They’ve got the power! No, they don’t…….

The other day I was talking with one of my friends about how hard life can be when you are in the process of changing it. Her life hasn’t been easy these last few years but now she is crossing to the sunnier side of the street. Hooray!

Every now and then we talk about stuff that might help her or are bothering her. Other friends call these jokingly our counselling session, but I don’t think they are. It’s all about giving her a few pointers and warn her about the pitfalls she can encounter. Little things like: keep paying attention to your routine the moment you believe you have reached your destination. Sounds strange but the moment you believe you are there, something changes and you start to forget all the things you have learned along the way. When you stop paying attention, you slide back to your original starting point and you have to start all over again (duh…..why do you think it’s called a starting point ;))

The other day we talked mainly about how others treat you when you are in the process of change. Almost everybody has an opinion and most of them are, to put it mildly, not nice. According to my friend the people around her have all the power, they can lift her up and get her down. I disagree with her. If you let others rule your world, you give them the power. However, when you don’t allow them to rule your kingdom, they have no power (over you) at all. Sure they are still going to tell you that you are doing it all wrong, but hey, that’s just fine! Smile and let them know that you are allowed to make mistakes; it’s all part of that great thing called life.

During my depression, people told me that I could never overcome it without drugs or professional help, but I did it. When I was on the up, others told me it wouldn’t last, but it did. And these days’ people are saying I have too much fun (does such a thing exists?). I shouldn’t go to festivals at my age, that’s for young people (so what is young?). But when I say “So I should stay indoors and wait for the day the grim reaper comes for me?” they say I am over exaggerating. I know I am not living an average life, certainly not a life that’s considered (by others) appropriate for my age, but I am enjoying myself immensely. So what’s the problem?

I told my friend to stop caring about what others think or say about her. In the eyes of a lot of others you are never going to do it right. There are so many people around us and somehow they all want you to be the person they want you to be (you have to live up to their expectation and you’ll have to match that mental picture they have created in their head). Only you can never be that person because everybody has a different picture. So you either need to become schizophrenic and create a gazillion different personalities or be just who you want to be. I stopped playing that/their game a long time ago and I choose to be who I wanted to be…. And that’s just plain old me. So ‘who cares’ what they think….if they don’t like me (anymore), their loss :)

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Reasons to be cheerful:
1. Life and everything in and about it. It can be as simple or complicated as you allow it to be.
2. Silly ideas. The other day I posted a Dutch 'thank you' note on my blog! Somehow that didn’t felt right so I’ve posted it on two other sites too. I'm not quite sure why I did that, but I have that funny ‘gut’ feeling that I needed to do that. So it’s done!
3. Funny comments on flickr like “I thought this was Chewbacca with sunglasses ;)” When I see things like that I can only Laugh out Loud!