Fork in the Road

I am here once again.

In front of me, I see the fork in the road.

Fork in the Road

What to do?
Where to go?

Shall I go left?

Shall I go right?

…

How come life doesn’t come with a GPS?

Monogamous only by Choice

I was chatting a while ago to someone close to me whose relationship had problems and survived, as she says.  They got married, had kids, husband had affairs (emphasize the “s”), almost separated, and survived.  She told me that even in their age, relationships takes a lot of work to survive.  And then she said that age-old line that “men by nature are polygamous“.  To which I disagreed – in part.

True, men by nature are polygamous.  But, it is not only men that are polygamous.  We all are.  Though there are many who prefers being alone, we still need people to survive.  “No man is an island” as the saying goes is true, as far as I am concerned.  We start out in a family, where parents and siblings and a whole lot of levels of kinship are there to support (in their own way) us no matter what.  We go to schools to gain knowledge and socialize.  We go to work to earn a living, and meet up with colleagues.  We have friends in between.  People thrive in a support group, whatever that group maybe, or we don’t live at all.  People, I believe, are polygamous in nature.

Love is not most important

I can’t remember the exact moment or who I was discussing it when the idea of arranged marriages came up.  I think it was at work when an Indian colleague had to take a leave to meet his soon-to-be wife a few days before the ceremony.  I couldn’t comprehend how two people who met for the first time and wed the second time, to be married and stay married!  It was then that somebody mentioned that while the statistics of divorce, annulments and failed marriages continue to rise, arranged marriages tend to last longer than those who chose their own partners for marriage.   Unbelievable?  No, I don’t have the statistics to prove it, but somehow the logic is reasonable.  These people, who respected their family traditions, knew fully well that marriage needs work.  It is not about falling in love, and marrying because you love.  What happens when you fall out of love?  Marriage is not about love, it’s about commitment.   Love starts the relationship perhaps, but it’s the commitment that sustains it.  Love is just the cherry on top the cake called commitment.  And Bob Garon agrees.

The most important, most critical component in successful loving is commitment. Not love. It’s easy to love without commitment. People do it all the time—easy to love, to give of oneself for a while. But commitment implies bonding in such a way that one promises to keep the fires of love burning indefinitely.

Letting Go

I’m learning…

To let go does not mean to stop caring, it means I can’t do it for someone else.
To let go is not to cut myself off, it’s the realization I can’t control another.
To let go is not to enable, but allow learning from natural consequences.
To let go is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.
To let go is not to try to change or blame another, it’s to make the most of myself.
To let go is not to care for, but to care about.
To let go is not to fix, but to be supportive.
To let go is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.
To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes, but to allow others to affect their destinies.
To let go is not to be protective, it’s to permit another to face reality.
To let go is not to deny, but to accept.
To let go is not to nag, scold or argue, but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires, but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.
To let go is not to criticize or regulate anybody, but to try to become what I dream I can be.
To let go is not regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.

To let go is to fear less and love more.
Remember:  The time to love is short.

I love my job!

I had fun reading this :).  Well, somebody might have sensed my distraught and wanted me to laugh.  Just in time for the “back to work” season.

*~*~*

I love my job, I love the pay!  I love it more and more each day.
I love my boss, he is the best!  I love his boss, and all the rest.

I love my office and its location, I have to gave to go on vacation.
I love my furniture, drab and grey.  And piles of paper that grow each day!

One More Time

Somebody said:

One more time: Live life.  Make a difference.  Touch one heart.  Encourage one mind.  Inspire one soul.

One more time… give another chance.  Live life… despite everything that has happened, inspite of anything that may happen… make the most of what is here now.  Make a Difference… despite the call to respect the status quo, inspite of society’s norm… stand up, stand out.  Touch one heart… despite a cold heart, inspite of the cold words… love, without expecting anything in return.  Encourage one mind… despite a close mind, inspite of closed eyes… stimulate.  Inspire one soul… start with mine.

NYR for 2009: Live the real meaning of life

Keeping the new year’s resolution this year as simple as it can be – Live the real meaning of life.

What is the REAL MEANING OF LIFE?

Give more than you take.  Do your best to leave every situation better than you found it.  Seek beauty in all its forms.  Chase dreams.  Watch sunsets.  Endeavor to use more than 10 percent of your breain.  Don’t stifle your deep-from-the-gut, cleansing laughter.  Take a moment to ponder the enormity of the universe, then admit to yourself that you can’t possibly be th center.  Breathe deeply.  Swim into the dark water.  Let yourself cry when your body tells you to.  Love more.  Delight in silliness.  Don’t be bitter.  Forgive.  Forgive.  Forgive.

Sounds simple?  I’ll try to do my best – that’s all I can promise.

Closing Cycles

A few weeks late nevertheless, posted something.  It has been a long time that I’ve kept myself mum, trying to make good of what happened, answering way too much why’s and how’s.  Just in time for the closing of the year and the new year, I’d like to share one of the most used Paolo Coelho written works.

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through.

Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters, whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.

i deserve better

Somebody wrote… and I echoed…

I’ve made mistakes in my life.  I’ve let people take advantage of me, and I’ve accepted way less than I deserve.  But I’ve learned from my bad choices and even though there are some things I can never get back and people who will never be sorry, I’ll know better next time and I won’t settle for anything less than I deserve.

To Trust and Love

Jen, a long time blog writer who’ve inspired me in ways she’ll never know simply by existing, wrote her take on the subject of love and trust, rambling from the open question from Joni’s blog of a similar post:

Is it possible for a person to love another who is close to him or her, but not to trust anymore?

Trust for me is the ultimate measure of any relationship.  While I can pretend to love casual acquaintances and to some degree, friends, I can never lie for too long.  I am not that type to hang around people and pretend to care.  I am generally open-minded and optimistic on people, and that’s why despite my better judgement, I always give people N-number of chances.  My heart has been broken for weathering too many reasons and explanations and for simply surviving this long.  But I did have some relationships that I simply wouldn’t want to pick up again.  I do have my limitations to how many betrayals I can take, and when that limit is met, I know I have to pack my bags and leave.  I know my heart well enough to talk my mind out of leaving, but I’ll take my heart’s bet on it.  My heart can take much more than my logic would allow me to.  And as long as I love a person, I know that I can continue to trust him.

To answer Joni’s question, no, I don’t think it is possible for a long time relationship to sustain love without trust.  And this is just coming from me, and applies to me, and not from the general guideline of human living.  I have not yet met any scenario that I can put an exemption in place – be they be loving relationships with family, lovers or friends.