Live!

Pause In The Air

Leaving for another business trip, I was all stressed and worried. Finishing arrangements of the things left behind, making sure everything is set for the things awaiting at destination, juggling obligations, preparations, time and agendas. 

Two hours before my flight, all I wanted was to pause for 5 minutes and breath. Press the pause button and stop the time, stop the motion, stop the worries. But I had a suitcase to pack and a plane to catch.

Then, two and a half hours later a magical thing happened; something I very rarely do: I pressed the pause button. I put my handbag at the closet and let it there with all the files, the papers, and the notes. I laid back, closed my eyes and let myself surrender to the absolute nothing. No in-flight entertainment, no music, no work, no reading. Nothing. Allowing my body and my brain to enjoy the ride at 36000 feet altitude making it my own empty space.

It was a short flight, just 3:40 hrs. But, it was a great flight of a 250 minutes pause interrupted only by the note of this short text at my new toy, sorry business tool called tablet J

There's no in-between!

Information vs Attention

We are often concerned about the incredible amount of information that is there available online, waiting for us to reach it with just a click: how do we manage it, how do we keep up with it, how do we make space for it. Technology is developing to allow us to save time and energy to get the information that we need or prefer at the time.

But what about the information that we already have there, in front of us, on our screen?

Last Wednesday I posted on Facebook:

In the corridors of the Attica Hospital and from the lips of a retired psychiatrist: "There are no excuses. There is only Injustice and Stupidity."

Bitter truths at the most critical moments…

The post was in Greek. From my 956 (at the time) FB friends, let’s say that at least 300 are Greek speaking. The post was read by at least 17 persons who “liked” it. Three of them contacted me to ask me what happened.

You see, the post includes a quote and some information, like the place where the quote was heard.

I thanked one of the friends who contacted me to find out why I was at the hospital, mentioning that only a couple of people had asked me. He wrote back that social media has brought us superficially closer, when indeed we have lost our humanity.

Part of me thought that he is right. Part of me wanted to find a good excuse (paradoxically).

What if the crisis, the daily struggle of people to survive, has made us too “busy” to process everything we hear or see?

What if, in the midst of all this information we choose to keep what makes better sense, what makes us feel good, what helps us to keep going?

Finally, what if it is just in human nature not to pay attention to all the information, but just part of it?

In any case it made me wonder about how selectively we read information and how much of it we miss each time. 

Embrace Change

In my profession I hear a lot about change. I also hear a lot about the times of radical change we are living in.

Humanity has never stopped living in times of radical change.

Change is constant; it is given. Change could just as well be the only constant in our life. We do not drive change; we live in it. We do not facilitate it; we navigate through it.

Heraclitus quoted that

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.” 

Change is here. Whether we want it or not, we are living organisms and every cell in our body, every thought in our mind, every beat of our heart is different day after day. It’s evolving, it’s worsening or it’s progressing. It is taking the natural course of life.

And this organism operates in another organism - a social, political, economic and environmental context - that is also under constant movement, under constant change.

My question then to all of us is the following:

What if instead of surrendering to the change that defeats us, we take a stand and we fight for the change that will have the best impact on humanity? 

No Walled Journey

If life is a journey, then in our lives we follow the path of this journey. And either we know exactly where we want to end and we follow the path that will take us there, or we follow our intuition and as Antonio Machado says we make our path by walking: caminante no hay camino, se hace camino al andar.

In any case, there are times when we find ourselves facing walls in this path. And some people stop and stare at the walls intimidated, disappointed, or afraid. They wait for the walls – the obstacles – to go away. Others might wait for someone to come and “save” them from what seams a dead end or a hopeless situation.

People, it’s just a wall. Stop staring at it and just jump over it! Climb if you must or tear the damn thing down. No one tells you that you cannot do it but you. There are no hopeless situations unless you determine them as such. There is no obstacle that can’t be overcome, no problem that can’t be solved and no wall that can’t be jumped.

So, next time you are faced with a wall, just jump over it and continue the journey. 

Dutifully Cheerful

By far, one of my favorite actors of all time is David Niven.

When asked why he seemed so incredibly cheerful all the time, Niven would reply:

"Well, old bean, life is really so bloody awful that I feel it’s my absolute duty to be chirpy and try and make everybody else happy too."

Now, anyone that knows a few basic things about his life, knows his life wasn’t all rosy, that he had his share of tragedies.

That made me go 18 years back, when I expressed my desire to do my practice with clinically depressed patients; a fellow student asked “why you, such a cheerful person want to do that?” ignoring my sense of duty as Niven had expressed it.

Maybe the best and bigger smiles come from the cheerful persons who have experienced the “bloody awful” side of life and work hard to ensure the happy side of it for others.

So, next time you see someone cheerful do not assume that his life is problem free. Maybe, it’s just someone fulfilling his/her duty ;) .

My wish for 2012

If I had just one wish for the New Year, and for every new year, every new day, every new moment of our life, it would be this:

 

With life as short as a half taken breath,
Don't plant anything but Love.

Rumi