A trip down memory lane

I am sorry for having skipped last week’s post, I usually try to write an article every week, but this week was different. The reason is that I have to live with my family for about two weeks. Initially I thought I could just come over for Christmas and then leave again but, due to reasons that are too complex to explain here, I have to stay longer. Those of you who have been reading my posts regularly probably know a bit about the situation between my family and me, although I didn’t tell all the details. So, because of the prospect of having to stay there, I couldn’t really concentrate on writing.

Did you ever go on a trip into your past? Was it voluntarily or were you thrown into it? What were your feelings connected to it?

Or are you able to live completely in the present and never look back? I’d like to say that I do, I usually try, and I did make peace with the fact that I will never have a good relationship with my family, my mother and my brother in particular. I just decided to live my own life. I think it is good and even necessary to let the past go. But there are moments that throw me back. Lately some people keep telling me they think I am strong, but especially in these moments I am not at all. Whenever I visit my family everything changes, mainly because nothing has really changed. I hope this doesn’t sound too confusing.

Did you ever look back and realized how good it is that past is over? This is what happens to me every time I visit my family. To be honest, I hate it. Nothing feels worse than stepping over the threshold of the entry door, every time I just want to turn around and run away. I hate sleeping in my old room, in my old bed, there are too many memories. I feel anything but free when being here. This is what describes it best, this feeling of being somehow trapped. It feels like there is something pressing my chest, not letting me breathe. I wish I could say that I can forget and forgive, but every time I’m here I realize that I can’t entirely. I couldn’t sleep for two weeks before going here and when I just thought of it I felt literally sick. I won’t stay any longer than necessary.

However, I am trying to see the positive side, which is that I don’t have to live here constantly anymore. Besides, I am really looking forward to a little Christmas party I am having later in the evening with a few old friends of mine. This is the other side of my journey into the past, I really missed those friends. We went to the same school but afterwards we all chose a different university, plus I moved away for my studies, so we don’t see each other very often now. Nevertheless, when we meet, it is like nothing ever changed and we’re best friends again. So, visiting my home town really is like a trip into the past, it seems like nothing ever changes here. I like to think that by moving away I escaped this state of not being able to move forward.

Anyway, next week’s post is going to be more like my usual ones again.

I hope you all get to spend Christmas with your loved ones. Merry Christmas, or, if you don’t celebrate Christmas, just have a great time.

How much ambition is really necessary?

Sometimes people tell me I have to be more ambitious. But do I really always have to be best at everything?

It seems like society sees it as a sin if you don’t seize every opportunity you have, even if it concerns something that is not really important. Is it a sin to waste your talent, for example?

Are you not allowed to be happy unless you achieve more and more?

How ambitious does one really have to be? And how much ambition is too much? Can there ever be too much of it, in your opinion? I would definitely have to answer in the affirmative.

I can be pretty determined if I really want something and I do have dreams and aims in life. But this doesn’t relate to every activity in my life, I don’t feel the need to be more ambitious about certain things.

For instance, I have been doing judo for quite some time now, although I don’t do much lately, actually hardly any at all. Anyway, over the years, I participated in several competitions and I was somewhat successful, for my standards. However, I have always only done it as a hobby and refused every offer to go to a special school that would focus more on sports. Also, I didn’t want to practice every day or go to another more promising and successful club than the one in my town.
As a consequence, some people told me I’d wasted my talent. But have I really? I had a dream, I aimed to take part in the national championship just for once. When I qualified for it a few years ago, it was quite a big success for me. However, I have accomplished my goal, so afterwards I honestly lacked any ambition to achieve more than that.  And why do people think I should want that? Maybe I could have achieved more, but I never wanted to live for it and I knew that I would never be good enough to be really successful. I have always been told that I need to be more aggressive and more ambitious, but that’s just not how I am and I am not going to change with regard to this. So why waste my time, given that I want something else in life?

Moreover, my priorities have changed, they became simpler and more difficult at the same time. Although I still love doing judo just for fun, I don’t care about how successful I am concerning sports, I’d rather like to finish my studies, find a job, travel, have my own little family one day, just be happy. And if I know that living for a sport won't make me happy, I won't do it.

Is it really necessary to be ambitious in every area of life? Does it make you more successful, happier?

Is ambition the key to success? But what if you don’t want that success? What if you’re content with what you have already achieved?

Do you consider it as a waste not to seize every opportunity you have? Does it make a difference for you whether it is about a hobby or a job, for example?

I am not saying that having ambitions is bad. When I really want something, I fight for it, I don’t give up and I do everything I can to get where I want to be. But there are things I just don’t need to accomplish.

Besides, in my opinion, too much ambition can become harmful when it turns into an obsession.

I am British and Germans are Nazis...?

