17

TRUST, FREEDOM, AND WILD DOGS BARKING IN OUR CELLARS.

SALLY: “I’m sorry Harry, I know it’s New Year’s Eve, I know you’re feeling lonely, but you just can’t show up here, tell me you love me and expect that to make everything alright. It doesn’t work this way.”

HARRY: “Well, how does it work?”

SALLY:  “I don’t know but not like this.”

HARRY: “Well, how about this way. I love that you get cold when it’s seventy one degrees out, I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich, I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you’re looking at me like I’m nuts, I love that after I spend a day with you I can still smell your perfume on my clothes and I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of the life to start as soon as possible.”

                                                                           —When Harry met Sally, 1989, Rob Reiner.

FOR those, like Yours Truly, who live in the stretch zone, New Year’s resolutions are a total waste of time. I’m constantly collecting information that commands my attention. I process what it means and what to do with it, and then I organize the results. Some requires an immediate action, so I do. Not next year, nor even next day, but NOW. Other demands time for a better understanding. So when the right moment comes, I put the plan into action.

Throwing away the resolutions, I think it would be more useful to reflect on the things I’ve learned in 2011.

So here we go. 10 things learned in 2011.

1.- OVERDOSE OF PATIENCE. Two people1, who don’t know each other, have told me that I’m very patient. I looked up the word in the dictionary, “bearing provocation, annoyance, misfortune, delay, hardship, pain, etc., with fortitude and calm and without complaint, anger, or the like.”

I learned that my fortitude and calm attitude stems from my level of awareness. The more aware I am, the more patient I am.

2.- TO PROVE I'M TRUSTWORTHY. When the other day someone, who had asked me references five months ago, told me, “I don’t need anything; I trust you,” I learned that it’s not enough to know I’m a trustworthy person. I must prove that.

3.- SOME PEOPLE CAN KILL THEIR PARENTS FOR MONEY. Literally. In the movie Wall Street, Lou Mannheim tells Bud Fox “The main thing about money, Bud, is that it makes you do things you don’t want to do.” It’s right for those who have no values (or money is their first value.)

This year I suffered a betrayal. First, my heart missed a beat, then I felt vulnerable, and a wave of sadness came over me. I learned that one can wear a mask for a while, but the mask will fall sooner or later. And the best way to cope with it is to leave, silently, closing the door behind you.

4.- TRUST LIFE. You know what they say, ‘When one door closes, another door opens.” I totally disagree.

In fact, when one door closes, more doors follow suit. And it happens up to the point of wanting to throw in the towel. You think it’s unbearable and unfair. But there’s a turning point when you surrender to whatever comes to you. You stop fighting, and just surrender to it. In that moment, a little window opens and a fresh air helps you to breathe. Life is testing our will all the time. I learned to trust Life.

5.- ALLOW MYSELF TO MAKE MISTAKES. I usually share my thoughts with my mentor. Not long ago, my mentor gave me this priceless advice: Allow yourself to make mistakes.

I don’t pretend to be perfect. However, I like to challenge myself. I am a risk-taker. I learned that making mistakes comes along with taking risks. Only risk-takers make mistakes. Through mistakes, one can learn. And ultimately only risk-takers win.

6.- RELATIONSHIPS ARE IMPORTANT2. When you’ve been on your own for very long time, you can bear loneliness quite well. In fact, you can even love that loneliness. But as, Sigmund Freud said once, “Love and work are the cornerstones of humanness.” Now I understand love as an intimate union where two people are true to their own path and surrender to their relationship giving to each other and expanding their ability to love unconditionally. And I humbly learned that I had not been ready for a deeply loving relationship till now. 

7.- CREATIVE FREEDOM. Recently I’ve been asked how my experience as a self-published author has been so far. I learned creativity requires total freedom. It starts with a message that comes from my inner being and I surrender to it. Then I wonder. I explore. I discover. I create. And I offer my creation. The purity of creation stems from total freedom.

8.- WILD DOGS BARKING IN OUR CELLARS3. We all have wild dogs barking in our cellars. Some of us have confronted them. Others fear to do that, and they hide them. So the thing is, at the least expected moment, they can bark at others. I come into terms that writing is all about exposure, but I won’t fall into that trap. Most likely because I can’t bark.

9.- KEEP FOLLOWING MY HEART. Call it craziness, call it bravery, but I have no alternative. I learned that only a fulfilled life is a live lived. I want to keep having a big smile on my face.

10.- KEEP LEARNING. MOST IMPORTANT. If you ask me to choose one thing I learned (or I’m learning year after year), I would choose "to keep learning." Never stop learning.

Happy 2012 to everyone!

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1 I gratefully accept to receive feedback from others. I can learn a lot about myself.

2 The blog post # 15 “A dinner, a flamenco show, and Love in Paris” also posted on other forums has been the best hit of all times. The result of the opinion poll about if women should ask men out for the first date, indicates that the vast majority voted “No, men should make the first move.” ‘Thanks all for sharing!

3 Most likely it was coined by Friedrich Nietzsche.

Copyright © 2011 by THE PYTHAGOREAN STORYTELLER. All rights reserved.