This wealth drop comes as a result of a very interesting interaction with Naman, one of our readers from India, as we explore how to manage ups and downs.
Around when I turned 40, I had enough evidence that life was not a straight line going up, but a series of ups and downs. When we are up, we feel we have accomplished something, get a better view, and enjoy our contentment. Ahhh it is all about how “we made it”. When we are down, we feel incomplete, have lost our vision, and can’t understand why we are there. Ahhh it is all about “life is hard”. Looking at life as a series of dots of “ups” did not do it for me. I found that connecting the dots was a much better way of living my life. Staying up on the top is only good for a short period of time, otherwise we become arrogant and stop growing. Somehow we get the urge to explore other areas, even if it means coming down. Like the chaos theory that claims that the world evolves towards order until it can’t stand it anymore and explodes.
The problem when thinking in ups and downs, is that we miss the complexity of going sideways. So I was looking for another analogy and found out multidimensional puzzles? Have you ever worked on a puzzle? What is more enjoyable? The ‘moment’ when you are done or the “period’ where you are testing this or that, trying to find the best possible piece and realizing it has a perfect fit to then go to the next empty hole? Well, that is exactly what happens in life. You get the pieces all rumbled and scattered and life is but a journey to find the pieces and put them in the perfect fit spots… some pieces are there for no reason, simply because we can’t connect them.
Some people have a vision of their puzzle, and they move quite fast… until the chaos theory kicks in and mmmm we want to explore without a vision. Others go around and as they find a piece they put it somewhere, they are less efficient but they also reach a point where the chaos theory kicks in and voila, time to get a vision and move faster. Sometimes we throw away pieces, sometimes we even have to create them. (been there, done that)
Regardless of how we put the pieces in our puzzle one thing is sure: There is no use in trying thousands of times to put a piece where it does not belong!!! If the panorama changed, you are in a different part of the puzzle, perhaps the one you don’t know, perhaps the one you are comfortable with.
Your experiences and knowledge are the pieces already in your puzzle. Would you take them out? No way. What is new? What needs to be added? What direction do you want to take?
At the end, the fun part is creating the puzzle, not finishing it.
Here is to your game!
Alicia
PS: I’ll be going on a world tour in April and May, to Jeddah and Dammam in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Houston, Guatemala, Caracas, Maracay, Santiago de Chile, Montevideo and Buenos Aires. If you are in any of these places, drop me a line and I’ll try to meet with you or to get you a discount ticket to the open events or an invitation to the private ones. More to come as I go along.
PS2: tomorrow is my birthday, couldn't find a better way to celebrate than having my dream of a world tour done! that piece was a hard one!
1 comment:
It is about completing the journey and not the goal
I am only 18 and am in no way in any position to give advice or quote qords of wisdom.
Nevertheless I am a fan of poetry, and i would just like to quote a few lines from my favourite poem ‘The Journey of the Magi’ by ‘T.S Elliot’.
This poem by Elliot is a recount of the journey that the 3 Magi took to have a glimpse of Baby Christ. The poem specifically talks about the journey of the Magi. The 3 Magi left behind their luxurious and comfortable lives and undertook a gruelling and extremely difficult journey full of darkness and danger to have a glimpse of Baby Christ. They face numerous hardships and set- backs. But after months of struggle they finally reach their destination, and it is at this point that they say:
‘and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again’
-Journey of the Magi
The Magi battle all odds and reach their destination, but the feeling on arriving at their goal was just ‘Satisfactory’.
The Magi return back to their lands changed men. In the ‘process’ of reaching Baby Jesus they had died and been reborn. The whole experience had brought about a realisation. They had elevated to a new state of emotional maturity. They now return back to their homes changed men, they can no longer connect to their previous lives, they have this feeling of alienation.
The bitter journey was full of agony and pain and it had changed them fundamentally. They had died and been reborn. The feeling of exhilaration they had anticipated on reaching the goal was not so, and yet:
‘this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.’
-Journey of the Magi
...and yet, the Magi were ready to undertake yet another journey of change to rediscover themselves. It was the journey and not the destination that had brought about a change in them , it was the journey that decided the merit of the goal. The Magi were ready to once again undertake the painful process of dying and been reborn, because the satisfaction lay in the journey and not in the goal.
PS:
The poem ‘Journey of Magi’ was written by Elliot when he had undergone conversion of faith. Through the magi he symbolically talks about his journey from one faith to another. It is an extremely innocent revelation of his mental state during this mental transition. Elliot says that the process of conversion brought about a sense of satisfaction, and he was ready to re-do this painful process for it is the journey that is of importance. It is the journey that teaches us lessons and makes us they way we are, and not the goal.
The Journey of the Magi : Poem
"A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The was deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter."
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires gong out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices.:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
-Journey of Magi’
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