Negativity

These days, it is surprising anyone is able to succeed, given the dynamics of our society. When one has the drive and the will to do something new, something exciting, everyone around just seems to want to discourage him from doing anything that would be considered somewhat risky. For example: marriage, having new baby, changing jobs, considering an entirely different field of work. Whenever a person announces their plans, the closest people seem to have nothing better to do then pour negativity all over the aforementioned plans.

recently a friend of mine announced to her family her desire to continue her studies as a speech pathologist. The reason she decided to do that was because she was not happy in her current line of work, and to me, it seems very sensible to try something different in order to find peace and happiness. That's what I would do. But her family thought otherwise, they reminded her that the money she spent on her education thus far would be wasted. So what's the solution? lead an unhappy life in order to get the money worth it?:) Does not make sense. At all.

My own family suggested that I should move up to management position but I refused because I am very happy where I am and I absolutely loath weekly meetings that are essential to any managerial position, besides, why fix something that's not broke?:) Their rebottle was "But then you will never make really good money!"

-"So what? If I do, I will be working 60 hour weeks and do what I hate. What's the benefit of that?"

-"Margarita does it. She hates it but it pays well"

-"It is her choice. I just want to be happy. What's the benefit of excellent salary if I don't even have time to enjoy the said money?"

-"You can go on really nice vacations with your family"

Oh yeah, in exchange for my son growing up without me and my husband never getting to see me, we will spend 1-2 weeks, at most 3 weeks together at some remote destination where I will be tired and irritable after a very long year of doing what I hate?:) Thank you, but no.

When I decided to remarry, my family tried to stop me and kept giving me reasons not to marry and begging me to wait a couple of years. I didn't listen, I followed my heart instead. As a result, I am finishing up my fifth year of a very happy marriage. Then, on our second year into marriage we wanted to have a baby and once again my family tried to stop us, promising that our life will be over and we will never sleep again. Well, we ended up having a beautiful healthy baby boy who slept through the night (I mean 8-12 hours a night) from the start. He turned out to be a very calm, friendly and easy-going toddler with a very healthy appetite. That didn't reassure anyone, people around me started promising me a very "bright" future: "You just wait! When a child is that good as a baby, he will make trouble for you later on in life. We have seen many children that were problem free in the infancy but later on they went wild. You will cry later."

What's with this "crying later" thing? What is it if not a way to program a person so that if trouble didn't start at the beginning, to expect it to hit hard later? Whatever happened to hope for a better future, not worse??

The other day I told someone how good my 18 month-old toddler is, already helping me on the kitchen. My little son would take out plates and pass them on to me to shelf and also he helps me load the dishwasher and helps out to sort out the laundry. I am amazed not only at his willingness to help but ability to really contribute and make my task easier. And as I am sharing happily, the person says "If you are thinking he will help out later on, you are wrong".

Actually, the children that do not help later on, are the ones who constantly heard "go sit down! don't touch anything!" My little one is used to me gratefully accepting his help and willingly showing him how to do things. this way he makes his contribution to the family and enjoys spending time with his mother while gaining self-esteem from being able to perform useful tasks.


Then another thing - my husband and I decided to go on vacation with our toddler. Well, the only thing we heard so far was "oh, in that case you won't have any rest. Good luck!"
Really?:) We won't have any rest staying in all-inclusive hotel with absolutely nothing to do but spending time with our son? Don't make me laugh. We get to rest at home where there is always cooking, cleaning, and laundry to be done, why would not we rest if all the chores are done for us?

Next thing was when we wanted to take a trip to Israel to see some family and, while in that area, take a 1-2 day excursion to Jordan and 1-2 days to Egypt. The response from people was "Who does that?? 10 days is not enough for Israel. And there are no 1 day trips to Jordan or Egypt."

Well, first of all, 10 days is all we can take off to use on the trip, and as for Jordan and Egypt, I already found 1 to 3 day trips from Eliat. And yes, it's not enough time to see everything, but it sure as hell better than not going at all. Some people never get to go anywhere longer than one week, so what's the solution? Not go?:) Give up hope?:) Come on!

"Alchemist" by Pablo Coelho came to mind. In particular the part where a man who always wanted to travel but never went because he wanted to make money first and travel in comfort. So he worked all his life, putting money away, tied up, unable to leave his business, and finally, at the age of 60 or 80 he took one single trip to Africa. Meanwhile a shepherd without a penny in his pocket, sold his sheep and with what he got from the sale he went around the whole world, getting to see things the old man who worked every day of his miserable life, could not ever dram of seeing.


I refuse to be careful, I refuse to be afraid. I will get what I can from life and sure as hell I will enjoy it.

My advice to all is to stop listening to people around you, stop being frightened of the future, stop creating your own limitations, stop letting others put garbage in your head. Don't let anyone program you for failure, even out of best intentions to "protect" you. Just follow your heart and go for what you want!