Of course I am not, but I would love to be British. I attended this seminar about cultural differences at the weekend which was held by a British woman who came to Germany in her thirties. She talked a lot about British and German values and the differences she noticed between British and German people. Of course you can’t say “the British” or “the Germans”, of course this is much more differentiated. But I do believe that there are certain tendencies and that some values might be more important in some cultures than they are in others.
I noticed that in a lot of areas I am more British than German.

Moreover, I am currently planning my semester abroad which will take place in less than a year and I desperately want to go to Great Britain. Unfortunately, my university has only three partner universities in the UK and there are about 500 people applying each semester and only two are chosen for each university (at least if you want to go as a Erasmus student, in that case you don’t have to pay the tuition). The reason why there are only two students to be chosen is because this is based on an agreement between the German and British universities and apparently no one wants to go to Germany. This does not only concern Great Britain but also France, for example. I can understand this somehow, if I could choose, I wouldn’t choose Germany either. Actually I would love to move to England someday in the future.

Anyway, I am really curious, how much do people (non-Germans) learn about German history? And how much do you know about Germany as it is today? What do you think about Germans (please be honest)?

This woman also talked a lot about stereotypes and told us about some of her experiences and asked us about ours. A lot of the other students told stories about how people asked them about Hitler when they were abroad and how a lot of people think of Germans as Nazis. In fact, one student had been asked (not by a Briton though) what Hitler does today. I am always quite shocked to hear that a lot of people don’t really know a lot about this and that they really associate Germany with nothing else but Hitler. Admittedly, I am not very patriotic, however Germany today is not Germany 70 years ago.

Also, as a German, it is quite unthinkable to not know about German past and you can’t imagine that other people don’t learn about it. Of course, history is inerasable, therefore we learn really a lot about it at school, mainly to prevent that such a thing can happen again. It is almost awkward to admit to be German.

Again, people shouldn’t forget about this time in history, in contrary, they should learn about it (and Germans do but I don’t know how this is in other countries) but I also think that it is important to know that it is past.

So, when you hear Germany, do you really immediately think of WWII and/or Hitler? Do you learn a lot about it at school? Do you associate Germany with anything else that doesn’t have to do with the above mentioned issues?

Believing Your Own Lies

We all know that there are people who lie. But there are also people who lie to themselves and who seem to believe themselves.

Are people actually able to convince themselves of their own lies?

Do some people really talk themselves into believing their imaginary stories? Do they even realise anymore that they are lying?

This is a phenomenon that I could often observe with regard to certain people. A person that called me a few days ago told me about what a colleague of hers has done and that she thinks it is terrible. What is remarkable is that this person had done the same thing in an even worse extent over a long period of time. I didn’t know what to say. After all, she should have known I remember what she had done, so normally she wouldn’t mention similar behaviours of others in order to not draw attention to it. The only explanation is that she decided to pretend it never happened and not just in front of others but for herself.

It seems to me that some people actually succeed in talking themselves into believing that their own false behaviour never happened. It is astonishing what humans are capable of. I was aware of the fact that this person tells a lot of lies and tries to convince others of them but so far I have never realised she does actually believe them herself. This does explain some things, it makes me understand things I have never understood before.

What I am not sure about though is whether this is a sign of some serious mental disorder or whether we all do that to a certain extent.

I think sometimes people try to repress bad memories, which is perfectly understandable in some cases. However, is it still normal to behave like any false behaviour on your side  has never existed and to actually believe it?

What is even more extreme is that there are people who build up a whole world of lies. In school, one of my friends told me about a classmate that had made up his own successful band, lots of friends and a girlfriend and that he openly talked about them all the time and that apparently he told everyone how popular, rich and good-looking they all were, in addition to a lot of other rather unbelievable stories. I believe that you shouldn’t judge someone without even knowing him, so I told my friend that it might indeed be only due to unfavourable circumstances that no one had ever seen these friends, band, or girlfriend. However, I got to meet that person and at some point it became impossible to deny that something was obviously wrong with his stories (this is an understatement). No one was sure whether he believed in his own lies. In my opinion, at some point he had started to believe that his stories were true.
He has built up his own imaginary world. 

Sometimes we talk ourselves into believing certain things because we want them to be true.

Some children even have imaginary friends and you wouldn’t consider that as lying.

But where is the cross point between lying and having your own view of the world? If you believe your own lies, are you telling the truth? There is this quote that I mentioned in a post in the beginning of my blogging days: Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

Don’t we all have our own views and opinions about who we are and how the world looks like? And if we don’t actively think about it, we think that this is how the world actually looks like. But what if it does in fact look completely different for everyone else? And I am sure it does.

So do we actually all live in our own imaginary world?

Why do we believe in certain values?

