Who're the aces in your book, Sir... Mam?

Who are the aces in your book?

Often it happens that we misuse and even abuse our biggest life asset: time. We find ourselves putting on the backburner what we could do right away. This particularly with spending time with family and loved ones – the aces. Not so strangely surprisingly to us, we get a rude awakening whilst on a wasteful path devoting our precious invaluable hours to the wrong people. People who wouldn’t care less about us even if their life dependent on it. Basically, we do find ourselves at a juncture in our lives spending time with people who don’t matter, don’t add value to our lives or the lives of those close to our hearts, or even worse, they simply sap all the right attitude and life out of us.

It’s not such a bad idea to sit back one afternoon and really ponder: ‘who are the aces in my book? Who are the people who truly matter?’ And, in fact, you could even ask yourself, as I’ve been asking myself this past weekend, ‘which people in my life can add value I to? Who can I make a difference in their life with my precious time?’ Doing this equals respecting your own time.

In that way, with that focus, one can be able to determine who they spend their quality time with without being headed for a rude awakening. You can determine whether you’ve been throwing your invaluable asset down a hopeless hole that shouldn’t be dug in the first place. This with a person who wouldn’t give a dime whether you spend time with them or not.

So, who are the aces in your book? You don’t have to pick them. Don’t tick and cross out. I allowed my heart to see those individuals and direct me to the important ones. The ones who smile when they see me. The ones who believe in me. The ones who feel I have a purpose on this earth and are ready to assist me in fulfilling it, even if I don’t even know as yet what I’m supposed to do. They say “it can be done Izz. You can do it”.

And these very individuals are the ones who allow me to do the same in their lives. To make a difference in my own little way and they say “thanks Izz. I really appreciate”. And I’m not only humbled by that I made a difference, but my heart is heightened to a trance dance because they said ‘thank you. I really appreciate it’.

You must see to it that you don’t waste your time with the people who only manage to find reasons to rub of their life sapping attitude. They tell us that life has nothing to offer us as much as we have nothing of value to contribute to it. That we’re just cruising by this planet waiting for the end of our days. Don’t collaborate with this parasitic pack to slowly and silently suck life out of you. Allow your heart to illuminate the names of the aces. And then double their seven star treatment to fourteen – and watch what happens.

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The source of today's personal and commune conflicts

I was experimenting with my stumble tool of stumbleupon.com, what an amazing resource. The websites and blogs that I've discovered since trying out this tool have let me to bits of extra useful knowledge. And a moment ago I came across this, which provides deep insight into the personal and commune problems experienced today:

The paradox of our age

• We have bigger houses but smaller families;
  more conveniences, but less time.
• We have more degrees but less sense; more knowledge but less judgment;
• More experts, but more problems;
• More medicines but less healthiness.
• We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble in crossing the street to meet our new neighbour.
• We built more computers to hold more copies than ever,
  But have less real communication;
• We have become long on quantity,
  but short on quality.
• These are times of fast foods but slow digestion;
• Tall mean but short characters;
• Steep profits but shallow relationships.
• It’s a time when there is much in the window
  But nothing in the room.
  
  His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

Think upon this if you may.

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The law of karma - good comes back to good

You know what, life is beautiful when you take care of the small things. The small things that matter that is. It makes it all worth the while to walk this earth amidst the trials and tribulations that instill shiverous fear in us. On 25th June I wrote an entry called "Say hello to someone different today and tomorrow". That stuff isn't bullshitism. That stuff about remembering your friends and thanking them for being such. About warming someones heart with a good but genuine gesture of love. About remembering the people who helped build your character along the way, in their small or big ways, and saying to them "thank you". Because the truth, the undeniable - albeit somewhat ignored truth - is that as you walk this earth as the person that you are, you carry with you in your character the marks of those who participated in crafting you. Or to be more specific, they participated in helping the genious and greatness in you come to dance.

Why am I saying it works and it's imperative? Because I tried hard as I could to live up to it. I did say the good hellos, I helped the colleague, the stranger, and I appeased and in fact visited and lunched with at least one of those who had most hurt me. And believe me, the calls I made to the teachers in my former schools and my university touched hearts - and the reciprocating "thank you, you made my day" humbled me more than it did its receiver. And I was surprised that the receivers said that at the drop of our telephonic conversation, they have a special, long-waiting call to make.

All this beautiful karma tapestry is simply explained by what I came across on Deepak Chopra's wap on my phone, chopra.com, wherein it is quoted as 'Spiritual law of the day': " The Law of Karma... Every action generates a force of energy that returns to us in like kind. Choosing actions that bring happiness and success to others ensures the flow of happiness and success to you."

