We are Asking So Much of Love

After a long day out of the office, having tension headache because of skipping morning run, nothing offers me more peace better than sitting down on a new cafe with a very impressive internet connection & a cup of hot chamomile tea. I'm just plain grateful.
I've been spending some time reading Elizabeth Gilbert's novel revolving around marriage titled Commitment. Written after Eat, Pray, Love, basically it was about a skeptic who is looking for deeper answer about marriage and easing her fear of commitment, post her spiritual journey to Italy, India, and Indonesia. I love how Liz writes, but not really praising on her way to find enlightenment. Not because of anything, simply because that doesn't fit me.
Well, I'm dealing with bad times too but until now it hasn't crossed my mind to ditch my current partner or leave my job in search for something that can fulfill me. Or maybe I just don't have that kind of courage.

I'm still on the chapter two, but the chapter one really got me. It is titled Marriage and Expectations. In that chapter, Liz explained how she, well, later we can correlate, that we are asking for so much of love. We want our partners to inspire us, we want them to be the seed of our happiness. At first, we think that is a simple request. We ask a little. We want to be happy. We want to be happy because of you, our partner, without realizing it really is so much to ask for.

Our modern society now pushes us to look further out of something that might not change from some years a go. Back then, women might find having secured partner who is financially reliable as enough. Compared to current situation, it was easier to quantify, it was easier to achieve, too. Now, we demand for happiness, soaring love and joy that we hope we can find from our partner. Little did we understand that happiness, when relied on to other person, is never simple. It cannot be measured, pretty much abstract. That is why, we are all asking so much of love, to be complete, contented, and happy because of our significant other.

I'm not suggesting you to drop down the expectations. That is us, we were raised and grown with that. Believing we can achieve high, yet we also sacrifice the contentment for the sake of it. Based on that fact, I try to shift my perspectives of love through releasing my expectations of joy from it. Not that I don't want to be happy, I just don't want it to come only from my significant other. I don't wanna get into false trouble from asking so much from the wrong thing. Anyway, maybe happiness can be much simpler and easier to feel when we ask it from ourselves..and a cup of hot chamomile tea after a long day at work.





FPL

Running in Void

Having daily fitness routine helps me a lot going thru uneasy feelings. You know being 23 is hard when you are hard on yourself, the biggest challenge always comes from our own doubts and critical thinking.


Whenever I'm sad, I know running and yoga always can be my savior. Melancholy cannot befriend healthy, powerful body though sometimes the sense of burden and difficulty to face the day are still there, haunting me. That's the left brain doing its job, though. And I'm not blaming it for being so active. It has been doing its wonderful job since I knew I had it. It helps me through, to settle a wonderful job-full of new things, not boring, and a bunch of great coworkers-, to create something. Yet, sometimes it haunts me with overworking for nothing productive, let's call it overthinking, over-analysis, and worrying, which are all exhaustive.

I spend my morning at the gym running for 5 kilos while listening to John Mayer's Continuum. It's been 10 years since the album was launched, I still like John Mayer to bits, and the songs? The songs soothe my uneasiness. I'm far from feeling alright but I still can run and I'm deeply grateful for it. Some mornings are more difficult to deal with compared to other mornings. I keep reminding myself that my left brain is only doing its job, and yes, chill, everything's fine.

Vulnerability to Flaws

Queen B says it all in her song, Pretty Hurts, that perfection is a disease of a nation. To some people who live with perfectionism, that can not be more true. Last week was pretty rough for me. Starting on last weekend, things feel like going downhill and I, myself, fail to take a look with bigger perspectives. Thank God, everything later on feels much better after some deep reflection through company of my beloved ones, family and lovers.

Without blaming my parents, I grow up with touch of perfectionism. My mother is a major perfectionist, she puts all dinnerware, basically everything, in order, that makes her of course the best mother to me, since my home always feels like home... I always find everything easily. She lives with her standards, it passes on me, the sense of guilt and attachment to make all things perfect. Makes everything go according to plan. And it is very hard not to be it. Growing up with perfect scores, live was so simple back then when all I have to be is just a prodigal kid. Acing school, acing college and all of organisations. Life, now, is different. There is more room in which out of my control, many variables that I cannot assure how it will turn out no matter how petty I plan. Dealing with people who are uneasy and not amusing at all to deal with. At this point, I just dig in that my perfectionism is more holding me back rather than pushing me forward.

The sense of being in control gives you power, but the truth, the only thing you can control well is only yourself. I keep reminding myself to be more accepting to flaws and all vulnerability that I carry, and slowly at a time let loose of all things that are out of my control; the first and foremost is other people's behaviour. Sometimes I realise I easily let other people upset me. When they act not like what I think, when they do not deliver what they should deliver, when again..things cannot go according to my plan. It hurts me. Not literally, but I allow it to put a pain on me.

Yesterday I strolled down Aksara and found a very good book with one on point passage;

Your outlook on life is deeply entwined in your propensity for success. Miserable blowhards can achieve, however they still wind up miserable. That's not success. Success is doing what you love and being happy about it. To learn how to get a better handle on your perceptions, emotions, and behaviour, it is useful to look at how you think.

As September starts and reveals one by one all questions I've been wondering, that passage is one of the answer. In this matter, perfectionism gives success turmoil that does not enhance the impact. An important note to wisely leave it behind and try to fall in love with the dynamic of imperfection..


Have yourself a restful weekend.

FPL