Last week, one of our professors told us about the result of a survey that showed that 47% of Americans agreed with the following statement: It is necessary to believe in God to be moral and have good values.

I do not know about the reliability of this survey, but I think it is a quite interesting question: Is it necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values?

In my opinion, an individual does definitely not have to believe in God to have good values.

However, I happened to read another statement that describes a scenario in which no one believes in God and such a thing as religion does not exist. What this person says is that without God (or people believing in God), there would also be no morals and no good values because people would not believe in a higher judgement after death. But is this really true? (Note that this is not a discussion about whether a God exists; this is rather about what would happen if people didn’t believe in his existence, if there didn’t exist any religion at all.) I believe that even if nowadays there were no one to believe in God, good values would still remain. But what if religions would never have existed? Do our values and morals really exist because of the existence of certain religions? But who does really believe in the existence of hell nowadays? If people do believe in God and therefore believe in good values, do they really do that because they fear punishment? Isn’t it rather because they believe in a good or loving god?

Assuming that morals are not the origin of religion, why do we believe in them? Why do we think certain things are immoral? Who decides what is immoral? Don’t there have to be some given rules that someone specifies? What are “good values” anyway?

Is it all a concept of treating others the way you would like to be treated yourself?

The truth is, usually being selfish and ruthless is the best way to be successful in certain things in life. My brother has always been indicative of this fact. He always lied, never cared about anyone but himself, wouldn’t even think about helping another person and there he is with plenty of friends, money and time, and girls running after him. Yet I honestly don’t know how he can even sleep at night, knowing about all the things he has done.

My brother definitely doesn’t believe in some values that are generally thought to be good. But what if he has his own values? There has to be someone who decides what is good.

So, if not acting according to certain values like honesty and kindness makes us successful and if we don’t fear hell after life, what makes us still believe in them?

I think there are many influences that affect our values, maybe some of those are defined by religion, some certainly by our culture (in my opinion, this has a huge influence on a lot of people and there are clearly different values in different cultures) and some by our close environment, like family. That is where we get to know about certain values, but what makes us really believe in these?

I truly believe in some values, I have mentioned some in several other posts, amongst them kindness and honesty. But I can’t explain the reasons. I believe they are good and right and in my heart I know they are, but it is difficult to explain why.

What are some values you believe in? And why are they important for you?

I would love to hear some opinions to any or all of the questions.

Who would you be?

Everyone has a role model. Who is yours? Who was your role model when you were a child?
If you could be anyone, who would you be?

Every now and then I read questions like these. Every time I think about it, but I don’t have an answer. I think the first role model for little children are their parents. But then comes the time when you realize they are not inerrable. So most children then choose some celebrity as their role model. They have posters hanging in their bedrooms and want to be like them.

I never really had that. In fact, I have never really understood the wish to be like some celebrity.

The point is, people admire them for a certain role they play in a movie or for something they achieve in sports, for example. It is comprehensible that they would like to emulate them in these actions. But, and this is what I have always considered, they don’t know who these people really are. How can you know about their personality? How can you know what they had or have to suffer in their lives? You don’t know who they really are. You only know a little excerpt of their lives. So why do you want to be exactly like them? Furthermore, they are not perfect.  They can’t be because no one is. So I don’t see a point in wishing to be someone else.

Whenever someone asks me who I would like to be if I could choose anyone, I don’t have an answer, at least I can’t think of any specific persons. There are certainly a lot of things I can learn from other people and a lot of things I would like to adopt from others. And surely my life is everything but perfect. But I am who I am. So all I can do is try to improve who I already am instead of wanting to be someone else.

However, I do consider it as reasonable to try to follow certain actions, behaviours or features. It makes sense to admire these. 

When you admire someone for being a good person, it certainly is a good idea to try to be that too, in your own way. If you admire someone for being a good writer, you can try to be become an equally good writer. But you have to try to find your own style.

Nevertheless, I was wondering whether it is even possible not to have any role models. Does everyone have one without even noticing? Do we have many?
Aren’t there always people we imitate? How else would we learn anything? Or do we invent every action new for ourselves?  

Anyway, I do think people in our environment can have a huge impact on us.

I was sometimes surprised by the influence one's friends can have on one's behaviour. My brother used to have a very changing circle of friends. Every time he had new friends, his taste in music changed (it was easy to say, you could hear it everywhere in the house) and every time he adopted their vocabulary or behaviour. For instance, when he had friends who smoked and drank a lot, he did that too.

This makes we wonder, are we all just a copy of our environment?

Obviously, one’s environment and especially friends can have a huge impact on one’s behaviour. So are we just lucky to have a “good” circle of friends? But then again, don’t we choose our friends?

Did you adapt yourself to become more like your friends, perhaps without even noticing?

Maybe the question should rather be Who are you? instead of Who would you be?

