Robyn M Speed
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Journal of the Wandering Mind
- Archives I

A Layperson's View of Self Esteem

There are many theories about self-esteem, but, really, the only one that matters is: yours.

What makes you feel great? Because that is your route to finding your own self esteem.

Sometimes all it takes is one success to make us believe in ourselves. What if you don’t have that success? Find it! There has to be some challenge that you could take on. Something. Redecorate your lounge by yourself, learn to change the spark plugs in your car, learn how to bake bread, write a novel, sell a short story. Don’t make it something to do with your education or your job, make it something personal!

Why do I say don’t make it about education or your job? It’s not because I don’t recognise academic achievement, or believe that gaining a university degree is anything other than a huge success, or that I don’t value careers and promotions. But. Don’t confuse academic success with personal success, for my personal opinion is that the two are completely different affairs. Why? Think of your reason for seeking academic achievement? To please your parents, or your teachers, to outdo your friends, to get into a good college? How often do you do it to just for yourself? As youths we get so caught up in pleasing everyone else, trying to be what they want us to be. If we are lucky we grow out of that as we reach adulthood, but you would be surprised how many adults are still trying to live their lives to please everyone around them rather than to please themselves. It is a tragedy.

Career success? If it was done to please you and not to impress anyone else.

Do not define yourself by your job/career, for many people make that mistake: I am a lawyer, I am a doctor, I am an office manager, I am a carpet layer. Yes, be proud of your job, whatever it is, and do the job well, whatever it is. But do not limit yourself to that job. You are a doctor, yes, a poet, yes, but you are also much more than that!

Choose something to conquer, and when you have achieved that, know that you can achieve anything you set your mind to. I have a black belt in RyuKyu Kempo, and when I received that I knew that there was nothing that I could not achieve. I realised that my dreams were attainable, if I just kept going. Like I say: “I’m still chasing my dream, but I’m gaining on it!”

Many people quit and never know that they were almost at the finish line. For me that would have been like quitting RyuKyu Kempo at 1^st Kyu—and I would have kicked myself over it for the rest of my life.

To not try is worse than any imagined failure.

As you reach teenage years and adult years, try to live as the best person you can be, and know that you are being the best you can be. Do not condemn yourself for the times you fall down, for most of us do fall down, frequently—but we get up again, each time! And as you be the best you can be, and give life the best effort you can give, value yourself for that. Judge yourself for this and accept that judgement and not the judgement of people who seek to put you down and criticise you.

Accept only the highest value you place on yourself.
 

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The Mirror of Television

I watched ‘Felicity’ on television tonight. She was lamenting the fact that she felt so ‘old’, and wondering where had the three years at college gone?

I lamented her concerns as mine were ‘how can so many years have passed and yet I still feel so young (and immature)?’ How can I be almost 40 years old, when I feel like I’m still 23, like there is a whole future ahead of me?

Yes, there is a future ahead, but it is lesser than Felicity’s might be.

She has her future ahead of her and her dreams waiting to be discovered and made real--whilst I envy her the dream that all people do realise their dreams and make them come true.

The reality is: many of us, in our 40s, 50s and 60s are still trying to make those dreams come true.

Does our hope fade with each passing year of unmet dreams? Sometimes the hope does wane, and then we remind ourselves that there is not enough time left to be wasted on doubts, that we must believe in ourselves and our dreams. After all, this is what we are telling our growing children.

Felicity (fictional though she is) and I hold the same fear: what if we don’t make the dream a reality? What if we try as hard as we can, and still fail? How long should we keep trying before we give up? If we do give up, what will we do instead? If we give up the dream will we then just sit back, eat, drink, sleep, and wait to die? I am as afraid to give up the dream as Felicity is.

Why am I even discussing a television program? Because, whether we admit it or not, whether we believe it or not, fictional television programs are as real to us as the ‘real’ people in our day to day lives. Television inspires us, motivates us, awes us. (Please note that I am not referring to ‘reality’ shows, as they tend to just show us the ugly, pitiful, selfish side of humanity, and seldom it’s glory and bravery.)

