The Killer inside me

@ imdb.com

They say we kill everything we love. Well, maybe them. I do the other way around, I kill everything which is stopping me from loving. Despite my epicurian nature, I always keep my compass in my pocket and eyes open. And every time I see a hurdle which will deviate me from the choices I made in life, I kill it.

So, my friends, make your choices, grab the compass and choose you weapons. Life is so hectic and full of surprises,one needs to stay alert in order to be true to himself.

P.S. The movie has nothing to do with me but Casey Affleck was brilliant in this very  hard-to-digest character.

Start wearing red

My dressing room, 2012

Everybody knows those stupid interviews questions (sorry to all my HR related friends :)) "Please name your biggest weak points?", "Which is your biggest quality?" Fore some reasons I keep hearing around me about situations in which people are asked or told to answer or prove those things.

And, to my amazing surprise, very very few of them have a straight answer. And is not about being unprepared to an interview or a selection. It's about knowing yourself. Being truthful with yourself regardless if good or bad.

My friends, stop trying to be someone else. Stop trying to impress. Be honest with yourselves. It will bring some much quality, happiness and stability in your life. And courage. And if this will eventually mean that you will get the guts to wear your red shoes, why not?. Do it if it makes you happy.

Mr. Nothing

Utah, 2010

A simple exercise. Go in front of a mirror and say: "I am ....".  If you said only attributes like: fat, slim, old, beautiful, then try it again.

Done?

Now go back again and strip you of your jeweleries. Hide your business cards. Put a bit farther your family photos.

Who are you after all? Are you what you have become? Are you what you have achieved? Are you what you have bought?

Can we be everything? Can we be nothing? Can we ever know?

My dessert is calling me. Like a million particles of dust, everyone of them being something and nothing in the same time. There anybody can be Mr. Nothing.

DESELECT & REPLACE

X100, Self portrait

Last Xmas I spoiled myself with a fancy, outstandingly good, old fashion new camera. I enjoyed using  it over the winter holiday and then I lost it in Prague. Together with some outstanding pictures taken in the rainy and then sunny Prague. I have left it in the taxi which took me to the airport, tribute to my ever agitated state and, maybe, to the 3 beers I had before with my good friends Florin and Marketa. It was a loss very hard to swallow.

Obviously, after assimilating the frustration of the loss, I took this as an opportunity and look for replacement. Starting to make all kind of analysis about which camera, which systems, what features, budget, where to purchase from and so on. It was all about REPLACEMENT. Or, at least, I thought so. I was just not able to agree with myself on any solution and kept agitating myself to a state of increased entropy for more than 2 weeks.

And somehow, raising above the inner noise, I remembered a thought marked on a corner of my mind by the MIT entrepreneurial skills training course. DESELECT. Good and focused entrepreneurs and managers are able to deselect the amount of things they are tempted to do and try.

Should this be the solution in our private life also? Are you able to Deselect out of the countless things you are doing and focus on the most important? Are you able to stream among the countless thoughts and wishes and impulses and focus on the ones which are feeding your spirit and happiness?

The answer it is obviously a personal one. No universal solution. But I feel I should DESELECT more and REPLACE less.

Breakfree Anniversary

Precisely one year ago, I was starting this blog. I was looking for a way and a place to clear my thoughts and lay out my concerns about me, world, life and other spiritual matters. And share some of my pictures ;) And break free from my inner ghosts. I called this perfect or not as a reminder that perfection does not exists but can be aspired to.

Sometimes, we need one round number to achieve our goals. One might need a year, one might need a month. Another one might need one hundred of experiences and still circle around. But, here comes a day when everything becomes clear and easy.

Happy Breakfree my friends !

Finishing the 100 race

Delta Dunarii, Oct 2011

Tomorrow I will be one year old in my not-so-new-anymore job. Time to draw lines and  make reports. To bosses, to market, to colleagues but mostly to me. And I feel the race is over and it's time for me to settle for a new, calm, committed, involved  and wise period.

Time to spread the wings and fly peacefully!

Finding your way in

Bucharest 2011, @Camelia Vasile

Do you know Heloween's song?

"People tell me A and B / they tell me how I have to see / Things that I have seen already clear / so they push me then from side to side / they're pushing me from black to white / they're pushing'til there's nothing more to hear / I want out ..."

Isn't it funny how most of us rely on others for the important personal things in life? Things like happiness, balance, well being. We live our lives leaded by external factors, ghosts of the past, social behavior guidelines, circumstances, global economy and other randoms factors we can't influence. And when things became complicated and uncontrollable all we want is to get out. To leave, to change, to modify our exterior reality and find a different circumstance that will make us happy again.

Not that I am expert of doing differently, but what I know for sure is that this path is wrong. The happiness is not to be find elsewhere but inside me. And if I am able to do that, all the other circumstances will either become irrelevant, either I will find the interior force to influence them the way I want. 

It is about finding your way in, rather than your way out. And sometimes this means to give up to any social constrains and climb into child swing in a park next to your kids and trash your suit shoes into the sand. 

Look inside and be happy my friends!

Plan it over!

 

One thing I am very good at is to make plans. To take an idea and develop into a plan. And is always about challenge. Not in the corporate way (even though I had and gave my share of that speech also, right folks?) It's about challenge but more on the take it to the edge kind of challenge.

And anytime I feel I am on the edge, I am taking a block notes and a pen and I start writing plans. Breaking ideas into actions, listing, prioritizing. I even had chosen to go after my wife based on excel plan (I AM NOT KIDDING) but that's a story for other time. 

But kidding left apart, writing those down it does me good. Miraculously good. Meaning that I am suddenly clear and focused, knowing where and how I want to go and do it. And always ready for a new beginning. Even if this means to take it from where it ended and plan for a change.

Down from cloud No 9

Bucuresti, 2011

You wake up one morning and see the red sun trying to wake up, screaming its joy for life in all kind of reds and you realize it can't go happier than that. And looking at the sky colors washing out as the light becomes vertical and harsh you realize, yet again, that even the brightest light it's sometimes not interesting.

So, I am asking you my friends, should someone ever chase the morning light, making all kind of efforts to wake up again and again, or should settle for the comfortable, easy to reach mid day light?

Here I go again

See you in one week