Coming back to the initial question, I always tried to find my own way.
I am not sure whether that is even possible or whether it is just an illusion and actually we are all just a mixture of all the people we meet. After all, I don’t invent any new behaviour, do I? But maybe we can decide which ingredients from which people we choose and consequently become the best result we can.

Certainly there are always people who influence us, our personality, our behaviour. I think it is good or even necessary to have people who inspire us. But in the end, you are an individual and you should make the best out of who you are instead of copying someone else.

Are there any people that inspire you?

Do you have a role model? Do you even want to be someone else?

What does happiness mean to you?

A few months ago, someone asked me: What does happiness mean to you?
I still don’t have a definite answer to that.
My first thought is always that it might be all the small things in life that make us happy. These things we happen to see at a usual day, like a genuine smile, or some beautiful flowers, or laughing with friends.

But isn’t this rather joy than happiness? In my opinion, it is. So, what is happiness?

Is it all these things together? Are we happy if we have a lot of joyful moments in our lives? Is happiness the ability to enjoy these moments?

Happiness seems to be a rather permanent state. When someone asks you “Are you happy?” it is usually meant “Are you satisfied with your life?” rather than “Do you feel joyful at the moment?” At least, that’s how it would be understood in German.
But can happiness really be permanent? Is that even possible? If we were in a state of permanent and infinite happiness, would we even know we were happy? To know what being happy means, we must also know the opposite.
Furthermore, humans seem to have infinite needs. Given this, can they ever be perfectly happy?

While writing this, I remember the differences between English and German. In German, there is more or the less the same translation for luck and happiness, that is “Glück”. Being happy would be translated with “glücklich sein”. But “Glück haben” means to be lucky, whereas happiness in “What does happiness mean to you?” is also translated with Glück.

If this is so closely related, does that mean happiness is something we have no influence on? Can’t we affect it at all? Does it only depend on how lucky we are?

Or is it rather a way of how we see things? Does it depend on one's ability to focus on the good things in life? Is it a combination of both?
Is there someone in this world who is perfectly happy?

However, to answer this, first there should be an idea of what happiness is. If it really is something like a permanent condition, happiness cannot be the same as joy, because joy is not permanent, provided that there are not just ups but also downs in life.

But then what is it that makes us happy? Is that different for everyone, is it totally subjective and relative? Or are there certain things in life that decide on everyone’s happiness? Is it love, friendship, family? Or success? What about money? What I always considered quite interesting is the fact that the pursuit of happiness is mentioned in the US Declaration of Independence. According to an American lecturer of a seminar I had last semester, this refers mainly to property. Clearly, for that you need to have money.

In my opinion, money can certainly make a lot of things easier and by that I mean that it helps if you have enough to be able to pay for your bills and all the necessary things in life without having to worry about it permanently. However, I would never equate money with happiness.
I really don't think you need to be rich in order to be happy. Anyway, if you had to be rich to be happy, the majority of people would never be happy and this is something I refuse to believe.

So, maybe what makes us happy is just everything that makes us smile. Maybe it is indeed all the simple things in life, or rather things that we too often consider as self-evident and given and that are actually not at all simple. Things like having true friends or a supportive family, or being healthy. Maybe it means to enjoy life and its good moments.
 

What does it mean to you? What makes you happy?

Quote of the week #8

The fact is, that to do anything in the world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.

Robert Cushing



We all have or had moments in our lives where we were unhappy about certain things, we wanted them to be different, we wanted change. But at the same time we are afraid of taking a risk. We think about the consequences, which is of course necessary. But don’t you think that sometimes you have to risk something? Do you rather choose the more comfortable way? Do you think of everything bad that could happen and then decide not to “jump in”? Or do you agree with what the quote says?

Today, I went through some of my old diaries, or whatever you can call them, as they were just books where I wrote down some of my thoughts before I had a blog. The oldest ones are from 2002 and contain just some very insignificant stories from a little child. But there are also more serious entries from the last years. While reading some of them, I realized that there have been a lot of changes during the last year that are mostly invisible for other persons. I have learned so much in this year.
Exactly a year ago I moved away from my hometown to begin with my studies at university. There were a lot people that tried to convince me it would be easier to not move away and to stay at my parents’ house. Besides, some people were saying I shouldn’t choose a Chinese course and instead learn another language because Chinese is too difficult to learn.
I thought a lot about it and I came to the conclusion that this one time I would do exactly what I thought would be the best for me and do what I wanted to do. I have never regretted once that I made this decision and I am glad to be responsible for myself. I knew it was not going to be easy, as my parents made very clear they wouldn’t support me if I moved away, nonetheless I am absolutely convinced it was the best decision I could make. Certainly, I’m having some hard times as well, especially when I have to pay my tuition fee, as I don’t get any financial support at the moment and it’s hard to find a job while being at university from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. most days. But it could definitely be worse. I mentioned in some earlier posts the difficult relationship to my family, so there was no way I could have been happy while still living there.
When reading my old diary entries, I can see that I really went through some personal growth this last year. I was surprised at how I have seen things before and how unhappy I was and I am happy I did something to change it.

And about Chinese, it turned out to be the course in which I have the best grades, as it is something I am really interested in.

There have been several moments in my life where I had to make the decision of taking a risk and try something I was afraid of because I have never done it before or because I knew it could be difficult. But whenever I chose to do it anyway, it turned out to be the right decision. Are these not the moments that make our lives exciting?

Do you rather like to choose the safe way that you already know everything about or do you take some risks? Did you ever regret your decisions?

In my opinion, a lot of people want to change something in their lives, they want things to become better but they don’t want to do something about it. They want progress but they are afraid of change. They are afraid of the unknown. I think you have to dare something, you have to take some chances to move forward. As the quote says, you just have to jump in and scramble through as well as you can. And this is what I am trying to do.

Do you seize the day?

One of my former schoolfellows died last weekend.  He was involved in a car accident, he was just the passenger and the driver probably drove too fast, but there is no proof yet.

He used to be in the same form I was, but he didn’t pass the final exams last year, so he just graduated from school three months ago. He was 19 years old.
I didn’t know him well, I am not even sure whether I ever spoke to him, as we were a lot of pupils and he was not among my friends.

However, I was shocked. 

My sincere condolences go to his family and friends.
I can’t imagine how they feel.
 

We all know life is short; I know it. I knew that those things happen, I know young people are dying all the time.
But this made me really realize it. Life can be over any time. One minute you’re planning your future, you’re planning how to move to your very first own apartment, to begin with your studies and the next minute you’re just dead. It’s scaring.

It seems silly that we are worrying about all those little everyday things all the time. We are getting upset because of little details, things that don’t matter. We are wasting our time complaining about the most unimportant things while life is in fact a precious gift.

You are annoyed at something? Think about whether this is really so important. Is this really worth it? Somewhere in this world there is someone that just lost their child or their best friend. Now think about it again.  

A good friend of mine once told me that whenever she is annoyed at something she thinks about how this will affect her in two or three years and if the answer is that it won’t at all, it’s just not worth it. I think this is the right approach.

So, seize the day.

I know this is not possible every day, in fact I don’t really know how to do it, as we all have so many duties. We have to go work, we can’t just stay at home because we would like to do something else to seize the day. But I think there is always a way.

There are a lot of sayings that try to convince us that we should live every day as if it was our last one, because some day it will indeed be the last one. I totally agree with the idea of that. But I think it is impossible to do that every day. If this was your last day, would you really spend it at work and maybe clean your house and do the laundry when you are at home? I don’t think so, but yet you have to do it. We can’t just neglect all of our obligations because we would like to have fun instead. But you can attend to your duties and enjoy life at the same time. You can try to focus on everything good that happens in your life, you can appreciate all those things. And you can try to change the things you are not happy about.

Did you ever realize that all those little things you are complaining about are actually not that bad at all? (By the way, I am no exception, this also addresses me.)

Do you have your own way to live your life to the fullest? Is there something you love doing that you do every day? Is there something you really enjoy doing and do you do it often enough? Is there something you always wanted to do but haven’t so far?
Do you really enjoy every day, or better still, every minute of your life?

Do you seize the day?

Despite of all the problems you might face and all the duties you have, take a minute and think about how valuable life is, think about the good things you have.

And don’t forget to tell your loved ones to tell them you love them from time to time.

Life is so short, don’t throw it away. Regardless of your age, it could be over any time. Try to focus on the good things, no matter how small they are.

Quote of the week #6

Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.

Gloria Steinem

 

Today, I happened to listen to a song that always reminds me of hope for the future. It was played during our official graduation from school. We had to walk on a red carpet, me and my two best friends together and afterwards we were given our certificates. During that walk the song was played. I remember exactly how I felt that day. We were exceedingly happy to have passed our final exams with good grades. It was our last day as pupils and it felt like our whole future lay ahead of us. After 12 years of school, it was the threshold to a new life. We had so many dreams and hopes. In that moment, we felt as if we could reach anything, as if we could change the world. I know that it was totally exaggerated and unrealistic and it might even seem stupid, but this is what we felt, or it was what I felt. Of course, there is nothing much extraordinary about graduating from school, but for us it was the way to our future, it was like a magic moment. Whenever I listen to that song, it reminds me of that hopeful, exciting feeling and I begin to believe that there is still a lot I can accomplish. It makes me remember my dreams and hopes.

Is it of any good to have dreams? Is it starry-eyed, naïve? Would it be better to not dream at all, to be more realistic?

