Poef...cinq

Soooo, wow, today. I say wow for the book I just read in an hour and a quarter (a personal record) okay, it wasn’t ‘War and Peace’ but it moved me to tears and a few revelations. The title? ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ so Morrie is now my new favourite teacher. Mrs Brown the kindly ‘old’ lady from my first year at Junior school has been ousted from first place (bet she’d be gutted) Granted Morrie didn’t teach me personally but he is a professor I could get on board with and through Mitch Albom, for a mere hour or so, I did. 

I have had a few things on my mind today unfortunately not all good- some were thoughts of bad goodbyes or lack of forgiveness (towards me) and other such thoughts. To remedy this I spent the day surrounded by my adopted family (this is not to imply my real family is inferior) I spent the day with people who clearly love one another dearly, appreciate one another and from that love, they love and bless others (abundantly). I had a short bus journey home from town and my mind wandered and a ‘mental movie’ played in my mind, I thought of someone who was offended at me, why they were offended at me (this may be between them, God and the lamppost) and then reminded myself that it was only a ‘mental movie’ and it was NOT important in the grand old scheme of things. Perhaps I’m good to remember not to get caught in that trap and psychologically refuse to stand in a virtual prison cell with such people. I have decided that I will only enter the ‘just visiting’ zone shortly before rolling the dice and moving on and if they want, they can choose to stay locked up while, perhaps, attempting to roll a double, paying up or redeeming their ‘get out of jail free card’.  (This all came from a recent study I did, the monopoly analogies are mine) :)

I want others to read ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ I want everyone to read it, infact. (This may be my first commandment when if I become a dictator)  Within it’s thin spine lies a treasure just aching to be discovered. I once had two copies of this book, they both went to a charity shop in a moving cull. Shame on me. I am so glad the last person to choose a book at bookclub chose this. So glad. I am also glad my friend, Kris, read it quickly and passed it on. Though I want to keep it now so I can glean all the lessons and faithfully highlight them with a neon highlighter pen! 

Morrie taught me a lot. He taught me about living my life, about relationships, about forgiveness, about not sweating the small stuff and about not waiting to live. As people in the first world we have become accustomed to whining about the most insignificant of things and dressing them up as ‘problems’, we have become selfish naval gazers that don’t take the time to listen to other people, we grasp onto the illusion of youth as if it was a happier time or asif it is the key to a real life. Consequently we have become scared of relationship, scared of dying, scared of watching the news and well just plain scared. We have given into the media and advertising that tell us things and money will make us happy and that we must hold onto youth as aging is wrong. It seems in that fear we cling on to all the wrong things. 

My life is blessed, not because of where I am or the clothes I wear, the latest apple product or the amount of money I have in the bank (which is consequently lessbecause of the latest apple product). My life is blessed and ‘rich’ because of my relationships with people, the kisses my niece blows to me on skype, the affection in my niece and nephew’s voice when they realise it is me on their computer, the people I know and love that know me and love me in return, the baby that smiles at me, having seen me twice because he knows I already love him and the beauty of the things I see around me on a daily basis. 

The crunch was that Morrie observed that most people walk around sleepwalking, they’re half asleep- meaning they’re not fully awake. I recently learnt this lesson through a book I followed with a wonderful group of women, my ‘mondays with women’ (the title of my upcoming book) :)  This study spoke about being ‘awake’, the idea being that we’re not we’re not always open to experiences that life throws our way. The friends I gravitate to most on facebook are my friends that appreciate thegood great moments, the mother and her child with their mud masks on, the picture of a daughter giving her lovely mother or aunt (they’re twins) a huge loving hug, the pictures of my nephew smiling at his ‘digger’ shaped cake so lovingly made by his adoring mother … the list goes on, the status updates of gratitude for a gift of a surprise visit to the zoo or a long awaited family re-union… again the list could go on. I am thankful for these updates because I read www.whitewhine.com daily and, boy, there are some people out there who have a strange idea of what a problem really is.

I want to encourage others to read this book. But I also want to encourage you to lift up your head .. STOP naval gazing, spend some time finding out what real problems are, realise (or be thankful you have realised already) that the world does not revolve around you and please I command you -count.your.blessings, I think you’ll find they outnumber your ‘problems’.