Books, television, movies, art, they all inspire us. Sometimes we read a book or look at a painting and cannot even comprehend how the artist conceived such an idea, or how they formed the brushstrokes or words into such perfection. We envy their talent. We feel so amateurish in comparison. And yet, the only difference between them and us might be: they didn’t give up! They followed their dream and grabbed it not only with both hands, but with their teeth! As their passion flowed and they released themselves fully to their dream, the dream was let loose onto page and canvas and what flowed may have surprised even them.

An artist lays bare a part of their Soul on canvas, as a writer exposes their Soul upon the page. No paint stroke or word was ever laid upon canvas or page that did not carry some part of the artist or writer. Oh yes, we might pretend that we make it all up, that it is fiction and illusion. But that is a self deception that we hide behind. It is we who lie exposed upon canvas and page.

If Felicity is brave enough to lay her Soul naked upon a canvas, then she will manifest her dreams. But so long as she—or any of us—hide behind the fear of failure, we will never win. We will fail in our own eyes before we ever fail in anyone else’s.

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To Concede With Honor

I don’t like to admit defeat. 

This web site you are looking at is very simple. I decided it was too simple. I thought I should have a professional looking web presence, and set off on a project that was to last over a month before I conceded defeat.

When you give yourself a budget of $0 you discover that you can locate many resources on the www for free. I have searched for templates, banners, buttons and clipart. I came away with little more than a headache. The greatest find was Trickies homepages (http://home.cogeco.ca/~tickie). I then discovered that the intricacies of sorting out the templates and fitting things in to them was just too tricky and frustrating (clearly there is a secret talent that I lack).

Creating  beautiful web sites with frames all over the place, text and art inserted neatly and artistically is a skill that we can all master. But when we weigh the time investment and lost sleep, we have to make a decision: do we devote our life to our new pursuit? For me I had to decide what was more important, my own writing and projects, or the web obsession. Did I want a complicated site that I could not fathom and dreaded having to work on, that took several minutes for visitors to open—a site of such astounding beauty which visitors didn’t even stay long enough to see fully load.

(Confession: when I get into this we stuff I become totally obsessed and eat, breathe and sleep web templates, banners, and layouts. I just can’t sleep until something is finalized. Maybe I was born in the wrong decade!)

In the end I opted to appreciate simplicity. And to admit: I am a writer, not a web designer.

Perhaps the message in all of this is: colour is to be celebrated, and life is actually very simple, it is only we who expect it to be complicated.

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Why Do We Always Blame Other People?

This is the question weaving its way around and through my mind.

So far, I have no answer other than: we refuse to accept responsibility because it is easier to blame others for causing our reactions, rather than admit that we chose them. 

Look at Osama bin Laden, blaming everyone outside his country for its problems. Look at the Palestinians and Israelis, each blaming the other and refusing to stop the 'eye for an eye' way of life. Look at India and Pakistan. People blame others and take revenge because it is the easiest choice for them to make. They do not have to accept any responsibility at all.

How much more difficult for them to make a choice for peace, to learn to step back and understand why they choose anger, revenge and hate. How much more difficult to try and understand themselves. So much easier to blame everyone else. Does this make them strong? No. In fact, it makes them weak. The sane people of the world are not impressed by weak people too selfish to accept responsibility for their reactions and emotions. 

Somewhere, some time, the forgiveness must begin.

Who are the strongest men in the world? People like Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, the Dalai Lama. THESE are the strong people of the world. They chose peace. And they do not state that the price of that peace must be the deaths of children, women and men. They do not say that ten thousand deaths are acceptable. They do not say that ONE death is acceptable.

Humankind has such great potential! But so long as effort and money is poured into weapons and wars, that potential will never be reached. 

What can we do? You and I can choose peace. You and I can take responsibility for our emotions, our reactions to life and to people, and WE can change. And when enough of us make this step, we will be at the forefront of a wave that will sweep through humanity.

WE are the change the world is waiting for. Can we sit back any longer and watch the insanity of the world without making a choice for peace?

No, we can't.

When YOU live with peace, you make it easier for your brother to live with peace. And when you both live with peace, you make it easier for the entire neighborhood to live with peace. And when an entire neighborhood can live with peace, you make it easier for a nation to live with peace. And when just one nation can live with peace, they make it easier for THEIR neighbors...until the entire world lives with peace.