Is dreaming a way to define and achieve our goals or does it prevent us from living our life?

In my opinion, it is good to have dreams and, as in the quote, it is even a form of planning.
Even if they never come true, at least they give us hope for the future, they make the present a better place. They make us hope for a better future and in some cases they make us do something for this future. Most of the time I am down-to-earth, but in my heart I will never stop having some of those dreams. In my opinion, we should have dreams that are not too unrealistic and then we should try and make these dreams come true.

Do you still have dreams? Did some of your dreams come true when you grew older? Or did you give up your dreams?
Do we change when we grow older? Do we see things in a more realistic way, do our views change?

Well, I think I am still young and I don’t know whether my point of view will change when I am older. Anyway, I don’t feel like that all of the time. There are a lot of days I feel completely different, but I am grateful for those hopeful days.

Quote of the week #4

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

Joseph Campbell

 

One of my biggest weaknesses is probably that I am a really bad organizer and planner, at least when it comes to my own life. When I ought to do something for others, it is very important for me to be reliable, but when I should plan something in my own life, I tend to be a bit chaotic and spontaneous. As I have explained in some earlier post, I never watch the weather forecasts and just go outside to see how the weather is. That is basically the way I have handled a lot of things in my life. During the last year in particular, a lot of things have changed in my life, I have developed personally and I started making some plans in my life though.

I have noticed that most people feel comfortable in planning everything and that a lot of people don’t like changes of plans. I do understand the reasons for it and I can also see the advantages of planning.

But I still wonder if it is better to schedule every detail in our lives or to take things as they come.

I think one has to distinguish here between things that should be planned and things that we have no influence on.

As I have mentioned before, I used to plan hardly anything, although I have always waited for the future to come, so that I could move away and start my own life. This might seem contradictory, but as I always just had this big plan, I didn’t plan the details that came before.
Nevertheless, I have learned that you should have some plans in your life and that it is nearly impossible to continue with such an attitude that I had, once you are a grown up and once you are fully responsible for your life.

But is it really necessary to plan every detail and most important, is it possible? In my opinion, it absolutely isn’t.

At first, there are things like preparing for a test, for example an exam at university. Obviously, you should know how much time it takes to learn the different topics and then try to learn it continuously and not keep it all for the last day, so scheduling here is necessary.

Secondly, there are the big plans in life. Admittedly, I have to say that I still don’t have concrete plans here. I rather like to see it as options you have in life and ways you would like to continue. For example, I would like to have my own little family one day, but can I really be sure that I will ever find the partner for this? It is also my dream to visit as many places of this world as possible. Furthermore, I want to graduate from university and find a job that I like. But I have no idea about the details yet.

You always have to keep in mind that there is no way of foreseeing the future and things usually don’t turn out as we have expected them to do, so these are rather not my plans but some of my aims in life. At the same time, I can see that it is important to know your options and to have some plans in mind, so that you can try to reach the best possible outcome. Moreover, a good organization is often necessary and helpful to reach your goals.

Besides, it is a great and important thing to have some visions and dreams in life.

So we should have some plans for the important big things in life, but we also have to consider changes and developments, so that we can modify our plans and the way we could reach our goals.

But still I see no point in planning every detail of my life. You can’t plan the little things you have no influence on. There are so much wonderful things to explore every day and I like to keep all options open.
In fact, starting this blog was a very spontaneous decision and when the idea arose in my mind I immediately implemented it. Of course, some planning would have been useful. But on the other hand, without being spontaneous I would never have had this idea.

This is just my personal point of view and I am aware of its great imperfectness. However, as my journey just began, I am sure there will be more development.

Finally, this whole text didn’t completely refer to the quote. But I think it speaks for itself.

Are we all basically selfish?

Imagine you were a boy in a big and quite house. Your parents are not at home, but your sister is. Great, you’ll wait for her to come out of her room, after all she must come out some time, so that you can abuse her, yes, sexually. Don’t worry, she won’t tell your parents, they wouldn’t believe her. You are mommy’s little boy, she’ll do anything for you. If your sister tries to tell your mother, you can still cry and tell her how bad your sister is, so that she is going to be punished. Anyway, you have been doing this for years, there really is no need to worry. Your sister is crying? So what?

You can’t imagine doing this? I hope so.


During the last few years I have realized something that I find terrible. There are people on this earth that are extremely selfish, people that don’t care at all about other people’s feelings.

The saddest part of it is that these people get away with what they do too often. Too often they are more successful in what they do than people that are honest and try to help others.

I have been thinking about this a lot and I really wonder whether one has to be selfish to get along in this world. Do you have to be unscrupulous, unfair and devilishly selfish?
Is this the only right way to be successful in whatever you do?