Go start a revolution. Or is it 'loveolotion'?

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Life's tough

I wonder if the meaning of life is 'up and down. Bad and good. Happy and sad. Hot and cold. '

It seems, from what I'm feeling now, that it's all about such contrasts. And it is for us to strike the balance. To keep on fighting for an equillibrium. But yes, it's not that easy. Easier said than done they say. Your life is life because there's a host of other people around. And that's why it's hard most of the time to strike a sound equillibrium.

Life life life. I'm gonna live you anyways.

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Beauty and the goose, or is it the beast?

The tooth fairy is still having a go at my front teeth. Like really giving them a serious goose, kicking it to the middle of the nerve - which Dr Sic said will be operated into numbness tomorrow at 10am.

And here I'm. Instead of saying a prayer over the forthcoming op, I'm having joy salivating over what The Seatle Coffee Co. beautifully called a 'Triple Chocolate Chilli Tart'. What a sugarrative and prettily designed cake it is - unfortunately, it doesn't taste as beautiful as it looks (talk of beauty outside, isn't beauty inside reflected).


Anyway, I'm washing it down with a tasteful Caffe Latte as my ever wondering mind perambulates (as Fred Khumalo would put it) about how ugly I've been for the past seven days. Ugly as a goose trying to stage a dance in muddy waters - it will end up looking uglier.

That's not to suggest that ugly people are like geese. But surely, I hated my face when it was disfigured by the tooth fairy. This made me wonder then, how do people who, compliments of conventional wisdom, are dubbed ugly feel for the rest of their lives. Especially knowing that change is not near, except for those with fat credits cards and medicacl aids to afford them aesthetological refigurement. Ok sorry, that means plastic surgery.

I don't even have a right to tag anyone as ugly or liken them to a muddy goose. But capitalist TV producers have taught me that there's 'in deed' the beautiful and the beasts in this world. And that's a pity that everyone looks at people through the eyes of the pop-tv images - make it American images at that.

Before my triple dose Gen Payne prescription from the anti-tooth fairy kind doctor, I looked horrible. Ugly. And my smiles didn't stand a pint of chance in a monkey or goose contest. That's when I realised that being ugly can really confine you down the lower radar of the social ladder.

Let's face it. As people, on average, we succeed due to our looks. We got our looks to thank for the pretty partner we have. The cute kids we are blessed with. The bigger upmarket houses we occupy in those 'golden corridor' suburbs (as David Bullard put in his weekend column). This also goes for the the uber-friends we enjoy, the less laboursome jobs, associations and all that uber-blah blah blah crap that we define our lives with.

And in our lives, first impressions last long right? Isn't it possible that the beautiful people - the non-geese - enjoy the quality of the incentives of the first impression that is forged by their beauty? And by the same token, that the ugly people, the goose, get punished for looking less than the blessed? In my mind, as sensitive a topic as this is, it is true. It holds water - not an ocean I know. But some good drops of liquid. And all these thanks to the television imagery of beauty vs the beast - wherein beauty carries the praise flay, and beast the laughable stalk.

I wouldn't, and you shouldn't pretend to, doubt that beautiful people get often promoted at work. Get hired faster than the goose. Get hotter hubbies or wifies. Look better in any masterpiece or crap cloth they wear. In my mind, and yes the latte and the triple chocolate chilli tart are speaking in concert with me, it does hold.

Why did I choose this topic today? Well, I just didn't have a good past week as I thought that I would be disfigured for life before that Gen Payne prescription - and I was trying to ease and acclimatise to the less pretty boy/beast tag. At the same time, I had drawn parallels between death and the healthy life. And again, I had thought a lot about happiness.

Which draws me back to the latte. When I served it, I popped my sugar sachets open and my attention was interested by the quotations at the back. Those Hullets sachets confirmed what I always pondered about regarding happiness:

Happiness is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by little advantages that occur every day - BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Happiness is a direction, not a place - SYDNEY HARIS

Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination - RAY GOODMAN

From contentment with little comes happiness - AFRICAN PROVERB

My own: Happiness is not beauty of the body. It is beauty on the inside.

So hey, regardless of what the looks are. Goose or pin-up masterpiece, beauty won't follow automatic. Beauty rages from the inside and will show on the outside, sizzling like the foam of a perfectly boiled caffe latte. It we shouldn't be fooled by beauty or tricked by ugliness - you'll be surprised of the ocean of happiness soaring from the inside.

That's why I wasn't really sad about my disfigured face.

Beauty and the beast? Beauty and the goose? I think don't draw your reality from the television images of what is beautiful and ugly. Draw your own. I just did.

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire