I am upbeat. I am positive. I am going on holiday next week. I got the email from British Airways with my pre-flight details tonight...my heart smiled. But I have taken a complete beating in the last week. Everyone is on edge at work - tired, frayed souls listlessly wandering the halls. And so it means there is a little bit of angry-end-of-year syndrome in everyone. And boy - I have been on the receiving end of it in the past week.
Don't get me wrong. I am sure I have been passing out my own frustration too - I can feel my tolerance levels gently going down the toilet...but eish, I have taken a ROYAL beating. And today was the straw that broke the camel's back. Today I just could not hold back when the beating came. I cried. Like a baby. Mostly out of tiredness, partly out of sheer f'd-offness and a little because the anger and irritation need to come out somehow, anyhow. So the tears of just sheer irritation came a running.
One thing I realise in the last few years is the general acceptance with being sublimely accepting of being average. Of doing things ok. Not badly, not brilliantly. Just ok. I battle to identify. I am just NOT hardwired for half measures. Never have been. Never will be. I found myself thinking tonight when I was waiting for the bus - 'I just cannot comprehend average'. I operate in a world of ABSOLUTE black and white when it comes to the way I operate...not grey. Not shades of grey. In the way that people wonder things - like how do people murder...or how do people stop talking to their siblings for the rest of their lives...I just cannot identify with doing half a job. I do not understand AVERAGE. I do not understand (as in my brain just cannot even begin to wrap its head around) how people are ok with being average. Doing things in an average way. Being ok with half a job. Half effort. Half the energy. Half the enthusiasm. Half the passion. Just a life of half.
I have been conditioned into leading a full, rich 100% life from birth. A life where you speak the truth. You are honest. To a fault sometimes. You do something properly OR not.at.all. A life of absolutes and opposites. Yin and Yang. On and Off. Not a little bit on or a little bit off. A 100% full tilt, engaged with life head on, many miles an hour life. I know I am a little much to handle sometimes, that I am opinionated and challenging. That I have an overwhelming way of being in the world that some people embrace and others just can't handle. I am a handful. But as I get older I become more and more self-aware about these attributes. I know they exist. But I also come to accept them. Sometimes begrudgingly, other times with grace. I am who I am. I am the product of a lifetime of experiences. I am as much a conglomeration of nature as I am of nurture. And as I grow older, I choose to apologise less for the boundless enthusiasm I show to be the very best human being I can be each and every day. Somedays I muck it up. But even on the 'mucked-up' days I am reminded that I woke up that morning wanting to be the very best human being...and I just lost my way momentarily. I wake up to be 100% of myself...not half myself, not a reflection of the person everyone else wants me to be. 100% full-on, Gina-magic. And for that I WILL NOT apologise.
And so I am reminded of the amazing poem from Kahlil Gibran below...so very apt to remind me that I can exit this royal beating of a week with dignity and pride. I am living my FULL life and I will continue to do so.
Don't get me wrong. I am sure I have been passing out my own frustration too - I can feel my tolerance levels gently going down the toilet...but eish, I have taken a ROYAL beating. And today was the straw that broke the camel's back. Today I just could not hold back when the beating came. I cried. Like a baby. Mostly out of tiredness, partly out of sheer f'd-offness and a little because the anger and irritation need to come out somehow, anyhow. So the tears of just sheer irritation came a running.
One thing I realise in the last few years is the general acceptance with being sublimely accepting of being average. Of doing things ok. Not badly, not brilliantly. Just ok. I battle to identify. I am just NOT hardwired for half measures. Never have been. Never will be. I found myself thinking tonight when I was waiting for the bus - 'I just cannot comprehend average'. I operate in a world of ABSOLUTE black and white when it comes to the way I operate...not grey. Not shades of grey. In the way that people wonder things - like how do people murder...or how do people stop talking to their siblings for the rest of their lives...I just cannot identify with doing half a job. I do not understand AVERAGE. I do not understand (as in my brain just cannot even begin to wrap its head around) how people are ok with being average. Doing things in an average way. Being ok with half a job. Half effort. Half the energy. Half the enthusiasm. Half the passion. Just a life of half.
I have been conditioned into leading a full, rich 100% life from birth. A life where you speak the truth. You are honest. To a fault sometimes. You do something properly OR not.at.all. A life of absolutes and opposites. Yin and Yang. On and Off. Not a little bit on or a little bit off. A 100% full tilt, engaged with life head on, many miles an hour life. I know I am a little much to handle sometimes, that I am opinionated and challenging. That I have an overwhelming way of being in the world that some people embrace and others just can't handle. I am a handful. But as I get older I become more and more self-aware about these attributes. I know they exist. But I also come to accept them. Sometimes begrudgingly, other times with grace. I am who I am. I am the product of a lifetime of experiences. I am as much a conglomeration of nature as I am of nurture. And as I grow older, I choose to apologise less for the boundless enthusiasm I show to be the very best human being I can be each and every day. Somedays I muck it up. But even on the 'mucked-up' days I am reminded that I woke up that morning wanting to be the very best human being...and I just lost my way momentarily. I wake up to be 100% of myself...not half myself, not a reflection of the person everyone else wants me to be. 100% full-on, Gina-magic. And for that I WILL NOT apologise.
And so I am reminded of the amazing poem from Kahlil Gibran below...so very apt to remind me that I can exit this royal beating of a week with dignity and pride. I am living my FULL life and I will continue to do so.
Do not love half lovers
Do not entertain half friends
Do not indulge in works of the half talented
Do not live half a life and do not die a half death
Do not entertain half friends
Do not indulge in works of the half talented
Do not live half a life and do not die a half death
If you choose silence, then be silent
When you speak, do so until you are finished
Do not silence yourself to say something
And do not speak to be silent
Do not silence yourself to say something
And do not speak to be silent
If you accept, then express it bluntly
Do not mask it
Do not mask it
If you refuse then be clear about it
for an ambiguous refusal
is but a weak acceptance
for an ambiguous refusal
is but a weak acceptance
Do not accept half a solution
Do not believe half truths
Do not dream half a dream
Do not fantasize about half hopes
Half a drink will not quench your thirst
Half a meal will not satiate your hunger
Half the way will get you no where
Half an idea will bear you no results
Your other half is not the one you love
It is you in another time yet in the same space
It is you in another time yet in the same space
It is you when you are not
Half a life is a life you didn't live,
A word you have not said
A word you have not said
A smile you postponed
A love you have not had
A friendship you did not know
A love you have not had
A friendship you did not know
To reach and not arrive
Work and not work
Work and not work
Attend only to be absent
What makes you a stranger to them closest to you
and they strangers to you
The half is a mere moment of inability
but you are able for you are not half a being
You are a whole that exists
to live a life not half a life
to live a life not half a life
Gibran Khalil Gibran
Do not ever compromise to please others!!!!!
ReplyDeleteSo right Goonie xxx
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