Are most people actually selfish at heart and is it good or even necessary to be so? Is it the easiest way?

However the easiest way doesn’t have to be a good way. But who determines what is good and what is bad? Isn’t moral just a necessary construct in our society?
And what are the consequences of such a behavior? Do these people really feel comfortable with themselves?

You could also say it in a more positive way. Is it a good thing to take care of yourself in the first place?
Should we be selfish, because we should love ourselves?
After all, someone has to look after you and maybe there is no one else. Isn’t it a good thing to pursue your dreams? It is, but what about the dreams of other people, what about their feelings, their hopes, their rights?

Is our society really so self-centered?

Are we all born selfish? From the biological point of view, we want to reproduce. Maybe it is in our genes, so that we are all basically selfish. But I think this explanation is too easy and I am not a biologist anyway.
Is helping others just a selfish way to feel good?
But then again, what about love and I mean true love? Shouldn't it be totally selfless?

What about generosity and altruism?
What about the human values we have? We should be able to find a balance between loving ourselves and caring for others.

I am asking myself all those questions, but in the end the answer doesn’t make a difference anyway. I know I wouldn’t feel comfortable.

So is it better to help others? For what good?

I don’t even know how to explain. I am not a very religious person, or rather I don’t believe in some specific church, so this is not the reason. I just feel we should help each other. Our world could be a much more wonderful place if everybody cared for others. Of course, there are a lot of people that do and I am really happy to know some.

I remember donating some money when I was about 15 years old. My brother just laughed at me, he couldn’t understand how one could be so stupid to give away their money. He even admitted that all he cared about was himself.
I have now a godson in Africa that I support with some money, although I don’t have much of it either and I work hard for it during semester break. I didn’t tell anybody, because I know people wouldn’t understand, especially not my family. Isn’t it terrible that one has to feel ashamed because of doing something good for others?
I know that for this child the money is much more worth than for me and I love that I can contribute to his chance of going to school.  Moreover, he is just a little child and it really isn’t his fault that his parents were not able to take care of him. So why not support him when I have the chance to?

Why not always help others when we have the chance to do so? And I don’t mean by donating money, but in our everyday life. You could brighten someone’s day or even more, and isn’t this totally worth it?

 

Quote of the week #3

An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight... the truly wise person is colorblind.

Albert Schweitzer

There are a lot of controversial quotes on this topic and all of them contain something true, but I like this one the most.

Whenever someone asks me whether I am rather an optimist or a pessimist I am not sure what to answer.

What is the best way to see the world?

Is it better to be an optimist or is it easier to be a pessimist? Does it make any difference for our lives, for how many goals we achieve? In my opinion, it does. How we live our lives and how many of our dreams are going to be fulfilled… that depends a lot on our attitude.
I have realized that whenever I dream high, I have higher goals and whenever my goals were higher I did actually achieve a lot more. And to have these dreams results from hoping for the best. Of course, the aims we have in life should still be realistic.

Pessimism is supposed to prevent us from disappointments.  But can you actually enjoy life while seeing the worst part everywhere? Can you even appreciate the little good moments that are so important in life?

Of course, you have to consider the problems in life. But in my opinion, being pessimistic means to not want to change the bad things but to expect them everywhere and take them as they are, when one should rather look for a solution or a way to improve things.

The problem about being optimistic is that one can be disappointed a lot of times, because there will always be bad things in life. There is a great risk that your hopes will not be fulfilled, at least not all of them. But I think an optimist will have more fun in life and he is able to enjoy the good things.

But is always being optimistic even possible, given that there is so much injustice in this world?

Maybe, staying realistic, hoping for the best and knowing about the worst is the best way.

After all, our life is an adventure and it always contains ups and downs and to know the value of the ups there must be the downs.

Finally, a little note out of my life, which could also be seen in a wider context.

A lot of people are greatly interested in daily weather forecasts. I always try to stay informed about everything and I am interested in a lot of things, but the weather report certainly doesn’t belong to these. There are a lot of things that can be changed, even if this seems to be impossible. But one thing that I am sure I have no influence on is tomorrow’s weather and I certainly can’t change anything by watching the weather forecasts in TV. To know about this, I just wait for tomorrow, then go outside and see how the weather is. Call me crazy, but this is how I live.

Moreover, I think there is no need to be either optimistic or pessimistic about tomorrow’s weather. When it is raining, take an umbrella with you, if you don’t have one with you, it’s all right, you are not going to die because of getting wet. As long as there is no hurricane, there is no need to worry. Besides, there are always advantages of rain.

And, you know, the sun will shine again for sure.

If you could live your life over again...

We have an advertising spot here that says: Wenn du dein Leben noch einmal leben könntest, würdest du alles noch mal genauso machen?

