forgiven

The hardest thing to do for yourself is, really, to forgive yourself for the mistakes you have made.

I have found it really difficult to do that. And I must do it, for the sake of sanity and the sake of health. bitterness can rot the bones and give you cancer. Did I mention before that when I started showing my grand dad a lot more attention and love by action, his cancer actually went down one stage of severity?

If there is something to learn from, I would think that bitterness kills us inside internally. I must forgive myself and not hold the bitterness about me…

joker

Probably one of the best movies I have watched this year, so far… The Dark Knight. The portrayal of the Joker’s psyche and character was well scripted and acted by the late Heath Ledger.

Interestingly, this is the scariest movie I have ever watched. The ramifications are serious. I have to sort them out. The Joker represents a system, a school of philosophy that is almost enticing. Batman represents another, though not entirely opposite. Jim Gordon represents another system, another school of philosophy. The movie portrays these themes very well.

I guess it sounds over done for me to say that the Joker has always been a favourite villain of mine. My reasons were my identification with his name, as well as some of his antics. Things have changed since, but the fondness might still be there?

What I liked about the movie is the realness of conflicting values. Ethics that may be hard to uphold, and portrayal of humanistic difficulties in times of stressful situations. The movie left me drained and troubled. It made me think of my own values and how I have conducted myself. Great movie, good drama, enough of everything for everyone, except I think kids might get affected by the violence of it. I mean really young kids…

Think I will put this movie as one of my favourites together with: Fight Club, Memento, Requiem For A  Dream, The Matrix, The Usual Suspects, and American History X.

vested authority

Another conversation yielded how people can view and how people can express what they believe.

The scenario is that the top man of the company/organization has left the charge of its operations to his deputy in his absence. How his deputy express this duty to his colleagues and subordinates can yield the stance he is adopting. Here are two different ideas:

“These are the orders of our boss, and I am just performing them just to get the job done in accordance to what he wants.”

vs.

“Boss has given me the authority to lead the team to do it this way. It is his preference I am following.”

Are they different?

bicycle of laments

Every now and then, I would have this “feeling”.
Feeling of hopelessness, feelings of regret, feelings of worthlessness.

Sometimes it is a lack of purpose in my life, sometimes it is a loss of purpose, many times it is a lack of fulfillment, sometimes it is a misunderstanding of fulfillment.

My experiment is to see how often is this cycle. How long I take to get out of it. How I got out of it, and what are the possible triggers. this is one such post to mark the awareness of this feeling.

making sure you are in the right place

I like this quote:

It constantly reminds us that our way of seeing the world is firmly located in the culture that we live in, and that everything we understand is filtered through our own perspective.

This keeps me afoot when I step into the role of a person helping another in need. I am one guilty of thinking that everyone understands my perspective. Narcissism maybe? Or just inability to mentalize?

this appointment

I sense from my own body the frustration and sadness.

it is interesting how it this manifests itself into actions. Spending some money on shirts which might be needed for work, or not. And purchasing an extremely comfortable pair of jeans for what I would see as an exorbitant amount of money Of course, everything is relative.

Now that I have admitted to my emotions, I think I can think more clearly, and work out a plan to avoid a situation that evoke such emotions again. After all, this situation could be seen as my fault. Of course, there is always that self-blame that could bring murkiness to the actual situation.

I believe that there is a need for me to honour the authority that has been delegated for me to submit to. It is not going to be easy, I guess it never has been. But it is definitely worth a shot, and since God is with me, who can be against me?

Yet, one cannot help but think about authority being possibly erring. Should clarification be approached or should performance just shine so that a previous review becomes an obsolete piece of document?

Challenging the right and wrong

Conversation that force me to re-think my values, my position, my stance, my beliefs, my ideals, my ideas, my logic, and my world, are usually welcomed in my life.

Had one such conversation like that recently.

A gay friend brought up an interesting point for me to consider. He said,

“You do have the inclination to the fact that sex is not right before marriage. How would present your beliefs to someone who does not think so?”

This immediately challenged my thoughts. My personal belief is that sex before marriage is not a good thing. This personal belief was based on an experience many moons ago.

In any case, his question led me to think how I could open up the conversation with a person who might think otherwise without imposing my own beliefs strongly, such that the conversation becomes a defensive dialogue on both ends.

These are my thoughts:

And the truth is, I can’t remember how I worked this out. Ugh

Yardstick?

Something I read that I find a possible yardstick of measurement.

People who are in very close relationships with others are more likely to understand the other person’s aspirations. This may mean that the effect seen in this study is reduced in the case of close relationships.

While the presentation on the blog is not really about relationships, yet I find this quote a gem for me to ingest and digest.

I do notice that with the people I am closer to, I really do know their aspirations. Some times, I also find that I seem to be more interested in friend’s aspirations than they are themselves! I can guess that this is only because my idea of success is that it goes in line with what you have been purposed to do in your life.