhD is overthinking, but I don’t always know exactly what it is that I am thinking. I’ll be sitting somewhere with my legs crossed and my fingers in a root mudra with this spaced out look on my face, and if you asked me what I was thinking, I’d have no idea.
The Secret’s answer to that is to forget the thinking and just ask what I’m feeling.
Er … not helping.
Many times when I feel like that, it easy to talk things out, or write things out. And so usually if I spend some time with the relevant K15 and they talk me through it, I can figure out what the ‘thought’ is. But my K15 are human too, so they’re not always here.
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When I’m around certain people, I feel tense, uptight. I have no clue why, but it’s not a feeling I enjoy. The weirdest thing is there are about five of them, and every time I’m with one of them, I think of the other four. Yet they have no relation to each other. It’s like they’re sitting on my chest and I can’t breathe. Weird!!
A year ago, I would have blamed demons or negative spirits, but today, I’m just furrowing my brow, wondering why I react this way, and debating on whether I should just call them up and ask them what they put in my oxygen.
Hm.
Yeah, that’s probably not a very good idea.
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You know the way you’re pregnant, and then suddenly every woman you see is expectant? Or you buy your dream car and the next day, everyone in the jam has the very same model and colour?
The same thing happened when I pierced my nose and grew my dreads. Before, it seemed unique, but after, every third person was a bull-ringed rasta.
[Incidentally, why is it then when a dreadlocked person walks by, people shout ‘rasta’ but when a bald/braided/blonde/curly kitted/tonged/badly weaved person walks past, nobody shouts ‘weave/kipara ngoto?’]
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I’ve made a major decision in my life, and suddenly, I am bombarded with people who have made the same decision … and failed miserably!! It’s actually pretty scary.
Logic would say I should rescind my decision, but unfortunately, that’s not really an option.
I think the reason I’m seeing so many failures is because I have an intense fear of, you know, failing. I am the type that never tries anything unless I am absolutely sure I can pull it off. I do the research, find resource people, read all the manuals. If there’s even the slightest doubt, I back way off.
Which means that at some point in this process, I was sure that I would make it.
Like attracts like. My fear is calling more thoughts of fear, giving me more reasons to wet my pants. I need to find my confidence again. I need to stop tapping all this negative energy and find me some success stories. Some kind of Chicken Soup for the FOF-fing Soul.
Or maybe I need to just stop believing every bad thing I read… even if there’s an awful lot of it online.
There’s an idea … I could just stop reading stuff online.
Hmm. Why do I suddenly feel like an ostrich with its head in the sand?
…Holly came out, Billy got paid,
but Jenny got pregnant the first time she got laid…
All my rage
Sits inside
When even the finest things
Are leaving you hollow
♫ Hollow ♫ Better than Ezra ♫