Translated that means: If you could live your life over again, would you do it all the same again? The answer in that spot isn’t too serious. Something about “I would buy my glasses right from the beginning at [insert name of optician here].”

But I think this question is very interesting and not at all easy to answer.

Would I do it all the same again? Well, at first, it depends on the interpretation of that question. If I just turned the clock back, I guess I would do it all the same again. Because I would still be myself and most of the time I acted the way I thought to be the best. Of course I made a lot of mistakes, but still, the time I made them I didn’t recognise them as mistakes.

But let’s say I stay the person I am right now, with my current knowledge and experiences and I could change anything. Would I do it then? Still the question isn’t easier at all. It raises more questions.

How far did my past experiences influence the person I am right now? Would I act differently now, make different decisions, would I have different opinions on the same topics if I had had a different childhood? Would I even be someone else? And the more important question: Do I want to be someone else?

After all, we are supposed to learn from our mistakes. But do we really do that? Don’t we make the same mistakes all over again sometimes? After all, we are not perfect.

How much of our personality is already determined when we are born? And how much can it change? How much of it is affected by our experiences?

In my opinion, we have something like an individual basic personality. And this personality is formed later by our experiences. I think our experiences play an important role in our lives. Nevertheless it all depends on your given personality, too. I don’t think that we would all be the same if we had the same experiences. I think these experiences rather stimulate some of our features that are already existent. At the end of the day, our actions are still our own decisions and we can’t blame a difficult childhood for doing the wrong thing or use it as an excuse for wrong decisions.

So, to come back to my initial question, would I change anything? I am still not quite sure. There are one or two experiences I would like to change. I wish I had acted differently there. But after all, I also think they are an important part of my life. And I am content with the person I am now. Of course I am far away from being perfect, but at least I can say I try to do my best and I am constantly trying to be a good soul. Still am not absolutely sure. Wouldn’t it be better to change bad decisions though?

 
If you could live your life over again, would you do it all the same again?

Would you?

Quote of the week #1

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Shakespeare – Macbeth

This is what Macbeth says when he hears about the death of his wife.

Life is meaningless. We all struggle so hard, but at the end, we all die. And a few decades later nobody will remember you. Unless you’re a famous rock star or something like that. So why do we even work so hard, why do we take such pains in life? I hope that every one of you has his own individual answer to that.

Sometimes, while having a bad day or week, I share Macbeth’s opinion. I wish I could leave something behind, so that people will remember me. It scares me to know that one day I will be gone and forgotten. What is the meaning of my life then?  But then again, I would have to ask myself, why is anybody living? Is life just about the process of living? I mean, animals don’t seem to think about these questions, they just try to survive. So maybe I shouldn’t think too much about this, because nobody will ever be able to give me the utterly truth.

My point of view

I absolutely believe that we should all concentrate on the good things in life, that we should enjoy every little moment and be happy about all the little things that happen around us. I believe we should be grateful for what we have.  We should smile more often to other people (at least here in Germany people don’t do that too often) and we should try to share our happiness. Life is wonderful and valuable and it is too short to be unhappy and to have a negative point of view.  I am absolutely convinced by that.

Nonetheless, of course I know that life is often hard and unfair. Actually, you could say that I had what people call a difficult childhood. Maybe that is where the problems start. Because as I just said, I think that we should all concentrate on the good things in life and be happy about them. This is what I think. But what I feel is so different sometimes. You could say, there is a great difference between my thoughts and my feelings, between the things that I tell other people and the things that I actually feel. Often I concentrate too much on the negative things, I forget the positive ones and I am not grateful for all the good things that happen to me. And I am so often jealous of other people. I don’t really live the life I would like to live. But at the same time I am not able to change this, since I can’t change the present without endangering my future.

But of course I don't tell anyone. I keep smiling and try to convince myself of my own opinion.

Anyway, I won’t change my mind about concentrating on the small good things in life, because, after all, what else can you do to survive the difficult ones?

Introduction

At the very beginning, I would like to introduce myself. I am a young woman, I was born in Germany and I still live there. I love travelling, reading, doing sports and all the other common stuff, like going out with friends. And of course, I love English. Unfortunately I have never been to Great Britain or America before, but as soon as I have the possibility to go there, I will! So because of my fondness for English and my hope to improve it that way, I decided to do my blog in English. Please feel free to correct me, I am quite sure I make a lot of mistakes.

So what is this blog about? I always think a lot about everything and in particular about what life is all about, especially my own, of course. And I realized that I can’t just keep these thoughts in my head without talking about them. I also love writing and since I already filled a lot of diaries with my thoughts I decided to share them from now on. I also hope to get a few other opinions about my topics. So this blog isn’t really about one special topic, but about life, opinions, ideas and everything that seems important to me.

I hope you enjoy reading.