On pointing fingers

I believe that pointing fingers is wrong. We should be able to take responsibility for our actions and not blame others for challenges, problems and mistakes. Somewhere I heard that "If you take your hand and point with your finger you will notice that every time you point with your finger there are 3 fingers pointing back at you". It was probably somewhere on the internet. Where else?

There are some questions I'm asking myself lately: Do I tend to blame others for things that are in fact my responsibility? In the last couple of months I blamed a lot of things and people for challenges I was facing. I blamed the university a couple of times, I constantly blamed the bernese students for being lazy and irresponsible, I blamed companies. I never blamed my team mates because they were absolutely great, a huge inspiration and I learned a lot from them. But other than that there was quite some ranting going on. On the other hand I am totally aware of things that went bad because of me, what mistakes I did in terms of planning, what things I underestimated and which things needed just one extra second of thought in order for them to work out, but which I refused to give them. So yeah: I think that I take responsibility for my actions. But then the question is: What is the difference between blaming others and refusing to take all the shit on yourself?

I guess I could put it a tad more eloquently but if you feel offended it's my fault.

Labels: questions

posted by Yavor @ 3:21 PM
3 comments

Social Masks

This is a term which is following me through the last days. Why do we all wear them? What is it that stops us from being authentic? We don't even see them as masks anymore. It's something completely normal. I was thinking a lot about this in the last time. My personal conclusion was that being authentic is the source of personal beauty and the source of beautiful relationships. Still we are playing roles. At least the bigger part of us. We are a certain person in one situation and in another we are totally different. We see those masks everywhere. Imagine a person passes you by. A person that you know from somewhere. Let's say from a lecture. Or you have written a paper for university together for example. Still. Sometimes (very often) it happens that this person doesn't greet you. Doesn't even smile at you. Heck doesn't even look at you. Pretending not to be seeing you. This seems to be something completely normal at least where I live right now. Pretending to be something else is a social mask. I have done it as well. You surely too. Why do we do it?
For myself I had the feeling that I'm not wearing a mask for quite some time now. To be honest I feel good about myself. I don't care what people think about me. I know who I am, what I'm good at and what I'm not so good at. Today something weird happened though. I had a short presentation in front of my class to invite the people to a project of my LC. It was surely not my first attempt in public speaking. Done it a lot. So I should know how to do it by now. Today I wasn't prepared at all (I should know better...) and then I looked at the faces. And I had a complete blackout. I totally forgot what I wanted to say. So I started talking without any structure, repeating myself constantly, missing all the key points and making every stupid mistake one could possibly do. It felt embarrassing. I asked myself if maybe I hadn't done more harm than good with this presentation. After the presentation I felt this terrible insecurity. Like I'm in the middle of my puberty again. I had forgotten this feeling. What happened afterwards? I immediately put on my social mask. During the brake I was smoking my cigarette in a really "cool" manner. Alone. Didn't want to see anybody. Pretended that I don't need to see anybody because I'm so damn cool. WTF? Apparantly I put on a social mask when I feel insecurity.
But why did this pattern show? Could I avoid this by preparing better? What about the people wearing masks all the time? Are they feeling insecure? What is the source of this insecurity? Is it biological, personal, social? Is it possible that my mask was that I'm not wearing a mask? Ok this is getting way to much...
Learning point: Authenticity is not something you find at some point and can keep forever. Authenticity needs to be taken care of. Let's forget all those irrelevant questions from above then. My only question would be: How can we nurture and cultivate our own Authenticity?

Labels: questions

posted by Yavor @ 4:14 PM
8 comments

All Is One

Ok some days since I'm back home. I keep on asking myself questions...

I was driving on the highway. Speed limit 80Km/h. So I drive with only 80Km/h. This guy behind me gets really angry. He starts to push and push and then he snakes me making a sign with his hand giving me to understand that he thinks that I'm crazy... At this very moment I was his own personal enemy. Frankly I don't really care what people think about me but this made me a bit sad. I asked myself "why". What is his problem and why does he waste energy on making signs with his hands and cursing around. As this would change the world and make it a better place...
Consider that I just spend a whole week with 130 people from over 60 countries. I worked in a team of 13 people from over 14 nationalities. We performed pretty good I might say. No hatred whatsoever. Just understanding. Even without words. Why aren't we able to understand each other and to share in the real world. This common understanding that I'm talking about at the conference was not a product of the environment. I believe that we have this beauty inside of us. We exist because of it. But it showed because of the environment. Why does it show only in certain environments then? How can we create such environments for everybody? Not just for 130 people? What does it take? What has to be done?

Why is this wombat cleverer than us?

Labels: questions, random, updates

posted by Yavor @ 2:08 PM
2 comments