(I am by no means finished with this topic...but these are my thoughts for now.)

You are my brother
Your pain
is my pain
your suffering
is my suffering
your joy 
is my joy
your death 
is my death

 

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Life

Life

Lived in moments of joy
Or pain
Lived in moments of laughter
Or tears
Lived in moments of chocolate cake
Or cabbage

Some days our tears flow
We do not know why
Some days our heart sings
We do not know why
Some days our energy wilts
We do not know why

And some days
When the sun rises above the horizon
We feel hope
And we feel excitement for the day ahead

It is our choice to feel one way
Or the other

It is our choice what we bring into our life
This day
And tomorrow
And the day after

Dare we choose laughter and joy?
Or do we feel we should choose grief and sorrow?

If it is YOUR choice
What will you bring into your life this day?

 

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Back in the Temperate Zone

A month in New Zealand with family, friends, and winter.

I am very much a people person when I am in New Zealand, but in Singapore I seem to be very much a hermit. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps it is because New Zealanders go out in all weathers whilst Singaporeans go from air-conditioned place to air-conditioned place. We live so differently.

I drank buckets of tea with my family and talked for hours. I drank buckets of tea with friends and  talked for hours--till four in the morning (a personal best!)  That was what I had been missing: talking to people, being able to use my own language freely and have people understand my words. Whilst in Singapore I have to choose my words carefully because English is not the first language of most people. I don’t like having to choose my words, hence I prefer to stay home and not talk much. I am a people person and a talker, and a writer. In Singapore I write more than I talk.

I never realized how the country we live in affects us so much.

When we consider what it is in our lives that makes us happy, I have found that, for me, it comes down to two things: people and love. I know that I can go to my family and friends and ask for their help and they will not hesitate to help me. And they know that if they needed my help that I would not hesitate to step up to the mark. Have the people in my life influenced me? Yes, and so has their love. They have enabled me to give more of who I am. Of all that I miss about New Zealand, I miss the people I left behind the most.

So, here is it, a big thank you to the people in my life. Your love, your presence, your laughter, they are so cherished.

See you next June/July...

To gain from you
has not been my goal.
But, your love, your friendship
has lifted my Soul.

 

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Pause a Little Longer...

People come into our lives and often leave just as quickly. But despite the brevity of their stay, the impact can be long lasting.

I was invited to meet the friend of a friend, whose parents had come to stay. The friend of the friend was a beautiful, serene Indian woman, but it was her mother, a recently retired professor, who was to make a great impact on me. She is from India and though she did not speak much English and I did not speak any Hindi, she offered to teach me about Indian mythology (which her daughter would translate). She is an intensely spiritual woman, and it was the first time, since moving to Singapore that I had met anyone with a spiritual passion equal to my own.

She spoke briefly about the Indian way of life and told me that they know God is always with them, hence when they go out they always say “We are going…” instead of “I am going…”. This seemed very important, almost as if it was a key to a cupboard of information I had not yet found.

She did not know me, and it was her daughter who I had come to meet, and yet we seemed to bond through our spiritual passion. She offered me food and drink, offered to teach me about the Indian way of living, their mythology, offered to teach me how to cook vegetarian Indian food, and also offered to paint my hands with henna in the Indian style. She was not asking for anything in return, and yet was offering me all she could teach and all that she could do for me. I was, and still am, astounded by her willingness to share her Self with me, a stranger. She is one of the magnificent people who—if we are very fortunate—touches our life, and leaves a long lasting impression.

My point here is: pay attention to the people passing through your life. Ask yourself if you are rushing away from them when perhaps you should dally a little longer.

I will definitely arrange to meet with this beautiful Indian woman and her mother, and I will record whatever they choose to teach me, and I will consider myself greatly blessed that our lives have touched.

I promised myself, some time ago, to be more observant of the people and circumstances of my life—it is a promise that I am glad I made.

An opportunity missed is…an opportunity missed.

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Are We Brave Enough to Dream?

Why are we so apt to sabotage our own dreams?

Why do we expound great ambitions and then, with the next breath, list all the reasons why they can never come true?

