If I change you must too.

To pay attention to people in your surroundings means you get to know their many ways on how they respond (including what buttons you need to push to get the reaction you are looking for), when they are serious or not, their moods, what causes they believe in, their habits… and their bad ones. They become predictable and you have this notion of what you can allow yourself to expect from them.

They say people don’t change, but circumstances do. When circumstances change, traits in people (which you, of course, suspected they had in them) go from a latent potential to a strong characteristic. OK, maybe not really strong; but at least a lot more conspicuous than before.

I see this “change” in people I think I know well… until they give up something which used to be part of their lifestyle. It is good to give up things you feel decrease your quality of life in any way, what I don't think is ok, is how negative they often become to both my bad habits and others', even though they previously had the same lifestyle.

People who become vegetarian, stop smoking, go on strict diets, who start taking the bus in the morning instead of driving their car or in any other way changes their ways very often become unpleasant, almost to the point of unbearable, in their criticism of those who choose to pick up, or continue, doing what they used to do themselves before.

Strange how people do that.... and I dare say most do, purely based on my own experiences and observations. I wonder why they do, though.

Like, when people go on strict diets they start commenting on what other people eat and count other people's intake of calories.

It is really annoying to be with friends and have a good time when everything we eat or drink to add more joy and enjoyment to the get together is just commented upon as something negative. How can carrots possibly replace crisps, nachos or chocolate, for that matter? And since I often feel they communicate too well with my bad conscience, I can’t help but thinking they come very close to sound vindictive, revengeful, deceitful, conniving, resentful and angry.

I know it isn’t fair to think like that since they only want what is best for me, but… Controlling your thoughts is very hard and I feel guilty for my harsh thoughts and I can’t just tell I just felt like that and the whole thing just gives me a bad mood and I turn into really bad company.

In everyday life: Yes, one should not indulge oneself to uncritical pleasure and comfort. There are such things as health risks and problems tie your own shoes, but there is such a thing as own comfort zone and a middle way. Too much and too little of anything is equally bad.

There should be room for conversations about how to improve your lifestyle. After all, we don’t always see how we can improve our lifestyle and still feel good about ourselves.

Lifestyle is often chosen based on what is familiar to us, what we find as means to calm discomfort, financial situation or what we think other people expect from us. And all of those reasons are important. We may not like it, but it is true. We can’t just change because somebody tells us to. If we are to change a lifestyle we need to find something compatible to us first. Only then we can consider remove something from our life to make room for something new.

If we search for a better lifestyle, we have already understood we need a change. If we have come to that conclusion we have issues we must be allowed to figure out. Comments not thought-through, said in a content tone of voice, could very well add to the problem… no matter how well-intended

I'm back!

It’s been a long time since I last wrote on my blog. I guess there are two obvious explanations, on my part, for me not posting anything: Either I make a lot of excuses (well, you probably didn’t miss my texts anyway, so that is rather unnecessary and pointless) or I can pick up posting texts as if nothing happened.

This is a rather transitory forum: There is a LOT of blogs on the net. Most of them has been shut down, abandoned or forgotten about. To many writing a blog, and keeping it up, is rather time-consuming. I would not feel guilty for just leaving this blog behind and never give it another thought. Or so I could probably fool myself into thinking.

Thing is; however bad or silly I might write; when days are busy and flustered with hardly time to inhale properly even once, I get this calm feeling when I let my fingers do the work as they run over the keyboard and type whatever ramble which should happen to run through my mind.

To write has become a valve through which I let me escape from being there for others all the time, and from my name being yelled.

My name is never just spoken as if in a conversation. It is yelled numerous times through the day in different tones of voices, for different reasons, in different degrees of patience...: Sometimes I hate my name. Not because I hate it per se, but most often it is not me, as a person, people call for: they call my name in order to get something from me. Things, money, help, food, attention… the list of reasons why people, very young and older, call my name is close to endless.

I didn’t stop writing all together for this period of time. I finished off the schoolyear reviewing end of term tests, grading exams, preparing for next year, and I just didn’t feel the computer was friendly to me. Strange as it is. My laptop became another demanding element, not human (or my dog, which really knows how to make demands), but nevertheless.

I turned to the old fashioned notebook, writing my thoughts down with a pen. The feeling of the pen running over the page, line by line, creating words in my own personal handwriting was wonderful. It was like finding a long lost friend. I savoured these handwritten pages, with their doodles in the margins, but after I had finished two notebooks, and started on my third, I looked at the notebooks and realized they would become dust collectors taking up space I don’t have. I have stacks of papers I am trying to deliberate myself from already, this was adding to the piles.

It is so much better so save my scribblings where they don't collect dust and only occupy insignificant quantity of space (that sounded very appropriate). So…: I’m back!