"I'm busy mending broken pieces of the life I had before" - Unintended, Muse
Dreams are built from clouds, never set in stone.
Mine are ever-changing, but not ever-lasting.
To me, dreams are like hopes, they're the ideal for the future, not the goal. My dreams are not my aspirations. Dreams are just fantastical hopes that bring smiles to a rainy day.
Aspirations should not be built from clouds. Goals should be carved in stone, not sand. The thing with clouds and sandcastles is that they're easy to change, to mold, and to break. Any time you don't feel like following up, with a few sweeps you can cover your tracks and pretend you never had any such plans.
But not stone, you would have to break the whole thing. Imagine breaking the tablet with the ten commandments--oh, they would know!
(Who is they, you might ask? You. To me, you are they. But I am your they. Sometimes I might not be, sometimes you might not be, but in the end everyone else is they to you/me.)
What am I going to do? I don't know. Because I don't have goals set in stone any longer. Whatever writing I had lightly etched on the surface from my indecision has long eroded. I can barely make out what I had written (...what did I want to do again?) and I don't really care to recall. I think what I had chosen for myself was largely based on others' expectations and I would like to stop doing that. I would like to stop caring about what you think.
I think that there are moments of fog wherein I lose myself, when I am alone, there are also moments of clarity. I have decided many things in just a few weeks, and they have been issues that I feel like I've been grappling with for years.
Like the question of death. Have you ever thought about death? I remember thinking about death when I was about eight years old. I wondered: why is everyone afraid of death? And I saw why, I saw ugly fear staring at its aging reflection in the bathroom mirror. It was unbalanced, disproportional, black, crow-like, and had one large eye that turned around to look at me. It scared me, and I became scared of death as something connected to that image. Now I think back and I realize that was not death, that was the human fear of death. That atrocity was just the fear of a person who doesn't understand the beauty of aging (how much you change from your experience), and the simplicity of dying. I mean really, why would you spend so long worrying about something that only takes an instant? It's like spending months worrying/studying for a test that only takes 45 minutes--you don't catch me doing that, do you? So why would I spend years fearing death? You tell me how it makes sense to you and we'll talk then.
So now I know that if I were to die in an hour, I would have no regrets, no attachments to this world. I would not worry, because I know you will survive without me. I know the universe will take care of things. I know that death is the inevitable end to an old cycle.
--
Or value. I don't want to buy something nice to show you I can buy something nice. I want to buy something nice because it makes me feel good. It doesn't make me feel good because I think you'll envy me, or because I think it's the latest fad. No, it makes me feel good because I genuinely like it, and picked it out of thousands of things I could be using instead of it. This I have been waiting to realize, and I think I finally got it. I no longer desire luxury products that have their logos pasted all over them, nor am I interested in the newest cell phone that will only be trumped by the one coming out next month. I only want to own the very best (which I determine, not you or some bribed critic), that suits me well and will last me until I decide to change everything.
So now I am careful of what I buy. I have gone through purge after purge of my closet and I still have too much that I don't want. It's hard letting go, but I think I am slowly getting there.
--
And it's not so much that I have less expectations, I still demand from myself, but now there's a slight hint of compassion. I give myself more leeway than before, yell at myself less, and there is just more compromise between my real self and my ideal self. I feel better as a result. I also worry a lot less about people not liking me, people being angry with me, etc. I've noticed that when working with over 200 employees not everyone can possibly like you. Some hate you on sight, just like on campus, only you actually have to communicate with them. So all I have to do is take a step back, and I'll see the city lights shining behind the ugly suburbs (note how we have no trees here)--Ahh...perspective.
Mine are ever-changing, but not ever-lasting.
To me, dreams are like hopes, they're the ideal for the future, not the goal. My dreams are not my aspirations. Dreams are just fantastical hopes that bring smiles to a rainy day.
Aspirations should not be built from clouds. Goals should be carved in stone, not sand. The thing with clouds and sandcastles is that they're easy to change, to mold, and to break. Any time you don't feel like following up, with a few sweeps you can cover your tracks and pretend you never had any such plans.
But not stone, you would have to break the whole thing. Imagine breaking the tablet with the ten commandments--oh, they would know!
(Who is they, you might ask? You. To me, you are they. But I am your they. Sometimes I might not be, sometimes you might not be, but in the end everyone else is they to you/me.)
What am I going to do? I don't know. Because I don't have goals set in stone any longer. Whatever writing I had lightly etched on the surface from my indecision has long eroded. I can barely make out what I had written (...what did I want to do again?) and I don't really care to recall. I think what I had chosen for myself was largely based on others' expectations and I would like to stop doing that. I would like to stop caring about what you think.
I think that there are moments of fog wherein I lose myself, when I am alone, there are also moments of clarity. I have decided many things in just a few weeks, and they have been issues that I feel like I've been grappling with for years.
Like the question of death. Have you ever thought about death? I remember thinking about death when I was about eight years old. I wondered: why is everyone afraid of death? And I saw why, I saw ugly fear staring at its aging reflection in the bathroom mirror. It was unbalanced, disproportional, black, crow-like, and had one large eye that turned around to look at me. It scared me, and I became scared of death as something connected to that image. Now I think back and I realize that was not death, that was the human fear of death. That atrocity was just the fear of a person who doesn't understand the beauty of aging (how much you change from your experience), and the simplicity of dying. I mean really, why would you spend so long worrying about something that only takes an instant? It's like spending months worrying/studying for a test that only takes 45 minutes--you don't catch me doing that, do you? So why would I spend years fearing death? You tell me how it makes sense to you and we'll talk then.
So now I know that if I were to die in an hour, I would have no regrets, no attachments to this world. I would not worry, because I know you will survive without me. I know the universe will take care of things. I know that death is the inevitable end to an old cycle.
--
Or value. I don't want to buy something nice to show you I can buy something nice. I want to buy something nice because it makes me feel good. It doesn't make me feel good because I think you'll envy me, or because I think it's the latest fad. No, it makes me feel good because I genuinely like it, and picked it out of thousands of things I could be using instead of it. This I have been waiting to realize, and I think I finally got it. I no longer desire luxury products that have their logos pasted all over them, nor am I interested in the newest cell phone that will only be trumped by the one coming out next month. I only want to own the very best (which I determine, not you or some bribed critic), that suits me well and will last me until I decide to change everything.
So now I am careful of what I buy. I have gone through purge after purge of my closet and I still have too much that I don't want. It's hard letting go, but I think I am slowly getting there.
--
And it's not so much that I have less expectations, I still demand from myself, but now there's a slight hint of compassion. I give myself more leeway than before, yell at myself less, and there is just more compromise between my real self and my ideal self. I feel better as a result. I also worry a lot less about people not liking me, people being angry with me, etc. I've noticed that when working with over 200 employees not everyone can possibly like you. Some hate you on sight, just like on campus, only you actually have to communicate with them. So all I have to do is take a step back, and I'll see the city lights shining behind the ugly suburbs (note how we have no trees here)--Ahh...perspective.