Fear.

Fear.

Fear.

Because...

What if we discovered that 'the dream' of the dream and the pursuit of it, was what really compelled us, fulfilled us?

What if that pursuit, taking place in snatched moments of time, was made more glorious by the 'snatchedness'?

What if the long struggled for success that earned us the 'right' to work full time on our dream turned out to be a curse? What if it really was a dream best enjoyed in small doses?

What if we had given up a job we disliked to pursue our 'dream' fulltime only to have 'the dream' turn into the job we hate, the job we dread?

What if we sold our first sculpture, a work that we poured proverbial heart and soul into, and never found such inspiration again?

What if we sold a painting and then, believing we had finally 'made it', could sell no other? What if, on comparing our work to that of other artists, we found our paintings lacked originality and vibrancy, and were but flat representations of ordinary images--lifeless, meaningless?

What if after years working on our novels we finally managed to get one published and then another, and then the well ran dry, the inspiration thickened to pond scum and everything we subsequently wrote smelt so bad that even we ran screaming from the room?

What if our dreams were over in the very moment we believed they had come true? THIS is what holds us back.

How much easier to talk of the dream, to wonder, to imagine, to play at it--yet always holding back a bit, keeping just outside the range of complete commitment--than to admit our fear and, in spite of it, commit our 'all' to the pursuit of our dream.

How much harder to walk through the barrier of our fear, armed only with our faith, faith that we will nurture the dream to fruition.

How much scarier to give our all to the dream, to make it come true, and to commit to the life that follows.

Yet, we are afraid to live magnificently.

We are afraid to admit that we are magnificent and so are our dreams!

The question remains: Can we walk through our fears? Or is the barrier impenetrable?…

Do we prefer the romance of the dream,
over the glory of its manifestation?

 

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Looking at the World Through a Rose Colored Perspective

By virtue of what we have experienced, learnt and endured, we develop our own unique perspective on life. And those perspectives can both help and hinder us.

Having a perspective through which to view the world can assist us in understanding ourselves as well as that which we see. But, clinging too tightly to our perspectives can also prevent us from seeing a situation in all its clarity. There are times when we 'view' a situation and, through our perspective, judge the situation unacceptable and seek to extradite ourselves from it. Because we have locked ourselves behind the barrier of our perspective we do not see solutions, only avenues of escape. To see the solutions we must look at the opposite of our 'imagined escapes'.

Here's a theory: you work with some frustrating people, doing a job you've grown to hate, and you want to quit. But, you've always wanted to be healer. That 'dream' of yours is the key to your understanding, for I believe that the answer to our 'true perspective' is contained within our life-dreams, the things we long to do or be. Perhaps the necessity is to find that dream and from that perspective work out how what you are doing and 'where you're at' in your life, can be seen as steps on the path to your dream's fruition.

Let's say that your dream IS to be a healer. So you start studying healing, or reiki, spiritual healing, health and nutrition, energy meridians, anything you come across that relates to healing. Maybe you want to train to be a doctor, maybe you want to train to be a natural therapist. But you start taking those steps. You look at the people around you who complain of this ache or that, of the problems in their lives, and you start to consider what the cause might be. You wonder what it is that motivates people to behave the way they do and you wonder why their illnesses are occurring and reoccurring. Instead of finding your colleagues frustrating they become fascinating study material. You no longer hate your job, instead you see that job as a step on your path, and since you know that it is not a job you will be in for the rest of your life it no longer holds a sense of entrapment for you.

It's all about perspective. And to change your perspective, to step outside of it takes courage. For many people their barriers offer security and they dare not even imagine stepping outside of them. They hide behind them, some people sit on them, and the truly brave of heart and Soul step over their barriers and face the world in all its rawness.

An analogy would be to put on a pair of blue tinted sunglasses. Everything you viewed would be through those blue glasses, it would affect everything you look at, THAT is how a perspective functions.

We constantly tell ourselves, I am what I am and I cannot change, but such words are the Berlin Wall to all the magical possibilities we deny ourselves. The wall CAN be broken down. Our perspectives are only concrete if we allow them to be. Their true form is fluid. And what if we DID relinquished our hold on our perspective? How would our world change? What if you took off the blue tinted glasses and put on a rose tinted pair?

Nothing is as it seems. THIS is the truth that our perspective has denied us.

Nothing is as it seems, but your perspective will tell you that it IS.

It is not 'what' I see,
it is 'how' I see it.

 

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December - Month of Celebration and Woe

December. It is the most uncomfortable month of the year.

Why? Shouldn't Christmas make December the most magical month of the year?

Yes. It should.

December, the month of parties, present shopping (and, admittedly, shopping stress), turkey, ham, Christmas pudding and brandy sauce, and those neat fingers of Christmas cake! The month when families come together to celebrate the season of giving (and receiving), to celebrate the birth (whether or not it is truly the correct birth day) of one of the great World Teachers.

But.

Decemeber is also the month in which we look back on the New Years resolutions we made in January. And we regretfully concede that much (most) of the list remains un-done.

What happened to the year? Who pushed the fast-forward button?--for only unnatural interference could have seen every opportunity to manifest out resolutions race by unseen!

We had time to tend to our jobs, to tend to home and family, to party with friends, to attend to chores, to watch telvision, listen to music and eat chocolates. But, apparently, we did NOT make time to attend to our resolutions.

December, our month of celebration, and our month of shame.

 

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Live Great and Never Let Your Dreams Die


Why do we like such programs as 'Buffy, The Vampire Slayer' and 'Xena, Warrior Princess'?

Because they show these women living FULLY! And we wish, secretly, that we had the guts and the strength to live so fully. We look at the mediocrity and menial monotony of our lives and cannot imagine ever living so FULLY!

And yet we dream...

We DREAM of living lives full of passion and action.

We DREAM of pursuing our goals, or bringing them into reality.

But, how do we make the move from mediocrity to magnificence?

We seize our dreams with both hands, and we don't let go! We do ALL we can to bring those dreams to fruition.

Why do you think you have even a single dream, hope, goal? It is your life inspiration, your guidance, your motivation.

Our dreams steer us, and each task, no matter how minor and menial it may seem, is another opportunity to express our greatness. Not only do we intend to make our dreams come true, but we intend to show our 'greatness' in the process. We accept that there are no mediocre moments, only great ones!

We have longed to live FULLY, but were afraid, so we hid behind our walls, our barriers, and we pretended we were content. We let our dreams slip away until they were but niggling thought-mice that, now and again, scampered through our minds, reminding us of their existence, but never slowing down enough for us to see their true colour.

No more!

Seize on your dreams! And be patient in the pursuit, for it does not matter how long it takes, it only matter that you do NOT give up!

View every moment of your life as GREAT, and as a part of the pathway towards your DREAM'S FULFILMENT!

Live greatly in the pursuit of your dreams.
 
 

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Once a Week...
 
Once a week we should take the time to review the preceding six days, deeds committed, words

spoken.

Once a week we should decide if, in those preceding six days, we have come even remotely close to living the Highest Expression of Who We Are.

Why?

Because so often we accept a lesser version of ourselves than we should. Instead of asking 'more' of ourselves, we ask 'less', we give 'less', we live 'less'.

What do we do when we discover that we have lived 'lesser'?

We decide if we are content with that 'lesser-ness'.

If we are? Fine.

If we are not? We make some changes in our life.

Are you happy, for example, with your level of patience? No? So, what is it that makes you feel 'impatience'? Can you consider each such situation as one lesson, as an opportunity to 'learn' patience, to improve your level of patience? Of course you can.

The next time a situation arises in which your impatience also rises, FORCE yourself to remain calm, no matter how difficult it seems! FORCE yourself to be rational and to stay outside of any emotion. Respond in a helpful, sensible, calm manner.

Should it be easier than that? Yes. But, most likely it WILL be difficult for the first few times. After than you will KNOW that you DO have the ability to be patient, and you will TEACH yourself to be patient. And then there will be NO force. It will be easy for you to be patient in situations that would, in former times, have inflamed your IM-patience.

So, once a week, take the time to review the preceding six days, and ask yourself if you are satisfied.

We try
We fall down
We get up
We try again
We fall down
We get up again
We try again

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© Robyn M Speed